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Five boys sit giggling around an ancient kerosene lantern in a shack of a safehouse somewhere in the RUS sector. It's snowing heavily outside, but this does not matter; soon the boys will not feel the chill.
One of the boys, with a hip-length braid and eyes which speak mischief, reaches inside his heavy coat and withdraws a small Baggie filled with withered brown things. He grins devilishly and takes three of the undefinable objects, passing the Baggie to a boy with a messy shock of brown hair. The boy glares at the objects in the bag for a second, then takes three as the braided boy had done and passes the bag to his left. The Chinese boy there inserts long, delicate fingers into the Baggie, carefully choosing three mushrooms before passing them on. A large-eyed blond boy with aristocratic features gingerly takes the bag by thumb and forefinger, as if merely holding it will affect him; like the others, he eventually takes three and delicately tosses the bad to his left, as if discarding something nasty. Emerald eyes coolly regard the three remaining mushrooms through a thick sheaf of bangs before slender artist's hands empty the Baggie and toss it away.
Five boys stare into the flame of the kerosene lantern, waiting for the silence to break.
Duo speaks first. "Ready, guys?"
Four pairs of eyes lift to his in assertion, one pair hesitating for a fraction of a second, sparkling turquoise in the lantern light.
Trowa closes his fist around the mushrooms and raises it above the lantern.
"Here's to forgetting," he says. "Even if it's only one night."
~The kombucha mushroom people
Sitting around all day~
"Hear, hear," says Duo grimly, and shoves the mushrooms into his mouth, grimacing at the musty taste before swallowing. Trowa, Heero, Wu Fei, and Quatre all follow suit, the latter making a disgusted face as he chewed.
"What's the matter, Q-man, it offend your delicate sensibilities?" asks Duo sarcastically. Quatre throws him a look that says "boys will play" and swallows with an effort. "Now what happens?" he asks in a small voice.
"Now we wait," Trowa answers, staring into the flame. Duo looks at him in surprise, but he remains as he is, long legs crossed, narrow chin resting in artistic hands, gazing into the lantern.
~Who can believe you,
Who can believe you,
Let your mother pray.~
A few minutes later, Quatre looks up in mingled fear and wonderment. "Duo…I think I feel something…"
~(sugar)~
//Red and purple lights flit across Quatre's vision.
He sees stars.
He *really* sees stars.//
~Well I'm not there all the time you know
Some people, some people, some people,
Call it insane, yeah they call it insane.~
//He sees the vast expanse of space, dotted by colonies and satellites; he sees one of these satellites explode, marring the beauty of space. Agony rips through his heart.
"Father…FATHER!"
He sees the interior of Wing Zero's cockpit; he sees crosshairs focus on a blue mobile suit; he sees that suit explode, becoming a miniature sun for a moment, the pilot flung out to Allah knows where.
"Trowa…I've killed you…"//
Four boys watch as Quatre rocks back and forth, with his knees drawn up to his chest, clutching himself as if he were freezing, laughing maniacally and sobbing brokenheartedly all at once.
~(sugar)~
Trowa reaches out for him.
"Quatre…Qua-haaah-"
~I play Russian roulette everyday, a man's sport,
With a bullet called life, yeah mama called life.~
//The room is spinning like a top…no, not the room, it's his Gundam, his Heavyarms, its torso rotating at high velocity as blades attached to the arms chop an enemy to pieces
Tears float, glistening and diamondlike, before his eyes
*My tears…*
Laughing voices
"Hey, Nanashi!"
"C'm'ere, you little fag-boy…"
"Yo, No-Name…"//
~(sugar)~ ~You know that every time I try to go
Where I really want to be,
It's already where I am,
Cause I'm already there…(sugar)~
Three boys watch dizzily as Trowa clutches Quatre tightly to him, muttering of death and tears, stroking blond hair frantically, beginning to rock with Quatre's rhythm.
~The kombucha mushroom people,
Sitting around all day,
Who can believe you,
Who can believe you,
Let your mother pray.~
Wu Fei laughs derisively. "Weaklings."
His laughter doesn't stop as his eyes roll back into his head and he falls over backward.
~(sugar)~ ~I got a gun the other day from Sako,
It's cute, small, fits right in my pocket,
Yeah, right in my pocket.~
//He sees a huge mansion, painted psychedelic in the fading sunlight. As he watches, the front of the mansion crumbles and falls away, revealing a stooped, disfigured, grotesquely burned figure in a tattered and scorched OZ uniform with a sword in the remains of its hand.
"Treize…no, it can't be…I killed you!"
"Yyyyessss…" it whispers, dripping bits of cooked flesh from its face.
As Wu Fei looks on in horror, he suddenly begins to fly through the air towards the creature. He looks down, and discovers that he's grasping his own sword. To his terror, the blade begins to lengthen, tinting a deep green, growing scales and spikes and a fearsome heavy head and leathery wings, becoming a miniature dragon, spurting hellflame from its nostrils, he was holding the beast by its snakelike tail, it turned to face him, and Wu Fei saw that it had Treize's face, but Meiran's eyes were staring madly out of it--//
Two boys dully observe Wu Fei, lying on his back, spreadeagled on the floor, trembling, slack-jawed, repeating the phrase "Gomen nasai, gomen nasai, gomen nasai" again and again.
~(sugar)~
Duo, crazy-eyed, looks up at Heero. "Well, buddy…looks like it's just you and me, huh?"
Heero stares back with unseeing eyes.
"Heero? You feelin' it?"
Heero is silent…then he begins to convulse.
~My girl, you know, she lashes out at me sometimes,
And I just fucking kick her, and then, oh baby, she's OK.~
//He sees Relena, hovering before him in an astrosuit which follows her feminine curves too well; he sees his hand gently caress her helmet and then roughly push her away.
He sees her brother Milliardo, with his fine platinum hair burning around him, screaming in agony.//
~(sugar)~
//He sees Relena's gentle face, marred by a massive black bruise which covers her nose and spreads to her cheeks, looking at him with dull, hurt eyes.//
~People are always chasing me down,
Trying to push my face to the ground,
Where all they really want to do,
Is suck out my mother fucking brains, my brains~
//He sees hordes of mobile suits blackened with the heat of the flames which destroyed them. He sees the former pilots of those suits marching toward him before the huge machines, hundreds of them, staggering and falling, burned, decapitated, rotting.
He sees Relena's face again.
*How could I have killed so many…and not brought myself to harm her?*//
~(sugar)~
Duo looks away; he cannot stand Heero's haunted stare any longer. The shaking is more pronounced now, and Heero is mumbling something which Duo can only make out as "omae o korosu".
~The kombucha mushroom people
Sitting around all day,
Who can believe you,
Who can believe you,
Let your mother pray--~
"I guess I'm alone," Duo thinks aloud. "I don't know what's wrong with you guys; I don't feel a thing. I don't think this shit's any good."
Just then, the flame dies.
~I sit~
"What the fuck-" exclaims Duo, groping for the lighter.
~in my desolate room~
"Somebody hand me the fucking lighter!"
He can hear nothing, not even Quatre's cackling laughter.
~no lights~
~no music~
"C-c-come on, you guys," he whispers. He is beginning to get the shakes. His eyes dart from side to side. "This ain't funny. You're here, I know you are."
~Just anger~
"Heero? Wu-man? Trowa?" he asks, in a voice made small by absolute unadulterated terror. "Where are you guys?"
//He sees the ruins of a cathedral
the shattered remains of bodies
broken mobile suits
dying children
Father Maxwell
Sister Helen//
"No-NO!"
~I've killed everyone~
"PLEASE ANSWER ME!" Duo howls. "SOMEBODY, PLEASE!"
He is alone, suspended in total darkness; he cannot even feel the floor beneath him, or the chill of the uninsulated shack.
~I'm away forever~
"Oh GOD please don't let me be alone please I didn't kill them-"
Duo starts to kick his feet, propelling himself backward. His back hits the thin wall of the shack and he gives a shrill scream, startled.
~but I'm feeling better~
"Quatre, PLEASE! Say something!" He is crying now, deep sobs which rack his too-thin frame.
~How do I feel, What do I say,
Fuck you, it all goes away.~
Quatre shivers and continues to rock, leaning on Trowa, still giggling madly under his breath as the tears flow freely down his cheeks
~How do I feel, What do I say,
Fuck you, it all goes away.~
Trowa is clutching Quatre as if afraid he would sprout wings and fly away; his eyes trace the trail of long-evaporated tears in the air before him. He reaches out a graceful finger to touch them, sighing tiredly, and begins to softly hum a carnival tune.
~How do I feel, What do I say,
In the end it all goes away.~
Wu Fei springs to his feet, still trembling, screaming something unintelligible in Chinese at the top of his lungs, dancing around, feinting as if he were dueling some invisible enemy.
~How do I feel, What do I say,
In the end it all goes away.~
Heero stares into space, twitching, repeating Relena's name, at intervals raising an imaginary pistol and whispering "Bang. You're dead."
~How do I feel, What do I say,
In the end it all goes away.
How do I feel, What do I say,
In the end it all goes away.~
Duo is weeping in his corner like a child, holding his braid with both hands in front of him like a rosary.
"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned…"
As in his delusion he prays to a God in whom he does not believe, he realizes, all of them realize, that there can be no forgetting, not tonight or any other night. Their deeds will haunt them for the rest of their lives as surely as their headaches will tomorrow.
There can be no escape.
There can be no forgetting.
~In the end it all goes away~
~In the end it all goes away~
~In the end it all goes away~
~In the end it all goes away~