Don't Bother
Riannon
[Wish I was too dead to cry
A self affliction face]
Trowa's horrified face blurs momentarily as tears suddenly fill my eyes. He starts to take a step forward, only to stop as I raise the gun in my shaking hand. Blood pours from my wrists onto the white porcelain floor, staining it red. I blink my eyes clear, wishing he hadn't come.
[Stones to throw at my creator
Masochist to which I cater]
"Quatre... why?" Trowa barely whispers. I shake my head. "Too many reasons, too much pain." I reply. My mind eagerly seizes upon the memories of my mistakes, feeding them into the mental agony I'm already in.
[You don't need to bother
I don't need to be]
Trowa takes another step forward. "Don't come any closer, Trowa! Did you hear me? I said DON'T COME ANY CLOSER TO ME!!" His face goes from horrified to terrified. He steps back, obviously remembering what happened the last time I'd screamed those words at him. A gun's as deadly as a Gundam. Who said that- Heero? Sounds like him.
[I'll keep slippin' farther]
What happened to me? I ask myself for the thousandth time. Everyone else turned out ok after the wars. Heero's running the entire computer networking system for the Preventers, now that he's reappeared after vanishing for two years. Duo's a Preventer too- he's living with Hilde, her husband, and Hilde's three-year-old, Nadia. Wufei married Sally about a year and a half ago. And Trowa- Trowa stayed with his circus, but he works with the Preventers occasionally. And then there's me.
[But once I hold on
I won't let go till it bleeds]
I didn't want to stay on the colony I was rebuilding- too painful a reminder of my mistakes, my wars. But I had no where else to go. I wasn't brave enough to vanish like Heero did- not that I wanted to. Trowa moved to L4- he still traveled with the circus, but he's home a lot.
[Wish I was too dead to care
If indeed I cared at all]
I wish I didn't care. I wish I could look at the fear and concern and anger and love fighting in Trowa's eyes and not care. If I ever cared. Do I even know how to love? How can someone who took lives- who ended lives, who finished people- love others? How can I even know what love is? And more importantly, how can I be deserving?
[Never had a voice to protest
So you fed me shit to digest]
"Quatre... what happened?" Trowa's voice breaks my heart, but I don't move or lower my gun. "What happened?" I laugh bitterly. "Wars happened. Mistakes happened. Murders happened. I'm a murderer, Trowa." He's shaking his head silently. He steps forward again. "Damnit, Trowa, I said STAY AWAY FROM ME!!!" My finger jerks backwards, sending a wild bullet into the plaster ceiling above the door.
[I wish I had a reason
My flaws are open season
For this I gave up trying
One good time deserves my dying]
"They didn't have to die, Trowa. I didn't have to kill them. There were other ways. There had to have been…" I laugh again, interrupting myself. "Who am I kidding. I'm too sweet, too kind to be a solider. My conscience is my fatal flaw, like the hero in some Greek tragedy. I care too much- I said stay away!" Trowa retreats to the doorway. I hold up my bleeding wrists. "My repentance. My sacrifice. It won't bring back my victims, but maybe they'll see this as justice done."
[Wish I'd died instead of lived
A zombie hides my face
Shelf forgotten with its memories
Diaries left with cryptic entries]
Trowa's still silent, so I continue. "Did you read my letters, Trowa?" At his negative reply, I smile sardonically. "You should. Go on, they're all on the table out there. My will, my suicide note, my letters to the guys, my letter to you… its all there, on the Winner family letterhead." Trowa shakes his head again. "I'm not leaving you." The sardonic grin returns to my face. "Can't say the same here." I drop the smile and sigh. "I wish I'd died in battle, Trowa. It would've been easier- for everyone…" My voice begins to fade and my vision flickers oddly as I sway dizzily.
[You don't need to bother
I don't need to be
I'll keep slippin' farther]
The gun falls from my fingers at the same time as I drop to my knees in a pool of my own blood. Trowa's at my side half a heartbeat later, throwing the blood stained gun aside, wrapping towels around my wrists, begging me to hang on, to stay awake, to live. I look down to see we're both kneeling in my blood. A line- from a song or a poem- flits through my mind. 'No matter how much we say we love someone, we'll always recoil when a pool of their blood moves too close.' Not Trowa, my Trowa.
[But once I hold on
I won't let go till it bleeds]
Trowa easily lifts me in his arms and carries me to the couch in the next room. He runs back to get more towels and the phone, dialing the hospital as he returns. He tries to remain as calm and detached as possible as he tells them what's happened. He turns to me after he hangs up, removing the blood-soaked towels from my wrists and rewrapping them. "Hang on, Quatre. C'mon, please, don't you dare die on me, stay alive, stay here, stay here chibi tenshi." "Murdering oni," I correct him as my world goes black.
[You don't need to bother
I don't need to be, yeah
I'll keep slippin' farther]
And now I'm lying here in my hospital room. Trowa's napping in a chair at my feet. The rest of the guys are lurking outside. But I don't want to see them yet. I need a moment alone...
A part of me still wants to die, a big part. I can add this- incident- to my list of mistakes, the ones I'll never live down, the reasons I should die. But there's part of me that wants to live. Part of that's natural human survival instinct, but another part is my self-destructive kindness and love. I don't want to hurt Trowa and Duo and Heero and Wufei and all of them by leaving. They were scared, Trowa said. They want me to live. And that helps, a little. I close my eyes to block out the white walls and bandages as tears slide out from under my eyelids. They want me to live. So. I'll stay alive, and maybe my living in near-constant agony will serve a better repentance for my sins than my death ever could.
[But once I hold on, once I hold on
I'll never live down my disease.]
