(Duo)

I hate quiet. You may think I'm crazy, but I hate silence with such an abiding passion... I like to turn up my stereo so loud that I can't hear anything anymore, so that I drown out all thought... So I won't have to think about the accusing eyes anymore.

I've been so afraid of the nightmares. Every time I sleep, a new, haunting face adds itself to the shambling collection already running around inside my head. I don't know if you'd understand. The guilt in me is almost a tangible thing. Sometimes, I can almost feel these chains on my shoulders, railing against me...

I took to substance abuse, as they call it, to get rid of the need for sleep, so I wouldn't dream. I know the human body can only take so much before it collapses, but hey, as long as I could function without the guilt and nightmares for a while, I was fine.

Being a very thorough person, I researched all this before I did it... I experimented with several different kinds of drugs; the others never knew. There was enough time when we weren't together for me try a little bit, and get over it. And even if I hadn't gotten over it yet - weren't all Americans lazy? Didn't they always sleep a lot? And if I was a little shakier than usual, what was it to them? I was only the fool, the weakest component in the whole.

Crystal meth became my poison of choice. It would take you up on high that would make you so incredibly productive, active, vital... The only problem was that it would drop you after a while, farther down than you had started from. It took a day or two to recover; but that was fine. I could spare that. Hell, sometimes I even went on missions when I wasn't fully recovered. And no one ever noticed.

Of course, now that I think about it, Quatre probably suspected something was up, but I don't think he actually knew.

Like I said, no one did.

I was sitting on the edge of my bed, considering whether to take more crystal or not.

Heero was out on a mission, it wasn't likely he'd be back for a week or so. Wufei was out practicing katas, and Quatre and Trowa were snuggling somewhere else.

So it was relatively safe. I considered, slowly and carefully. I hadn't slept already in 3 days, but I was still feeling pretty good. I could use a tiny bit more, though, before I fell off my high.

So I took some more.

Feeling a little dazed with the insane rush of energy to my system, I glanced over at Heero's desk. Huh... A granola bar?

The very thought of food turned my stomach, and I felt like throwing up. I hadn't eaten in 3 days either, but I was far from hungry... You can't eat when you're on crystal, you know? At all... Everything is so disgusting, food tastes like ashes, and it only slows you down.

I was thin, but not enough to make anyone say anything to me.

I felt my lips curve into an enormous smile.

It was time to do some reading. Yeah, it was mundane. But I needed to know the basic physics of a gundam, I needed to know this Calculus, I needed to read all these Greek classics. I doubt you know the feeling; I felt so inspired and awed, like I could absorb the entire world's knowledge with barely any effort, like I could learn anything, hell, I wanted to!

Another thing I forgot to mention: crystal brings out the best in me. I'm sweet, funny, just fun to be around, and I have an insatiable thirst for knowledge.

Bouncing off the bed, I walk over to Heero's stark desk. I glance at the laptop, then turn it on.

Instantly a small screen pops up.

Password? It asks. I grin with familiar ease and type in the six-letter password. Heero thinks I'm so stupid, he never thought to conceal his keyboard while typing his password in...

The small laptop hums contentedly and quickly boots, and I sign on to the internet instantaneously. I need to learn something!

I browse through a listing of sites that showed up on a popular search engine, then immerse myself into an advanced AP Calculus course, offered exclusively online by 'Star Teaching'.

I grin while learning, amused that an Ozzie is paying for this course.

Mid-afternoon fades to evening, and I quickly push the laptop screen down as Quatre gently knocks - I can always tell his knock apart from the others.

"Duo?" He calls out softly, and I grunt an affirmative. He then slowly pushes the door open to find me lounging on the bed, reading a ragged manga.

"Do you want to eat?...I'm making spaghetti!" He called to me, cheerfully, and I had to stifle a disgusted groan. Spaghetti was normally one of my favorite things, but God, not now...

"No thanks, Q." I say, putting the manga down for a moment. "I'm stuffed! I raided the kitchen this afternoon." I lie pretty convincingly, and, anyway, it's only a small lie... A white, litte lie, and it isn't going to hurt anyone but me...

His soft smile falters a bit, and I wonder why, but he moves out into the hallway quickly, calling back happily, "Alright then, more for us!"

I briefly wonder why, then, in a flash, jump back into Sophocles: Antigone.

Such an intriguing story, I muse half-mindedly.

It isn't of any consequence, I tell myself sternly, as I really get back into the story, Quatre can't possibly know anything.

Quatre:

I'm worried about Duo. I realize that he's under a lot of stress, too, but I don't know... Outwardly, he seems to be holding up like the rest of us, always joking around and being so... jovial. So happy.

But I'm not sure... I just don't know what to do. How could I possibly confront him about it? 'Uh, Duo, are you alright?' And then he'd reply in his maddeningly happy way, 'Never better, Q!' And he'd muss my hair and I'd be just where I started from. I sigh softly. I don't know if something's wrong with him or not.

As I walk back into the kitchen, it finally strikes me what I found so odd about Duo saying that he's raided the kitchen earlier in the afternoon.

I'd been in the kitchen all day, working on the puzzle on the sideboard with Trowa. There was no way he could've come in without me hearing him.

That, perhaps, was the most disturbing thing of all; and to think that I had thought that the God of Death never lied.

I was tired; incredibly so. My false high had fallen... I needed sleep, and soon. The most I'd ever gone without was seven days, and that had stretched me almost to the point of breaking. After seven days, you're rendered clinically insane... And I had been, for a while anyway. You also get the symptoms of Parkinson's, your hands start shaking, you can't control your muscles...

I was starting to hear the voices again. Not clearly, but still, it was bad. I was getting paranoid, worse than usual, even.

The voices kept muttering around in the back of my head, resentfully, longing for blood and violence... Only death would satiate them. I shook my head, a quick, violent motion. No. I wouldn't go down that path, ever. If it was that or my life, I would take my own life. No more innocents must suffer.

"Never..." I said quietly in a singsong sort of voice, rocking back and forth a little on my bed. My leg suddenly started to get the shakes and I bit off a curse and beat it a little, till it grudgingly quit trembling.

Damn. I was worse off than I had thought, if I was already shaking.

How long had it been since I'd eaten, I wondered abstractly, tracing the stretched skin over my ribs, pushing up the cloth of my shirt that was hindering my wandering hand. I flinched, a bit, when my hand ran over a long, jagged cut that would probably need stitches. Damn...

I was dressed in my usual bedtime attire, a pair of old, baggy jeans and a loose, black shirt. My hair was still done up in its braid, and I wondered if I would even bother to comb it out tonight.

I held my shaking hands up to my face and considered; no way was I going to attempt to brush my hair with hands like these. I doubted I would even be able to hold on to the brush.

A floorboard creaked, and I was off the bed in a single, catlike motion. I rolled off and landed in a crouch, gun appearing from nowhere, drawn and primed.

"Heero?" Even to my ears, I sounded like shit. I winced.

He appeared stunned, and I wasn't sure if it was how I looked or the fact that baka Maxwell had bothered to move that fast.

I laughed, but it was shaky. Shit, oh shit, he wasn't supposed to come back this early, he really wasn't, oh fuck, oh God what am I going to do?!

Even as my thinking slowed, I reached back into the recesses of memory and pulled out my fake smile, the one I wore to everyone.

It was hard, and my lips trembled with strain, they were so stiff, but I forced it. "Heero!" I greeted warmly, stepping forward to hug him in an attempt to get punched then dismissed from mind, but my arms wouldn't obey.

I ended up giving him an awkward pat that he didn't refuse.

"How'd the mission go, buddy?" I asked in a cheerful voice, while internally cursing him for coming back so early.

"The mission was accomplished." He said coolly, staring at me with those chips of ice, so cleverly disguised as eyes.

I stepped aside, struggling internally to control my legs. Sweat popped out on my forehead, and for a second, I wondered how long he'd been there. I hadn't even heard him, I'd been so out of it.

"Come on in...Dude. Yeah." I welcomed him, to the best of my ability, trying not to wince as he stalked past me...The ribs, God not the ribs... Did I mention I was not only messed up, but badly beat as well?

I can't really remember how I got all these cuts and bruises, I just woke up in an alley a couple of nights ago. There's pretty extensive damage all over me, but I bet the other guy got off worse. I can't remember anything, and that scares me, a little, but not too badly. Not remembering is a good thing - for me, anyway...

"Well, Heero, much as I *love* your company, I'm hitting the sack. See ya tomorrow!" Inwardly I snort. It would be more like the day after tomorrow, or maybe the one after...Maybe in four days, only at the most, though.

I manage to crawl up onto the bed with a sigh of relief, I didn't do too badly, I don't think... I only have time for a single, terrified thought about my nightmares before sleep instantly claims me.

Heero:

I was so scared when I walked into the room and saw him like that, rocking back and forth, occasionally trembling...

Scared may seem a cruel word for me to use, as emotionless as I am, but even I'm smart enough to admit that Duo evokes a plethora of different feelings in me, feelings I'd thought were long gone.

I was deciding on whether to announce my presence or not, when he pushed his shirt up, and began to trace random patterns onto his skin.

That wasn't what had concerned me, however. There was an enormous, ragged cut on one of his ribs... And for that matter, he looked dangerously thin.

He abruptly tugged his shirt down, then held his hands up in front of him, and it seemed to me that they were shaking, like a leaf in the wind.

At that moment, I stepped on a particularly cranky floorboard, and it creaked loudly, destroying the silence. Duo's reaction was nothing short of amazing, though. In what seemed like one second, he had gone from lounging on the bed, to crouched on the floor, aiming a gun precisely at my head.

I looked on in utter disbelief.

I slept; I dreamed. Psychotic hallucinations danced through my mind, and I couldn't stop them. Bloody faces tauntingly danced out of reach, playing scary-movie music, daring me to pull the trigger.

They showed me visions, new ones each time, of my friends mutilated in various ways, yet the endings were all the same; I was crouched in a corner holding a bloody knife.

Father Maxwell and Sister Helen appeared, only to rip the heart out of my still-breathing body, and I appreciated the irony. In a bittersweet moment, Solo came, only to reject me for all the blood collected on me.

I bled forever, red trails screamed and whorled behind my eyes, and I couldn't remember what sunlight looked like. I died a hundred thousand different ways, and each time I died, I died alone, my friends looking on in ridicule and scorn.

That was when I heard it... "Duo! DUO!"

It came from a long way off, and I resisted its call. No telling how much worse that particular hallucination would be.

I felt my body being shaken, and that was when I realized that it wasn't another nightmare, it was reality, and I couldn't get to it. The shaking intensified, and I struggled to wake.

Slowly, I opened my eyes. Sunlight pierced them instantly, and I shut them just as quickly. I hadn't seen who had been shaking me, so I vocalized in a hoarse voice, "Hey..."

I rasped, voice cracking and dry, "Who's there?"

I waited a bit - silence. Still silence. There was nothing there-?

I opened my eyes again, squinting.

Whoever it was, they'd left. My eyes roved around the small room Heero and I shared, and I could've sworn something was different about it, something subtly different, but...

I shrugged painfully, chafing the cuts and bruises accumulated on my upper half.

Crawling out of bed, I felt an intense similarity between myself and a lizard.

The sheets had irritatingly wrapped themselves around me in a deathgrip, so I surrendered after a few steps and quit trying to find some decent clothes.

My mouth felt like a sewer pipe, so I went to the bathroom to cleanse it. After swishing a little water around, I felt better.

Still wrapped in my sheet, I descended the stairs, towards the eating area. I let my toes sink into the soft carpeting, and that made me feel a lot better. I heard the clink of eating utensils, and I hurried forward, laughing silently as I felt the sheet drag the floor.

tbc...

Author's Notes: PLEASE tell me if you like this one or not... I guarantee you, I'll write a whole lot faster that way...