Disclaimer: It's not mine! STFU!

It was a relief to feel the cool metal against my head, almost like a wet rag on feverish skin. Or perhaps like a Coke bottle on a sweaty neck. I let it rest there for a moment and took stock of myself.

Was this what I wanted? The quick death, the easy out? Yes, a part of me said instantly, but the rest of me doubted. Maybe I'd asked the question wrong. Was this what I deserved? The quick death, the easy way out?

No, I answered, almost as quickly as I had the first. A quick death was the last thing I deserved for... for...

I felt sick. His blood was still on me, on my clothes, on my hands, on my face... I was stained with it, irrevocably stained, and I could never wash it away.

His acting had all been just that. I didn't know how he'd managed it, or what had happened to him, or how it'd come to be. All I knew was that he'd been acting and I'd fallen for it and I'd...

Somehow, in my mind it had warped to him believing that I would see, or maybe that I hadn't seen but that I would still trust him enough to not... to not shove a bullet through his ribs. I couldn't imagine what he'd felt that split instant before the impact had really hit him – shock, perhaps, and hurt. Not physical hurt, because of course he'd felt that, but more of the emotional variety, because I couldn't imagine the pain of having Heero kill me.

Of course now I would be thrilled for it. Not only would it mean that Heero was... was conscious, and strong enough to lift a gun, strong enough to kill me, but because it would be a sort of justice. It was only fair to be killed by Heero.

I wept. My arm fell limp and my gun fell to my side and I just... wept.

No. Heero couldn't do it for me. I needed to do it myself, and now more than ever it was imperative to take away any peaceful death that could be available to me.

I had no communication link. There were noises from downstairs – apparently the dinging and chiming of the casino stuff could no longer drown out the sounds of explosions and gunfire. Or maybe Une and her men had stormed through that floor now, too. Were the men in the underground safely officially in custody now? Didn't matter. I would rely on Une to take care of it.

I slipped away from the building with absolutely no more thought to it than that.

<*>

Was it pathetic that I hacked into the hospital's files and waited in an old hotel room, laptop on my knees, to see Heero's name crop up on the screen before thinking of my next step? Heero came in alive, thank every God there was, but he was in critical condition and went straight into surgery. I sent up a prayer to every god I could think of, even ancient ones that no one believed in anymore. And then I begged Shinigami to be content with only my own death, to not want Heero, to let him live.

Then I made a mental list of all the ingredients I would need for my poison of choice.

It was hard to think about that, despite everything, because I just couldn't think past Heero might still die. Thinking about myself in any way – hell, thinking about running from the fear, no matter how painful the trip – made me feel like a coward, almost like a heathen. I should suffer through every moment of worry, of fear and concern. I knew, too, that I should go to the hospital. I should be there in the waiting room glaring at the magazines and pacing and just... thinking. But I was at least doing the last two here in my hotel room and, really? The thought that one can help the one they love by waiting nearby was just... stupid.

And I had absolutely no right to be there, anyway.

You know, maybe I'd been lying to himself all along. Maybe I really am a masochist.

Or maybe I was just afraid? Afraid to take that final step?

...So I would wait for Heero, I decided. The end result wouldn't change; I would still kill myself no matter what. But still... still, I just had to know. I had to know whether my mistake had cost Heero his life.

I watched my computer screen as I sat, my eyes never leaving the little note that read 'in surgery,' as if my focus alone could make Heero come out. But even as I thought that, I realized I'd rather have that sign on for hours, for days, than have it turn off and have that little time and date and the words 'unable to save' plastered all over his file.

When I couldn't stand just sitting there anymore, I stood and paced, my eyes flickering over to that screen a thousand times a minute. I prayed some more. Begged some more. Apologized a little and wondered if the gods wouldn't think I was being presumptuous and selfish. Or maybe they were just mocking me with the wait?

Then, when I thought I would absolutely go mad, I sat down in front of my computer again and open up my Word Document and just wrote.

I hadn't done this in a long, long, time; the words were almost painful when they slipped out of me. But still, I managed one more poem for him, a sort of apology, though at the time I wrote it I had no idea that I would be apologizing to anyone.

I have torn your wings, I wrote, then,

I have torn your wings.

I stole the bounty from the harvest,

Stole the hope from duty's hardest

Branches broken from my mighty swings.

I have torn your wings.

So desperate for you to stay with me,

A man unable to be free,

Furious token of my love's aimings.

I have torn your wings.

My broken wings stole from me flight,

And so I cursed the skies each night

And all those who would sing.

I have torn your wings.

But now that you lie bleeding,

I can see what I'd been feeling

Dying lonely, purest king.

I have torn your wings,

And in such I have been stained,

Irrevoc'bly shamed,

Bearing burdens my abhorrent sinning brings.

Then without thought I segued straight into reciting all of the poems on my Wing, starting with “Forgive These Broken Wings of Mine” and ending with “Poisoned Lies.” Then, on more of a hope than a whim, I typed, dedicated to and wrote another poem before closing up the document.

Then, as I hadn't allowed myself during the long process, I looked at Heero's file. I almost sobbed when I saw out of surgery followed immediately by stable.

I had to leave the bed for fear my tears might mess up my computer.

I couldn't have read past those words then, not with the way my vision blurred all over the place. I hadn't killed him. He was stable. Count on Heero. But then I just barely had the sense to move my laptop a good ways away from the bed before I just collapsed on it and let myself, possibly for the first time in my life, to just indulge in the tears for... gods, it must have been at least fifteen minutes of just... sobbing.

I hadn't killed him.

It was like a mobius strip in my head, over and over again – I hadn't killed him. I hadn't killed him. Heero was alive.

I was an interesting little mess when I finally got myself under control again all those minutes later. I had snot dribbling down my nose and my eyes were so puffy they felt like they'd both been punched, and I knew they were red and bloodshot as all hell. I could only imagine how special I looked. I carefully didn't look in the wall-to-wall mirror in the hotel bathroom as I got my sorry self cleaned up.

Okay. I could no longer hide behind Heero's uncertain well-being to avoid what I needed to do. So I just rolled my shoulders and headed out.

I knew by now someone would be looking for me, trying to inform me of Heero's condition. If they were astute – or if Wufei were conscious – they would get a stab in the dark as to what I was planning. I'd signed into this hotel under a false name, but my description wasn't exactly what one would call nondescript. In other words, I didn't have that much time to do my little deed. I sighed. If anything, I should probably sign out and snatch the shit I needed while going somewhere else.

That decided, I turned in my keys and got my ass moving.

For the little kiddies' sake, I shall refrain from mentioning the contents needed to make strychnine (1). I would merely say that it took some time and a couple interesting stops in some little back-alleys. These, of course, occurred come nighttime. Then all night I drove off to the West, thinking it stupidly symbolic – and further away from home, which was over to the East. Home. Ha. Right.

I carefully skirted around that mental topic and just drove. I didn't indulge in music for once, too afraid of potential lyrics. I couldn't say how many topics I ended up shoving from my mind – homes and houses, friends, lyrics, the war, Wufei, dragons, and anything and everything even remotely blue. But then I found those last moments with Heero and just let them replay in my mind, even as I cringed and winced and... let no man ever learn of this... teared up.

It was my focus. It was my reason for acting this way. Not only had I... had I tried to kill him – I forced myself to think the words, to link them together that way – but I'd killed him for no good reason. A part of me wanted to point out that, at the time, I'd fully believed that there was a good reason... but... I just couldn't try to rationalize those dead eyes.

The sudden onslaught of tears was humiliating and sharp. I blinked them away and concentrated on th road. It was almost morning, almost time for a new dawn. I suddenly wanted very badly to find out how Heero was doing. Was he still stable, or had he developed an infection during the night? The skeleton staff at the hospital was good, but they just couldn't hold a candle to the daytime staff. Had he made it through all right?

With all of my ingredients, I had nothing to worry about except the problem of a hotel room. I solved that in a matter of fifteen more minutes. I had no idea why an inn was named 'The Days Inn.' I'd always wondered about it; did the name mean the inn was owned by the day, or that the inn was open for only days and not nights? Literally, the name made no sense.

The room, when I entered with my bag-o-drug-wannabe, was about as nondescript as I was not. Two beds – an almost painful reminder of my... of what I'd done – and a bathroom off the very front of the room, then a lounge-type area with a tiny nightstand-ish table and two chairs and a balcony that was probably about as used as the little lounge area.

I took the time to put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door – I'd borrowed the room for two days, just in case – and carefully ripped down the shower and used some nails I'd belatedly bought to stick up the shower curtain to hide off the bedroom-and-lounge part of the room. Then I took out a big sheaf of paper – also belatedly bought, along with the marker and tape – and wrote on the paper, I have committed suicide. Please don't look beyond this curtain. Just call the police and stay out of the room. Thank you.

No matter what I did, the note would sound presumptuous and tacky. I sighed. Well, it was the best I could do.

I couldn't help it; I had to click in my computer and log in to the hotel's wireless internet and hack once more into Heero's files.

Still stable.

He hadn't woken up yet, but that was all right. Sleeping off the painkillers and post-surgery drugs was a good thing. Knowing he was still safe made it possible to move to the bathroom – internet still carefully monitoring Heero's progress – and set up my fix-a-poison.

It took a number of hours, and I was really starting to feel the fatigue of a night's lack of sleep, when I finally finished. I let it sit as it needed to and checked Heero's progress one more time – no change – before going to sleep.

I woke up no more than an hour later and went straight to the bathroom. My little slip of nux vomica didn't look that different from a normal drink, even though there was only a little bit there in one of those look-we-give-you-coffee-and-coffee-cups things that the hotel always left for you in the bathroom (next to the sink; way to go, people). I filled a second cup with water and dumped the strychnine inside that, carefully swoshing the liquid as I returned to the bed. My stomach was clamping up just thinking about drinking this. I knew very well that I was going to be hurting myself very, very badly.

Just for the record, maybe I should explain a few things that Mr. Layman wouldn't understand. Let's start with some basic information on strychnine. It works fast – about three hours once the symptoms hit, which may take up to a couple of hours to occur. These symptoms are roughly based around the harsh constriction of muscles that forces one's body to bend and twist in unnatural positions, all the while feeling intense pain. These bouts of muscle spasming would some and go, and when they left one would feel tired and dehydrated but mostly well-off. Then the constricting would begin anew, last longer, hurt more, and cause more damage. This would occur until death, which would happen while the victim lie conscious. I would die well aware of how I'd stupidly put myself in the position I would be in. And, due to the constriction of muscles, I may very well die smiling like the Joker or something.

Now let's discuss possible saves. In other words, the likelihood of me surviving this stupidity. Once the constricting starts, I will not be able to get myself to a hospital. I would not be able to drive; I would hardly be able to get my pain-wearied body turned over to grab the phone and demand nine-one-one... I took the chance to unhook the phone then, just in case I was tempted to try, anyway. However, if someone happened across me within the first hour or so of my constrictions, I could potentially be saved. Note, of course, that I had asked for the room for two days – no chance to be found by a well-wishing maid until long after that time period was up.

Finally, let's discuss G. My favorite codger in the world – pfft. He'd trained me like a dog, made me physically stronger and faster than most humans. I would also like to mention that he immunized me as much as possible against certain drugs and some poisons. It would have been impossible, of course, to immunize me against strychnine completely. But the bastard had trained me to at least survive longer. So though the average time between start of constrictions and death was three hours, for me it would be four. For once, I was very much unhappy with the results of this particular training. I would be in agony that much longer.

So, information now in hand, you could potentially see why I was a bit reluctant to use this on myself.

Even the picture of Heero's blank, suddenly to my eyes shocked face didn't take away the nausea roiling around in my stomach.

“I love you,” I told that image, then clenched my eyes shut and just gulped the drink down.

<*>

(1) Or you could say that the author has absolutely no bloody clue.