A/N: I really wanted to read a GW horror fic. I wrote one instead. Dammit.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing.

Warnings: BL (Boys Love), Gods and Goddesses, abstract concepts...

Pairings: 1x2, 3x4, Hints of Rx1

"Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death?"

- Plato

He walked forward, at once both terrifying and enthralling to all who look his way. His eyes are as forebodingly blue as the oceans navies sail across, hair as wild and dark as the ground armies bleed upon, lithe muscles stretched over a form built for combat. Heero, God of War, is the personification of the horror and the valiance that came from mankind's most brutal act.

The manner in which he carried himself has always been self-assured, confident but never to the point of arrogance, each step as purposeful as the next even though there has never been anything in the realm of the immortals to hint that his tacit mind and immeasurable strength are in need. In the sphere of the gods, he still managed to stand out from the rest. Lesser immortals scurried from his sight as his equals fight to earn at least partial recognition from one of the realm's most antisocial beings.

"Heero."

Heero's purposeful (pointless) stride drew to a stop as he waited for his caller to approach. One pale hand slid to hook around his left arm at a comfortable angle, the contact of skin-on-skin like steel sliding against satin. The appendage belonged to a female of indefinite age, with eyes the color of the sky on a clear day and hair that fell like sunlight around slender shoulders. Relena, Goddess of Peace and Serenity, gave the male a patient smile as he only nodded in greeting.

The clinking of wine-filled goblets echoed around the chamber, too large to be called a room but with a boundary that could be felt rather than seen. Hilde, Goddess of Song and the Arts, could be heard skillfully doling out a melody, her lovely voice filling the air.

"Have you heard?" Relena asked softly, genteel smile in place as the two continued on linked together. "Wufei has been searching for Duo. Do you know what happened?"

"Another prank, surely," Dorothy cut across eagerly. The Goddess of Festivity and Madness had a smirk stretched across her pale, pretty features as she sauntered towards them. "I could practically hear Wufei's rant for justice thundering across the world."

"Why must Duo always anger him?" Relena sighed. "He knows Wufei will not stand to be made the fool of."

Heero made no comment, having no interest in the God of Justice's latest row with Death. A minute frown came across his features when the air around them seemed to become lighter, a calmness settling into him that came unnaturally. It only became like this when Peace came into direct contact with Mercy and Love.

"This is a lovely party, Dorothy," Quatre complimented cheerfully, stepping up right on cue. Trowa stood at his fellow immortal's side, nodding in greeting but otherwise silent. The God of the Wild and the Hunt was as aloof as Heero when it came to socializing.

"I'm glad you could make it," Dorothy replied winningly, swinging in and out of the blond's arms with a wide grin, her goblet sloshing wine out haphazardly. "Although if you're here, then Wufei may be prowling around nearby after another failed attempt at ending Duo once and for all."

Quatre chuckled, "I imagine Death must be very hard to kill."

"Although it does explain why Duo isn't here," Relena pointed out. "Probably avoiding Wufei."

Dorothy snorted. "For such a necessary thing, he really is quite the annoyance. It's just too bad Death can't be replaced."

"Dorothy!" Relena chastised immediately.

Quatre glanced around the party, "It's odd not to see Middie here. She usually enjoys such events."

"Perhaps she's still caught up in that drought on the mortal plane? She always favored that area's wheat," Relena suggested.

"Oh, let boring little Middie play farmer with her mortals," Dorothy waved off with a sneer, taking another generous sip of wine.

"Shinigami!"

Wufei's bellow cut across the chatter of the party instantly. Dorothy turned her eyes to the scene with a grin, eagerness all over her features. Heat flared instantly across the chamber, the roar of a dragon reverberating within and causing the lesser immortals to flee. The quickly-departing party-goers left enough room to make out Wufei, katana drawn, charging at a black cloaked figure that easily dodged.

"Damn, Wuffers, you never let up!" Duo cackled, not so much as moving as gliding out of range of Wufei's attacks.

"Shinigami," Wufei hissed out the title contemptuously - a name for Death given in a language long forgotten. Death, however, was not a god - Duo was something else, a being that had no beginning or end; an omnipresence that even the gods could not fully understand. "I will see to it that you are punished for the injustices you have caused!"

"Ah-ah," Duo grinned maniacally, shaking his finger at the god like a mother playfully chiding her child. "Justice isn't my duty, remember? That's all you, Wuffkins."

"He is positively shameless," Relena sighed under her breath as Dorothy threw her head back and laughed at the destruction that erupted around them, courtesy of one enraged God of Justice.

Heero turned away, breaking contact with Relena and striding out of the room. "Idiots," he muttered under his breath as he exited.

"So Peace and War go hand-in-hand, huh?"

Heero didn't acknowledge the inquiry - but from the tone, it was more a statement - except to assess the other with a mere once-over with his eyes. Duo grinned at him widely, far too close than Heero was used to. The male's skin was pale and flawless, his braided chestnut hair long and soft to the touch, his slender form accentuated in the dark robes he was always enshrouded in. He lacked the ethereal light all of the other immortals held, though - a beauty only tarnished by the physical manifestations of something reminiscent of mortality. That was perhaps why Duo could unsettle so many - he seemed wholly composed of some kind patchwork cloak of mortal and immortal elements that could not reconcile.

"Makes me feel a bit lonely, though, Hee-chan," Duo continued on, seemingly unperturbed by the god's lack of reply. The grin did widen, however, at the glare he got in response for the nickname. "I'm present in both times of war and peace, after all. Think I can convince 'Lena to share?"

Heero's glare sharpened, turned from smoldering to liquid fire.

Duo sat down next to him, unruffled by the glower and content to stare up into the oblique quality of what made up the 'sky' in the immortal realm. Heero rose without a word and stalked away, but Duo didn't appear to have noticed or cared. He just grinned blankly upwards, smile as fragile and empty as a porcelain doll's.

"Not that it really matters, o'course," the braided being mused to himself quietly, long after Heero had left. "Both Peace and War will give unto me, for I am receiver of all."

"I haven't seen Dorothy lately," Quatre mused, settled into a comfortable armchair the color of a freshly-ensnared pearl. He sipped from a teacup that smelled of flower petals and lust; a heady brew that had Trowa subtly inching closer. Heero was reclined in his own seat, attention reserved for his thoughts as Wufei muttered an agreement to the blonde's observation.

"I've never known the woman to go so long without a party," Wufei added distastefully. Flights of fancy were not in his interest, but he had to keep an eye on Dorothy if only because the goddess liked mischief as much as Duo did.

Quatre replied in kind - perhaps his own hypothesis, but Heero had stopped half-heartedly listening in. It was the acrid smell of rotting flesh that suddenly invaded his nose that accosted his attention, before it was replaced by burnt skin, only for that to be forgotten in a wave of upturned earth, rushing waters, and finally the clogging smell of infinite funeral flowers.

Before Heero could wonder about it - or even question it aloud, as it seemed he was the only one affected by the assault against his senses - Duo glided into the room like he'd been expected all along. By Quatre's bright smile and warm response, he may as well have been; the blonde was fond of Death, for whatever reason.

"There are some things upon which death can be considered the favorable outcome," Quatre had once said, after another deity had thought to ask him about the strange friendship.

Duo took the open seat next to Quatre, getting in a quick jibe of a greeting before Wufei could even open his mouth. As the parader of Justice spluttered in indignation, Duo glanced over at Heero.

"You look excited, Hee-chan," Duo noted glibly. "Finally took a page from the mortals and got laid?"

Trowa burst out laughing, much to Heero's ever-growing irritation.

"Heero," Relena's voice was urgent, almost panicked. She had one hand grasping Heero's wrist, holding him in place with both her grip and her eyes. She looked as ethereally gorgeous as always, a beauty caught in forever that never wore down. Deities did not age, created perfect from the beginning and made never to wither. Relena was among the most wondrous of all the realm.

She was stunning.

She was atrocious.

"You've noticed, haven't you?" she pressed, stepping closer as if to seek shelter in his arms. As if there was something a god should fear. "Where has everyone gone? Why are there so few of us here?"

Heero did not need to look around to confirm her observation - or perhaps a more fitting term would be 'fear'. (The idea felt foreign but not unnatural; much like the increasing smell and color of the surroundings. Different, and strange, and unprecedented - but not unnatural.) Deities would always know the location of their fellows, whether they resided in the mortal or immortal plane.

And a vast majority of deities had been steadily disappearing.

"What's happening, Heero?" Relena continued quietly, body trembling.

She was frightened, shivering like a mortal caught in the throes of winter's embrace, like a dying leaf facing the winds of autumn, like a child too afraid to look into the dark with expectations of monsters.

Peace had been gone long before Relena had disappeared.

Quatre and Trowa were found nowhere, and by the time Heero had realized that the immortals were disappearing and not returning, Wufei had gone as well. The chamber area where Wufei had spent the most of his time smelled of fire and steel, tasted like the copper of blood and the salty tang of sweat. It felt like honor, and justice, and respect.

Heero stood in that place for a long time. He couldn't say how long, for time had meant nothing to deities before because counting it would have made it seem finite, and they were anything but.

(They were.)

"Do you know why I am called Shinigami, Heero?"

He had not expected the voice but he was not surprised regardless. Heero half-turned to address the only other being in the area, in this plane of higher existence, the only other immortal figure in both realms. He was once again struck by the smell of decay mottled with mourning flowers.

Duo looked the same as always: robes as dark as the void between stars at night, hair the color of dead leaves pulled back in a braid, skin as pale as a newly-made corpse. It was his eyes that Heero felt drawn to, though; they shone with such startling clarity that Heero realized, just at that moment, that they had originally been colorless. He had spent the last eternity staring into irises void of both light and dark. Now Duo's eyes shone like the darkness of a dead star, the light of a violet mineral that bounced back sunlight, a gleam to them that whispered of something far older, far greater than even immortality.

"I am becoming mortal."

Heero did not phrase it as a question. It made sense, in a way that defied everything he knew; a god devoid of omniscience, of power, of immortality? It did not happen. Heero had stopped 'knowing' the moment the first of the deities had disappeared.

Duo smiled; a tired, casual tilt of lips that looked almost pained. "Yeah, something like that."

Heero frowned, "Gods do not become 'something like' mortals."

Duo shrugged, unconcerned, stepping further into the room and closer to Heero. "I don't think I could adequately explain dying to you, even though that's exactly what you're doing right now."

Heero blinked, taken aback. (He belatedly realized he could now feel surprise.) "I am dying?"

Duo paused an arm's length away, looking up into the other man's eyes. "Are you scared?" he asked - not soft, not bored, just interested. As if gods died every day - but then again, for Duo, perhaps they did.

Come to think of it, was Heero scared?

"...No," Heero answered after careful deliberation. Confused, yes, and surprised - but death was natural. (Was it natural for gods to die? Heero couldn't remember anymore.) "Don't you have to be alive to die?"

"You don't have to die to be dead," Duo answered candidly, seemingly content with Heero's response as he drew closer. Pale fingers swept over Heero's cheeks, the gentle and fleeting touches of Death. "Death devours all. But I saved you for last, Hee-chan."

"Why?" Heero asked, though it was just the movement of his lips as Duo drew closer.

Duo didn't draw back, merely paused long enough to answer. "Why have I devoured the deities? Because I am the Reaper, the one who takes both gods and men," Duo said. He cupped Heero's face in his hands, gentle as ever as he pulled the other closer. "Or is it why I have saved you for last?"

Duo leaned further in, smile on his lips. "Isn't it because I wanted you all to myself?"

"Greedy death," Heero admonished quietly.

Death brought their lips together, and Heero died.

A/N: To get this out of the way - the gods and goddesses in the fic are inspired by Ancient Greek and Roman gods. They are not, however, exact representations; I mixed and matched where I pleased.

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