Disclaimer: I don't own them and I don't make any money off of them.
Warnings: Male/Male sex, graphic, language, violence,past NCS.
Shinigami's Lover III
Sequel to Finding Heero
Kracken has a new yaoi book published called The Angel Within. To get a signed copy, please go to http://www.bonpublishing.com. Unsigned copies are available at amazon.com, Url: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0974416002/qid%3D1066434868/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/103-6410222-5332669
Conflicts
"Everyone down!" Heero shouted and the soldiers piled into the tight space and sat on the floor.
Duo shuddered at all the bodies pressing close and Soda growled a warning. He was given as much space as possible, but touching was unavoidable. "Heero," Duo said in a strained voice and Hero's hand was suddenly in his. Wu Fei came up on his other side, understanding what was wrong.
"Here, Maxwell," he said firmly. "Trust in us."
Duo barely had time to register that comfort before the explosion hit and the floor bucked. The air seemed to ripple with sound. Duo slapped hands over his ears as dust from the ceiling rained down on top of them. Men choked and coughed and several cried out and swore.
It was over in moments, but those moments seemed to last forever. As soon as Duo's senses registered that he was alive, he straightened and barked, "Get the door open and bug out! Best time to move is in the confusion!"
The door creaked and sunlight shot into the darkness. Men blinked against the light even as they scrambled to follow Duo's orders. Duo hung back, Soda crouched at his feet and panting, and Wu Fei on one side and Heero on the other.
"Duo?" Heero said, that simple name holding so many questions.
Duo shivered and then nodded. "Go! I'm all right!"
He followed them up into a landscape changed. Trees were splintered, metal debris was everywhere, and a smoking hole was in the side of the installation.
"You'll protect me now, right?" Shy was asking, shivering and eyes wide with trepidation as he approached them. "I helped you. That's worth something."
A transport flew low overhead, ruffling their hair and clothes. Everyone twitched and ducked nervously, but no bombs fell. Duo said, "We won't kill you. I can't promise anything else," he told the young man. "That's for a court to decide."
"But-But I saved your lives!" Shy exclaimed. "I... You can't lock me up!"
"That's not our decision," Wu Fei said sternly and then nodded to one of his men to take Shy in hand.
Shy bolted suddenly, scrambling over the debris faster than a rat escaping a sinking ship.
"Sir?" the soldier asked.
"We'll get him later," Wu Fei growled. "There isn't anywhere for him to go."
"Watch your backs," Duo told them. "Nothing bites harder than a cornered rat."
They limped over the debris themselves, choking on fumes and smoke, and hurting from injuries. Finding the Preventer force and their own transport had become top priority.
"I feel like an entire fleet of Gundams walked over me, " Duo groaned as they passed a troop checkpoint, identified themselves, and were allowed to pass.
"Not done yet," Heero replied in a voice that said clearer than words, that he wished they were.
"We kicked their ass, Heero," Duo told him, "and now the Calvary has arrived. Let them mop it all up."
That wasn't Heero Yuy though. "I'll get you to a medic and then I'll stay with the troops," he said, as if it were a given. "They may need information on the installation."
Duo glared at him. "Heero.... you are still recovering. You were supposed to stay in a cushy command chair and not see action. You're the one that needs to sit the rest of this out. Let me go with the new troops and you find the medic."
"I am capable of doing that," Wu Fei interrupted irritably. "Both of you find the medic."
Duo rolled weary eyes at him. "And you think... what? That you aren't injured? I suppose that's someone else's blood and wounds, then? I just got the hell bruised out of my back and I'm exhausted, but I'm not anywhere as bad off as you, Chang Wu Fei!"
"All of you sit the rest of this out!" A voice snarled and they turned to see Grange approaching. "I have enough men to pick up what's left of the terrorists. I don't need three adrenalin junkies mucking up my operation!"
"Your operation?" Heero bristled.
"It is now!" Grange snapped back. "All of you stand down. I'm in command now." He eyed them all fiercely. "I think you should go and rest. I'm sure Sally Po will want a thorough report on how you screwed this up."
"We didn't screw anything up!" Duo began to argue, but Grange glared, turned on his heel, and then strode back towards the fighting as if they weren't worth arguing with.
"Shit!" Duo exclaimed. "I hate when he's right."
They limped to a medical unit and Wu Fei went first, doctors gathering around him and pulling away his coat and shirt to treat his wounds. Duo and Heero sat on the ramp of a transport vehicle a few paces away to watch.
After a few minutes Duo groaned, "Now that I've sat down-"
"You feel like crap now?" Heero finished. "I do too."
Soda stretched out on his side on top of Duo's feet, tongue lolling.
Duo carefully looked the dog over, his fingers moving through the thick fur. He found some cuts, but the blood seemed to be from another source.
"I wonder how you got loose?" Duo murmured.
Heero snorted. "The dog will go through chain link fence and travel for miles to be by your side. If he was true to form, someone is missing their arm at the least or is dead at the most."
"I didn't think I was going to see him again," Duo replied and his voice was tight with emotion.
Heero put an arm over Duo's shoulders and pulled him in close. "He's okay, Duo, and this operation is over with."
"No, it isn't," Duo disagreed.
Heero frowned and then he understood. "Shy?"
"Yeah," Duo forced himself to stand, groaning. "He's probably running scared now. He'll be easy to find."
Heero gave him a tired smile. "When did you suddenly become a woodland tracker?"
"First time for everything," Duo chuckled. "Coming?"
Heero looked offended, "Of course, little baka."
Duo became suddenly serious. He leaned in close to Heero, looking him in the eye under his fall of chocolate hair. "Heero? You do realize how damned well you did on this mission... despite everything? If you ever had a doubt whether you would completely recover or not, I think this proved that it will happen."
Heero ducked his head, but Duo caught a glimpse of his strong, up welling of emotion. "There were 'moments', " Heero pointed out.
"Things from the past," Duo retorted. "You acted on the spur of the moment. You thought clearly. You rescued everyone. Stop doubting yourself, Heero."
Heero finally did look up. He slowly reached out and smoothed a hand along Duo's cheek, not caring who saw them. His heart was in his eyes. "How do I repay you for giving me back my life?"
Duo smiled broadly. "I didn't give it back to you, you had it all along. I just had to force your pig-headed self to see that."
"Still... when this is all over, I think that deserves... something." The word 'something' was suggestive, but also a request. It wasn't easy to tread the fine line with Duo between allowing Duo to know that he desired him and making him feel threatened by that desire.
Duo wasn't threatened. He smirked. "With incentive like that, I want this mission over and done with right now, baby! Let's go!"
Soda rose stiffly. The dog would not be left behind and Duo knew it.
"Don't worry," Duo assured the dog. "A street kid like Shy can't be very far away. He's probably going around in circles and panicking right about now."
Heero checked his gun. "He's dangerous. He's killed. Don't take this lightly."
Duo snorted. "I know his type, Heero." He faltered and then went on, "If we offer him something he wants, protection especially, he'll become ours, just like he let the drug addicts and those rebels back there have him. That's the way it works. That's how we survive."
Heero frowned and said carefully, "Not 'we', Duo. That's not your life any longer. Don't let him make you forget that or make you think-"
Duo shivered, hating his slip. "Can't help it," he said, cutting Heero off. He looked pained. "I can't say he would have been me if I had stayed in that life. I would have been dead long before I reached his age. My 'protectors' weren't that at all and I didn't have the luxury of being able to get away."
"You can stay here with Wu Fei," Heero suggested. "I can find him."
Duo shrugged and it was more a nervous flinch. "No, you won't be able
to talk to him like I can. We need to convince him to come willingly."
"Don't let your feelings cloud your better judgment," Heero warned
as they began walking. "We may NOT be able to save him."
"I'll do what I have to, don't worry." Duo gave him an intense look,
"Besides, I have something very precious to protect; you. I won't let him
get off any shots our way."
--------------------
It wasn't hard to find Shy. He left a clear, meandering trail through the woods, stopping at several points to rest, and moving in a way that let them know that he was lost.
They heard him before they saw him, panting and stumbling through some undergrowth. Both of them drew their weapons.
"Soda, heel, Yellow," Duo commanded in a whisper. "Heero, please stay back and let me talk to him."
Heero didn't look comfortable with that. "I'll be ready," he promised sternly and Duo nodded in acknowledgment as he watched Heero take up a stance in the cover of a tree trunk and aim his gun at a clearing up ahead.
Duo headed in that direction and soon found Shy on his knees, looking panicked, filthy, and at his strength's end. When he saw Duo, he was relieved at first and then wary and afraid.
"I won't go to jail!" Shy warned as he raised his gun.
"I'll make sure you don't go," Duo told him, his hand on his own gun. "We can cut a deal."
"I thought you couldn't promise that!" Shy retorted angrily.
"I'm sure I could get you minimum detention at the least," Duo assured him, and then more sternly. "Promises don't mean anything, and you know it, but you don't have any other choice." Duo motioned to the forest. "You're going to die out here."
Shy shivered and then he seemed to make a decision. He slowly put down his gun and then stood, poised, with sultry eyes that told Duo he was going to offer the one thing he had left to bargain with.
"I can be yours," Shy told him. "You take care of me and get me out of here, away from the cops, and I'll show you how good I can be." He made a list of his particular talents, his hips swaying forward and then back in a lewd motion. When Duo stared at him, face white, and lips set hard, Shy stopped, frozen like a deer in a bright light, and it was clear he was thinking that he had severely miscalculated. "D-Don't hurt me, okay?" he stammered. "I'll-I'll do what you want. Just, don't hurt me."
The little, abused boy inside of Duo echoed those words and he was suddenly lost in memory; a foul memory of abusive men, a bare room and a mattress, and the seemingly endless days of wanting nothing more than to die.
"The only thing we want from you," Heero's voice said intently, "Is information about your contacts. You will go with us quietly. One wrong move, and I'll be writing self defense on your death report."
Duo's eyes cleared as he blinked back to the here and now and saw Shy crouched, the gun he had put down half raised in his hands again. He had been going to use Duo's moment of distraction to shoot him. Soda was growling, hackles raised, knowing something was wrong, but dutifully waiting for Duo's command.
"S-Sorry," Duo stammered to Heero who was now standing beside him.
"Duo," Heero urged. "You have to pull yourself together... for just a little while... until we get back to base."
Duo nodded, a shaky jerk of his head, and then he pulled out Shinigami from his psyche and felt nothing but the killer inside of him taking control. It had gotten him through a war, he thought, it would get him through a short walk with a skinny prostitute.
"No," Heero objected strongly and Duo looked at him with cold eyes. "You don't need him," Heero told him with complete confidence. "Not here. Not now. Duo Maxwell can do this. He's strong. He's learned to deal with his fears. Believe in yourself Duo, just like you made me believe in myself. This is not THAT place. You are not THAT boy any longer. Make them stay in the past."
Duo took a shuddering breath and made the effort. The love and encouragement in Heero's eyes pulled him from darkness. Heero's belief in him fanned the dwindling fire of his confidence. He was not Shy. He would never be Shy. The past was the past and it was dead. He was Duo Maxwell, Preventer agent, and he had a job to do.
"W-What's going on?" Shy asked, beginning to panic, wondering if they were fighting over him and whether things were about to take a very ugly turn.
Duo looked at him, keeping the young man squarely in the present, and had a flash of inspiration. Shy was a prostitute from the mean streets, but Duo had it in his hands, he thought, to save him from that life. If Shy wanted to bargain, Duo suddenly knew what he could offer in exchange.
Duo took the gun from Shy's hands and faced him squarely. "If you cooperate fully, and tell us everything that we want to know, I'll make sure you're sent to a rehabilitation institute instead of prison."
Shy scowled. "What's the difference?"
"One will help you and the other one will only lock you up for a very long time with criminals worse than yourself," Duo replied bluntly.
"Deal," Shy agreed without thinking about it and Duo saw him try and cover a contemptuous smile.
Heero looked puzzled at Duo's offer, but he wasn't ready to ask questions or complain when it had given Duo his focus back.
"Let's hurry up," Shy urged as he began striding back into the forest. "I want the hell out of here!"
"Shy," Heero snapped and the boy revealed his nervousness by starting badly. He wasn't as confident as he looked. "That way," Heero told him and pointed to their left. Shy made an irritated face and then turned to follow Heero's directions. Heero let him get a few paces away and then he glanced sidelong at Duo.
"He'll kill us as soon as he thinks he can get away safely afterwards," Heero told him.
"Of course," Duo replied with a pinched look.
Of course?" Heero echoed.
"It's what I would do," Duo replied and was surprised when Heero chuckled darkly.
"I don't know what you're planning in that head of yours," Heero told him, "but I've got your back," he promised.
"Always," Duo responded and reached out to touch Heero's cheek lovingly, his gun never wavering from the teenager ahead of them.