Title: Koji ma Oshi
author: Sol 1056
rating: NC-17 for sex, violence, and dirty mouths
warning: BDSM, psychological issues, post-post-EW
pairings: 2x1, 3x5x3, 4xR
Chapter Nineteen
When the phone rings and your life changes, it's not like you get a neon sign that says, hey! Wake up, asshole, everything's gonna be different once you answer. Well, sometimes you do. Sometimes you don't.
Actually, just getting to the damn phone was hard enough. Heero hadn't lost any weight in a week, even if it'd felt like I've been burning enough calories on my own just to keep up with him. He got worn out and I get...well, more worn out. But he hadn't lost that tiny, shy smile in a week--the one that made me go weak in the knees and wicked in the head--so I wasn't complaining.
Okay, my back was. And my knees weren't the happiest, and my arm was asleep from where he was using it as a pillow. The only positive in this scenario--if we discount the fact that naked Heero? pretty big damn positive--was that it had been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it takes blasting caps, <I>repeated</I> applications of blasting caps, to wake him up if he's intent on sleeping.
Which meant the phone call, and its limited, code-based message, pretty much passed him by. That meant I could lie there and stare at the ceiling, and think about things for a few minutes.
This was it, the signal I'd been waiting for. Gentlemen, start your engines, except mine had been idling for almost a year. The real question was whether I'd have a copilot along.
I turned and stared at Heero's sleeping face in the predawn light. Awake, he often looked lethal, displeased, intent; in private, he'd look shy, uncertain, confused, exhausted, pleased, passionate. But asleep, he looked older, tired, yet peaceful. Content. Was it really his mission? I'd chased his missions, made them my own, back in the war. This wasn't the same, at all.
I wanted him along. I wanted him to watch my back. But I also knew he'd made a promise to never kill again. I wasn't there when he did, so I've only got Relena's word on that, but she seemed pretty certain about it. And the fact that his gun had tranquilizers backed that up. Could he really watch my back if he was busy trying to stop me?
Because that was really the question, wasn't it. It's not like I'd ever sat down and said, hey, guys, this is what I'm planning. And I'd never really thought about it. It was one of those things I put off until I got there; that was always my favorite modus operandi. Get the gist, go in, and figure the rest out when you got there. So sitting down and having some kinda Gundam powwow...
Besides, if I did tell them, the chances were good they'd just try and stop me, and I didn't want to be there for that argument.
I was going to kill the bastards who were dealing the drugs.
I wanted them dead. Wiped out of the sky. Gone.
Hilde would never come back, but neither would they.
Sometimes, like then, watching Heero slept, I wondered if that's what she would've wanted. But she wasn't here to say, and truth was, it was what I wanted. I wanted that violent joy I'd felt, years before in the war, knowing that I had survived, the other fuck didn't, and I had dealt my own brand of justice. Permanently.
But I wasn't fifteen any more, either, and could I really justify fighting a war of one person? Some might see it as cold-blooded murder, especially with the delay between her death and theirs. I wasn't sure. And if I fucked up--a good chance, because there's always that chance, and only the stupid or foolish deny it--then it might end up me, facing the same kind of final justice.
That was another moment I'd be willing to miss. If Preventers arrested me for murder--double, triple, sixteen-tuple--then Heero would probably be among the officers arresting me. I wouldn't want to see his face, not just because I'd broken his personal law. But because I'd chosen Hilde over him, and wasn't that the crux of the matter?
Maybe I'd think about it, later. I couldn't right then. I didn't have enough time to laze around any more than I already had. I just hoped he'd understand.
I kissed him on the forehead, and took a few long minutes to slide my arm out from under him. He just grunted and rolled over with his back to me, settling into the covers with a mumbled complaint. Had to laugh at that one, because Heero will never be completely easy to please.
The only thing I could hope was that he'd forgive me. If he couldn't do that, at least I hoped he'd understand. I wanted to stay with him; I wanted to wake him up and have him come with me. But this started long before I I ever fell...
I got up, and grabbed what little I'd need, already planning out my call to Howard, and what I'd need to get from him.
Some debts must be paid alone.
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I flipped the switch, locating the quadrant's Sweeper frequency. "Shy Lady in your sights." No one answered, and I swore, flipping the switch back on. "Come on, assholes, I've been awake for seventeen hours. Wake up."
"Hah, Duo!" Howard's buddy Frank came on the line, voice crackling on the low-powered signal. "Took you long enough. Looks like what, a Stingray? What's wrong, forget how to fly?"
I laughed. "Fuck you, man, I'm half-asleep at the wheel."
"Welcome to the twenty-fourth century, we don't got no wheels on our jets," he crowed. "Take shuttle bay seven, and two of my guys will be waiting to load you up."
"Everyone's a fuckin' comedian," I muttered, but with a few flicks of my wrist, I brought the Stingray around to the X-jay's flank. Settling into the ship's trajectory, I put on the slightest burst of speed and came even, then tipped the nose sideways and slid into port.
While they refueled, I looked over the boxes they were loading up. Only six or seven, a real hodge-podge, since I'd given Howard quite a list. Sadly, though, there were no flamethrowers. Damn it. Holidays just aren't the same without a really good flamethrower.
A half-hour and two cups of good Sweeper coffee later, I pulled out, angling down and away. The guys had waved me off without much conversation, but Sweepers were always one for action, not talk, and I didn't have to say why I was there. They knew it, and I knew it, and that was enough.
Not more than a half-hour later, I got beeped, and I checked the origin before flipping on the view-screen. Howard, the old coot in all his glory, but I couldn't laugh. He sure as hell didn't look like he was laughing.
"Duo, m'boy," he said. I nodded, checked my flight pattern, and waited for him to give me a reason for breaking silence. But he didn't. He flipped down those beat-up old sunglasses, and fixed me with a long stare. Maybe he wanted to say something, and was figuring out how, maybe he was just looking, and his expression could have meant any of a number of things. Then he pushed up his glasses, nodded, and cut the connection.
I wondered who he'd seen looking back at him.
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I landed on L4 with about five hours to spare, having broken enough dark space rules to get there, and hopefully not burning out Howard's Stingray. Even after that cryptic short signal, he'd still retaliate. Probably broadcast pictures of me at fifteen, asleep in a Sweeper hammock with my dick hanging out of my shorts. Always a Sweeper.
Once in L4's port, I let the inspectors run over my ship with their usual ineffective broken-tooth combs that pass for security, while I looked bored and filled out paperwork. Only once they were gone did I snap the hatch on the hidden smuggling compartments and start sorting through the goods.
An hour later, I was strolling out of the port, keys locked in the ship--figuratively, that is. Not like anyone needed keys, but I liked the phrase. Everything I wanted, I had on me, stowed in enough places and jammed into the duffel over my shoulder. I probably looked like the original homeless guy--or just another Sweeper done with a recyc job.
From there, I called a taxi and made my way to the docks on the ring's lower side. It might've been easier to bring the Stingray in there, but I didn't want to leave a calling card. This was it. Either I was going to be sitting pretty when the X-jay pulled into the pad, or I was find a whole bunch of really ugly guys with their guns trained on me.
The docks were empty but for a few workers, and it was old hat to avoid them, even if I winced a few times at my bones creaking from quick sideways moves into darkened corners while I waited for the workers to look the other way. Took me an hour to get the security set up like I wanted, covering all docks. I wired it to send an encrypted signal, checked on my headset, and went on my merry way.
A few pounds lighter, I walked the six blocks in the colony's version of a gray morning--more like a dull, listless yellowish pre-lighted morning--and arrived at the warehouse with an hour to spare. Only then did I relax, even marginally, having made sure it was empty. I hadn't realized how keyed-up I'd been, and maybe in some way--though I didn't like to admit it--that was because I didn't have someone watching my back.
Then again, if I blew up everything around me, the last thing I wanted was someone at my back. They'd get hurt just as much as the drug runners. And boy, would those drug runners get hurt. Fuck yeah, and I couldn't help but grin to myself as I slid through the warehouse's darkened shadows, noting signs of its previous use, breaking the security system and putting it back together to suit me.
Fifteen minutes to go, it was down to the moment of truth. I got the signal when the X-jay pulled into port, and switched on my headphones, listening to what conversation I could pick up. Now to hope no one got a stick up his ass about the location for switch-off. I had the leftovers of my sandwich, scanned the local Preventer stations over my headset, stretched to get the kinks out of my back, checked all my magazines one last time, and tried not to fidget. Wasn't much better at not-fidgeting at twenty-something than I'd been at fifteen. Some things never change.
Those were some of the longest minutes I'd been through in my life. I could count those kinds of minutes on one hand. The fifteen minutes it took to flee Siberia, in shock at the loss, still shaking from seeing Wing detonate. The last few minutes in the battle at Libra, watching Epyon and Wing Zero battle it out miles high over the African ocean. The stretch of time as Wing came hurtling down from space, and we fought for our lives like rats in corners, hoping he could take the opening and go for the throat.
Made me laugh, to realize the biggest moments of the war, I'd been fighting with Quatre and Trowa, and we could only hope Heero would be that one extra stretch, to reach past us where the three of us combined had nothing more to give.
But the other moments were sadder, too, if more recent. The stretch of time between when I finally admitted to Hilde that I couldn't love her except as a friend...and the long silence before she agreed. The minutes between getting a phone call, and finally landing on my knees at her side. And the minutes between seeing Heero's lips move, and realizing I was kissing him.
Fifteen minutes, sixteen, seventeen...eighteen minutes, and the wide doors slid open below me. I balanced on the I-beam high overhead, and watched through the scope as twelve men and women entered, four lugging large crates on wheels behind them. Five stayed behind, at the doors, trying to look intimidating. I almost laughed, but I was high above, and busy being sneaky.
From the other side, fifteen people entered: twelve men, three women. Again, five stayed behind at the other sets of doors. Making sure, I guess. Three of them carried briefcases, and set them down a few paces from the first group. How stereotypical. Four people stepped forward from each group, shaking hands, chatting like old friends. I was almost disgusted. They're supposed to be scary-looking, like the movies...
Well, I could do scary-looking enough for all of them.
The last question remained: blow them up, or let them see me before they died? I wasn't in a Gundam, after all. If they struck back, unless I got Heero-like and could dodge bullets, I'd take the hit. Fuck it. I'd take the hit for Hilde. If I could've I would've taken it for her two years before, ten times over.
That made the decision pretty easy...almost. Still I wavered, almost putting one gun away and taking the other out. And for a moment, I watched them, holding life and death over their heads--literally. I wasn't thinking in grand terms any more.
I was remembering Heero sleep. I wondered what he was doing right then--probably at the faux-office, trying to track where I'd gone, on the phone with Wufei, maybe, and suddenly I wished I'd at least left him a note. But I hadn't, and for the life of me, I couldn't think why I hadn't. Maybe it was easier to leave in silence. Maybe a part of me wanted to do to him what he'd done years before, just leave, no goodbye, don't look back, a new life has begun. Or ended.
Why did I always get so damn philosophical at the worst times?
Below me, the head honchos started talking, while the rest stood around and looked silent and intimidating, but they were standing pretty loose. Seemed to me they'd done this a number of times, and never had problems, and they weren't expecting them now.
So naturally they weren't expecting it when I got bored, and put bullets through five chests in five seconds. Bam, bam, bam, just as simple as clocking Cancers in a frickin' barrel. The men just stared at the fallen bodies around them before it seemed to click. I couldn't help but be a little impressed that they didn't start shooting each other--and a bit disappointed--but that they turned, back-to-back, and faced outward, looking around for my location.
So naturally I got six more while they edged about, confused.
That's when someone looked up, shouting, and I took him out. Too easy, and at that rate, I'd have no reason for grenades, and I didn't want that. I wanted explosions. I wanted fire. I wanted cascading steel and smoke, fireworks across L1 to celebrate the last breathe of a life that had been my best friend's dying moments.
I didn't care anymore. For so long, I'd wanted someone to blame. Someone to pay, to suffer like Hilde had, like I had. I could see blood, and hear the screams of the dying, and for those moments, I felt fifteen again, and invincible, and immortal.
Tossing the first grenade into the warehouse's back corner, I laughed when the remaining six people in the middle hit the floor in alarm. Of course, it also shook the foundations, which would alert the colony engineering station, and then the Preventers. I had maybe ten minutes, tops. Time to clear out the rest, do the damage, and vamoose before the cavalry showed up.
I slithered down the rope, landing before the man standing nearest to the money. He didn't deserve a bullet; I eviscerated him. I slit the throats of the three men who'd stood over the drugs, and their pleas ended in gurgling as blood splashed across the floor and over me. Hilde might've begged, she might've cried, she might've laughed in the face of death but she never had time to do any of that. We'd laughed during the war, we'd fought and bled and won, and some two-bit junkie strung out on these men's drugs left her for dead in a coffee shop.
Maybe ten seconds had passed, at most--always hard to tell in the middle of battle--when four of the doors blew shrapnel inward, my own little gifts for the men at the doors who thought to get out rather than fight. Too bad for them I owned that security system, and too bad for me that it was a few less souls to personally escort to hell.
When it ended, maybe fifteen minutes had passed. I had three men still living, the clear ringleaders. They weren't in the best of shape, and without medical attention, they wouldn't be living long.
"Yo," I said to the first, kneeling down with my hand at his throat, knife pressed against his side. He gurgled at me, hands clenched tight against the wound in his kidneys. "Let's say you did the sale. What happens now?"
"Let me go," he gasped. "Let me go and I'll tell you."
"Other way around. Tell me and I let you go."
"Please..." His eyes wide, he glanced around me, but no one else moved. Finally his shoulders slumped. "We send a message to production that we got the money and we're coming back with it."
I twisted the knife in his side, poking deeper.
He moaned, and shook his head. "That's all I know, really, you said you'd let me--"
"Yeah. I just didn't say where." I slit his throat with one easy move. Sometimes, the spray of blood arching up against the walls is a beautiful thing. It's amazing how much a jugular can pour out of the body.
I had to kick the second man until he came to, and his story was the same as the first. Imagine that. Him, I gutted. The third one came to and immediately tried to get away; I hamstrung him. That was useless; he just screamed incoherently. Oh, hell, a noisy one. I put a bullet in his brain.
I had no time to spare. Time to vacate the premises before the Preventers showed up and carted away whatever was left. I wiped my fingerprints off the knives, and planted them on the various bodies, stabbing a few into opposite bodies for proper bloodiness. Did the same with the guns, though one of those forty-fives had sweet balance, and it was a pity to leave it behind.
Picking my way through the pools of blood, and making sure I left no footprints, I stripped off all my clothes down to my boxers, and threw them in the waiting empty bag. I dug out the damp cloth, washed off the blood as best I could, dressed in clean black jeans and shirt, and shoved the dirty towel into the bag with the bloody clothes.
I'd planned to soak it all in gasoline and burn it, but I could hear sirens in the distance. Not enough time, damn it. Tossing two last smoke bombs into the warehouse, I shoved the doors closed and let the gas do its work. Then I threw both bags over my shoulders, and slipped away into the labyrinth of lower colony streets, strolling off as the Preventers' trucks went screaming past in the opposite direction.
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When I'd fought in the two wars, I could remember each battle with amazing clarity--that was, I could remember the beginning and the end, and whatever happened in the middle made sense, but only as an academic exercise. I could never explain it to Hilde, and I'd never tried with any of the other pilots. I'd just figured they were the only ones who'd understand, and didn't even try.
There's a peacefulness, when all options are narrowed down to one course. I hijacked the X-jay at its docking station, knocking out the workers who got in my way, and surprising the crew with remarkable ease. Jack was among them, but he looked as startled as the rest--either he was a damn good actor, or he'd passed along the information but hadn't expected me to show up at the dock, let alone by myself.
Didn't matter. I locked them all in the kitchen, where they'd get the food I desperately wanted by that point, but whatever. I could stand to go without a meal or two. I'd dined on souls. What did I need of a meal--even as I thought of chips and salsa, for some reason, and then I thought of Indo-garian, and the times I'd eaten it with Heero, lamb sauce on lips and I had to take a deep breath and punch in the coordinates. My hands were steady. I wasn't done yet. I could mourn later.
I flew the distance from L1 to L4, backtracking the route in that overgrown X-jay. The crew could sit in the main cabin and play computer games for the entire trip for all I cared; they had no access in or out, by any means. I'd stolen a few X-jays in my time, and they're simple machines. Easy to hack, easy to lock, damn hard to break if you know what you're doing.
And shit, they're fast. Considering how bulky they look, it's amazing how much engine they can get underway. I ran the black lines, watching the emptiness around me, and feeling it inside me, too. It was an old friend, and it was good to have it back.
I probably hadn't slept in more than twenty-something hours by the time I landed at L1, but curiously I didn't feel the lack. Pure adrenalin, and seeing the end of the line. Just a little farther, I kept telling myself.
I let three of the guys out of the kitchen, ushering them into the cockpit and explaining the kitchen would suddenly find itself full of poison gas if they didn't cooperate; it was mostly for the benefit of the two men who'd be hustled off once the Preventers showed up to clean house. I'd be out of there by then, but I'd be leaving them behind. I'd just have to hack the system from a distance, and void Jack and the other two, and consider us even. Jack didn't need the warning, of course. He just nodded, tried to look cowed--didn't manage too well--and went on about his business.
Something clicked in my head at the transmission frequencies. Preventer lines, for L1. I thought of Heero and Wufei, and for a moment I could feel Heero slipping away, a thin red ribbon of bloodshed stretched to the breaking point between us. I would have wanted to keep him, stay at his side, have him at mine, but this debt came before that.
Old ghosts, y'know. Even if there weren't such things as ghosts, a man could still be haunted.
And that was the thought in my head as I acknowledged the ping from the colony's middle ring, angling the ship with a graceful, simple maneuver so it'd slide neatly into the waiting station bay. Jack called out the transmissions, and the other two responded, all of them acting--as far as I could tell--with the same easy efficiency on any normal trip. They were Runners, after all; it didn't matter who sat in the pilot's seat or paid the bills as long as port came safely into view.
The X-jay slid into its dock, and I shut down the engines. I checked over everything in my bag, and flipped the safety off the gun stuck in my jeans. A magazine in each pocket, a knife-blade ready to hand, and I was good to go.
That is, I was good to go until I slid open the back doors of the shuttle to find sixteen men--nine of them in Preventers uniform--staring me down over the barrels of a fuckload of guns.
On to Chapter twenty
Back to chapter eighteen