Kracken
Disclaimer:I don't own them and I don't make any money off of them.
Warnings:Male/Male sex,graphic, language, violence.
Soldier Boys
Sequel to:Only For You
Breakaway
"Relena," Heero said and felt a prickling discomfort when the woman's eyes lit up. Her face on the vidscreen looked tired. She was dressed in a formal coat and her hair was up in a pinned coiffe, as if she had just come from negotiations or a high level meeting.
"Heero, how do I owe the pleasure?" Relena wondered, a bitter edge to her voice. "You haven't contacted me since you left my employ."
"I met with Duo," Heero told her and saw her expression go guarded. "I know where he is being held and why. I was told that you were instrumental in negotiating the terms of his incarceration."
Relena's expression went tight. "If you are going to tell me that his imprisonment was unjustified, I'll send you the coroner's report of what he left of the body. It was rather... gruesome."
"He has served his time, yet he is not being released," Heero told her, not wanting to argue about war and the rule of law.
Relena wasn't surprised. "Duo refuses to admit that he was wrong to kill that man, Heero. It is contingent on his release. He has also been uncooperative to the point of violence. It is impossible for me to negotiate his release when he refuses to give me the proof of his reform as a bargaining tool. I have done my best. I have kept him alive and in a situation that is only a little different from a boarding school. He is a murderer, Heero. They could have demanded his execution."
"What did you get in exchange?" Heero wondered.
Relena was silent for a long moment. "We were given the worst of the war criminals to prosecute, Heero, so were they."
"A man who slaughters a church of priests, nuns, and war orphans doesn't rise to the level of prosecution?" Heero demanded, furious.
"Not when he adequately covered the crime," Relena replied. "Heero," she took a deep breath and then released it as if to calm her temper. "There were many atrocities during the war. The fact of the matter is, that prosecuting them all is not feasible and could start up insurrection among the very people we are trying to make a part of the new government. We can only prosecute a few, high profile, men and women, and hope that it sets an example that will deter such crimes in the future."
"Why was Duo's imprisonment kept a secret?" Heero demanded, knowing that he was only going to get a politician's answer out of her for all the rest. "It wasn't in the news."
"I thought it was best, and Duo did as well, that his whereabouts be kept a secret," Relena replied. "We were both afraid of a media circus and we thought that you and the other pilots might attempt to 'rescue' him." She raised an eyebrow at Heero's expression of confusion. "Heero, he chose to be imprisoned. He's a Gundam pilot. He could walk out of that prison any time he wishes and you and I both know it. He understood the need to serve his sentence, though, and he saw the wisdom of taking the classes and learning to integrate into society. I think that he made trouble, from time to time, simply out of boredom, but lately that has escalated to such a level that I couldn't help agreeing with the warden when she refused to parole him."
Heero was confused. He had suspected himself that Duo wasn't being held by the minimal security measures and now Relena had just confirmed that suspicion. Why, then, had Duo asked for Heero's help? Why had he acted as if he depended on it?
"He's being drugged," Heero told her, grasping for an explanation.
Relena nodded, "A slight sedative with properties that make him open to suggestion. It's standard procedure to help a prisoner calm down enough to allow the staff to work with him."
Sedative... Duo was immune to them, just as Heero was. It had been part of their training. He was left floundering again. Duo wasn't being held by security or drugs, and he had gone into the prison of his own free will. Why was he calling for help, then?
"How long has his sentence been extended?" Heero asked.
"Four months," Relena told him. "Not long, but long enough to, perhaps, make him see sense and cooperate. The sentence will be extended, though, every time he refuses to admit his crime or commits a violent act."
"He doesn't lie," Heero said, more to himself than to her. "He won't tell you something that he doesn't believe."
"That may be true," Relena replied rather sadly, "but he is wrong, Heero. You do know that? A man cannot take the law into his own hands and execute someone so brutally, no matter what their crime."
Heero glared. "Did you believe that when you tried to execute Lady Une for murdering your father?"
Relena went very pale. "I do now," She replied firmly. "Duo must see that too."
Heero didn't recall what was said after that. Perhaps, he thought, he hadn't said anything at all and had simply hung up on her. He only knew that he was getting into his car in what seemed like the next moment, a plan already forming and a realization taking firm root.
Duo could escape by himself. Yet, according to the prison, he had tried before and had failed. The Duo he knew wouldn't have failed, so that left the puzzling conclusion that he had failed his attempts on purpose. Why was the question and why he had called Heero, another. Heero needed answers to those questions. He refused to go into any mission blind.
It was dark by the time he reached the security facility. Parking his car far away, he jogged the rest of the way. It took him back in time, as he easily slipped over the fence, despite the razor wire, and began to make his way to Duo's cell. In his memory, he was back infiltrating a base, his mission to silence Duo, who had been taken prisoner there, permanently. He remembered the loud mouthed idiot he had been forced to stay with in a private school, and the infuriating young man who had shot him and jeopardized his mission. Heero hadn't been prepared to find that young man willing to die and well able to understand the reason for it. It had made Heero pause and think of alternatives. It had shown Heero a side to Duo that he had... fallen in love with. Was it this side of him, the side that understood necessity, that was keeping him from escaping? Or was it something more? As Heero knocked out a guard and used the man's own thumb to id the security locks, it came to him that Duo might be testing him, that his willingness to rescue Duo was proof that Duo needed that there was something to escape for, that he was willing to forgive and love Duo despite what had happened between them.
Heero wanted to clamp down on his thoughts, on his hopes. It didn't help to conjecture about reasons why. He needed to ask Duo himself. When he again used the guard to get him through the lock on Duo's door, it was a relief to step through and see Duo standing defensively, knowing that everything was going to be resolved then, for good or bad.
"Wasn't sure it was you or one of these guys wanting to 'get closer to a Gundam Pilot.' It's happened before," Duo told him as he nudged the unconscious guard with his toe.
"Are you ready to leave?" Heero asked.
Duo sighed and sat on his bed again. "No."
Heero blinked, confused. "I don't-"
"Relena won me another reprieve and negotiated me a way out of here," Duo told him. "She said that I owe it all to you." He patted the mattress next to him. "Sit down. We need to talk."
Heero slowly sat down, emotions warring inside of him, foremost of them uncertainty. "Yes, we do," he replied as Duo used the prone body of the guard as a footrest.
"All I have to do is admit that it was wrong to kill that man after a truce was called," Duo continued. "That I can do. Relena said that you gave her that idea. I signed the admission and I'm being released in a few months after some orientation and court work."
Heero was very aware of the camera, of the listening devices. Duo put his mind at ease. "Don't worry about being overheard. I uploaded a loop of me sleeping. I do that every night. Gives me some alone time to scratch, pick my nose, and, well, you know, guy stuff."
Duo fiddled with the end of his braid and then turned to face Heero.
"Look, let's start from the beginning, okay?" Duo's voice was pleading. Heero nodded tightly, agreeing. Duo said, as if he had been puzzling out that moment and what to say for some time, "I left you and the other guys because I realized something. I realized that I'm not like Quatre and Trowa. I couldn't go on with my life and leave you behind to do what I had to. I couldn't separate my feelings. ... and neither could you. We both wanted it all. We couldn't settle for stolen bits and pieces of being together. I... I had to run and hide. I had to make you hate me. I had to ruin what we had. I had to make sure that there was nothing for me to live for so that I could fight and do what I had to do."
"I understood that," Heero replied in a small voice, hands clasped tightly together.
"But you still hated me for doing it, didn't you?" Duo wondered, looking at Heero, but using his tangled bangs to hide behind too.
"Only...," Heero swallowed hard, remembering pain. "Only when you didn't come back to me, after the war. I... I went dead inside after that. I didn't care..."
Duo looked anguished and he reached out and put a hand over Heero's clasped one's. "Shit! I am so sorry, Heero! I can't make up for that... ever... but, that man I killed... do you understand why I had to? Why justice had to be done? He's the main reason why I fought in the war. I was always looking for him."
Heero pushed past hurt, anger, confusion, and need to ask, "After the war, after you killed him, what happened then? What is going on, Duo?"
Duo shrugged and looked sour, his eyes dropping to their clasped hands. "I got what I wanted and I knew I had to pay for it. I wasn't hoping for anything from you, especially after that. I didn't have anyone or anywhere to go. It... didn't matter to me, even when Oz petitioned to have me turned over to them for execution along with some other war criminals. I just shut down and let them do what they wanted."
Duo shifted, eyed the unconscious guard, and then sat cross legged on the bed, facing Heero completely. He smelled spicy. Aftershave? Heero tried to imagine Duo shaving and couldn't. Duo looked thin, muscles tightly drawn over bone as if he had spent every waking hour exercising and honing himself down to only what was essential. He was older, baby fat gone and face leaner, harder, a frown line between the eyes. It came to Heero, then, that he was looking at a man, not a boy and that he couldn't make the mistake of thinking that he 'knew' Duo any longer. Three years separated them and he knew, more than most, how so little time could change some one.
"Relena was horrified by what I did, but...," Duo picked at the blankets of his bed, "She said that I had sacrificed for peace and that I deserved more than an execution. She negotiated and won me this place. I go where I want to inside, at certain times, and I get to learn anything I want to. I'm even allowed to do activities with the other students, within reason. I can't say it's been bad, ya know? I don't like being locked up, but I never had a chance like this in my entire life to do nothing, to learn something, to just... rest... I don't know if I told you everything about my life, but it was one damned struggle to survive after another...I think I actually needed this to get my head out of the war."
Heero thought about his own time alone, first with Quatre, then with Relena, and, finally, by himself. He supposed that he had been doing his own version of that, but his heart had kept him from healing entirely. It had been a black lump at the center of his being.
"You... You weren't here though and..." Duo struggled for words, "I wanted you so bad. I thought about you every day and it was like, like this black chunk of dead was sitting in my chest." Heero started at the eerie description of his own feelings coming from Duo. "Nothing I did seemed to matter. I... after awhile... It was just damned pointless. I started making trouble just because I was mad, mad at myself and mad at the world. I think I wanted them to do something to me, just so I could get out of this, day after day of... of not having you."
"You tried to escape..." Heero broke in.
Duo snorted in grim humor. "I poked. I got bored and, once in awhile, it was funny to make them scramble. I couldn't leave, though. It was spelled out to me very thoroughly that I was part of a larger picture and if I didn't do my part, then I was jeopardizing the peace." he grinned, but it was just a shadow over pain. "We're all about self sacrifice, you know that Heero, and, like I said, what was I running too?"
Duo frowned darkly. "Things changed though." He glared at the guard. "The closer I came to parole, the madder these guys started getting. It was okay when I was locked up and they could at least pretend that I was getting punished, but me walking around free... Let's just say, they wanted to get their licks in before that happened." He snorted. "They didn't have a chance, though. I kicked their asses and handed them to them with a smile. Still, it got me in trouble, and, when I heard that bitch lady in charge wanted to send me to maximum security prison with the guys who could probably kick my ass and a lot more, I started thinking that I had done enough of doing my part and keeping the peace."
"You sent word to me...," Heero wondered. "Why? Why when you could have left here at any time?"
Duo blushed hotly and Heero frowned, worried, as Duo looked everywhere but at him. "Heero, when we were kids in the war, I..." he cleared his throat and tried again. "I guess I was a late bloomer. I know Quatre and Trowa were going at it like bunnies and I really suspect that Wu Fei was having some meetings with Sally Po, but... I just wasn't there yet, you know what I'm saying? I know I wanted... something... Geez, I thought I was going to explode sometimes, but... " He pointed at his forehead. "I just wasn't 'there' up here." He squeezed Heero's hands hard. "I'm older now, though, and I know... I know what I want... I'm ready to get out of here, but I wanted to make sure I was running to something... to someone. I needed to know if you wanted me after everything I did."
Heero thought about that and was honest. "Duo, I felt very bad for a very long time. I can't say that I can forget and not feel... angry... and betrayed."
Duo nodded as if Heero had hit him, though it was obvious it had been what he had been expecting. "Things have changed already," he said, "and I have to make you wait again. I don't blame you for cutting me loose, for leaving now and forgetting all about me. I don't deserve anything else.... 'cuz, ya know, Heero? I can't say I would have done it any differently, even knowing what it would all cost, what it would mean to you. I had to do it. So, yeah, I tricked you into coming after me. I could have left on my own all along, and, yeah, I am staying now, until my sentence is up, because it's what I have to do to be square with myself and square with Relena, who I owe for all of this. You keep coming in second to all of that when all I want to do is make you first."
Heero suddenly grabbed Duo by the front of his shirt and pulled him in close. Ignoring Duo's flinch, he shouted, "Duo! You once told me that we deserved a little life in between missions. You made me believe that I was deserving of something, when all I knew back then was to give everything that I was, even my humanity, for the cause. Don't you see that you are doing the same thing? You gave everything, EVERYTHING, for your cause, for Relena's cause, and you sacrificed yourself and me."
"I wasn't thinking about relationships, about loving someone when I said that to you," Duo grated, meeting Heero's eyes. "I was talking about being a bit selfish, about having some life, about playing some pinball, not... not caring about someone enough to let a war roll over innocent people, not caring about someone so much that... that... you want to run away and not fight anymore.... not want revenge any more..."
"The war is over," Heero told him, slowly letting him go again, trying to rein in his roiling emotions. "We're not soldiers."
"I'm a murderer," Duo shot back. "I don't get to be free, Heero, and I don't get to forget. I had to do my time. Still do."
Heero rubbed hands across his face wearily and then slumped where he sat. "We've switched places somehow. You've become me, denying how you feel, denying that you want a life, denying ... denying me. I've become you. I ..."
Duo looked frozen, his voice small and almost frightened as he asked, "What?"
"I want a life, Duo, I want to cut across all of this and have you, because... maybe I do come in second in your life, but you, you come in first and I'm willing... willing to..."
"Not forget what happened?" Duo dared.
"No, I can't do that," Heero agreed, "But I am willing to move passed it, to start again." He reached out and caressed Duo's cheek, really looking at him and seeing the man he had become. He was more handsome than ever and there was a new experience in his eyes that gave that beauty a new dimension. "I've been dead these past years. I can't go on like that. I-I need you, Duo, no matter what I have to do to get you."
A tear trickled down Duo's cheek and it slid over Heero's fingers. Duo trembled. His mouth worked, and then he was suddenly filling Heero's arms and Heero was holding him in a bone crushing embrace. Duo held him fiercely in return. "I was dead too. I- I needed you so bad, Heero! So bad!" He wept openly, then, his body heaving with sobs he was unable to contain. He hid them against Heero's chest and Heero smoothed a hand over his hair. "I was afraid though, afraid to call you, to tell you what was happening... I was so sure you hated me."
Heero felt tears on his own face. He didn't wipe them away. It was like two halves clicking together, two parts of a soul becoming one. Duo in his arms healed him, there was no other way to put it, and he was sure that Duo felt the same way, without a doubt.
"I'm not leaving," Heero said against Duo's hair. Duo sniffled in reply, unable to speak. "If you have to stay here a few more months, then I will stay with you." He looked aside at the unconscious guard. "I will have to explain that and I'm sure I will be prosecuted. If I submit myself to their punishment, then perhaps Relena can negotiate that my time be spent here."
"If she can't?" Duo asked in a choked voice.
Heero snorted. "I have faith that she can, she is a stubborn woman and a skilled politician."
"Can we..." Duo trailed off and Heero pushed him back a bit to look into his tear stained, red eyes.
"What?" Heero asked.
Duo blushed. "Things may not work out. Can we sit together until they figure out what happened to the guard... alone?"
Heero bent and gave Duo a very light kiss. It was electric and he breathed in sharply at the power of it. He felt Duo shiver in his arms and he saw that Duo was feeling the same way.
Heero rose reluctantly. He picked up the guard, opened the cell door, and found a comfortable place for him outside. Propping him in a sitting position against a wall, he left the man and closed the door again. Approaching the bed, he saw Duo sitting against the pillows, face uncertain and a hand outstretched towards him.
"I want to hold you," Duo told him. "Can we lay together? I... just that, nothing else."
Heero slid into the bed and lay beside Duo, pulling him into his arms again. Their bodies fit perfectly and Heero sighed in contentment, feeling as if the world had suddenly been remade in happiness and light, instead of the dark and bitter place that it had been.
They talked for awhile longer about small things, wanting to enjoy the brief moment of togetherness and peace and ignoring the darker emotional baggage that they both knew would have to be opened and dealt with later. Heero was surprised when Duo fell asleep, head resting on his breast and arms holding him loosely. Remembering how tired he had looked, Heero could understand.
Heero spent long minutes simply stroking Duo's hair and enjoying the feel of his soft, warm body against his own. When Duo stirred slightly, Heero wondered if he had disturbed him, but Duo only nuzzled closer to him, tightened his hold, and murmured, "Squishy." before falling back into deeper sleep.
Heero felt a warmth spread through him that had nothing to do with Duo's body against his. He held Duo more tightly, more protectively, love filling him and banishing all doubts and confusion. "For you, I will do anything," he whispered softly. "We will not be separated again."