Kracken
Disclaimer: I don't own them and I don't make any money off of this.
Warning: Male/male sex, graphic, language, violence
Tangles
They stretched out on their bunks to sleep, the phosphorescent glow of a low light making all of Duo's junk seem close and comforting rather than disastrously messy.
Duo chuckled lightly. "This feels like Howard's ship, sleeping in a bunk in the hold and hoping our asses don't get blown out of the water by Oz. Remember? You were all 'Big bad pilot' and you wouldn't even smile at my jokes. Absolutely nuts, but you were a damned good mechanic. I never thought that you would get Wing off the ground, even with parts from my old Deathscythe. Hell, my parts hardly got my Gundam off the ground." There was a moment of silence and then Duo said thoughtfully, "I was too young to really know what I wanted, especially considering what was going on, but..."
Heero, lying on his back on the top bunk, smiled. "I know. You confused the hell out of me, but I felt it too, even then. I'm glad... glad we have a second chance. I didn't think I was going to survive the war. I didn't think that I would have a chance for more than just killing. I spent the last few years trying to believe that it was real, that I wasn't dreaming."
Heero had a sudden urge. He turned on his side and then, tentatively, he leaned to reach down to Duo. He knew that Duo could see his hand in the dim light. Without hesitation, Duo's hand met his and closed around it; callouses, scars, and strength.
"It's good to have you here." Duo admitted. "I've been lonely."
Heero thought about his life and then replied, "I was surrounded by people,
but I was lonely too."
A long silence and then their hands parted. Heero turned onto his back again. It felt as if his chest had expanded to a painful degree. He clasped his hands there and knew that he was smiling like an idiot, like a fifteen year old that he had never been.
It was hard to sleep after that. Aside from emotional excitement, the station was never quiet. In a place that was only bare metal and no dampeners, everything echoed, pinged, grated, and whistled as air moved and machines stopped and started. When Heero finally did fall asleep, those noises kept him from hearing Duo leave his bunk.
When morning cycle began, Heero was up as soon as the light touched his face. He rolled, looked eagerly into the bottom bunk, and then frowned when he discovered that Duo was gone. The easiest explanation, was that Duo was an early riser, except for the fact that his blankets barely showed the indent of his body. If he had slept there, he hadn't slept under the blankets.
"Duo!" Heero called, warning the man that he was up and moving around. He didn't receive any reply.
Heero jumped down from his bunk and pulled on jeans and a white tshirt. He searched the house and didn't find Duo anywhere. Going outside, he checked the ship. That's where he found Duo, curled up asleep on the bare bones deck with tools and dismantled parts all around him.
Heero stared, trying to make sense out of what he was seeing. He was certain that the parts by Duo were the exact same ones that he had installed the day before. Why would Duo take them apart again? Heero tried to examine them without coming any closer. They didn't look defective. Could Duo have installed them wrong? Heero searched his memory, but he didn't recall noticing any mistakes.
"Duo?" Heero called cautiously.
Duo sighed in his sleep and curled tighter.
"Duo?" Heero called, louder.
Duo jerked and sat up before he was fully awake. He listed like a drunken man, hands splaying flat to steady himself. He blinked blearily at Heero. "Wha... Heero?" He smiled and rubbed at his forehead where the metal deck had made an impression. "Glad you weren't a dream." He frowned. "I'm starved. I think you spoiled my stomach last night."
Heero smiled back and offered, "I'll make breakfast, all right?"
Duo grinned as he rubbed at his eyes. He smeared grease across his face. "Going to practice your cooking mojo again on my pitiful supplies?"
"I'll try," Heero promised, "but I can't keep this up. We need to order more supplies. I'll help pay my share."
Duo looked uncomfortable, then began to explain, "Uh, Heero..."
"I'll take care of it," Heero cut him off, reassuring him. "You can pay me back later."
Duo sighed in embarrassment. "I will," he promised. "I have my name on the labor boards. Someone will call... eventually."
Heero decided to change that painful subject and motioned to the dismantled parts. "Trouble last night?"
Duo blinked at him in confusion. "Trouble?" He looked around him at the parts. "No, no trouble. I'll have this together by lunchtime."
"Why did you take them apart again?" Heero wondered, "If there wasn't any trouble?"
"Apart?" Duo looked at him with raised eyebrows. "What do you mean, Heero? I never put them together to begin with."
"Yes, you did. Yesterday," Heero reminded him.
Duo smiled and picked up two parts. He fit them together. "A lot of these
parts look alike. It was probably something similar."
"No," Heero began to argue and then changed his mind. "Sorry, you're right, I'm sure." He nodded to the ship. "Tiger Lily is so custom fitted, there's probably a great deal that I don't recognize about her."
Duo began screwing the two parts together. "She's definitely going to be one of a kind... if I can get enough parts to put her together."
Heero was completely confused now. "But you do, Duo. You have enough for several ships."
Duo laughed. "I wish!" Then he gave Heero a serious look over his joined part. "Are you okay, Heero? Maybe you should take a longer rest?"
"I'm fine," Heero replied. Whether Duo Maxwell was, or not, was another question.
Heero knew that he was right on both counts. Duo had taken apart machinery he had installed the day before and he did have enough parts to build several ships. Why Duo didn't know these things was a disturbing mystery.
"I'll go make breakfast now," Heero told Duo, needing time to think before questioning Duo about it any further. "I'll call you when it's done."
Duo smiled at him warmly. "I could get to like this very easily."
Heero smiled back, "Good. I want you too."
Breakfast was pleasant. They talked, they laughed, and it felt good. Heero recalled how hard it had been to connect with anyone around him, even remotely. He couldn't get close to people who didn't understand him and could never understand him. With Duo, he didn't have to try. Duo knew he had been a killer, a weapon, an assassin, and a terrorist. Duo knew him almost to the bottom of his soul and he accepted it, because he was cut from almost the same cloth. There weren't any judgements. There weren't any nervous looks. There was only pleased smiles and a feeling that here was home; not back at his lonely apartment, but here where he could sit and talk to Duo and feel... normal.
Duo finished eating before Heero. He seemed to inhale his food, talking in between bites with amazing skill. It was obvious that he was enjoying the meal. Considering how Heero had scraped dubious items together to make it, that was a miracle in itself. The lull in their conversation, though, as Heero finished his meal, was enough to cause Duo to bring out his note pad and begin scribbling schematics and notations. He became perfectly absorbed in the task.
Heero watched him, turning the notations around, mentally, and studying them. They were the exact same schematics that he had seen Duo making earlier and Heero was certain that he wasn't changing any of it. A dark realization, that, if he looked, Heero would see those same notations copied through most of the used pages of the book, made his meal go cold in his stomach.
When Duo stood, still fully absorbed in his notes, and made his way back out to his ship without a word to Heero, Heero knew that he was going to work again. It would have been easier to think that he had offended Duo in some way, that Duo was angry and snubbing him, but Heero had seen his total fixation. It was as if he were in a trance.
Unless interrupted, Heero was certain that Duo would continue to work all day long. His neglect of his own person was becoming more and more understandable. Without Heero there to distract him, to make him meals, to remind him to sleep, if even a little, Heero didn't think that Duo would have done any of it. That begged the question; why? Heero was certain that his answer was on Duo's computer.
Without fear of being interrupted, Heero went into Duo's computer room and sat down. He gingerly knocked the old sandwich off of Duo's keyboard and brought the screen to life. The web page with it's access denied was his jumping off point. Heero had to backtrack from there and follow Duo's steps in the computer's memory. What he found there, easily enough, had him pulling out his cell phone and calling Quatre Winner.
Two secretaries later, the man himself answered the phone sounding busy, but ready to talk to his old war companion.
"Heero! A pleasure," Quatre greeted him. "Is it possible for us to speak at lunch? I'm about to go into a meeting..."
"No," Heero replied with a steely tone.
"Oh." There was a sound as if Quatre was changing the phone from one ear to another and sitting down, then his voice, concerned, asked, "Is anything wrong?"
"Tiger Lily," Heero said. "Tell me what it is."
"I don't know, Heero," Quatre replied and he sounded as if he were trying to calm an animal that might be dangerous. "You sound upset. I'm ready to help in any way that I can."
Heero organized his thoughts, weighed whether Quatre was telling the truth or not, and then decided that he didn't have any choice and that he had to confide in the man. "Duo accessed one of your companies restricted files two years ago. A program called Tiger Lily was downloaded to his computer. I opened it and the two words, Tiger Lily, flashed in a coded sequence on the computer screen before it shut itself down and returned to your companies web site."
Quatre's confusion was genuine. "Which company?" When Heero told him, Quatre gasped. "That's one of my principal banking institutions. Why was he..." Quatre fell silent, not ready to accuse his own friend.
"He was trying to steal your money, Quatre," Heero told him bluntly. "He had the accounts of several orphanages ready to receive funds and he was diverting a very small amount to his own account."
"Why would he do that?" Quatre wondered, perplexed. "He must have known that we would have been able to trace the transfers."
"No, you wouldn't haven't have," Heero told him. "He had a blind trust set up under an officer's name, for war widows. No one would have questioned it." Heero added ruefully, "He also had actual credits going to that fund with at least thirty five recipients, all legitimate war widows."
Quatre said faintly, "At least our thief has a good heart." He collected himself and asked, "but why would he suddenly decide to steal?"
"It wasn't for himself," Heero replied. "The amount he put into his own account was pocket change."
"Do you know what this program, Tiger Lily, is?" Quatre wondered, perhaps thinking that his systems might be infected by a virus. "Isn't that the name of Duo's ship?"
"Yes," Heero replied, "and I suspect that the program has a direct link to Duo's obsessive behavior concerning that ship."
"Obsessive?" Quatre sounded suddenly guilty. "I've been holding the title to Duo's home, " he admitted. "I bought it as soon as I knew that he was living there. I wanted to help all of you in any way that I could. He was paying the rent regularly, managing to keep odd jobs, but then he stopped working all together and the rent didn't come. I thought he needed time to find another job, so I didn't call, didn't question."
"He lost his jobs because he's been working on his ship," Heero explained and told Quatre about Duo's collapse and stay in the hospital. "Duo's obsession with Tiger Lily isn't normal, Quatre. I know that you have access to the classified files taken from the doctor's labs. If you can access Dr. G's work, perhaps we can find some mention of the program."
Heero could hear Quatre's doubt. "But how could a program of Dr. G's deploy from one of my companies?"
"Satellite relay," Heero replied confidently. "The program was downloaded to the core, waiting for Duo's signature codes, his ether footprints, to show up where they didn't belong. It's possible that Dr. G realized that Duo might use his training to break the law and this was his failsafe for keeping Duo under control."
"Hypnotic suggestion?"Quatre sounded angry. "We found where they had experimented on some operatives, and some troop divisions, using code words to deploy them on preset missions. They failed though. An operative, a soldier, without free will, is a bad weapon. They couldn't adapt to variables."
"That might be what is happening to Duo," Heero realized. "The program deploys, it seems, whenever he isn't actively engaged. Sleep is not actively engaged. Lack of conversation, a pause during a meal, or, perhaps, negative thoughts could also trigger it. I don't think Dr. G considered these variables when he programed Duo to stay occupied by building Tiger Lily."
Quatre was quiet and then he wondered, "Is it possible that the strength of the suggestion increases the more negatively Duo feels?"
"Possible, but uncertain," Heero replied.
"You said that he collapsed from self neglect before you arrived," Quatre reminded him. "Has that neglect continued?"
"In minimal ways," Heero replied thoughtfully. "He was unable to sleep unless he was working on Tiger Lily and he's gone to work on it now, triggered by a lull in our conversation during breakfast."
"That's a clue," Quatre decided. "Hypnotic suggestions usually have a trap door, a set of circumstances or code words that allow the subject to be released from the suggestion. I'll go through the files and see if I can discover what they might be. In the meantime, you might pursue the question of why Duo set this all into motion."
"Agreed." Heero realized that he sounded as if he were on a mission. He took a breath and tried to stop that force of habit. "Thank you," he told Quatre, surprising the man. "Duo is important to me. I think we can be close. I think that we can have a relationship together." It was hard to say those things, the soldier in him cringing, but he wanted to be honest with Quatre. He wanted the man to understand why he was helping Duo and that he would take care of him.
Quatre sounded as if he were smiling, "You two are so stubborn, so tough, or at least you were pretending to be. I had hoped, ever since the end of the war, that you would finally become friends. I'm happy that it's become more than that."
"Heero, it's raining! Can you believe it?" Duo exclaimed as he poked his head into the room. He was soaking wet. "I barely pulled the hanger over Tiger Lilly before it soaked all the controls!"
Duo saw the phone lifted to Heero's ear. He blinked.
"Who're you talking to?" Duo asked.
"I'll search the files, Heero," Quatre's voice said quickly, having heard Duo. "Take care of him."
The phone went dead and Heero lowered it into his lap. "Quatre," he replied truthfully, but his next word weren't, "Wu Fei spoke with him about your hospital stay. He wanted to know if you were all right."
"Quatre!" Duo grinned, but looked embarrassed too. "He's always the best, you know?"
"I know," Heero replied as he stood up. "You're dripping. I'll help you dry off."
Duo blushed and looked nervous. "I'm a big boy, Heero. I think I can..." He stopped talking, swallowed, and amended, "Okay." as Heero came and took him by a wet elbow.
It took a few moments to find towels. Pulling off Duo's sodden clothes took longer. Duo seemed to help and to hinder at the same time, clutching when Heero was pulling. Finally, he stood naked, staring at the floor. He was lean, broad in the shoulder, and smooth, almost hairless. His flat stomach ran in a long line down to a thatch of hair that was the same cinnamon color as the hair on his head. Below it, he was... perfect. Heero was swallowing now and blushing as he looked away and began drying Duo with the towels.
It happened all of a sudden. Heero wasn't certain who leaned in first or what prompted it. There wasn't any signal, any hint, and then they were kissing, long and deep. It was hot, passionate, wonderful. Bodies met, hands smoothed and caressed, and Heero's mind almost short circuited when he dropped the towels and cupped the bare cheeks of Duo's ass with his broad hands.
Duo moaned into his mouth and then his hands began pulling at Heero's clothes. Get them off! Was the silent command and Heero was only too happy to comply. Heero couldn't think, especially when Duo's hand closed around his erection and stroked it possessively as he led Heero by it towards the lower bunk. He didn't consider whether it was the right time, whether it was a good idea or not, or whether a Duo Maxwell under the influence of a hypnotic suggestion was free enough to give his consent. It seemed completely right, what they were doing, and the most natural thing in the world.
They tumbled onto the bed. Legs intertwined, crotches met and rubbed, tongues and lips continued to do battle. They explored, they tasted, and they both sizzled in the heat of their desire for each other. Hands finally stroked erections, falling into a mutual rhythm, rubbing hot, silky flesh against each other until they both exploded into orgasm.
They rested in each others arms afterward, holding each other tight. Hearts pounded as they realized what they had just done and what an enormous step they had just taken. Finally, Duo looked into Heero's eyes with a question. Heero knew what he was asking without words. What was this? A quick relief? A mistake? Something they would regret?
Heero smoothed a hand along Duo's cheek and then he said softly, "Love you."
Duo smiled and held him tight, burrowing his face into the curve of Heero's neck and shoulder. There was a relieved sigh and then he whispered the words, "Love you, too."
Mysteries could wait a few hours, even another day, Heero thought as he savored the feel of Duo in his arms. This was the sweetest moment of his life. It was as if he had been walking in darkness and then Duo had lit a candle, one that he had been holding for as long as they had known each other. Waiting for Heero to need it, waiting for Heero to ask for it, and waiting for Heero to give him the match. Now that it was lit, Heero intended for it to never go out.
TBC