"Someone was asking around the police station," Duo said as he dropped his coat on the back of a chair and moved into the living room.
Heero was watching the vid news, but he turned it off and flicked Scythe off of his shoulder as he stood up. He was frowning in concern.
"They had a picture of me," Duo went on as he lifted a hand and let Scythe land on it. The bird eyed him and then sidled up to his elbow to peck at his shirt buttons.
"I'll get our bags," Heero said and turned towards the bedroom where they kept their things neatly packed in duffels for just this occurrence.
"Nobody talked," Duo went on as he followed Heero.
"You don't know that for a fact," Heero pointed out. "We can't take the chance."
Duo sighed and leaned against the doorjamb as he watched Heero stuff anything loose into the duffels. "I know you're right, but I liked this place. I was just getting used to answering to my new name."
Heero stopped moving, staring down at the duffels. "I'm sorry."
Duo flicked Scythe towards a perch in the corner of the bedroom, but the bird squawked indignantly as it awkwardly veered and landed on a chair back instead. Duo came up behind Heero and slipped arms around him. putting a chin on Heero's shoulder, he said,"I can't lie and say it doesn't matter, but it's something that we have to do."
"Your job..." Heero choked that off and bowed his head. "Sorry," he said again.
"You can blame me," Duo agreed with a sigh, "because it's true that I have to interact with the police in my career. That's why they're searching for me, not you. They know we're together and they know I'm more visible than an IT grunt in a small tech office."
"I'm not blaming you," Heero replied, sounding depressed."It's me they want."
Duo eyed the small bedroom, the bare red brick walls, and the one window that Heero had boarded over for security reasons. "Maybe this isn't home," he tempered. "It's more like... a blast shelter." He held Heero tighter. "Being with you, here, made it home."
Heero seemed to think about that for some moments and then he said, "I feel that, too. I liked being with you here, being together." He was smiling slightly at the bed in regret.
"So it's the sex you liked?" Duo purred in his ear and slid a broad hand down Heero's front. "Me too."
Heero turned and grabbed Duo by the elbows, hard, frowning. "No, not just that. Everything... just.... living... together....work...meals...even cleaning... I felt... It was living."
"Like other people," Duo agreed, becoming serious as well. "Like we should have been all along. That's what I meant, Heero. You make where we are home, because you're what I want most in my life."
"Is that love?" Heero wanted to know.
"I'm pretty sure it is," Duo replied, putting a hand over Heero's heart and rubbing slightly. "You have to tell me, though. I can only tell you what I feel."
"People have only loved what I can do," Heero told him softly. "All of my life... only for that... even when I was very young."
"Doesn't matter," Duo replied, leaning into Heero, but keeping his hand on Heero's heart. "Love has a lot of levels, but you only feel this kind of love once, maybe, in your life. Nothing else comes close. nothing teaches you what it is. You just feel it... and it's... powerful."
"Powerful," Heero echoed, eyes softening. "Is it painful?"
Duo blinked caught off guard, but then he nodded. "Yeah, real painful."
Heero reached up and pressed Duo's strong hand against his heart. "It hurts here when things don't go right, when I know... like, now... that I can't give you what will make you happy."
Duo cocked his head to one side, confused."What haven't you given me?"
"Security," Heero replied.
"Never had that," Duo said with a shrug. "Why have it now?"
"Because I want you to have it," Heero insisted. "Because I want you to have a home that we don't have to leave."
"I'm not going to ruin what we have, wanting what's not going to happen," Duo growled. "Don't you do it, either."
Duo broke away from Heero and looked around, making sure that they had everything. Heero's hand on his braid stopped him. Duo turned and let Heero pull him in close for a kiss. It was an apology, and all they had time for, as they took hold of their duffels and went in search of a new home.
That home turned out to be a cheap efficiency on a back road to nowhere, two hundred miles from their brownstone apartment. Duo's first act was to drag the blankets and sheets from the bed and to trudge off to the worn washer and dryer near the check in to wash them. He tried not to look at the dirt as he stuffed them in.
Away from Heero, and sitting in a cracked plastic chair, watching his laundry rotate, Duo had to admit that he had hit a low point. He hadn't wanted to tell Heero that he had already made friends at the station, and with the little old man next to their apartment. He had liked the market, with it's chatty cashier and it's home town feel. He had befriended a couple, just starting out, that lived down the block. Meeting them walking their dog, every morning and afternoon, to and from the bus station, had even made Duo consider getting a dog himself.
Duo had seen himself helping these people, using his investigating skills to make their lives more secure. He had let himself believe in the possibility of having a life there. He'd been an idiot, of course, knowing how they had to live, knowing that any home was only a stepping stone to the next. He couldn't help the hurt, though, the disappointment, no matter how much he told himself to man up and get over it.
When the bedding was done drying, Duo gathered them in his arms, put on a happy mask, and walked back to their efficiency, determined not to let Heero suspect how he was really feeling.
Scythe cawed from his perch on the cheap dresser, but the place was empty of anyone else, including Heero. Duo dropped the bedding on the floor when he saw Heero's duffel missing and bolted towards their car. It was gone.
"Son of a bitch!" Duo shouted to the empty expanse of highway and the nothingness for miles around.
Duo stood there for a long time, dumbfounded, furious, and then resigned to the fact that he had been abandoned. Going back into the efficiency, he found Heero's note scribbled on the back of their efficiency bill.
This is not how I want you to live, Heero had written, I have to make them leave us alone. I'll call you when it's done.
Duo crunched the note in one fist, grabbed up his duffel and his bird, and headed for the highway. When cars and trucks began passing him by, he held out a thumb and hitched a ride back to civilization.
I'll find you, you stupid fuck, Duo thought to himself as he ignored the truck driver and smoothed Scythe's feathers to keep him quiet in his arms. Once I find you, I won't let you leave me again.
---------------------------------------------------
It smelled putrid. Duo put Scythe on his shoulder and pulled his shirt over his nose, as he slowly picked his way through the estate. The bodies had been removed, but no one had bothered with cleanup. Crime scene tape fluttered everywhere from the breeze coming through some open windows and stains on the carpet and drapes told Duo that those windows had been left open since the murders.
It spoke of the thoroughness of whoever had ordered the hit on that particular Yakuza clan. No one had been left to care about the estate and records showed that no interviews had taken place after the murders. The pattern of destruction had been carried out with military efficiency. Investigators had speculated that the group might have been mixed up with mercenary arms dealers or paramilitary groups, and that some deal might have gone very sour. No one seriously delved into that theory, though. As far as Preventers was concerned, it was a criminal element that had been eliminated for them.
Duo thought about murdered servants; the gardeners, the cook, the drivers, the maid who changed the sheets, and even the dogs. They had been innocents who might not even have known who their employers were. Preventers lack of enthusiasm for a real investigation was a lack of justice for them. The little people, the ones that he had always wanted to defend, had, once again been forgotten by Preventers in their drive 'to put out fires'.
Scythe ruffled his feathers nervously and clung closely to Duo's neck as Duo searched the large estate for a sign that Heero had been there. He hadn't caused the murders, of course, the crime having been committed while they had been on the road together, but Duo needed to know if Heero had decided to end his vendetta here. It was possible that he had gone on, pursuing people that Duo might not know about. It was like the man to be thorough, to make certain that no one, even someone remotely affiliated with his Yakuza clan, would come after them.
Duo found Heero in an upper room, leaning against an open window, and staring out at the morning sunshine and a manicured garden. His pack was on the floor next to him, dirty and battered. Blood splattered one wall next to him and it looked as if someone had tried to crawl for help before dying messily near the door.
"It's hard to accept," Heero whispered.
Duo frowned and handed Scythe off to a chair back before coming up behind Heero. He stared out at the garden as well, past Heero's shoulder.
"Don't ever do things like this alone, again," Duo told him quietly.
"I don't want to do this ever again," Heero replied."I made myself a part of this. I'm the only one left alive. I was going to make that happen. It doesn't make me feel any better knowing that someone did it for me."
"You wouldn't have killed everyone," Duo argued, sliding a hand around Heero's waist cautiously. When the man didn't push him, off, he pulled Heero against him.
"Just the ones who deserved it?" Heero scoffed. "I still haven't learned, Duo. I still act like this is the war. Whatever they wanted to do with me, with other people, doesn't give me the right to be their executioner." He sighed heavily. "When will I learn, Duo? When will I stop making mistakes?"
Duo shrugged and put his chin on Heero's shoulder. "People make mistakes their entire lives, Heero. So will you. You just need to stop making them so... spectacular."
Duo chuckled and Heero scowled at him.
"I'm not laughing at you," Duo told him, "just at the situation. It's all you can do. Get over it and go on."
Heero said softly, "I wanted you to be safe."
"You can't stop the world to do that," Duo replied.
Heero looked at a loss. "I should let you make all the decisions."
"No, I can't do that, Heero," Duo replied firmly as he pulled him away from the window and reached out a hand to collect Scythe. "I can only give you advice."
Heero thought about that as he picked up his pack and they made their way out of the large home. They stood in the expansive driveway, then, and Heero finally asked, "What's you advice?"
Duo let his pack rest on the ground and Heero settled his on top of it. "First, I advise that we buy a car. I'm tired of hitchhiking," Duo replied. "Then we find a secure home, one that people can't get to easily."
They both turned to look at the smashed front gates and then at the broken doors of the estate.
"Well," Duo said to the unspoken question, "That won't guarantee one hundred percent that we won't be bothered, but anyone that insistent on getting to us, will anyway."
"That's advise?" Heero confirmed.
"Take it or leave it," Duo assured him.
"No more running?" Heero seemed to think that over with pleasure.
"If they want to take us on, let 'em," Duo said. "We'll at least be on home ground that we know."
"If it all goes bad?" Heero asked, searching for a flaw.
"Then, it all goes bad, but at least we had some time to be together... to have some happy."
"Some happy?" Heero smiled at that phrase.
"Look, Heero," Duo said as he pulled Heero close again, ignoring Scythe's squawks as the bird almost lost its footing on his arm."We are who we are because we've always accepted what we're given. We have a minute, or we have a lifetime, it doesn't matter. We live it. I thought that it was all going to end in the war, behind the controls of Deathscythe, or on that base, with my air cut off, or even a few times afterward, but it didn't make me stop living every last minute up until then. Fear is a thief. let's not let it steal whatever time we have, okay?"
Heero's broad hand came behind Duo's neck and the man pulled him in for a hard kiss. Duo allowed it, smiling into it, and then asked, when Heero broke it at last. "Taking my advice?"
"I need to think about it," Heero replied.
"Good for you," Duo chuckled. "Let's think somewhere else, though."
_______________________________________
The phone beeped. Duo tried to ignore it, but it continued until he was forced to reach out of his cocoon of blankets and Heero, fumble past his badge and car keys on the side table, and hit the speaker.
"Hmm?" Duo breathed.
"You promised to have breakfast," Quatre reminded him sourly. "This is the third time-"
"Day off," Duo mumbled.
"I realize that, but food is important, and so are friends," Quatre insisted. "So... get your butts to the south lawn. Henreika went to a lot of trouble making your eggs and onions just right.".
"Will do," Duo sighed and hit the off button. He rolled over to face Heero and tangled up with the man, kissing his neck and then biting him lightly just under the chin. "I only need you for breakfast."
Heero was awake and smirking, his interest blatant, as he pushed off the blankets and stretched like a cat. "He's not asking much and he's giving us everything."
Duo grabbed Heero and gave him a few strokes, "You gonna tell me-" Scythe chose that moment to make an awkward landing onto the bed. He hopped up Heero's bare body, making the man flinch and then attempt to save sensitive parts
Duo grabbed the bird irritably as he sat up."You really know how to spoil a mood," he complained to the bird. The bird gave him a critical glare and pecked him on the hand sharply.
"Ow!" Duo exclaimed, shook the hand, and flipped the bird away. The bird landed on the carpet and then hopped to investigate the balcony.
Heero rolled out of bed and reached for his clothes, soft jeans and a blue polo. "Breakfast sounds good. Let's go."
Duo growled, "I liked my other plan."
Heero leaned in to give him a kiss. "So did I, but Quatre's right. We can't just work and then roll around in the sheets on our days off."
"I don't see why," Duo complained as he rolled out of bed as well and bent over to search for the clothing that he had tossed around the room, in his eagerness to make love the night before.
Heero caught him around the middle and pulled him up close to rub his pelvis on Duo's ass. Duo glared at him. "I thought we were going to have breakfast?"
"I can't think about breakfast when you bend over like that," Heero complained.
Duo grinned and turned, wrapping arms around Heero. "I'm glad that I got to see this side of you, finally."
Heero looked confused.
"You can relax here," Duo explained as he smoothed hands over Heero's back tattoo. "It was a good choice and I'm glad Quatre let us move in."
"Armed guards at every point, along with the best alarm system that I could create," Heero agreed."It's foolish to feel safe, but I do. You were right, though, when you said that we couldn't live being afraid. Whatever happens, I won't stop living my life with you waiting for disaster."
"Good," Duo replied as he broke away and finished dressing. "I know it makes you nervous when I go to work, but I'm a big boy, and an ex gundam pilot. I can look after myself... finding lost cats and wallets."
"But you insist that I work from the estate," Heero complained.
"Quatre has a million projects for you," Duo told him, brushing off the double standard. "You're not a prisoner here, but you can pay him back for our upkeep, stay safe, and live your life, with me." He frowned, not wanting to concede the next part, but feeling that it was necessary. "If you want to work outside of the estate, though, that is up to you. I won't argue against the same thing that I asked for."
Heero looked thoughtful, his body clearly tensing, but then he relaxed suddenly and smiled. "I like how I feel living here. I'm not constantly on guard. I can take the time to learn to love you."
Duo smiled ruefully. "It's taken time for you to let go of soldier Heero and let yourself feel, let yourself experience what gentleness and love can be. I don't want you to go back to feeling as if you always have to be prepared for orders, for the next mission, for the next attack."
Heero nodded and said, "Right now, I'm just interested in the next meal." He gently slipped an arm around Duo's waist, being careful of his strength. "Ready?"
Duo leaned in and kissed him. "Always ready for you, love," he promised.
The warmth of Heero's return kiss made them late for breakfast.
End