Disclaimer: I don't own them and I don't make any money off of this. That's right! Nada. Zip! Zilch! Zero! So, wah! Leave me alone you corporate meanies!
Warning: Male/Male sex. Lemon. Angst. Violence. Language.
Heero: You don't know what you're going to write do you?
Kracken: *sweatdrop* No, I don't, but let's see what happens, shall we?
Heero: Mission accepted.
Kracken: Loosen up, man! It's just a fic! Go have some pocky.
Heero: (with a sudden, glazed look) Mmmm, pocky!
"You look terrible, Maxwell," Wu Fei noticed as he borrowed a tool from Duo's tool box.
The black clad pilot of Deathscythe was sitting in a swivel chair, legs dangling, and braid trailing between his knees. He held a coffee cup in both hands, blood shot eyes staring at the steam lazily floating up. Those blood shot eyes slid sideways to look at Wu Fei.
"Hey! You care!" Duo replied sarcastically and his voice was hoarse.
Wu Fei studied Duo as he fiddled with the tool in both hands. Duo stared back. "I'm borrowing one of your tools," Wu Fei finally prompted. "Won't you even protest?"
Duo blinked. "Oh, yeah! Keep your stinking hands off of my stuff, Wu-Man!"
Wu Fei snorted. "That was half-hearted at best. Are you ill?"
"No."
"Heart sick?"
"No."
"Soul sick?"
"No."
"Constipated?"
Duo began to say no once again, but then he laughed instead. "Good one, Wu Fei." Duo ran a hand, warmed by the coffee cup, across his eyes and rubbed at them. "Just haven't been able to sleep."
"Nightmares?"
Duo lowered his hand and narrowed his amethyst eyes. "Yeah. Do I make that much noise? Heero hasn't said anything. Guess he doesn't want to upset me."
"You shriek, Maxwell," Wu Fei replied sympathetically. "We've all heard you."
Duo sighed and slumped in his seat. "I just wanna sleep, Wuffie, but I can't."
Wu Fei chose his words carefully, knowing how easily Duo clamped down on his true feelings and raised his mask of indifferent good humor. "What do you think about, right before you fall asleep?"
Duo slid from the chair and stood up, coffee sloshing out of the cup. He was very pale. "None of your business!"
"Forgive me," Wu Fei replied quickly.
Duo relaxed again, but he didn't lose his distressed expression. "It's just personal, okay?"
Wu Fei gave a single nod and began to walk away. He paused, saying over his shoulder as if it were of little importance, "Pleasant thoughts make pleasant dreams, Maxwell."
"I don't have enough of those to go around lately," Duo muttered as he turned to sit on his stool again. He started badly as he came face to face with Trowa. "Shit! Trowa! Make some noise next time, k?!" Trowa was silent, hands in the pockets of his tight jeans and eyes almost hidden by his long bang. "Well?" Duo snapped irritably. "You have to say something, Trow-man! I can't read minds."
Trowa let his eyes rove up and down Duo's body and then he studied Duo's face for a long moment. "We have a mission together," he said at last, low and quiet. "You need sleep. I'll give you some pills and you can rest immediately."
"What kind of mission?" Duo wondered. "Do I have to hack a computer while you balance on a ball and juggle knives?"
"No," Trowa replied as if taking the joke in all seriousness. "Heero will coordinate all computer activities from here while we infiltrate a mobile suit testing site. Heero will hack the computers and steal the plans for the new Gundams and then we will destroy the site and the hardware."
Duo widened his eyes. "Did you really just say all of that? Quatre usually speaks for you. Are you sure he's not behind you doing a ventriloquism act?" Trowa stared. Duo sighed, but didn't lose his maniacal grin. "Okay, so, why you and me in particular?"
"Your knowledge of explosives and my knowledge of the base. I spent time there as an undercover operative," Trowa replied. He turned go, but waited for Duo. "Heero will brief you on the mission requirements and parameters... after you sleep. Come with me and I'll give you the pills."
Duo shook his head. "I hate pills, Trow-man! They make me stupid! What if we get discovered and attacked while I'm doped up and asleep?"
Trowa frowned. "Trust; trust that we will take care of you if something like that happens."
"Trust?" Duo echoed and then snorted. "That's not high on my can do list, ya know."
"I know," Trowa replied. "But it's required."
"How long until the mission?" Duo wondered as he followed Trowa from the makeshift hanger.
"Three days," Trowa replied. "If you keep taking the pills I give you, you'll be rested and ready."
"Okay," Duo agreed and then sighed. "Maybe they'll stop the dreams."
"Are you listening, Little Baka?" Heero had his laptop balanced on the bed and he and Duo sat on opposite sides of it. Heero was narrowing his dark, blue eyes with displeasure as Duo grinned lazily back at him, having just broken off his avid study of the peeling wall paper in their room.
"Why do you think someone wanted purple flowers inside of pink checks for wallpaper, Heero?" Duo wondered and his voice was bright and cheerful. "Is that what normal people do, pick out awful wallpaper?"
Heero had noticed the wallpaper of the rundown, two story house, but it hadn't seemed important enough to waste thoughts on. He gave it a brief glance. It was very ugly. "I wouldn't know," he replied, which was only being honest, but for some reason that made Duo suddenly sad.
"That's the problem. Neither of us knows what normal people do." Duo reached out, closed the laptop with a click, and then raised that hand to cup Heero under the chin. "Don't you ever get tired, tired of all the blood and the fighting? Don't you feel like running away sometimes and being normal?"
"No," Heero replied, and that was the truth too. Thoughts like that had been stripped from him before the age of three.
"I do," Duo admitted. He lowered his hand into his lap and sighed. "I've been having these dreams... I try to blend in with everyone else, the normal people, but I keep sticking out no matter what I do. In the end, they 'find me out' and rip me limb from limb, shouting that I'm a blood thirsty freak. Sad, isn't? I always thought that dreams were supposed to be an escape from harsh reality. It never is for me."
"You've been screaming in your sleep," Heero admitted.
"Wu Fei told me," Duo replied. "You could have told me. I'm not a baby."
"I didn't see any advantage in informing you," Heero replied. "The dreams are beyond your control."
Duo looked across the closed laptop to Heero's shadowed eyes. "Wu Fei wants me to think happy thoughts."
Heero considered this seriously.
"Cut it out," Duo told him. "I don't like to be an endless problem you have to try and solve. So, I'm having bad dreams. I always do, you know that. These are just a little louder than usual."
"Are you ill?" Heero suddenly asked, his keen eyes never missing anything, especially where his love was concerned. "Your pupils are dilated and your face is flushed."
Duo considered telling Heero about the sleeping pills, but then didn't. It was a weakness. It hurt his ego to need them. He didn't want Heero thinking that he couldn't handle things without them. He didn't want Heero taking yet another mission away from him. It had taken Heero long enough to trust him enough to send him on the new one.
"Just tired, Baby," Duo replied, which wasn't a lie. He put on his mask like grin. "I think I'm going to try to sleep during the day, today. Maybe the dreams only come out in the darkness."
"The mission briefing-"
"Can wait," Duo interrupted with a yawn. "I can't pay attention if I'm falling asleep. Later, Heero."
"Duo," Heero said, his voice full of buried emotions he didn't know how to convey into language. "If we were like everyone else, who would defend peace?"
"Someone else," Duo sighed as he curled up on his side and drifted into sleep. He felt a blanket carefully placed on top of him, but the hands were rough and precise; Heero's hands.
"But, there isn't any one else like us, Duo."
Those last words chased Duo into dreams and the dreams, as usual, weren't pleasant ones.
Duo found himself in a familiar, hated room. Dark and dingy, the only furniture a mattress on the floor, he was perched on the low windowsill, face pressed against the dirty glass so that he could see the 'normal' children playing in the street down below. They had a ball. They were kicking it back and forth to some rules they had made on the spot. They smiled, but it wasn't the cruel, sadistic smiles of his pimps. They had genuine smiles, bright and full of fun.
The heat outside was making the glass of the window hot, but Duo persisted in keeping his face pressed there, trying to keep the children in view even as their game slowly moved down the street. He hardly heard the door to his room open and then close with the click of a lock. It was the firm, adult hand on his shoulder that brought him back to misery and reminded him of what was expected of him. That hand steered him towards the mattress.
"Shhh, Duo," the voice slipped into the nightmare and shook him loose from it. The room blew away as if in a strong wind, but there were other nightmares, equally as ugly, to take their place. "The past is the past, Duo," the voice said. "Why go back there?"
Why? Duo wondered. He wasn't aware of a choice. Why did this stupid voice think that he had a choice? If he had a choice, he'd be dreaming of fluffy bunnies, blue skies, and a warm Summer day. If he had a choice, he'd be dreaming of living with a loving family and dating the girl down the street, not blowing up military installations and fucking a man and liking it. If he had a choice, he wouldn't be dreaming of the many times he had been forced into bed with his three pimps so that they could paw and do him all night long, not caring that he was ripped and still screaming from his last customer of the day. No, he definitely wouldn't be dreaming of that, didn't want to be dreaming of it now, but it came into his mind with unstoppable will and he was forced to be a spectator in his own gang bang.
"Shhh, Duo," the voice came again and, as if it was magic, that dream was blown away as well.
Ah, of course, what dream was left after that, but the one where he tried to hide in the crowd and be 'normal'? He ducked, he dodged, he even covered his face, but it didn't keep the other people in the crowd from seeing him, singling him out, and opening a space between themselves and him.
Marked, Duo thought. He was marked. His clothes were gone. He was an animal, after all. Animals didn't wear clothes. He even had a collar, that despicable dog collar around his neck that even had a tag with the address of his pimps on it and the name they had given him 'Bitch'. A cruel, sadistic joke, but they had always been full of those. There was blood too, blood on Duo's hands and running down his legs. In that blood, someone had carved words into his body... whore, thief, murderer, fag.
Marked. The people around Duo saw it and they were disgusted. They began to jeer at him and throw things. That wasn't enough though. They rushed forward suddenly and began tearing at him, pulling at his arms and legs until.....
"Shhh, Duo." The dream flinched and then fled.
Duo felt a warm body under his imploring hands. He pulled it towards him. He felt resistance. He pulled harder until he was pressed up against hot flesh and musky scent. It was an anchor. A salvation. Safety; safety from the nightmares. It had power, that body, to drive them away with only a few words.
"Stay with me!" Duo implored that voice. I'll do anything, he thought, every trick I know. "Just, stay."
The body didn't ask for anything. Cruel hands didn't grab. A cruel body didn't demand satisfaction. It was as still as death, but as warm as a fire, allowing Duo to borrow deep into masculine planes and angles and find comfort. He whimpered in relief and found a deeper sleep, one without dreams.
Duo awoke reluctantly. He was in bed, still dressed, a blanket tucked around him, and very much alone. He blinked at the old room in confusion, recalling disjointed, drug induced dreams and someone comforting him in the end. There wasn't even an impression on the bed though to show that anyone had really been there.
"What a trip!" Duo sighed and sat up.
Duo yawned and stretched. He felt well rested, even though it looked as if he had only slept a few hours. He scratched his itchy scalp. He felt tacky and in need of a shower. Rolling out of bed to do just that, he paused to peer out of the window. He started. The sun wasn't setting, it was rising. He had slept through the day and the night!
"Shit!" Duo exclaimed in amazement. He hurried to take his shower. "I have to do maintenance on Deathscythe! I have to do system checks. I have to have that briefing with Heero! I have to condition my hair! I have a damn mission in two days!"
"We'll brief for the mission after your shower!" Heero called from the other room just as Duo turned on the water.
Duo reached back and locked the door to the bathroom, automatic defenses coming into play at the thought of being naked and another man so close. The nightmares had made him especially edgy. Still, as he dropped his clothes and stepped it the welcoming steam and warmth of the shower, he couldn't help remembering the other part of the dreams, the most pleasant part; the feel of a body close to his that hadn't made him panic and reach for a weapon of any sort, a body he had trusted to comfort him and keep him safe from himself. He wished it had been real. He wished that it had been Heero he had trusted like that.
Reality was crueler. He could make love to Heero, he could even let the man touch him in return on occasion, but their relationship was still fraught with strained nerves and the necessity of avoiding tripping any mental land mines in Duo's complicated psyche. Sleeping together, skin to skin, in the same bed was still just a dream. Heero still bore pink scars from past attempts, attempts that had seemed fine at the onset, but had turned to disaster when Duo, upon awakening, hadn't realized that it was Heero beside him and not some rapist from his past.
Shower finished, Duo stepped out and began the laborious task of drying out his long hair. He used two towels before it stopped dripping enough to allow him to dress in a pair of shorts and an oversize shirt of black. Even then, he still had to wrap a towel over his shoulder to soak up any stray drips, as he slowly padded back into the bedroom where Heero was waiting for him with the laptop.
"Morning, Baby," Duo mumbled and then plopped down on the bed. It bounced and the laptop jumped a little. Heero reached out a broad hand to steady it as he too settled on the bed, a healthy distance between himself and Duo.
"You slept," Heero said, studying Duo with his intense eyes. "Good."
"I slept too long," Duo complained as he tucked up the ends of his hair into the towel. "You should have woke me."
"You required sleep," Heero replied as he brought up a program on the screen. "I ran diagnostics on Deathscythe so that you wouldn't lose the time."
Duo prickled for a moment, not liking even his love to handle his Gundam, but then he conceded to necessity. He HAD needed the sleep. "Thanks."
Heero nodded, once, and then began to run Duo through the new mission. It was complicated. Heero was putting a great deal of trust in Duo's ability in explosives. Some of the work would be delicate and the timing was everything. Duo finally looked up, face shinning and a big, genuine grin on his face.
"Thanks, Heero!"
Heero stared dispassionately. "I'm sending you on what might amount to a suicide mission and you thank me?"
Duo shrugged and bounced from the bed. Heero reached out to save his laptop again. "Yeah! I'm fighting for peace again, like I'm supposed to, and you're deciding to trust me. Life can't get any better than that!"
"For us," Heero agreed as he closed the laptop and stood up as well.
Duo's smile faltered, "Yeah, for us." Duo faced Heero. He looked into the man's intense eyes, trying to see deep down where the man's emotions were. "You sound depressed, Heero. That's not like you. You live for this stuff!"
"We both do," Heero replied, "but I'm not the one who is bothered by it. You're the one who wants to be 'normal'."
Duo frowned. "Why do you think that?"
Heero frowned back. "That's what you told me yesterday."
Duo tried to remember and didn't. It was all too drug hazed. "Yeah, so I did," he said, trying to bluff his way through. "Stupid thing to say. I must have been really tired."
"You didn't mean it?"
Duo turned away to briskly rub the towel over his hair one last time before brushing it out. "No! Who wants to be normal? I'm Shinigami! I have a bad ass Gundam! I have a cause! I'm a hero to a lot of colonists. If I was normal, I'd be some Joe Shmoe nobody knows, wiping my nose and worrying about acne in high school." He pretended to shudder. "I think high school actually causes acne."
It was impossible to lie to Heero Yuy, but he could be distracted from the topic easily enough. He shook his head. "Acne is caused by hormonal imbalances, usually present in maturing girls and boys. Your hypothesis that high school causes such outbreaks is based on faulty observation and not enough research."
"Ah, K, Heero. You got me there," Duo agreed. "I'll look into that some more... after I finish doing my hair, tweaking old Deathscythe, packing my gear, setting up my bombs, memorizing layouts, conferring with Trowa..." His stomach growled. Duo chuckled. "First things first, though. Shinigami has to eat. Is there any breakfast left?"
"Quatre saw to it that enough was saved to fill your nutritional req-"
"Uh, K, Heero, too much information," Duo joked as he picked up his brush and began on his hair. "Yes or no."
"Yes," Heero replied.
Duo braided his hair with masculine motions and then snapped a band at the end. Tossing it over his shoulder, he leaned forward very cautiously and kissed Heero lightly on the lips. He broke it almost at once and headed for the door. "I think I'll go fulfill my nutritional requirements."
"I will sleep," Heero replied.
Duo stopped at the door and looked back over his shoulder. "Why?"
"I spent the night working on Wing and I did the diagnostic on Deathscythe this morning." Heero stretched out on his twin bed. It was a few paces from Duo's bed, close enough to be intimate, but far enough away to give Heero time to react If Duo lost the thread of sanity.
"You didn't come in at all last night?" Duo remembered the dream then and felt disappointment when Heero shook his head no. Somehow, Duo had hoped that it had been Heero who had saved him from the nightmares, that it had been Heero he had trusted enough to sleep beside.
Something wrong?" Heero wondered.
"No," Duo replied and then smiled. "Later, Heero. You get some sleep."
"I didn't hear screams," Trowa said as he handed Duo two more pills.
"Really?" Duo wondered why not. The dreams had been as vicious as ever, maybe even more so. Perhaps, he thought, the pills had kept him under too deeply to make noises? That was a plus, even if they did make the dreams worse. At least he felt like he had actually slept and not having the added pressure of embarrassment was definitely an improvement.
"You were briefed?" Trowa asked as he closed and locked the medicines in their cabinet. Duo wondered why he bothered. Who didn't he trust?
"Yeah, Heero talked me through it this morning," Duo replied. "Complicated mission."
"Which is why you need rest and to be in top form," Trowa told him.
"Good thing those Oz bastards fixed my lungs then," Duo replied, taking an unconscious deep breath appreciatively. After a severe bout of pneumonia, that exercise had been impossible. Aside from ruining his life with Heero and dragging him face down through Hell, the return of his lung power, and therefore, his ability to accomplish rigorous missions restored to him, Duo couldn't help the deep down feeling that it was payment, however small, for his pain and suffering.
Duo pocketed the pills. Trowa seemed uptight, angry even. Duo thought that he understood.
"Hey, man! Sorry for trying to kill Quatre and all that," he said, sounding lame even in his own ears. "I wasn't in my right mind then, you know that."
Trowa looked even angrier, but he didn't reply, only gave Duo his shoulder as he began doing some other work. When Duo didn't become discouraged and leave, he said softly. "Quatre didn't deserve that. You are a menace. I suggested that you be cut loose and your Gundam taken away from you."
"Yeah, you're right, Quatre didn't deserve that," Duo agreed, angry and outraged. "He was only trying to help me and I panicked and tried to knife him. He's forgiven me though. Why won't you? We have to work this mission together. We can't have this between us."
Trowa faced Duo, frowning as he said, "You are two people. Mirror images of each other, but completely opposed in personality. One is a laughing, good natured young man who fights whole heartedly for peace. The other screams in his sleep, fears everyone, and tries to kill people who get too close. The name Duo fits you perfectly. Two. Two people. One I will gladly work with. The other... I only want him gone."
"Me too," Duo replied with a twist in his gut. "But it's all those people who had a hand in making the crazy Duo Maxwell that you should be blaming, Trowa, not me."
"Blame you?" Trowa turned away again. "I don't blame you, but you, of all people, should know that pity can't play a role in what we do. I can't let you kill people and endanger missions because of sympathy. I recovered from my past. I was an amusement for mercenaries, remember? Why can't you do the same? Why can't you take responsibility for the bad side of you and banish it forever?"
Duo suddenly reached out and squeezed Trowa's ass from behind. Trowa started, went pale as milk, and backed up so fast that he upset a tray of plastic bottles. Tray and bottles crashed and clattered to the floor as Trowa kept backing up until he was against the wall of the room. He stared at Duo with wide eyes.
"Recovered?" Duo mocked. "You're lying to me and lying to yourself. Sleeping with Quatre doesn't prove anything. Even I'm not afraid of Quatre when I'm in my right mind. Don't preach to me Trowa. I'll do my job and I'll do it well. That's all that matters, all that should matter to you."
Duo left him there, not finding any satisfaction in having frightened the man. He wasn't surprised to find Quatre scrambling into the cockpit of Deathscythe later on to speak with him.
"God! Not another lecture!" Duo swore as he chucked a wrench into his tool box and closed an access panel. Wiping his greasy hands on a rag, he slumped into the command chair. "Okay, Quatre! Get it over with! Tell me what a bad boy I was!"
Quatre sat on the lip of the door, big blue eyes concerned and expression determined. "Trowa wishes to apologize," he began.
Duo glanced mockingly around. "Really? I don't see him."
"He didn't think that it was a good idea to come in person," Quatre explained patiently. "He thought that he had upset you enough."
"I'm not a girl, Quatre!" Duo snarled. "I don't need anyone feeling sorry! Just forget it and let me do my work. I'm behind enough as it is."
"Duo," Quatre sighed and then decided to be honest. "You like to forget about things and pretend it's no big deal... but, it is, and you know it. You can't forget your past. You can't pretend it never happened... I know you want to..."
"That's Trowa's game, pretending things never happened," Duo sneered. "I'm more honest. I'm not pretending to leave it behind and forget about it, I just want to find a life past it, Quatre. Trowa found one with you. I want- I want to find one with Heero." He shook his head sharply, "but that's like asking for the sun and the moon! We can never be normal, Quatre. We kill people for a living. We're highly trained professionals. Even if I didn't have a past, there's still that. Sooner or later, I'm not going to be as good as I think I am and I'm going to die. Same with Heero. Hell, we would both sacrifice each other in a heartbeat to accomplish a mission. That's as far from normal as you can get and it isn't any improvement on what I had before as a street rat on L2. We live from day to day and we don't have time to feel sorry for ourselves or seek out psychological help because I- because we're so screwed up we can't stand to be with the people we love."
"After the war-" Quatre began, but Duo cut him off.
"Don't give me that fantasy either or you'll be as bad as Trowa," Duo retorted angrily. "If I live through the war, and I don't think I will, no one will give a rat's ass about me, Quatre. No one's going to say, 'sorry about the bad life, here's someone nice to adopt you and the house with the picket fence you always dreamed about.' Next you'll be trying to convince me that there's a Santa Claus."
Quatre raised sarcastic eyebrows. "There isn't?"
"My problems didn't start with the war, Quatre," Duo replied, staying serious. "They won't end with it. Tell Trowa I meant what I said. I can do the mission. He doesn't have to doubt or second guess me. Quatre... don't let him take away the only thing I have that makes life worth living."
"Isn't that Heero?" Quatre wondered softly.
"If I live so long....," Duo replied. "After the war... He will be."
It was dark by the time Duo wearily made his way back to his room. The lights were off, but there was another, strange light at the center of the room. Duo froze, startled, in the act of reaching for his knife. He lowered his hand in the next moment and slowly made his way towards the light, face filled with amazement.
On a low table was a globe fish bowl surrounded by glowing, white tea candles. A pure white koi and a pure gold koi swam lazily in a world of water and yellow and white rose petals.
Duo sank to his knees and rested his elbows on the table, staring, confused, knowing perfectly well which perfect soldier had placed it there. Even if he hadn't guessed, there was a small, crisp, white note card placed in a small nest of gold and white tissue paper. In a neat, precise script were the care and feeding instructions, a drawing of the gold and white Koi swimming intertwined, and a simple signature, 'Heero'.
"Why?" Duo wondered aloud.
"Normal people have pets," Heero replied from the doorway, "but our dangerous, nomadic lives make keeping one impossible. I chose fish because-"
"Because you won't be too sad when you have to leave them to die?" Duo growled back without turning
"Yes," Heero replied, as always, truthful, "but they don't belong to me. I'm giving them to you."
Duo stood with an angry, dismissive motion. "I don't need them, Heero! You can flush 'em down the toilet now." At least then he would know when it happened, when their little lives ended because of him and the war, Duo thought sourly as he threw himself onto his bed and curled up on his side away from Heero. "Thanks for the effort, though," he amended after a moment., and then, "I know you're just doing it because I'm upset about our shitty lives and you're afraid I'll compromise the mission if I don't calm down."
"Yes," Heero replied. "Also... " Heero stopped, unable to go on.
"Also because you care about me and you can't tell me so," Duo finished for him. He sighed darkly. "S'okay, Heero. Love you too. I'll tell you what I told Trowa. I'll do my job. I'll feel sorry for myself on my own time."
There was silence for a reply. Duo listened to Heero's footsteps. They went into the bathroom. Duo's eyes flew open when he heard the toilet lid clack as it was raised. He was off of the bed then, rolling and running in one swift motion. He sprinted into the bathroom and saw Heero holding the fish in their bowl poised, face grim.
"Stop!" Duo snarled and then panted, fists clenched as Heero looked at him questioningly. "I-I guess they don't take up much room."
"No," Heero replied.
"And they don't need a walk or to be- be cared for that much."
"No."
"Then..." Duo calmed himself and felt embarrassed. "Might as well... since you went to all the trouble... Might as well let them hang around for awhile longer."
Heero nodded, once, and then carried the bowl back to its place on the table. He patiently hooked up a water pump and its numbing thrum was soothing as it swirled the water and made the rose petals move about the gold and white fish. Beautiful. No one knew just how beautiful Heero was deep down, Duo thought. He was the only one allowed to see it, allowed to be the recipient of Heero's moments of pure poetry. Duo felt very unworthy of it.
"Sleep," Heero said as he stood. It sounded like a command, but his tone was softer than that.
"What about you?" Duo wondered. He felt brave just then. The soothing hum of the pump, the lights that shimmered over the walls, and the intense blue of Heero's eyes were gifts. Duo felt something was needed, a response of a tender kind.
Heero was shaking his head though. "I need to work on the mission. There will be time after."
Duo sighed, disappointed, but glad that he was able to feel disappointment over something like that. Maybe, he thought, things were getting better between them at last. It was a hope and he took it into sleep with him after Heero left and he had popped Trowa's pills.
The dreams didn't care about hope. They dragged Duo down into their depths almost immediately. He found himself running through the maze like streets of an L2 slum, a police detail hot on his heels.
Pathetic attempt at escape. Where could a six year old boy hope to go? A six year old boy with a scrap of clothing, an emaciated body, and amethyst eyes, was too easy to spot, too easy to pick out of the crowd. The long hair didn't help either. It flowed behind him, a banner for the police to follow.
The crowd parted. Someone tripped him. Duo went sprawling on asphalt. Skin left his knees and bits of hard matter drove into the palms of his hands as he tried to keep his head from getting bashed.
"Street rat!" A hard hand pulled Duo to his feet and began dragging him away from the decent people, the other officers following , laughing, and crudely joking like rabid wolves scenting his blood. "Your pimps want you back. They paid us good money to fetch you and they told us we could have a freebie. Ready to have some fun?"
"Shh, Duo," the comforting voice cut through the pain and the horror. The dream faded and then returned like a pulsebeat.
He was screaming when they reached the whore house. The police officers laughed as they threw him at the feet of his pimps. His 'owners' didn't even wait for them to leave, or to see what damage they had done to their merchandise, before they disciplined Duo severely.
"Shut up!" One yelled and drove a fist into Duo's small body. "You are going to pay for this! I'm upping you to seven men a night until we have our money back."
Duo kept screaming.
"Shut up! Shut up!"
"Shh, Duo," the voice said as it sent that nightmare whirling away again. Warm skin. Warm scent. Soft clothes. Like silk, all of it. Comforting, Human, Safe. Duo burrowed into it, felt strong arms wrap about him. He wasn't afraid any more and the nightmares stayed away for the rest of the night.
Duo awoke slowly. It took his mind a long time to work through the last of the drug haze and to realize that he wasn't alone in bed. That should have alarmed him, made him reach for his knife under the pillow, but the person's silky clothes, his warm skin, and his comforting scent didn't feel like a threat.
As in the dream, Duo burrowed closer and said one word happily, "Heero."
"Wu Fei." That was Heero's voice, but it wasn't beside Duo.
"Yuy," a voice replied, the voice from the dream; Wu Fei's voice!
Duo's eyes flew open and he started. Wu Fei was stretched out in bed with him, fully clothed, arms wrapped about Duo and body half propped up on pillows. The Chinese boy was staring at the doorway. Heero stood there, face dead of all emotion, but eyes windows to his soul.
"He needed help," Wu Fei explained. "Since you didn't give it, I felt compelled to."
Heero's eyes, the ones that looked as if someone had slit his throat and left him to bleed to death, turned from Wu Fei to Duo. They took in Duo's body, comfortable and unafraid in Wu Fei's arms. The judgment Duo saw there was harsh.
Duo untangled himself from Wu Fei, going pale and confused as he staggered to his feet. "Heero! I don't- I didn't know- "
"You let him touch you, sleep with you," Heero stated coldly.
"I-" Duo didn't know what to say. He was as stunned as Heero. He turned back to Wu Fei, but Wu Fei's face was as unreadable as Heero's.
Duo didn't know how to handle it. He had slept with Wu Fei in complete trust. Wu Fei had driven away his nightmares. Wu Fei was in his bed, had been in his bed the night before, if Duo could trust the truth of his dreams. It didn't make any sense!
"I didn't know, Heero!" Duo repeated in desperate anguish.
"You did." Heero replied. "You did or you would have killed him."
Duo felt tears gathering. He dashed them away with a rough gesture of one hand. He wanted to throw himself into Heero's arms, kiss him, reassure him that he was still the only one that he, Duo, loved, but he couldn't do it. Heero was angry, his intentions uncertain. It made Duo afraid, afraid of what Heero might do if he tried to touch the man.
Duo turned suddenly and grabbed a bag of his gear that he always kept by his bed in case of sudden Oz raids. He couldn't handle the situation. He had to get away where he could think. The dangerous lick of madness was coming too close.
"I'm going!" Duo panted, bag clutched in both hands as if he needed it to defend himself. "Have Trowa meet me at the rendezvous point."
"Duo," Wu Fei said gently. "You can't run from this. We need to talk."
"Like Hell, we do!" Duo exploded. "You guys talk, fight, whatever you want. I- I can't.... I have a mission."
Heero moved out of Duo's way. His shoulders trembled just slightly with the emotions he was keeping in check.
Say you love him, Duo urged himself, don't leave him like that. Duo couldn't though. His mind was a mess. It was all he could do to comfort and keep himself together. He couldn't spare even a second for Heero as he dashed out of the door and headed towards his Gundam.
Warm skin, comforting arms, and a scent that was as relaxing as his voice. Wu Fei. Duo dashed tears away again, cursed himself, and wondered what new turn his madness had taken. Why Wu Fei? How had the man been able to climb inside of his soul just like that and take all the pain away? How had he taken the place that should have been Heero's?
Duo's slogan ran through his head as he climbed into the cockpit of his Gundam and revved the engines. "I may run, I may hide, but I never lie." Well, he was running and hiding for certain, but he wasn't ready to admit the truth to himself. He didn't know what the truth was yet. Did he love Wu Fei and not Heero? His heart shouted, no, but his mind wondered.
What did it matter, he said to himself at last. Wu Fei. Heero. It was one in the same. They were all Gundam pilots in the middle of a war. They didn't have the luxury of being normal young men. Jealousy. Romance. Love. There wasn't time. There wasn't any place for it. The missions were everything. Winning the war was everything. Normal had to wait, wait until the killing stopped; wait until the fantasy of a life after the war either came true or didn't.
****Owari****
Kracken: Oooh, so angsty, wasn't it? What's going to happen? Want to know? Hm? Do ya? Do ya? Then feed the muse. Review me, please.
Duo: *mumble, mumble*
Kracken: What? Hey, what are you eating?
Duo: Virtual goodies.
Kracken: Hey! My fans sent that to me!
Duo: *scowls* You don't deserve it for that cliffhanger! Bad Kracken! Bad!
Kracken: Wah! I won't do it again! Now, give me some!
Duo: *running away and laughing maniacally* No, it's all mine!
Kracken: *In hot pursuit* You better give me some or I'll have you captured by Oz soldiers again!
Duo: *tossing candy over his shoulder* Okay, okay! Jeesh, if these people only knew what a meanie you are without your sugar fix...