Disclaimer: I don't own them and I don't make any money off of this
Warnings: Guy/guy sex. Graphic. Violence. Language. Rape. Torture. Lima beans... wait, no, sorry, no lima beans.
Support a starving artist, buy Kracken's book, The Storm, on Amazon.com under Della Boynton. Pretty please? (Big chibi eyes) I know, for that kind of money it better be really big chibi eyes. O.O
For purists, the arc actually ended several fics ago when Heero and Duo bought the house. These are just extra.
Duo crouched by the old camp, the ground cold and everything trampled flat by machinery. His eyes scanned anxiously for motion detectors and a nasty Oz trick, leaving detonators to discourage anyone following them, like a Gundam pilot looking for his partner.
"Heero...," Duo breathed anxiously, finding a spot full of blood and other dried, disgusting things. It was obvious that someone had been tied up there and beaten, maybe more than beaten, Duo thought, going pale as he lifted up a scrap of green tank top. It looked as if someone had cut it off with a knife.
Duo lifted the scrap of material to his nose. He breathed in and smelled Heero, musky, sweaty scent that he had grown to know as much as his own. Duo closed his eyes, fought off the panic, and then jammed the scrap into his shirt as he made his way carefully across the clearing.
A simple recon mission. One day, there and back. It shouldn't have ended like this, Duo thought. Heero was too perfect. Too professional. Duo hadn't even worried, until the call had come in, a simple series of radio bursts that meant pilot down and captured. Nothing had come since and Duo could see why. He found Heero's small radio blasted apart on top of a rock. Someone had tried to make it work to trace the signal. That person had set off the destruct sequence. Blood and a few pieces of flesh, shriveled and burned, told Duo that whoever had tried to tamper with the radio had been given a painful, if not fatal surprise. Duo wondered what revenge had been delivered to Heero after that. He had enough bad experiences himself to fill his imagination with horror.
There! Duo bent and fished a small container out of the mud, brushing it off quickly. Printed in small letters on the side, was the name of the base where it had come from. Now Duo had a destination and not just tracks almost obscured by rain and wind. Soon, he thought, they were going to see the face of Shinigami. It was going to be the last thing they would ever see, he vowed.
Duo shifted his pack, full of his weapons and supplies, to a more comfortable position on his shoulders, and then set himself a ground eating pace. Wu Fei's words, echoing still in his thoughts, made Duo doubt his sanity, made him doubt the decision to chase after clues instead of waiting for hard facts, and made him afraid that he was doing something that Heero would later hate him for, if he was still alive.
"He's gone," Wu Fei said in memory, leaning against the doorframe of Duo and Heero's room, watching the pilot of Deathscythe pack his supplies. "Heero has a large price on his head, but those Oz soldiers will care more about settling old scores rather than getting any reward money. Heero's the most known of the Gundam pilots. He's killed the most Oz soldiers. They'll take their revenge. You know that. You're not going to find anything but a mangled body. Do you want to remember him that way?"
Duo hadn't paused in his packing, but his jaw had tightened. "He needs me," he had replied viciously.
"So does the war," Wu Fei had retorted, but his tone hadn't been very harsh. It had been sympathetic even in its matter of factness. "Everyone knows the risks. Everyone knows that one of us, maybe all of us, might not come back from the next mission. We all decided to give our lives, Duo, even Heero. You know the rules. We don't stop the war for any reason, especially to collect bodies. There are too few of us, too many people depending on us, to indulge in private vendettas."
"Heero's not dead," Duo had replied with certainty.
Wu Fei hadn't questioned that assertion. He had his own mystical side where his dead wife was concerned. Instead, he had shrugged. "What does it matter? Dead or alive, you can't risk yourself trying to rescue him. We have a mission in seventy two hours. It requires hacking, bomb making, detailed maps, and computer codes. I need you, Duo. I need your skill. Your Gundam. The war isn't going to stop. Civilians are going to die, cities and colonies are going to be taken over, if you aren't there to stop it."
Duo had stopped packing. Abruptly, he had thrown the pack into the wall, hitting the plaster solidly and making it crack. "Leave! I-I don't want you to look at me!"
Wu Fei had nodded, understanding a man wanting to be alone with his grief, and had left, closing the door behind him.
Duo had collapsed onto the floor as soon as the latch had clicked shut, curling up into a ball. He hadn't cried. He hadn't shouted. He had simply stared at nothing and shut down. The tragedy of his life had always been overwhelming for Duo. Heero had been his only spot of light in a world of pitch darkness filled with evil, violence, and sorrow. Before Heero, Duo had just survived, centering his entire being on Shinigami, on revenge. Heero had shown him love, passion, and that a future in peacetime was possible. To have all of that ripped away so suddenly, had been more than Duo could bear.
Time had passed without notice, the shadows of night falling away to the bright sunshine of morning. Duo had remained where he was, ignoring cramped muscles, aches, and hunger. When morning sunlight had brightened to afternoon and then yellowed towards dusk, someone had finally braved Duo's door.
The knock had hardly registered. The timid, blonde Arabian that had slowly crept into the room, had been ignored.
"Duo?" Quatre's soft voice had been full of concern. He had crouched in Duo's line of sight, searching for some response. When he hadn't received one, he had cleared his throat and said, "Trowa and Wu Fei said that I should leave you alone, but something tells me that being alone isn't what you need right now."
Duo's life had been playing over and over in his head, one tragic scene after another. He remembered when Heero had come in to his life, that fateful day when he had seen him trying to shoot Relena Peacecraft. That day, Duo had shot him twice. After that, Heero had worked some sort of magic on him. For the first time in Duo's life, he had thought about another male as more than someone to avoid. With Heero, he had first learned friendship. Later, love had bloomed all unexpectedly. With his love, Heero had ended the tragedy and Duo knew that he couldn't stand to have it come back again. Somehow, Quatre had sensed that, had felt Duo's impending violence towards himself.
"Let me help you," Quatre had whispered.
"How can you help me?" Duo had finally replied, bringing himself back a little, wondering if Quatre might have, like Heero, some magic that could take away the pain and change the horrible truth, that the only person he had ever been able to love was gone.
"Let me cry with you," Quatre had said. "You need to cry, Duo. You can't hold this in."
"I ran out of tears when I was six," Duo had grated, curling tighter. "I'm numb. I don't feel anything, Quatre. Just, leave me alone and I'll pull it back together. Don't worry. You don't have your friends die from a plague, guys screw you every day for more than a year, and Ozzies murder everyone in your orphanage, and not know how to deal. I'll be ready for the next mission. I still have to get my revenge, don't I? Shinigami still needs to make Ozzies pay."
Quatre had remained silent for a long moment and then he had said, "I won't leave you alone. I know what you're going to do."
Very carefully, Quatre had eased onto the floor. Duo had flinched and shivered as the blonde Arabian had put his life on the line by stretching out on his side with his back to Duo. With infinite slowness, Quatre had then inched backwards until they had touched. Remaining perfectly still, Quatre had closed his eyes tightly, hoping that Duo would refrain from snapping his neck or plunging a knife into him.
"Trust me, "Quatre had said as he had gently reached back and taken Duo's hand. "Let it out. I'll protect you. No one will hurt you. No one will judge you. "
"I can't!" Duo had whispered, but he hadn't drawn back his hand. Instead, he had watched with trepidation as Quatre had slowly pulled that hand until his arm had been draped over him.
"You can," Quatre had insisted. "You have to."
They had remained frozen like that for a long while, Duo battling with a fear that had urged him to get away anyway he could, and the need to let out the pain before he self destructed. In the end, Quatre had pushed him over the edge by humming a soft tune. Memories of Sister Helen had over taken Duo then, memories of the sister bending over him, smoothing a hand on his brow, and humming a soft lullaby.
Duo had broken then. Grabbing Quatre's vest with both hands, Duo had buried his face into Quatre's back, sobbing, the tears coming at last, the pain finally finding an outlet.
Duo wasn't sure how long his sobbing and wailing had continued after that, but at some point, he had become aware of Quatre crying along with him. That shared misery, and Quatre's boundless caring and compassion, had been the medicine that Duo had needed to bring him back from the edge of sanity.
Now, in present time, Duo, sane and focused, was going about the search for Heero professionally. It was a mission for a downed pilot, he told himself over and over again, keeping his emotions, the ones that screamed for him to run headlong into battle with his Gundam blazing, under lock and key. Heero wasn't a lover. He was a comrade; an irreplaceable pilot needed for the war. It was that argument to the other pilots, and Duo's demonstration of stability in stating it calmly, that had won their permission for the search. Even Wu Fei had relented, maybe sensing that Duo wouldn't be of any use to them until he knew, one way or the other, whether Heero was alive or dead and whether he could be rescued.
"Don't get yourself killed trying to save him if he is alive," Wu Fei had warned angrily. "Heero is only one person. Millions are depending on you to pilot Deathscythe and defeat Oz. Don't forget that."
Wu Fei's words had made Duo angry, but he couldn't forget that he had contemplated committing suicide. The guilt still gnawed at him, that he could have forgotten, however briefly, his importance in keeping people alive and free from Oz tyranny. That mission was more important than the one he was on now. It was more important than one man, however beloved. Duo had needed his argument, that Heero was irreplaceable, for himself as well as the others, needing the justification for risking his own life and the larger mission of winning the war. Even with that valid argument, Duo knew that he wouldn't save Heero, no matter what they were doing to him, if his own life was compromised in any way. Duo wouldn't let Oz take two Gundam pilots out of the war. There would be no hope of winning if that happened.
Duo stopped abruptly and pulled out his gun. There was a distinct smell in the air. It was blood and death.
It was still drizzling rain, the soft patter of it hitting the leaves a background noise to the usual sounds of the forest; bird calls and the constant swish and creak of leaves and branches moving against each other. Duo listened intently for a sound that didn't belong, the movements of an enemy.
There! Flashes of movement out of the corner of his eye. Duo flipped and rolled, firing his gun into the rain filled forest, knowing that it wasn't Heero, that Heero wouldn't have made a mistake like that!
There was a shout and a single groan. Duo rushed forward, keeping low, gun barrel twitching this way and that for a new target. It didn't find any. Duo found the dead bodies of the Oz soldiers, three freshly dead and five stiff and obviously long since dead. Duo ignored the old corpses and crouched by the new ones, checking to make sure that they were indeed dead. Once confirmed, he searched them carefully, relieving them of ammo, maps , and any papers he could use to identify them and where they had come from. Stuffing those things into his backpack, Duo then turned his attention to the older corpses.
Duo froze, blood turning to ice and mind gibbering on the edge of madness. Two of the men were in their uniforms, positioned in such a way that told Duo that they had died fighting. The other three... Duo's eyes were riveted on them, unable to look away, unable to move, unable to stop the panic overwhelming him. Their pants were about their ankles and they were grouped together facing a churned up spot of mud and a broken post with a snapped cord attached to it. Someone had fought for their life and won. The men had smashed in faces, broken necks, and one had the broken part of the post jammed into his heart.
This is a mission, a part of Duo's mind said. Recovery of an irreplaceable pilot. His emotions shut down. His fear turned off. Duo's face went blank as his training took over. The part of Duo that Dr. G had honed to be a perfect pilot, the persona he had fostered in Duo of the revenge seeking Shinigami, pried loose control from the part of Duo's mind that had suddenly become a terrified child again. Complete the mission, Duo was ordered, go mad from fear and memories later.
Heero had escaped. Oz was wise to it. Reinforcements had found the dead bodies and signs of Heero's escape. The woods, Duo thought, were probably full of searchers. The men left behind had probably been a detail to see to the corpses. It wouldn't be long before they were missed and men were sent back to the area to investigate.
Duo put a new clip in his gun and kept it in his hand as he began walking quickly. He had a mental map of the area and he knew Heero and Heero's tactics. If the pilot of Wing was in any shape to make it that far, he would naturally aim for a string of deep caves in the mountains ahead of Duo. There he could rest in the even temperature of the deeper recesses, and fool Oz equipment, until he could manage to slip through the searchers and escape completely.
Common sense told Duo to give up the search. He had his answer. Heero was alive. The man was capable of taking care of himself. He would escape just as he had escaped the raping Oz soldiers behind him. Any further search for Heero would only be compromising his own safety.
Duo continued to walk towards the mountains. He refused to let his mind give up mission mode. Doing that would have left him with the madness and the knowledge that Heero had suffered what he would have done anything to avoid ever going through again. Facing that nightmare, facing Heero again, knowing how he had suffered, was almost worse than believing that Heero had died.
Mission: recovery of pilot. Duo's mind repeated it again and again, a mantra against the darkness threatening his mind. When Duo heard the voice, he almost attributed it to his madness. When it came again, Duo slowly turned, face going pale and gun twitching for a target.
"Duo," Heero said for the third time, soft and insistent. He was standing straight and he looked alert, though one of his eyes was swollen shut and his face was a patchwork of bruises, busted lips, and cuts. His hair was a matted, dark mess, half wet with rain and full of dirt. He was wearing a filthy Oz uniform at least two sizes too big, and his gun was drawn as well, waiting for Duo to recognize him.
"Of course," Duo replied distantly. "You doubled back, slipped through the search lines, and returned back to where you had been captured to begin with. The enemy never expects that tactic."
Heero grimaced. "Good strategy, but it wasn't the one I implemented. I passed out not far away and they missed me during the search. It was only luck that I spotted you just now. A chance in a million."
Duo nodded. He was numb. It was too unexpected, finding Heero when he had thought that he would spend days, if not weeks, searching for him. He wasn't ready. He couldn't ask Heero the question that so terrified him. Instead, to avoid it, he told himself, 'mission not completed', and he continued to let his training control him.
Heero recognized the look on Duo's face. He had seen it before on other missions. He knew it was a sign that Duo was very disturbed. Instead of getting angry, instead of demanding to know why Duo had broken all the rules and come after him, and instead of grabbing the pilot of Deathscythe and holding him tight, glad to have lived to see him again, Heero bottled up his emotions in a perfect copy of Duo and said briskly. "Let's get out of here, now."
Duo didn't change after they alluded Oz patrols and reached the safe house. He didn't reply to any of the other pilot's questions, running upstairs after dropping his pack on the floor, ignoring Wu Fei's sour comments that , 'now that he was done jeopardizing the war effort, perhaps he could manage to prepare for the next mission?', Quatre's worried demands to know if he was hurt and the shocked exclamation when he saw how badly Heero was hurt, and Trowa's silent appraisal that criticized so much without saying a word.
Still numb, inside and out, Duo showered extensively, crouching in the hot spray of water after he was done and simply staring at the water going down the drain until hot turned to cold and he was forced to get out.
After toweling off his hair, Duo braided it as if it were a lifeline that had to stop him from falling a thousand feet, and then dressed heavily as if his clothing was armor against attack. He even put on a leather jacket and zipped it up to his neck, hands sinking into the pockets as he climbed onto his bed and huddled there, eyes on nothing as he tried with all that was in him not to think, not to release the control that was keeping him from screaming. When Heero finally came upstairs, Duo ignored him.
Heero stared at the pilot of Deathscythe, noting his pale skin, his perspiring brow, and his haunted, intense eyes. He was a detonator, Heero realized, ready for the touch that would set him off, killing everyone close to him. Heero sorted through possibilities as to the cause, and then settled on one explanation. His jaw set and Heero suddenly understood the battle he was fighting. Now, he thought as he went to shower and dress his wounds, he had to make a battle plan.
Duo was still in the exact same position when Heero came from the shower with a box of medical supplies. He was wearing white, cotton shorts, his wounds revealed and obviously needing attention. Sitting on the very end of the bed, Heero kept his back to Duo, defenseless. He hated it. He wasn't trained to leave himself open like that, but, for Duo, he thought, and Duo's peace of mind, he was wiling to do that and more.
"I can't do this alone," Heero said, avoiding the fact that he could have gone downstairs and had Trowa see to it. "Duo?"
Stiffly, and without a word, Duo slowly moved to kneel behind Heero. Methodically, and professionally, he opened the medical kit and then dressed Heero's wounds. Heero allowed the silence, letting Duo rest in it, allowing him to grow comfortable with their closeness.
"They didn't rape me," Heero suddenly said, dropping his words into the silence at last. "You found them, didn't you? I killed them before they could do anything besides beat me. I'm all right, Duo. You don't have to be afraid."
Duo let out a heaving, wracking sob. Control left him. His question was answered, his horror unrealized. Heero was alive, safe, and untouched. Duo could live again. He crawled into Heero's lap, tears streaming, lips raining kisses on the face of his beloved.
"S-Sorry," Duo sobbed. "Sorry I couldn't face it!"
Heero held Duo lightly and stroked his hair, amazed that Duo was allowing it, was actually initiating touching. It told Heero how close Duo had come to the edge, how much he was relieved, how much he had been afraid for Heero. That fear was gone now in Duo's desperation to reassure himself that Heero was really there, that the things he was saying were true and not some mad fantasy.
"I-I was afraid," Duo finally said, face pressed close to Heero's ear. "I thought they'd stolen you from me. I thought you'd be like me and we'd never- never be able to touch each other again. Two people, torn by horror like that, can't- can't ... But they didn't." Heero felt the smile against his skin. "You're still mine. We can still be together.... Heero... can you... I need.... My mind is so fucked up... I need to convince it that this is real... can you be with me... please?"
Duo, begging him for sex? Heero was cautious. Experience told him not to trust it, even as he watched Duo frantically peel off all of his clothes. Duo seemed wild, his eyes intense. Letting him go on with it, in that kind of mood, smacked too much of taking advantage of him. Heero was afraid, later, when Duo cooled, he would be in another mind set entirely and blame Heero.
"No," Heero said. "I'm wounded, exhausted, and you're upset. This isn't the time, Duo."
Duo froze and then his eyes glittered with more tears. "It is," he insisted. He yanked out the tie from his hair and raked his fingers through the braid. It came loose in a semi dry state, heavy and curling all around him. He stretched out on his back and gave Heero a level, amethyst gaze as he said, half accusing. "It is if you're telling me the truth about what happened."
Heero tensed. He met that gaze unflinchingly. "I am telling you the truth. I won't fuck you to prove it."
Duo hooked hands under his own knees and lifted his legs. He gave Heero a view that made Heero, despite his exhausted state, go hard immediately. "Mission not completed," Duo stated simply and then Heero understood where his strength was coming from. His training was still there. He was still holding on to the edges of it, using it to allow this. The pilot wasn't rescued yet, Heero understood, until he proved that he hadn't suffered any fatal mental wounds from his captivity.
"Mission completed," Heero whispered and pulled off his shorts. He didn't come for Duo from the foot of the bed. That was too much like an attack. Instead, he moved around the bed until he was close to Duo's head, near Duo's hands, the hands that could be gentle in love or deadly even without a weapon. Heero knew he had made the right decision when Duo lowered his legs and relaxed.
Slowly, Heero touched Duo, just on the face at first, trailing fingers over sensitive skin. Duo nuzzled into that touch, kissed Heero's rough fingertips, and then came closer to kiss Heero's lips. Heero drank that kiss, closed his eyes, and savored Duo's taste, thrilling when Duo ran a tongue over his tingling, sore lips.
They made love in stops and starts, Heero alert to any fear or hesitation in Duo. When it appeared, he waited with infinite patience, holding himself back until Duo regained the mood, and then began again. They ended in each others arms, Duo in Heero's lap, straddling him, bringing his body down and enveloping Heero's prepared cock. Enclosed in warmth and silky tightness, Heero groaned. They clung together and rocked, kisses deep and passionate, hands caressing, Duo's hair a chestnut curtain about them both.
"Hnn!" Duo moaned. "Love you, Baby! This feels... I need... I need you..."
Heero knew what Duo needed. His large hand made a tight sheathe about Duo's rigid cock and he began to stroke him as Duo pounded up and down on top of his own cock in abandon. Both of their bodies shuddered and strained, faces flushed with heat, breath coming in rapid gasps, pain and wounds forgotten, as they both reached the pinnacle at the same time and came together with a double shout.
They lay together afterwards, quiet, not speaking about what had happened before their love making. In their violent lives, they couldn't dwell on it. Mission completed, they both thought, forget and go on to the next one.
Duo was content, already falling asleep and edging away from Heero, curling into the defensive, alert ball he must have adopted as a street child. Heero knew it as his cue to release him and seek his own bed a few feet away. Heero had too many scars received from a Shinigami startled out of sleep, to hope that they could spend the night in each others arms. Someday, Heero thought, when war and violence was something else they could put behind them and forget.
Heero left the bed, wincing as pain returned and wounds reminded him of their presence. He stood for a moment, looking down at nothing, collecting his thoughts and waiting for the pain to subside. It was then that he saw his shorts. He bent carefully and picked them up, a hand to his lower back to brace against the pain there.
Blood. Heero knotted the white shorts into a ball in one fist and then made his way slowly to the bathroom, stride catching again and again as pain shot up from his backside. He washed the shorts in the washbasin, careful to remove any telltale signs, and then he stuck them deep into a clothes hamper.
After cleaning himself up and treating himself as best he could, Heero began to go back into the bedroom. As another wave of pain washed over him, he leaned against the doorframe of the bathroom. From there he could see Duo, his beautiful face relaxed in sleep. He loved that young man beyond all reason, Heero thought, enough to do anything, suffer anything, for Duo's peace of mind.... even lie.
***Owari***
I know! Pretty dark stuff! I was in a mood, what can I say? Sorry!
I'm going to be starting another series with 2x1 and 1x2. Heero gets to be shy and Duo gets to be happy, hyper, and macho. (The annoying baka syndrome for sure. Poor Heero! :) It's called.... dunno. Have to see how it starts out.