Disclaimer: I don't own them and I don't make any money off of them.
Warnings: Male/Male sex, graphic, language, violence, gore, torture, explicit
scenes.
"You're not a guest, here," Heero said as he slung Duo's pack onto the bed. Duo, in his wheelchair, stared hard at the room, as if he couldn't figure out how he had managed to get there. "This is your home, again, for as long as you want it to be. I'm here to help you, but, if that's not what you want, I can hire a nurse, and find somewhere else to live."
Duo frowned, gave him a hard glare, and said, "Do what you want, but I know that this won't last."
It was all that he was willing to say, and only nodded, yes, when Heero asked if he wanted to be on the bed. Duo looked weary, in body and soul, and he weighed next to nothing as Heero gently lifted him out of the chair, and put him on the bed. There were hisses of pain, bitten lips, and a tremble, that told Heero how much Duo was still hurting as he settled him onto the soft mattress.
The locator pulsed, red, just under the skin of Duo's ankle. The tattoo, semi permanent, over it, labeled his level of risk. It was the highest. The chip allowed agents to monitor his every movement, listen to every conversation, and even take note of programs and internet sites that he visited. Knowing that such a high level of surveillance, could possibly last a lifetime, was a heavy weight on their minds. Duo's pessimism was valid.
Heero unpacked Duo's medications and health monitors. He arranged them on a side table. When he turned to look at Duo again, he found the man asleep, the lines of grief and depression smoothed away. Pulling a comforter out of a drawer, Heero spread it out over his lover and smoothed back Duo's bangs, gently, from his forehead. His fingers traced the cheek that he had punched, with all of his might, not so very long ago, and felt grief well up and choke him.
"How did it go so very wrong?" Heero whispered. He ghosted out into the living room, leaving Duo to sleep, but it didn't allow any respite from his guilt, either. The wall, re-painted to cover over the blood that would never come off, and the bare places where pictures of Duo once hung, accused him. If only he'd listened. If only he'd held his hand and reasoned with the man that he loved more than life, none of it would have come to pass.
Heero clenched his fists and tried to calm his breathing, but the tears stung his eyes. How did he convince a man to embrace his life again, when his own soul was so heavy? People had died for their mistakes. There was no escaping that brutal fact. Nothing had been spared, not themselves, or others, in their madness. He couldn't justify working for Preventers, when it was so obvious that he was one of the men that they guarded civilians against; the mad, the bitter, the uncontrollable. He remembered that, during the war, he had thought that death would be the reward for his faithful service. He had known, then, that, there wasn't any place for someone like him during peace time.
Heero wiped hands over his face hard and sat heavily in a chair. He heard the rattle of pills, in their container, from Duo's room, and suspected that Duo's pain had become more than he could bear. Duo was taking his pain medication, he supposed, and didn't move from his chair. He didn't want to face Duo, with less than a firm belief in their futures.
Heero finally decided to distract himself from his thoughts. He turned on the vid news. Reporters talked and Heero hardly heard them. He saw his own face and then Duo's pop up, but he turned the sound down until that particular report was done. When he saw images of mars, and the construction going on in that rough frontier base, he turned the sound up again and listened avidly. A new goal, a new mission, a new life that was guaranteed to give them purpose away from violence. Quatre Winner's face appeared, as did Milliardo Peacecraft's, and Noin's, as they spoke of the efforts to bring mankind to a new home.
"Duo?" Heero stood and hurried to Duo's bedroom, eager to tell him his thoughts about joining the Mars colony construction, and starting over.
Duo's was pale, sprawled on the bed with one hand out, fingers closed, loosely on a prescription bottle. It was empty.
"No, no, no!" Heero shouted. He pried one of Duo's eyelids up and then patted Duo's face sharply. There wasn't any response. Heero grabbed the empty bottle and then snatched up the phone. He punched for emergency. "I have an overdose!" he shouted at the first person who answered the phone.
There was a pause and then a man's voice replied, "Preventer medics are in route. Monitoring picked up fluctuating vital signs for Duo Maxwell. Remain calm and allow the medics entrance when they arrive."
Heero answered questions then, about the medication, as he smoothed a trembling hand over Duo's cheek. He seemed so cold and still. Heero tried to remember how much time had passed between the sound of the pills and his discovery. Too much time, maybe, for anyone to do anything to save Duo. Heero kissed Duo's lips and whispered against them, "Don't leave me. Stay with me, Duo, please. I know how to save us both. Live so that I can tell you."
The medics arrived and swarmed over Duo's pale form with their medical gear. Heero reluctantly stepped back, drowning in the sudden noise of the medics shouting back and forth, and the rattle of equipment as they readied to take Duo out of there. They wouldn't bother if Duo were dead, Heero supposed with a chill and a desperate hope. Would they bother if he were beyond help?
"Tell me," Heero demanded over the noise. "Tell me that he's going to be all right."
One of the medics rattled off the name of the hospital, where they were taking Duo, instead. It was a security prison hospital, miles away. Even in desperate danger, they weren't going to take chances with Duo.
"No!" Heero protested. "He'll die!"
One of the medics gripped Heero's arm as they began taking Duo out of there. "We can't take him any where else, I'm sorry."
They were gone, then, and Heero was snatching up his car keys to follow them. He looked over at the rumpled white sheets, stained now and half on the floor, and shuddered, remembering another time, when they had taken a bloody Duo away, as officers had arrested Heero and read him his rights. It was a startling dejavu moment. Heero hadn't known whether Duo would survive, then, either.
"Everything is against us," Heero whispered, hating his life, just then, and hurried out of his apartment.
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"How do I feel? Crazy, about sums it up." Duo sat on the edge of his soft mattress and stared at the bare four walls, while Heero stood over him, worried and not sure how to reach the man.
After they had stabilized Duo, they had signed papers having him committed. Put in a room, with everything removed that could even remotely give him a tool to kill himself, including his clothing, the thin, one piece mattress, had been their only concession.
"They wanted to cut my hair," Duo complained. "They thought that I might hang myself with it."
"Did you really want to die that badly?" Heero wondered, sick at heart.
Duo's lashes lowered and he winced. "The psychiatrist says that I need to let it go, and atone in healthier ways, by doing good. I asked him how I could do that when no one trusts me? How can I atone, when I have a top level alert on my life?"
Heero crouched in front of him. "Is that what you want?"
Duo rubbed a hand over his face and sighed darkly. "I don't think I really wanted to die," he whispered, almost too low for Heero to hear, "I think the drugs were messing me up. I've never wanted to cop out before, and I don't, even now. Life sucks, but you make the most of it, 'cuz it may be all you've got."
Heero reached out a hand to him, but then let it drop, not sure that Duo would allow that touch.
"I don't know what to do, Heero," Duo went on. "I'm not sure how I can make any of this okay."
Heero sat beside him. "I won't tell you to forget it, or to atone," he replied. "You made a mistake. It was a bad one... but, so did I. The only thing that we can do, is make sure that it never happens again. I needed the accomplishment, of a stable Earth and Outer Space, to give everything that I had done meaning. You yanked that away from me and it was cold, just being a killer... a terrorist. It hurt."
"I didn't have any belief," Duo replied, twisting a hand into Heero's shirt. "I just had revenge. I've always distrusted government. I had good reason. It was easy to think the worst. I thought, that you were naive, Mr. Righteous soldier." He chuckled darkly. "I felt disgusted by your idealism." He looked into Heero's face, searching. "Is it possible to love, so much, and still feel that for someone?"
Heero dared to put a hand over Duo's. "I think that you can. I want you to still love me. Do you?"
Duo's eyes continued to search for something in Heero's face and then he pressed his face against Heero's chest, taking a shuddering breath. "I do, love you. More than anything."
"Good." Heero said in relief. "I don't want to love alone."
"Never alone," Duo replied.
"Promise," Heero begged, needing that reassurance.
"Promise," Duo replied.
___________________________________
"Six months of stable behavior," Heero argued hotly."Two psychiatrists signed his papers, stating that they didn't think that he was a danger to himself, or others. No one in the facility has observed anything, but normal, healthy reactions to even stressful situations. I don't see how you can deny him his release."
The official pushed his glasses further up his nose and scanned the laptop screen before him, his elbow propping his chin on the table. His finger punched the advance in a monotonous fashion, for several moments, and then he asked, "His evaluations, show that he is still displaying paranoia. Questions such as, 'Do you trust your government? Would you answer an official summons, without being given any details?, and, if you were ordered to have an injection, by a competent official doctor, would you comply without knowing what the shot contained?'were all answered with negatives.
Heero scowled. "Perhaps you're not aware that the government of L2 decided on an eradication of their homeless population by introducing a virus into their colony? They gave the cure to everyone they deemed 'acceptable'. That wouldn't give me a great deal of trust in any government, after surviving that sort of thing. You can hardly blame Duo-"
"I can," the man snapped back. "I most certainly can, when he allows that mistrust to spur him to acts of violence against our society. If it were solely up to me, I would keep him here, in high detention, until his dying day." His expression soured, "but since it is not, I don't have any choice, but to allow his release."
Heero sighed in relief, but the official wasn't done.
The man snapped his laptop closed, tucked it under his arm and rose. He said, "We will be watching his very move, Mr. Yuy. One misstep will give me the license I need to put him away. Is that understood?"
Heero nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and the man straightened his tie and left as if he were fleeing a bad smell. Heero rubbed at his forehead, pulled his psyche together, and then went to tell Duo the good news. It was a two edged thing, though, while Duo would be glad to hear about his release, they both knew that it was just a replay of the past. Once again they would end up confronting their future and trying to forge their relationship, and their lives back together.
Duo was waiting anxiously in the solar, other patients there, but in their own mad worlds. He was down to one guard, now, but that man was armed, and looked uncomfortable as Heero bent and kissed Duo lightly on the cheek.
"Yes or no?" Duo asked, fending Heero off and wanting his answer.
Heero sat heavily at the small, plastic table and chairs, eyeing the orange jello, in a white paper cup, that Duo had been eating. "How would you like to leave that crap behind, for good?" Heero asked.
Duo was guarded, that mistrust still there.
Heero gripped him on the upper arm and told him, "You're free to go. They weren't happy about it, though. We'll have to be very careful."
Duo looked relieved, and then he glared at the guard as he smashed the jello into the table, and stood up. "See you around, ass hole."
"I hope not," the man replied sourly.
Duo didn't have clothes to change into. Heero hadn't brought any for him, neither of them having been that confident about his review. Now, Heero was sorry, as Duo went through the process of his release, and then ended up on the outside of the facility in his stark, white jumpsuit.
"I'm sorry," Heero apologized.
Duo quirked a smile that was full of pain. "I get it, Heero. Nothing to be sorry about. You don't have to be paranoid,like me, to think that was supposed to end up with me back in my padded room."
Duo blinked up at the sun, hands in his pockets. Can we just walk around for awhile? The sun feels good... and there's trees."
"Of course," Heero agreed and walked beside Duo, ignoring the curious stares of the people passing them by, as they went down a wooded lane, and Duo let his freedom sink in. It was a long while before he let Heero get the car to take them home.
Duo leaned against the car window, as Heero drove, watching the scenery pass by. He let out a long breath after awhile and Heero glanced at him.
"What are you thinking?" Heero wanted to know. He doubted that Duo would tell him the truth, and expected a short, flippant answer, but Duo was open in his reply.
"I'm wondering if I'm up to the challenge," Duo said as he traced a circle into the condensation on the cold window beside him. "I'm wondering if I'm tough enough."
"At least you're not wondering if you should bother," Heero replied.
Duo smiled, but it was pained. "No, I'm not. There's you... and other things, I suppose, that make like worth wanting. Mostly you, though."
Heero remembered the feel of fists cracking into Duo's face. It tingled as if it still stung with the impact. Unconsciously he flexed it and then was surprised when Duo lightly touched it on the steering wheel.
"You have to do your own letting go and getting past it," Duo told him sternly. "This won't work if we're both carrying around a shit load of guilt."
Heero nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
"We also can't live, thinking that anything I do will matter," Duo continued.
Heero looked at him hard and then turned his eyes back to the road, understanding. "They'll never stop watching you.... us."
"Maybe when I'm ninety," Duo chuckled bitterly, "Maybe not even then." He grew serious again, "So, we live with it, or don't. There's no hoping for things changing."
"I don't need an out," Heero insisted. "We live with it. Both of us."
Duo warmed and gave a genuine smile. "I'll remind you of that, later, a few years down the road, when this gets old."
"Trust me," Heero begged. "Love me. The rest doesn't matter."
Duo nodded and then relaxed into his seat, staring off through the window again. "Day one, then, of the rest of our lives."
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"This is against regulations," the man said as he sat down at the park bench table with the other agents, all in plain clothes.
"Shut up and eat your cake, Stiles," Duo growled as he dished cake onto a plate and handed it to the man. The man grinned at him, picked up a plastic fork, and dug in.
"Okay, so this was a good idea," Heero chuckled, as all of their watchers, celebrated their fifth anniversary together under a bright sun.
"So was making everyone our friends, instead of our enemies," Duo whispered to him and gave Heero a light kiss. "What you can't fight, you make a part of your life."
Heero nodded as he took his own slice of cake. "To five years of bliss and peace," he said and took a bite.
Everyone added their well wishes for many more.
Duo looked everyone over with satisfaction and felt a release, deep inside, a lessening of the paranoia that had run his life. Trust wasn't a bad thing. It was certainly better than living a life of fear.
"I think I could make a habit out of this," Duo chuckled and Heero returned his smile and slipped an arm around his waist. A lifetime habit, he thought, and sat down to enjoy himself.
THE END