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"Heero Yuy, L6, and the Second Suit Wars "Part 1Written By: ELLE Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from Gundam
Wing (unfortunately) and they were used without permission, but all
the words are my own. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: occurs post-EW, language, angst, sex,
hopefully acceptable OOC, 1st person POV (*shudder* sorry, no way
around it!), plus a ton of minor and a few major OCs (since it's 1st
person, you get to avoid dealing with them too much.) Pairings: 1x2x1 plus others TBD Summary: Jack Kaufmann has no recollection of the braided man who claims they were once more than friends, but his quest to recover his memories leads him to discover a plot much larger than himself that is a threat to the peace he'd once fought to protect... Author's Notes: This is gonna be a doozy of a fic, guys. I'm thinking 100k+. I'll likely update Monday, Wednesday, Friday and then take a brief hiatus between sections of the trilogy just to get all my G-boys in a row, so to speak. ;-P This fic starts off a little slow, in my typical psychological style, but will pick up into an action fic by the end so stick with it, please! =) The lovely Miss-Murdered beta'd this for me and frankly this story wouldn't exist without her encouragement. Oh and some of the topics I'm discussing here are waaaay out of my league so go easy on me, okay? My husband is a computer programmer and I've taken a few classes but my knowledge ends there. I hopefully know enough that I didn't make any glaring errors but no promises.
"Memoirs of a Former Life" 1.4 The Revelation It took me a few days to track down the safe deposit box the key belonged too. Half the issue being that I started my search using the name Heero Yuy but he apparently knew my name and registered it under Jack Kaufmann. Or I knew what I was going to be named. Or... I don't really know at this point. I just hoped whatever was in that box provided some answers. It turned out to be a bank about an hour from my apartment. Too far to run on a lunch break, so I waited until Saturday to drive out there. The bank wasn't anything special, but then maybe he - or I? - was trying to be inconspicuous. I'd never had an account there that I'd known of but when I asked the woman behind the counter if I could have my balance, she printed me out a ticket that claimed I had over fifty thousand credits in a savings account there. For the umpteenth time in the past two weeks I was completely beside myself. I hoped that whatever was in the safe deposit box had some explanation of what I was storing that money away for. I was lead into the secured room and once the box was open I was left alone to inspect its contents. Inside was a large manila envelope that felt like it had documents inside. I opened it carefully and a few photographs slipped out. Immediately I felt my hands shaking as I stared at the one on top. It was a picture of Duo, Mister Winner, two other men, Relena Peacecraft, and I at some kind of party. I could hardly believe it. Duo had his arm thrown over my shoulder casually and Relena stood on the opposite side of me, her arms wrapped around one of mine. They were both smiling wide. I was giving as much of a smile as ever I managed but I did seem to be genuinely happy. We were friends. We were all friends. Closer friends than I'd ever had in my life. I flipped the picture over and it was dated in a scrawling, scratchy script that I imagined must've been Duo's, "Christmas AC 197 - The Gang at Relena's." Of course then the next picture caught my eye. It was only a 5x7 but it shocked me more than the initial one. It was a picture of Duo and I in flight suits. I was holding the helmet under my elbow against my hip and Duo was just taking his off, his eyes closed in satisfaction, sweat on his face, his hair mused terribly. The way I looked at him made my stomach twist. It was clear to me - it was lust. I couldn't fathom who would take this picture and the back gave no indication of where or when this was. I don't even know how to pilot anything. At least, I didn't previously think I did. I slipped it to the back of the stack and despite how shocking the previous two were, this one definitely couldn't be topped. It was a picture of me standing against Gundam 01 as it was colloquially known after the war. I had my hand on its leg, my forehead resting against it. I flipped it over quickly and the single word on the back led me to believe Duo may have been the photographer. "Goodbye." Did anyone seriously expect me to believe that I was a Gundam pilot? I mean... that was ludicrous. Right...? The next picture was another 8x11. I stared at it a long time, longer than I probably should've considering there could've been other patron's waiting. It was a picture of Duo and I. It must've been taken on a self-timer because it was taken at a low angle, like the camera was resting on a table. We looked a bit older than we did in the previous photos. We were at a restaurant. Duo was leaning against me with an ear-to-ear grin, holding up a beer and tilting it away a bit in a joyous gesture. Although I wasn't exactly smiling, I could tell I was happy. Happier then I'd ever seen myself. I was relaxed and comfortable with Duo there. I was beginning to understand why it hurt him so much to see me... And why I felt so uncontrollable around him. I flipped to the back. The same handwriting. "New Year's Day - AC 200 - Best Life Ever." Ever was underlined twice. Over four years ago... What happened? What would make me turn away from something that clearly made me happy? Something I longed for? It certainly didn't seem as though Duo left me... I was starting to fall into the theory that I did do this to myself. How could I deny these pictures? As I thought about it through the week, I realized I didn't even remember much about my actual life, or what I thought my life was, my life as Jack Kaufmann. It was particularly uneventful, as I'd sectioned myself off from the world. Nothing stood out to me. No specific memories. Although I'd been living it, I'd never really stopped to think. Maybe that was normal when you had such a nondescript life. I don't know. It seemed normal to me. But anything beyond the past three years had no definition. I knew what I did but it didn't mean anything. My parents never grounded me. I never dated. I never went out. I never did anything different or suspicious. That was a result of quitting school at 12, right? I didn't do anything but research. I felt confused and I wandered out of the room in a daze. I sat in my car and stared over the pictures once more and then the folded piece of paper that went along with them. I opened it and my own familiar handwriting greeted me. Duo will want these back. That was all it said. Fuck. It seemed particularly terrible that I would be so cruel to myself. Why didn't I write myself an explanation? About the money, about the pictures, about what the hell I did to myself. Why would I let myself live like this? Obviously Heero was a masochist. Maybe I didn't want to be him again. Against my better judgment, I found myself starting the car. And although I didn't admit it to myself at first, I was driving to Sanc. I was going to see Duo. It was almost half past five when I arrived at his apartment. The whole drive had me shaken and I almost turned around more than once. But I had to know. Why didn't he say anything? Why didn't he tell me we were together? Did I just not hear him say it? I was a little uncomfortable parking my Porsche in an area it stood out so blatantly but I didn't see what choice I had so I gave her one long, loving glance before taking a deep breath and ascending the four flights of stairs to Duo's place. I felt like a complete idiot for doing this. He wasn't expecting me. What if he was angry? I should've called first. But it was too late for that, I guess. When I reached his door, I knocked twice. I only had to wait a moment before the door flung open and I was met with those beautiful, stunned eyes. "Heero...?" Duo was understandably confused. Hell, I was confused. He was dressed impeccably in tight black jeans and a deep red button up with a nice leather jacket. It occurred to me that maybe he was just about to go out and I was embarrassed then. "I'm sorry," I apologized quickly. "I can be brief. I didn't mean to bother you..." "I did have dinner plans." He folded his arms across his chest and studied me for a moment. "But I'll cancel them. Come on in." Obviously he knew enough about me not to question how I found his place. Although it wasn't in a nice area, the interior was cozy enough and very well kept. I don't know what I was expecting, but the oversized plush furniture and bookcases full of mechanical trinkets seemed to suit him. "Hang out here for a minute?" he asked. "I gotta call and cancel." I nodded, sitting down, clutching the envelope of pictures and swallowing my anxiety. I heard him talking softly in the other room before he came out to join me again, shedding his jacket and un-tucking and unbuttoning his shirt, exposing a thin white undershirt that clung to his muscular frame. He sat down opposite of me and gave me a long, calculating stare. I was proud I didn't squirm. "What do you want?" His coolness was somewhat hurtful but I knew I was being dramatic. He let me know he wasn't keen on seeing me again the last time we met. I should've respected that. "I believe these are yours," I told him, handing over the envelope. Duo took it without breaking eye contact, his suspicion obvious to me. He opened the envelope quickly and pulled out the pictures. His intake of breath was audible as he realized what they were and he clutched them briefly to his chest. Then he went through them one by one, touching his fingertips to my likeness softly. It feels strange to be envious of a photograph, and even though he was technically looking at me, I suddenly just really wanted him to look up at me that way. The real me. This me. When I realized how ridiculously pathetic that was, I pushed that desire aside to focus on the ensuing conversation. "I always wondered if you'd taken them," he admitted, sounding utterly forlorn, not able to tear his eyes from the glossy paper. "You never told me we were..." I trailed off, not really sure what we were exactly. People who had apparently made each other happy once. Then Duo looked up, incredulous, and held up the picture of me with the Gundam. "That is more noteworthy to you than the realization you were a Gundam pilot?" Suddenly I felt embarrassed. Maybe I should've been more concerned about that but I guess I spent the whole drive thinking about him so it slipped my mind... "I don't really believe it," I admitted. Duo set the pictures down and walked into the other room. I followed him with my eyes expectantly, curious as to his actions. He came back from down the hall and threw me a gun from a few feet away. To my surprise, I caught it effortlessly. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the edge of where the wall met the hall, studying me. "Take it apart," he instructed. I barked out a rough laugh. "I've never held a gun in my life!" Duo just nodded towards it and repeated the command. "Take it apart." I stared at the cold metal in my hands, unsure where to start. "Don't think so hard about it," he explained. "Just do it. Just think about it the way you think about me when you're not thinking." On the surface that sentence puzzled me. But when the realization of his meaning hit me, it hit me like a punch to the gut. I felt weak, then, weak and frustrated and manipulated. I knew why I felt all these things for Duo then. It was the other part of me, the part Heero had tried to erase, stuck somewhere in my subconscious, dictating my feelings without my control. Now I didn't want to participate in this stupid challenge. I didn't want to know or deal with the implications. I wished I'd never come here. I wanted to go home. I wondered if I just got up and left right then, would Duo be able to reprise his dinner plans and we could all just go on living this lie. But I couldn't. Because those sad eyes were trained on me, waiting. And as much as I wanted to be the victim here, I knew I wasn't. No one had suffered worse than Duo. Best life ever. And I took that away. I owed him this. I took a few deep breaths and closed my eyes, feeling every smooth surface of the gun with my hands. I let myself stop thinking and before I knew it I had every piece dismantled on the coffee table. When I came back to myself I was simultaneously impressed and angry but not really surprised. Duo knew him, knew me, knew what we were capable of. And I'm not referring to the gun, but to the fucked up thing he did to himself to create me. "Pretty disconcerting to hear you say you've never held a gun in your life when you were holding one the first time I met you," he said as he began piecing the gun back together, deliberately not looking at me. "Weird to think you don't even remember me shooting you, rescuing you from that hospital... It's like our whole life together never happened when I'm the only one who remembers it." "I'm sorry," I apologized to him for the second time. Although I wished it could be, I knew it wasn't good enough. I knew I couldn't really apologize for Heero when I didn't even understand his intentions. They were words from his mouth but they weren't his. They were only mine. "What's sorry gonna do now?" he snapped, glaring at me and leaving the room quickly with the gun intact. I felt incredibly stupid. There was no way to fix this. Sorry wasn't going to cut it. Eventually he came back and he seemed more subdued. He sat down next to me and leaned back on the couch, his hands propped under his head. "We were pretty good together, you know?" Duo started, a wistful smile slipping across his lips. He didn't look at me, and I was thankful. I wasn't sure I wanted to hear what he had to say, but it was the least I could do. "During the war, you always had my back, even when I knew you didn't want to, you always came for me. You broke orders. You saved me from some serious shit holes. Despite how hard I fought it, I couldn't help falling in love with you..." He shook his head slightly, wandering down memory lane, accessing a place I couldn't follow. "Quatre thought I was fucking nuts," he recalled with a chuckle. "Don't get me wrong, blondie always liked ya, but he thought I'd get hurt, that you'd never be able to have a normal relationship after what you'd been through. But Quatre didn't get it. I never wanted normal. I wanted your shit so I could feel okay about mine. I wanted someone to challenge me, to be rough with me, to fight with me, to complete me..." Duo bit his lower lip for a minute but regained composure quickly. "You'd don't even remember the first time we had sex," he said sadly, reflecting on that for a moment before laughing out loud. "Or that time in the Preventer's HQ showers. I don't know what got into you that day but I knew the look in your eye when you shoved me under the shower and Wufei walked in right when..." he trailed off then, blushing slightly to be divulging his escapades, even if they were to his former lover. "Just take it from me, we were great that way too." I nodded despite the fact Duo's eyes were elsewhere. "You always gave me anything I wanted." The words were soft now, back to being sad. "Any stupid thing I thought up, no matter what you really thought about it, you would make sure I got it. I couldn't believe you agreed to take me to New York City for New Year's Eve. You hate people and crowds and holidays. I didn't usually ask for things like that, though..." He took a moment to collect his thoughts then said, "Maybe you felt bad for me, but I didn't want your pity. Maybe you were trying to redeem yourself for your actions during the war by making one person's life special - I don't know. I guess I never will... "Not that we didn't have our fair share of fights!" Duo's eyes turned to me for the first time since he'd sat down. "Man, but even our fights were sumthin'. All out brawls is what they turned into. I loved that about you. We were so physical. Well, until the end there... I guess I should've known when you stopped touching me." He shrugged and dropped his hands into his lap. There was silence between us then and I sat reeling from everything he said. But I was still puzzled and unsure. If everything was as he said, if those pictures were to be believed... "Heero was an idiot," I blurted out. He blinked and sat up straight, meeting my eyes directly. "If I had someone like you, I'd never let you go." For a moment he sat there, absolutely stunned, those eyes wide and trained on me. His breathing stopped and I was faintly concerned that I should say something to snap him out of it but he was so... and his lips parted and... And then he was kissing me - or I was kissing him - but we were kissing each other, locked together desperately. And then he was straddling me, ripping at my hair, grabbing the back of my head and holding me against him so I couldn't break his kiss, even if I wanted to. My hands slipped under his shirt, gripping his waist, feeling his body shudder under the intensity of our kiss. Our breathing was ragged, slipping through our open mouths, mostly just recirculated air from each other. I started feeling light headed but I couldn't stop. I had never felt so alive in my life. Kissing him was exactly as I wrote to myself - like finding a missing piece of myself. Then his hands were wandering down my torso, tugging my shirt out of my pants and teasing the sensitive skin under my waistband so that I was left gasping, dragging his hips closer to me by grabbing his ass firmly and drawing him forward. But when our hips collided the friction had us both writhing in pleasure and he moaned my name. But it wasn't my name. It was Heero's. We both stopped abruptly, feeling the tension between us. He looked guilty and ashamed as we sat there, catching our breaths, letting the passion cool. "This isn't right," I finally muttered, dropping my hands from his body. "I'm not him." "You don't want me?" he asked cautiously, seeming very vulnerable, almost afraid of my rejection. "I want you so bad," I admitted, my voice husky with desire, and I slipped a hand through the hair at the base of his neck, pulling him in for a long, lingering kiss. "But I don't want to hurt you," I whispered as we parted and he rested his forehead against mine. "It's too late for that," Duo whispered back. "You hurt me a long time ago..." He kissed me then, lightly, his lips quivering, and I could taste the saline from his silent tears. The back of my knuckles brushed his cheek softly. I didn't know what to say or do. No matter how much I wanted him, it just wasn't fair to lead him on. He wanted me to be Heero, and I wasn't. Even if I wanted to be. And then I realized what it was I had to do. I had to reverse this. The only thing I could do for him was to give him Heero back. Maybe that would obliterate me, but maybe I would be happier, too. "I should go," I stated bluntly. The words made Duo flinch but I think he understood why I had to. Though he didn't say anything, he did get up off me and backed away to the hallway, standing dejectedly with his arms across his chest. The way his eyes followed me as I straightened my clothes was heart wrenching. Maybe I had never felt as good as I had moments before, but I also had never felt as bad as I did right then either. But those painful blue eyes I couldn't force myself to meet only steeled my resolve and as I made the long drive back to Geneva, I started formulating my plan.
~ * ~ tbc...
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