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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" 1.7 The Two-Week Wait Monday morning didn't leave me feeling resolved about much. Part of me wanted to see Duo desperately, part of me wanted to take the fifty thousand credits in that bank and run to Tahiti alone, part of me wanted to undo all this and force Heero to deal with this situation himself. Despite what he'd said in the note, he did run away. He ran away from Duo and himself and whatever threat there was and hid inside of me. And that pissed me off. So I was mostly feeling pissed when the call came in that morning. I didn't recognize the number but that didn't mean much recently and despite how angry I was I couldn't help but hope it was Duo, calling from wherever he was before he left for Mars. You can imagine my surprise when I accepted the connection and was faced with Mister Quatre Raberba Winner's fair and none to pleased face. I'm sure my mouth opened and shut unsuccessfully as I attempted to find any words for this unusual situation. "Hello, Jack." The soft, pleasant voice was a strange juxtaposition to the caustic way in which he shot the greeting at me. "Mister Winner?" I finally asked in obvious confusion. "Duo never could lie," he tsked and I got the feeling I was a bug he wanted to squash under his foot. "He told me he met a wonderful, intriguing man by the name of Jack who he thought he'd fall easily for." Mister Winner studied his manicured fingernails as if they were infinitely more interesting than me. "But I know Duo too well." His clear blue eyes met mine with a barely veiled threat beneath them. "I knew it was you. Every date he's been on recently was an abject disappointment. No number of nice guys failed to please him. I introduced him to princes but they weren't good enough, because they weren't you." He spat the word 'you' as if it turned his stomach to have it in his mouth. As if I personally disgusted him. "I don't even know you," I returned haughtily, immediately regretting speaking to a man of his stature that way but unable to stop myself against his insulting tone. He looked at me and chuckled. "That's right. You don't. But I know you." I knew that meant nothing good and I repressed a shiver at his cool and menacing tone. "What do you want?" he asked after a moment, his hands gesturing in an open way. "What?" I asked back, thoroughly perplexed. "What do you want?" he repeated a bit slower, as if I were an imbecile. "You must know I can give you anything you desire. What payment do you want in exchange for leaving Duo alone?" I was proud of myself for not letting my mouth hang open in my disbelief. "Nothing!" I replied quickly. "I don't want to leave him alone. I just found him." I surprised myself with the strength of my conviction, but that didn't faze Mister Winner. "That's unfortunate," he said with a sigh. "You know you tried to hurt him, don't you? This isn't a joke. If you don't hurt him yourself, they will." "They who?" I felt myself at the breaking point, my anger roiling in my stomach, my fingers gripping my desk so hard they began to ache. "How can I defend him against a threat I don't know?" "You are the threat Jack!" His words seared with their intensity. "What about that don't you understand? If he stays with you, he will die. If you love him, you will leave! It's that easy." "No, it's not!" I shot back. "I can't leave him again. I promised I wouldn't. Isn't it his right to decide if the risk is worth it? Shouldn't you be honest and tell him what's going on?" The glare Mister Winner leveled at me would've made a lesser man back down. But I was over it. I was tired of this game. I was frustrated by not knowing what was going on or why, pissed that I could hurt Duo and he knew how but wouldn't tell me, furious that he felt he could threaten me with no explanation. I easily threw his glare back at him and I was sure if we were in the same room it would've iced over. "You have to decide if his life is worth it to you or not," Mister Winner growled through gritted teeth. "But let me warn you, his life is worth it to me. And if you make an enemy of me, I will rain hell upon you in ways you cannot even imagine so please back off before I am forced to eliminate you my self." The screen went black then and I was left reeling from the threats against my person by the infamous business mogul. I knew he and Duo were close, but... How was I supposed to deal with this? Should I tell Duo his buddy was a psychopath bent on killing me? Surely Duo wouldn't believe me. Mister Winner was well known for his charity and affectionate personality. And even if he did believe me, what good would it do? It would either frighten him or alienate him from one of us. Though I wanted nothing more than for Duo to chew him the hell out for his actions, I didn't want to cause him any more strife, especially when I was the cause of so much of it since our first meeting. Mister Winner obviously knew something about why Heero was lead to such drastic measures - his words mimicked the note Heero had left for me. But his hostility made it clear that I wasn't going to get any useful information out of him. One thing was clear, though. I had to be careful. Obviously Heero was a legitimate threat to Duo. And I might be too - as much as it pained me to consider that. Winner thought so, anyway. But Heero seemed fastidious, at least if he was anything like me he certainly was, and he had no concerns as far as my interaction with Duo. He basically begged me to run away with him, which he surely wouldn't have done if I was a legitimate threat, right? The whole thing was so confusing I couldn't puzzle it out. And when I tried to ignore all the facts of the situation and think about what I wanted, I didn't even know if I could trust myself, thinking of Heero's subconscious screaming at me to stay with Duo. Because that was all I seemed to want. My beloved job didn't matter to me any more. My life meant nothing now that he was in it. He was it for me. He was all I wanted, all the time. And I was pretty sure he felt the same way. Cold, white, sterile room. He felt like death, slipping silently forward, slipping into the seat. Cold, white, sterile seat. Uncomfortable. Eyes floating around the room, no defined point to focus on. Hard to force his eyes forward. Hard to close them. Fear pounding through him, not wanting to be caught off guard. Duo walked in, cupping his face with his hands. Warm, blue, comforting eyes. Giving him something to focus on. Whispering his love. Whispering that it was for the best. Warm, wet, fervent kiss. Perfection. But he wasn't real. A different man stood there instead. Old, white lab coat, acted confidently. A lie. False bravado. He was warning him about the procedure. Potential memory loss. No shit? Kinda the point, right? No, he assured, permanent. Unable to be reversed. Didn't matter now. Too late now. Duo staring over his shoulder, looking forlorn. Looking the way he would look if he knew what was going on. Lost. Abandoned. He blinked. Removed him. Now wasn't the time to be thinking that. For the best. It was for the best. Couldn't turn back now. Too late now. Sterile chair reclined. Neural transmitters attached. Machine sounds. Cardiovascular transmitters. Heartbeat. IV insertion. Impending sleep. He was talking about what to expect. Headaches. Nausea. Disorientation. Didn't matter. Wouldn't remember. Procedure. For him, his confidence. Drifting. Slowly. Sleep. Duo laying on him, pocketknife gleaming. One last kiss. Needy. Loving. Holding the knife. Slipping across his skull. Blood running. Down his head, down his eyes, down the chair. Drip, drip. Drip, drip. Drip in time to his heart beat. I awoke with a start, gasping desperately for breath and fighting to rend myself from the sweat-soaked sheets entangling me. Then I stopped and just let myself breathe for a moment. I never dreamt like that, so vividly, about such a stressful, hopeless thing. This whole situation was too stressful. I had spent the whole week deadlocked, switching between reading Heero's books and attempting to do my job when in reality the only thing I wanted to do was wrap Duo up in my arms and hide away from the whole damned world. But it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to ask him to hide. I finally unwrapped myself and picked up my phone, noting the time. Five a.m. Early, even for me. I got up, wrapped myself in a robe, my sweaty body cold now in the chill of my apartment, and started fixing a cup of tea to settle myself. My stomach still churned with the anxiety of the dream and I raked my hands through my hair a few times as the electric pot finally started to boil. I sipped gratefully at the elixir but I knew even as I calmed down that I was going to do something stupid. How could I seriously be expected to go two weeks without seeing him? I found amusement in the fact that I initially wanted nothing to do with him, and now... It was dumb, it was weak, but when I was with him, I felt whole. Maybe that was wrong of me, maybe that in and of itself was a cause for concern, but it was the truth. And I'd be damned if I'd let anyone other than him dictate our relationship. It felt good to finally come to that conclusion and I settled back in bed with my phone in hand, hesitating for a moment before dialing his number. I quickly got a message that my call was being transferred and then it was a good ten minutes before the phone started to ring, which I'd anticipated due to the communications delay between Earth and Mars but which also gave me plenty of time to reconsider this course of action. But my desire to see him was too great. So I stayed on the line and hoped he'd pick up. When his face finally showed up on the screen I fought back the smile that threatened to overpower my face. The connection wasn't great, the picture flickered in and out and was riddled with static interference, but it was him. And I was happy. "Oy, Jack, what the hell time is it there? Six in the morning or something? And it's Saturday, ain't it? What the hell ya calling me for? Go back to bed!" he teased with a wink. "Or are you already in bed...?" Ugh. That voice. That husky, suggestive question made me wish he was in bed with me, whispering like that in my ear. "Yeah, I am. And it's five," I corrected. "Couldn't sleep." There was a brief time delay between my speaking and when the words reached him so he reacted off beat. "Wanted to see you." But after a moment he was beaming at me. "Aww, you're lucky, I just got back on the shuttle and we're headed home now." He paused a moment, his eyes changing and his mood sobering a touch. "I want to see you too." "I will get to see you Saturday, right? You'll be home? I can take you out, this time." I tried not to let my hopefulness be too obvious but after my words transmitted his thoughtful expression became amused and cheerful again. "You got it bad for me, don'cha?" Duo joked, wagging a finger. I hoped he wouldn't see my blush in the dark with a bad connection. "Unfortunately I'm 'posed to be helping out at the orphanage that morning since my normal routine got all outta whack." "I'll go with you," I offered quickly, realizing how desperate I probably sounded but having a difficult time making myself care. "You don't have to do that, I mean, a great date isn't really spent hanging out with a bunch of kids..." "No!" I replied quickly - as quickly as the lag would allow. "It would be perfect." "You'd have to meet me pretty early..." he explained reluctantly, turning his eyes from mine. "I'm sitting here at five in the morning calling you. I don't care." "You and your single-minded focus." He chuckled and turned his eyes back to me. "I guess. But if you change your mind, it's okay, ya know." I resisted the urge to interrupt him and assure him I wouldn't because with the lag we'd end up talking over each other. "I'll email you the specifics, huh?" "Sure," I agreed easily, unable to suppress a small smile. I had a date when I would see him again...! That eased me far more than the tea. I wanted to warn him not to tell his friend Mister Winner, but I felt it was inappropriate under the circumstances and I didn't want to worry him so I just kept my mouth shut. Duo grinned and tapped the screen with one finger. "Go back to sleep now, you! Now that you've seen me, you ought to have nothing but sweet dreams." I ducked my head a bit, embarrassed by his teasing but hopeful that I would have more pleasant dreams now that I'd gotten a chance to see his face and hear his voice. "Be safe," I cautioned him and he waved a hand. "Always," he quipped with a relaxed smile. "Sweet dreams!" he sang and the call was disconnected. I found myself staring foolishly at the screen for a while before setting my phone down next to the empty teacup, getting up and disrobing, straightening out my sheets, and curling back up in bed. I didn't really curl, normally... but for some unfathomable reason, after speaking to him, I found myself cradling a pillow and, though I wouldn't admit it to anyone - I almost didn't admit it to myself - wishing it were him.
~ * ~ tbc... |
