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"Heero Yuy, L6, and the Second Suit Wars "Part 2Written 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... The lovely Miss-Murdered beta'd this for me and frankly this story wouldn't exist without her encouragement.
"A Former Life Reprised" 2.1 The Awakening When I began to regain consciousness the first thing I noticed was the damned IV in my arm. It was always the first thing I noticed. That horrible needle placed under the skin, in the vein, a method of control beyond any I felt comfortable with. And then the crushing physical pain took its toll and my head ached. It hurt to think but I forced myself to do so, to remember how I got here. A memory of Duo floated to the surface, sleeping, so at peace and I, I was standing over him, with my pistol clutched tightly in my - Fuck. FUCK. Immediately I forced my body to move, fighting the pain, pushing it deep away inside of me so that I could do what I had to do to get to him. I ripped the IV out of my arm, barely noticing its absence. I felt panic rise in my throat as I tried to sit up, fighting gravity becoming more difficult than I'd anticipated in my debilitated state. "Duo - !" I choked on his name, my throat raw and dry and I struggled harder, not sure how I'd gotten here but determined to find him. If I was in the hospital, then surely he must be - Suddenly strong hands were on my shoulders, pushing me back down, and I fought them too, but I could barely jerk away and it hurt. I tried to push the pain down, but fuck did it ever hurt. "It's okay," the calm voice comforted me and it wasn't his. "It's okay, just lay back down," it commanded and my eyes focused on the man in front of me. Wufei. Why was Wufei here? I couldn't tell whether I should panic because Duo wasn't with me or calm down and let Wufei handle it. "Duo?" I croaked out desperately. "He's - I -" "It's okay," he said for the third time, a firm hand placed in the center of my chest. "He's just down the hall getting some coffee." I relaxed and didn't even protest when Wufei hit the nurse call button to get my IV replaced. It was okay. Duo was okay. I didn't hurt him. Not yet. I didn't hurt him yet. I heard the door open and Wufei turned towards the sound. "He's up," I heard him say but I didn't move, not wanting to draw the ire of the nurses who were already going to be angry that I removed my IV. But the sound of liquid splashing across the ground made me realize it wasn't a nurse. It was Duo. Instantly I was trying to sit up again to get a look at him and Wufei was trying to fight me back down but I whipped my head around and saw him approaching me. His eyes... His eyes were the only eyes I was ever able to read, having studied them so intimately for so long. There was something amiss there. He was scared and angry. I expected relief, maybe even joy at my consciousness. I wish I could remember what I'd done... "Fuck, Jack," he started but my face contorted in confusion then before I could clamp down on the emotion. "Heero...?" he tried again and I felt sick. He couldn't even remember my name? How the fuck long had I been out of it? The nurse came in and started attempting to replace my IV, but I pushed her away. "Jack?" I would've roared if my throat didn't hurt so badly. With my voice as it was, I tried to intimidate him with my glare instead. Then the nurse was back, Wufei helping her hold down my arm. "Holy shit." His eyes went wide with surprise. "He's never coming back. He fucking told me he was never coming back." And then irrational anger overrode any other reasonable thought and I thrashed, my glare pinned on my lover, meeting his horrified eyes with a threat as I fought to get off the bed. "Listen, Heero, you don't understand," he begged but I didn't care what he said. All I wanted was to get out of that bed and throw him up against the wall, demand he explain who the fuck Jack was. Here I was, contemplating completely destroying myself to save him and he was running around with another man. And then Wufei was fighting back, hard, and Duo was slumping into a chair off to the side, and the nurse was pumping me full of sedative because I collapsed into a dark, dreamless sleep. That groggy feeling you get from heavy sedation clouded my mind as I came to for the second time since being admitted to the hospital. I heard voices. They sounded distant and far away but as I forced away the fog I realized it was Duo and Wufei. "But maybe he did. I could've died. If he wasn't in the hospital I'd have been on that freighter and -" Duo's voice. Confused. Scared. "I have no doubt he loves you." Wufei interrupted. Calm. Matter of fact. "But Heero is a purely selfish person. Putting you through that was selfish and nothing else, don't fool yourself." Pause. Duo. "I don't know, 'Fei..." I tried to turn my head to alert them to my consciousness but it was difficult to make even that small motion. I wondered what the fuck they hit me with - a damned horse tranquilizer? But Duo must've noticed my struggle because he was by my side in a flash. I looked up into his eyes. Concern. Fear. Noted. He grasped my hand tenderly and squeezed, though the effect of the lingering sedation made the touch feel muffled. "Heero...?" he tried cautiously and I didn't reply, I just continued to stare. "Can you talk?" I tested my voice a few times on the reply until my "yeah" came out somewhat normal, though scratchy. "You've been in a coma for a week," he explained gently and I groaned inwardly. A fucking coma. Brain damage. I was too sedated to figure out to what degree - it was too difficult to think. "Do you remember what happened?" It was hard to shake my head so I answered verbally. "No." Duo sighed, his eyes changed. Sadness. Noted. "You jumped thirty floors off my hotel balcony," he explained. "I thought you were over doing shit like that. You're not some hot shot fifteen year old any more. That fall could've killed you. Should have. Would have if you hadn't hit all those tents on the way down..." Duo shuddered then, clearly remembering the image. "Why?" I asked, confused, unable to remember why I would jump off a balcony. "Mission?" I asked then, the only reason I could imagine. He blinked. Shock. Noted. "You don't remember?" "No." I knew my voice had a trace of irritation that Duo would immediately latch on to but if I had remembered I wouldn't have asked. "You don't remember Jack?" he asked. I thought he was using slang at first until I remembered him saying the name when I first woke up and suddenly anger was rising within me again. "Jack?" I asked through gritted teeth. "You don't remember the last three and a half years?" He dropped my hand, balling his into fists. Anger. Noted. He was flipping through emotions too quickly. Something was wrong. He was losing control. Also noted. But in my own anger I found it difficult to care. And I almost missed his words in favor of trying to figure out his emotions. "I'm not brain dead," I retorted, having difficulty keeping my anger in. "I remember our time at Preventer." We'd signed up about four years ago. It was the only thing I could think. "Fuck you, Heero Yuy," he spat. I couldn't see his eyes but the tone of his voice was enough for me to go on. He was pissed. "You put me through fucking hell for almost four years and you don't fucking remember it?" Then he lifted his eyes. I was right. Pissed. Noted. He didn't give me a chance to protest before he stormed out of the room. I watched as he attempted to slam the door but it was one of those ones with a buffer so it was impossible to slam and instead just stopped and shut slowly for the last few inches. I heard him growl and then the sound of his fist connecting with it. Twice. Correction. Flaming pissed. I was left feeling tired and confused as my anger quickly dissipated. Once he was gone, I felt a void and I just wanted him to come back. But instead Wufei came up with a thick brown envelope in his hands. He sat down in a seat next to me, seeming weary. Old. Older than I remember him being. "What year is it?" he asked quietly, turning the envelope over in his hands. I was thankful he was here. He was much easier to deal with than Duo when I was unsure of myself. "AC 200," I said, suddenly remembering vividly how Duo and I celebrated New Years. Pressing him against a brick wall in a heady throng of people, all drunk, so drunk, even I was drunk and I was kissing him and jerking him off and he was moaning into my mouth, his hands latched on the back of my neck, forcing me closer, ever closer - I stopped. Not the time to think about that. Wufei sighed and met my gaze with some effort on his part. "No, its not. Its 204." I stared, confused. I knew Wufei wouldn't lie to me, but what could he mean by that? Duo said I'd been comatose a week, not four years. "You disappeared on August 1st, 200," Wufei began and I reeled from the words. What did he mean, I disappeared? "You told Duo you had a solo mission but you didn't. You simply left. No one knew where you went. You're untraceable when you want to be." He paused to let me absorb the information but it didn't make sense. I left Duo...? I left Duo. I groaned, remembering my fear as I awoke here the first time. I was going to hurt him. Fuck. I was going to hurt him and so I left. But I wasn't gone. I was back. How did I get back? "Duo found you by accident at a tech conference in New York a little over two months ago," Wufei continued then, rubbing a temple with one hand. "You were going by the name Jack Kaufmann and working for Nexxus International Group as an AI Researcher." Then it hit me fully. Jack. Jack Kaufmann, the man I was to become to save Duo. I'd done it. I'd really done it. I had become someone else. "When he learned you were living in Geneva and working at Nexxus HQ, you two decided to reprise some sort of relationship. I only learned of your existence here in Geneva a month ago." Shit. Wufei. A true friend. I apparently hadn't seen him for years and yet he was still here for me when I needed him. "Duo called me once you were checked in and I took time off to be with him. Understandably, he's a wreck right now. Something happened between you two before you jumped. I'm not sure what, nor do I care, but despite your condition you should try to be sympathetic to him," he warned me and I felt somewhat humbled. He didn't look pleased with me either. I suppose I couldn't blame him but at this point he should've known that I don't do anything without careful, dedicated planning and if I did something so drastic it had to be for a good reason. And that I would have to do it again if I was still a threat to Duo. "He's also a bit upset to learn the freighter he was due to pilot the day after you foolishly fell thirty feet to your death exploded en route to L6," Wufei explained and I recognized it as part of the conversation they were having as I was coming to. "The cause appears to be engine failure but they're still investigating." Fuck. We should both be dead. That thought was less than pleasant. "Do you think you can sit up?" he asked and I contemplated that, moving my arms a bit and feeling that the sluggishness had left to a degree. He helped position my bed at an incline and set the envelope on my lap. "Your alter ego Jack left this with Duo before he jumped." Wufei just couldn't help himself, he was going to dig it in at every chance he got, just like when a mission fucked up. He always had a bit of a superiority complex with me. Probably something about his own fuck up with Mariemaia. "Duo refused to open it, so I respected your privacy as well, but I hope it contains some explanation of why he decided to selfishly fall to his death in front of a man he supposedly cared about." See? Couldn't help himself. "We'll see," I muttered as I turned the unmarked envelope over in my hands. "I'll go calm down Maxwell," Wufei stated, not unkindly, though it irritated me in a way. I wanted to be the one to calm him down, like always, the way I'd learned how through years of careful study, but we were probably beyond the point of no return now. We probably weren't even technically a couple any more. It had been almost four years... Suddenly my heart ached and it had nothing to do with the fall and my broken bones and sore, unused muscles. We had nothing. We were nothing. His hand on mine... Residual affection from a failed relationship. "He has no obligation to me," I said simply and Wufei turned from where he stood, only a foot away from the door, pinning me with a sad look soaked in pity. "He doesn't," he agreed before slipping through the door and leaving me alone. Alone. I guess it hadn't been such a long time since I was alone. Three and a half years. But to me, it was yesterday that Duo was stretched out in the middle of the bed, laying on his stomach, one arm flopped over my waist, a foot hooking one of my own, snoring lightly, peacefully as I remained perfectly still, basking in his presence, waiting for the alarm to blare and his familiar string of curses as he hit snooze and snuggled up next to me. I hadn't been alone since the war. Duo was always there. Even when I didn't want him to be. Even when I tried to push him away. He clung to me like a fucking leech. But not now. Not any more. Fuck. I pushed those thoughts away and studied the envelope with a bit of apprehension. I remembered suddenly giving Duo a small envelope before I left with a key inside, telling him to hold onto it for me. He thought nothing of it. I remember slipping his pictures of me into another envelope, leaving them in a lock box, waiting to be discovered one day. They must've been discovered. Right? He had found me. Or the me I'd left for him. It was coming back to me, now. A man stood there. Old, white lab coat, acted confidently. A lie. False bravado. He was warning me about the procedure. Potential memory loss. No shit? Kinda the point, right? No, he assured, permanent. With shaking hands I opened the envelope, sliding its contents into my lap. A stack of credits. A stack of print outs. A handwritten letter - my own familiar handwriting. The key. A bank business card. Another, smaller envelope. Addressed to me. In my handwriting. I was glad it wasn't sealed because as embarrassing as it was to admit I wasn't sure I would've been able to open it in my severely weakened and post-sedated state. My hands trembled slightly as I drew out the folded sheets of paper and opened them carefully. To Heero Yuy, it stated with simplicity. But right under that there was a space and an additional note. But if Duo is reading this, please understand, I didn't want to involve you further in my personal issues. I know I hurt you and I saw no reason to hurt you further. I hope in time you will come to understand and forgive me. I blinked and reread the sentence, wondering what kind of relationship Duo and Jack had. There was space after that before the letter started in earnest. This letter will outline my findings over the past two months after meeting Duo Maxwell and discovering the true nature of my past. Despite my belief that I was a simple man who had dropped out of high school at age twelve to study AI design it became quickly apparent to me that this memory had been planted there to cover up the fact that I was apparently a former Gundam pilot. From what I have been able to ascertain from the information left for me by my previous self, Heero Yuy, he went to great lengths to create me, his alter ego, leaving intact my technical ability and my affection for Duo Maxwell. In the end, I have come to the conclusion that I can no longer continue this false existence. My knowledge of the truth and inability to reconcile my relationship with Duo has made this life too unbearable and although selfish I feel it is necessary to end this act and attempt to resurrect my creator. This letter will outline my findings over the past two months as well as the conclusions I have drawn in the hope they will prove useful to whoever finds this letter in their possession. He went on to outline his first meeting with Duo, how Duo presented him with the key to the bank account and lock box full of photographs, how Quatre called him and threatened him to leave Duo alone, how he found the note I left for him in a book on brain circuitry begging him to run away with Duo, how he eventually realized Nexxus wasn't recruiting him for his AI research but for his experience as a Gundam pilot and his suspicions regarding the psych profiles he found and included in the envelope. At the very end he left an additional note for Duo. I never said it because I knew you couldn't reciprocate, but I'll always regret not telling you that I loved you too. Even though he was me and I left him there specifically to maintain a relationship with Duo, I still felt heavy anger in my gut reading that last line. Jack was selfish to bring me back. If he loved him, he should've stayed with Duo and stuck it out, no matter how difficult. Now neither of us had him and I was frustrated at the prospect of how much time it would take me to win Duo back a third time. Especially considering I'm still puzzled as to how I even got him in the first place. I placed everything back into the envelope and lay back in the pillows. Sterile chair reclined. Neural transmitters attached. Machine sounds. Cardiovascular transmitters. Heartbeat. IV insertion. Impending sleep. Sleep. Suddenly I was so tired. Overwhelmed. Just so... tired...
~ * ~ tbc... |
