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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" 2.5 The Interlude
We had a lot to accomplish in a fairly short amount of time. The four of us decided at the cottage that Edward would reach out to Nexxus and offer ten men who could pass a background check and get security clearance. He said he knew some men from his involvement in White Fang who he could trust to keep their mouths shut if we wiped the dark spots from their pasts and gave them an opportunity for a new life, even if it involved something as dull as colony construction. I felt like the risk of our minds being reformatted under those circumstances was low and acceptable. Edward would be sure to let Nexxus know he would be considering their offer but that he wanted to hear from us ten first to see how the memory procedure affected those already working on the colony, acting quite contrite about his quick refusal. Surely no one agreed right away, at least Duo and Relena both hoped as much. So Edward and Relena returned to their palatial home to carry out their half of the plan and Duo and I, unfortunately, returned to his apartment. I was greeted with the heartrending memory of kissing him desperately on that couch as soon as I entered. It was as though my mind saw fit to mock me, showing me visions of what I couldn't have. But I resigned myself to sleeping on said couch for the next week and giving Duo his space. Duo, for his part, was managing rather well considering the circumstances. He was still distant and introspective and sometimes when he looked at me I could tell that he was still pretty damned angry. But then he didn't spend the whole war warning people away from his wrath, calling himself the God of Death, and killing without a cause for nothing. Duo held on to his anger like it was a life force, propelling him forward through his pain so that he didn't have to feel the low or the heartache of it, just the hot adrenaline of unadulterated rage. By contrast I boxed up my feelings and disposed of them, all of them. Hurt and anger were an equal distraction to me. Unfortunately, as I adapted to civilian life, allowed myself to open up to the idea of love and not just mutually infatuated sex, I found compartmentalizing my feelings to become more and more difficult. Instead, I began to rely on Duo to help me cope with them the way he began to rely on me to help manage his. He was so forthright and understanding and he lacked any judgment when it came to me. He accepted me wholesale, despite my tortured and abnormal outlook on life. It took us a while to work it out - our stubborn and overbearing personalities warred with each other daily in the beginning. I quickly lost count of the number of times we beat the shit out of each other before he slammed the door on me and turned up drunk the next day on someone else's couch. Especially during that regrettable, mistaken time, I still viewed Relena as a mission and answered to her every demand in desperation to hold on to some semblance of a life I thought was normal. Despite Duo's best efforts to point it out to me - although frankly he was suffering from deficient communication in the same way I was, unable to get through to me as he could only explain himself in emotional ways foreign to me - I didn't really understand until I accidentally overheard Relena and Milliardo discussing my employment. "You can't keep him here," Milliardo was explaining to her gently. "You can't keep him hanging on to his past or he'll never have a future." "What future is there for him without me?" Even despite my emotionally stunted perspective at that point in time I could tell from her voice that she was verging on tears. Milliardo was silent a long time then. So long I almost walked past the open doorway, thinking the conversation was over. But just as I was about to move, he spoke. "I think Duo Maxwell is his future." The words were cautious but I felt my heart slam in my chest as I heard them. Duo? The guy who stormed out on me last night after we'd fucked and who wandered in with a hangover this morning as I was leaving? I felt sure Milliardo was mistaken. I never thought of him as long term at that point, but I guess I hadn't much thought of my life as long term either, then. I wanted him to explain himself. I wanted him to tell me what he thought my future was because if it didn't involve protecting Relena then I didn't have a damned clue what I was good for. "That pilot? His roommate?" Relena asked incredulously. At least I could admit we were more than roommates. Though I wouldn't have called him my boyfriend, exactly, or maybe even acknowledged our relationship at all to anyone else. "Relena," Milliardo said sensitively, "I'm fairly certain they are more than roommates." She didn't say anything and I couldn't see her expression so I wasn't sure what she thought of that. I wondered how the hell Milliardo of all people knew about us. "He's the only pilot who stuck around. Why do you think that is? It's not like Duo didn't have other places he could've gone." When Milliardo uttered those words I felt a way I had only felt a few times before. I felt like I couldn't breathe. Like I was making a mistake. A mistake with astronomical consequences. Everything had become clear to me in that instant. Duo did have other places to be. He could have left me permanently any of those times he walked out that door over the past few months. He could've gone back to Hilde. He could've never come back. And the feeling that left me with, the feeling of loneliness and fear I felt imaging our apartment without him far outweighed my feeling of uselessness after the war. Relena was arguing something but I was sliding down the wall, holding myself tightly, unable to fight the painful feeling in my chest as I thought about never seeing his face again. Not his radiant smile, not that handsome scowl. No teasing or fighting. No touching. Just me. Alone. And fuck but I didn't want to be alone any more. I'm not sure how long I sat there, listening but not listening to their argument, wrapped in the insecurities in my head, before I realized that I hadn't made the mistake yet. That Duo was probably passed out on the couch right at that very instant, waiting for me to get home so we could kiss and fuck and he wouldn't have to think about his own pain any more. Why didn't I see it before? This wasn't any easier for him than it was for me. And it was then that I realized all of my counting his transgressions was petty and immature. He was fighting to regain some grip on reality just as hard as I was and he was fighting me on top of it. I remember how I felt dazed as I made my way back to the apartment, quitting my job without a single word to anyone, just hoping that I was able to repair our ship before it sank, not knowing what the hell I was going to do to prevent that. I remember how I found him when I got back, passed out on the bathroom floor, looking rough as hell and the whole room stank of sick but I hardly noticed. I gathered him up into my arms and held him for a long time until he came to. As soon as his eyes cracked open I announced that I had quit. Confusion beset his face quickly and he rubbed his eyes with one hand, swallowing hard. "Come again?" he asked at last. "Room's 'till a little wobbly." "How much did you drink?" I chided. Although I'm sure my words were as cold as they ever were, I didn't mean them unkindly. In fact, just the opposite. I was genuinely concerned. Even though Duo was often hung over in those days, he was rarely sick. "'Nuff to forget," he muttered and closed his eyes. I didn't ask him what he wanted to forget, although I was curious. Our argument last night wasn't the worst we'd had, if anything it was typical, so I wondered what made it more worthy of being forgotten than all the others. Then he was cracking one eye open to study me. "Wait - whadja say jus' now?" "I quit," I repeated. "I'm not working for her anymore." Duo sat straight up then and stared at me like I might spontaneously combust. The blood drained from his face and I couldn't tell if it was from shock or the sudden movement in his ill state. "What?" he asked quietly, disbelieving. "I quit." And in a bold move, spurred on by the eloquence of Milliardo and my own glaring deficiencies I repeated what he told to Relena. "She's my past. You are my future." At that time I had no idea what the contortions on his face meant or the way he blinked and narrowed his eyes. I decided in that long, terrifying moment that if he would accept that as an apology I would dedicate myself to understanding that face as well as I understood Wing's cockpit. Then he stood quickly, pitching forward against the counter, obviously not having regained his balance from the effects of mass alcohol consumption, and I stared in confusion as he furiously brushed his teeth. It seemed particularly out of context and he turned to meet my stare after rinsing out his mouth and slamming the brush down on the counter. "I almost gave up on you," he stated and it sounded like an apology. But I hardly heard the words because no sooner had they left his mouth than he was falling on top of me, kissing me hard, bruising my lips with his own. I hadn't realized I was so caught up in my memories until Duo was snapping his fingers in my face. "Oy! 'Ro! Where are ya, buddy?" he asked curtly and I stared up into his eyes. His expression softened then. I guess my eyes showed him something about what I'd been thinking. "Just wanna know what you want for dinner as this is our last meal before our enslavement on L6." I sighed. "Just order pizza or something." He cocked his head to the side and studied me for a long minute. "You hate pizza." "But you love it," I responded without thinking. I didn't really care and I wasn't really hungry. "This ain't a dictatorship," Duo replied automatically in a teasing tone of voice, "it's a democratic monarchy." But as the final words were leaving his lips we both looked a bit horrified. It was something he said to me frequently when I would predict his desires and give in to them without a second thought. He seemed to think I was being masochistic or insincere, but most of the time I really just didn't care. And if it made him happy, so be it. "Duo -" I started but he was turning away from me, picking up the phone. "I'll order you a gyro," he explained, brushing me away with one hand as he dialed. I followed him with my eyes as he disappeared from sight and then I listened as he placed the order and opened the fridge to grab a beer. This was the shit I was bad at. I knew I should go to him and say... something. Maybe what I said to him that day our relationship changed? That I still wanted him to be my future. But the difficulty of dealing with him and my emotions and his emotions seemed overwhelming and I just wanted to shut down to save myself the struggle. But on the other hand my fear of losing him and his familiarity and our relationship, our lives, was equally overwhelming. And then he was coming back like nothing happened, a beer in both hands and he offered me one. I took it and immediately set it down on the coffee table while he threw his back. "I never wanted you to be my past," I said bluntly and he paused mid-swig and cracked his eyes open at me. Then the bottle was leaving his lips and he fell back on the couch next to me. He threw his feet up on the coffee table and picked at the label on the bottle a moment. "Maybe you shoulda thought about that before fucking up your head and disappearing." "I did," I replied coolly. "That's why I left Jack." Duo snorted and rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah, real smart move there." "But you were with him," I pointed out, already growing frustrated with this conversation. "I wouldn't go that far." Duo finished the beer. "We went on a few dates, that's all." Then he was up and moving around the room. I watched as he picked up a gun from his bookshelf amongst all the gadgetry strewn across it, opened the barrel, gave it a once over and clicked it shut. "Wish we could take some fuckin' firearms," he muttered under his breath before setting it back down and walking back to the kitchen for what I assume would be another beer. Duo reentered with a new drink and stared at me. "You try going on a few dates with a person you love but know nothing about. Someone you spent years tortured over who doesn't even recognize you." The anger in his voice and eyes was unmistakable. "Fuck you, man." He walked out of the room and left me alone with my thoughts for a minute. Although part of me may have thought I could've handled the whole situation differently years ago, I couldn't truly regret it as he was safe and I appeared to be fixed - at least as far as ZERO was concerned. If he couldn't forgive me for the drastic measures I had to take to achieve that, we would both have to live with that reality. Fine. But then maybe he shouldn't be coming with me. He compromised me emotionally and he certainly was going to compromise himself if he couldn't control his anger. I heard him before I saw him but suddenly he was charging back into the room, fire in his eyes, words flying out of his mouth at the speed of light. "I know you were just trying to protect me but just fucking think about what that did to me! How I felt. Try to understand how I feel for once - !" And then I was feeling him as he threw himself into my lap, straddling me in such a similar way as how that memory presented itself to me over a week ago, as if it were a premonition instead, because he was pressing his lips to mine roughly. Fuck but it felt good to have him on me again, his solid body underneath my hands, his needy tongue roving my mouth. I felt so weak under him, like he was fire - melting me, and I knew I was shaking as my hands slid up his shirt and across the muscled expanse of his back. We were both panting by the time we pulled apart and I stared at him as if he were an idol and I was privileged to worship him. I noted the way he blushed, his sensitivity to my intensity. And then he scowled, hauled back, and punched me. My head snapped to the side and I was completely caught off guard. I don't know how I forgot how fast he could move but I did. I didn't forget his strength, though, and I knew that wasn't the hardest punch he could throw. Regardless, it still hurt. "Shit!" I cursed and turned my head back around to glare at him. But fucked up as I was I wasn't actually angry. Frustrated, yeah, and hard. I was hard, harder than if he'd just kept kissing me. And when my heated eyes met his I saw my lust reflected there. And then we were kissing again, his hands pulling painfully at my hair, and my hands were on his hips, pressing them down so that I could grind into his ass and he was rocking them back and forth over me, jerking forward into my abs, desperate for some kind of friction. I wanted to throw him backwards onto the coffee table and fuck him senseless but my ribs were already sore with my labored breathing and I didn't think I could lift him even that short distance with my knee as it was. Fuck this was some serious bullshit! I found my hands fumbling with his pants instead, hoping to at least manage a hand job. Or that he would stand and I could feel him in my mouth again. Just the thought of it made me groan in desperation. This is what we were good at, this was us, our relationship, and hell yeah I wanted to reprise that. The sweetness and the sex, the adoration and the abuse. His love and his hate. I wanted this. I wanted it all back. With shaky fingers I had barely managed to reach into his pants to help release him from that constrictive prison when the doorbell rang. "Holy goddamned fuck," Duo growled, eyes wide with surprise and he was off of me instantaneously, sucking in deep calming breaths as he zippered his pants back up carefully, taking a huge swing of his beer, trying to straighten his clothes. My heart was racing and I wanted to grab him and drag him onto the floor, force him to stay here with me, not let him go that easily but he was already at the door forking over money for our food. He set it on the coffee table before disappearing down the hallway for a moment, muttering something about magnets, and I stroked my aching dick through my pants in frustration. When he came back he seemed more collected, to my extreme disappointment. I wondered if he'd jerked off and the thought of it made me angry and hard all over again. And I wasn't that hungry to begin with, at least not for food. Duo brought back yet another beer from the kitchen and a mean spirited little part of me wanted him to get trashed enough to be that vulnerable again because the determined set of his jaw and the way he sat down across from me on the floor let me know that he wasn't going to slip up that easily again. Then he was eating his pizza with full concentration and I forced myself to eat my gyro with practiced methodic movements. He wouldn't look at me, but I couldn't not look at him. Finally he finished off his second beer, slammed it on the table, then looked at me. "That was a mistake. I'm still mad." I nodded. I didn't agree, and I think he knew that, it was just an acknowledgement that I'd heard him. "It's been a long time since we've done a mission together." I frowned. Not to me it hadn't. I mean, this was certainly different, but our last mission was only a few weeks before I woke up in the hospital. "Not to you, I know, but whatever. Not important. I just - we need to trust each other. I guess it's a little too late for that now, but I'm having a hard time trusting you. You need to know that." I was nodding again. "We'll keep it professional." Duo heaved a sigh of relief and popped the bottle cap off the third beer on the edge of the table. "Good." Although I didn't say it, I made a silent promise to him that I wouldn't leave him alone. I would be there every step of the way, protecting him, making sure he made it out of there with his memory and body intact. We would reprise this. Tonight gave me just enough hope that it was still possible.
~ * ~ tbc... |
