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"Heero Yuy, L6, and the Second Suit Wars "Part 3Written 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.
"Restitution of a Former Life " 3.5 The Turtle
We were careful to track our flight path out of the line of sight of anyone or anything that might be interested. HERA was a great help there as it cut any argument between us down to nothing with the instantaneous relay of our thoughts to one another's AIs. It was easy to understand how it was intended to be a pacifistic system. That didn't mean it would be used that way, but Quatre's intent at least appeared honest enough. I allowed myself to be comforted by the thought that he wasn't that jaded asshole the entire time I'd known him. Entering Earth's atmosphere like this had us both edgy and I could feel Duo's emotions bleeding into mine through HERA, although the system let me know it was attempting to minimize the affects. I wondered why it seemed so much easier to manage the system now. Despite the unfiltered sharing of emotions with Duo before we left, HERA seemed to predict my wants and needs easily and I didn't understand why it seemed so unmanageable yesterday night. The first time you came to me, you were searching for what you wanted. Now, you have a specific goal. I do not intend to be cumbersome to you. I considered that and supposed it was true. When I first sat in that cockpit I was confused and emotional. The idea of piloting again, the desire so strong within me, easily overlapping with painful memories of the war... it made sense that HERA would think that was what I wanted because I couldn't deny that I wanted to fly like this again. Mixing that with my simultaneous desire to have Duo back in my life certainly explained why HERA showed me him in that way. Why I responded so desperately with a resounding 'yes.' I understand that you don't want to be connected to the others. Others? She must've been referring to Lizzy and whatever other child pilots there were. It wasn't that I didn't want to be connected to them necessarily; it was just that I didn't want to be connected to them against my will. I acknowledged that there may well come a time we had to connect and I steeled my heart against the prospect. I felt a certain level of sympathy for Duo. He would be devastated I understand your request. And I understood that she understood my conflict about connecting with the children, to wait until I absolutely wanted it. Fuck but this was a bizarre system. It did mess with your head in ways I didn't quite understand yet. Not the way ZERO had, showing you unsettling apparent futures with no regard to your emotional capacity to handle them. It was truly no wonder Duo hated it, I realized with a depth of understanding I never had before. His whole life was wrought with emotion and unexpected disasters - he must've felt those possibilities with a poignancy I would never feel. We should reach your intended target in four minutes. Risk of detection by outside entities upon landing is minimal. I prepared for descent, seeing the Sweeper barge on screen before I could see it beneath the cloud cover. I let Duo take the lead as this was his contact and he slipped through the clouds and out of sight as I'd seen him do so many times before. I had assumed Duo would be in contact with the ship below and as I lowered the suit towards the landing pad it appeared I was right as space had been cleared for us and specific landing protocol appeared on my screen. I landed next to him, feeling successful with our maiden voyage in these suits with this system. Quickly I disengaged HERA and slid down on the cable lift. Once on the deck, I pulled off my helmet and looked towards Duo, watching him do the same, his hair unfurling across his back and he shook his head a moment and yeah, it was just as sexy as I'd remembered. The men on the deck looked shocked and uncertain and even though I was sure some of them must know Duo they stayed away until Howard was walking up towards us, shaking his head. "You had to bring this mess right to my front door," Howard observed coolly. He looked older - a lot older - than he did during the war, but he his voice had the same quality it did then - tough but approachable. Duo crossed his arms over his chest. "This is your mess old man." The words were pointed but they weren't unkind. Howard jerked a thumb towards me and I didn't even blink. "He's not." Duo snorted and rolled his eyes. "Shit," he spit out affectedly, "he's the least of your worries." "Oh, I have a feeling this all has something to do with him, one way or another..." Howard muttered before waving over some men to deal with the suits and get them below deck. Duo greeted some of them with short waves and shorter pleasantries as we followed Howard off the deck and down into the ship. But once we were in some kind of conference room, alone, Duo turned on Howard in a way that surprised me. "You know why we agreed to destroy the Gundams and yet here we are." Duo's arms were crossed defensively and I chose to stay out of this for the time being. "What choice did I have?" Howard asked back, removing his sunglasses to rub at his eyes. "Quatre came to me, begged me, told me there was shit going down and we had to be ready. This is Quatre we're talking about here - not you, not him, not that fuckin' Chinese psychopath." "We're all fucking psychopaths, man!" Howard and I both stared at Duo for the sudden exclamation, although the statement was clearly true. We were soldiers at fifteen - trained and dedicated killers - and even though we wanted to do the right thing, the facts were undeniable. "Quatre comes in with his big blue eyes and bleach blonde hair, looking all sweet, all puppy dog eyes, but he runs a multi-billion dollar corporation and he's as cunning as they come. He played you. He fucking played you, Howie." Howard leaned back against the desk, seeming very old and frail then, and it appeared Duo's words affected him perhaps more than Duo realized. But I knew Duo - I knew he was only thinking about how everything seemed to be deteriorating around him with each new thing we learned about the situation. He wasn't really mad at Howard, he was just mad that things got this bad. Duo rubbed his forehead with his thumb, sighing and hunching his shoulders a bit apologetically. "I'm sorry, man, that was uncalled for, it's just... fuck, yanno? Like..." He crossed the room to sit down next to him on the desk. "Look, I don't want to get you any more involved than you already are, but you have to trust me here, things could get real bad. What happened to 'Ro, what Quatre built those Gundams for... to be frank, we could be looking at another war if we fuck up this meeting with Caldas." "You're meeting with Sergio Caldas?" Howard asked skeptically and Duo leaned back on his hands and shrugged. "Guess so. Quat set the meeting up. Don't really have much of a choice." He gave Howard a rueful grin. "Kinda need to borrow a plane if that's cool." Howard shook his head, getting back a little of his spunk as he slipped his sunglasses back on. "Yeah, whatever, you know I can't deny you anything kid." Then he turned to look at me and though those dark lenses obscured my view of his eyes, I knew he was studying me closely. "I guess death was rough on your face." My eyes shot to Duo with that statement and his met mine for half a second before a grin overtook his face and he laughed hard at the joke Howard unwittingly made. Even my lips spread into a smile. "You could say that," Duo managed after a minute. "Shit, it's actually been months now since he showed back up." Howard lifted his eyebrows and studied Duo then and Duo just waved his hand casually like it was no big deal. "So, what's the plan? When do you need the plane?" Howard asked then, getting straight to the point. "Tomorrow morning, after breakfast I guess," Duo answered. "There's a private airfield not too far from my place in Sanc. I'd kinda like to stay there tomorrow night, check in on things, get supplies..." He looked to me and I nodded shortly. I knew he wanted a gun. I didn't see an issue with that. Put us suitably close to the Peacecraft mansion anyway. "I know it's only like seven here, but it was nine when we left L4 and I'm pretty beat. Got any empty bunks?" Howard nodded and stood. "Wish you could stay longer. Been a long time since I've seen ya." Duo winced and appeared contrite. "Sorry man, bad timing. You know I'd love to give you a hand around here and all I just..." "No, I understand. You're young and you got bigger shit to deal with than this place. You always did." They exchanged a fond smile and I felt uncomfortable to observe it. Their relationship was one I could never really understand. Duo once told me Howard was the closest thing to a father he had, now. I guessed Odin was the closest thing I ever had to a father, but then he taught me how to kill and I never would've smiled at him like that. He lead us to the bunk quarters and Duo exchanged a few smiles and waves as we passed more people he recognized who were excited to see him. When Howard threw open the door to one of the rooms, it was empty, but it was clear which bunks were taken by the stuff stacked on and around them. "You know the rules," Howard stated with a teasing grin, "jack off as much as you want but no fuckin' and for fucks sake no cuddling or any of that mushy shit." Duo chuckled and pat him on the back. "Yeah, yeah we'll treat this place like a church tonight, gotcha." They said goodnight and Howard left as I wandered to the back where there were two open bunks, one on top of the other. Duo was stripping out of his flight suit as he approached, yawning with the back of his hand over his mouth. I actually felt relatively good after our nap this afternoon but piloting HERA was mentally draining and I imagine more so for Duo due to the depth of his emotions. I followed his lead and stripped down to boxers as well, sitting down on the bed and he sat down next to me, so close our shoulders were flush. I stared at him curiously, knowing he would respect Howard - but he grabbed my hand, squeezing tight as he leaned in and kissed me. My heart started pounding in my chest so loud I was sure he could hear it as I remembered what it was like to merge with him emotionally, to be surrounded so intimately by his love. He must've felt it too because he broke the kiss and stared at his knees. "I shouldn't have been so hard on Howie." "You were right." He sighed. I knew that being right wasn't always what was most important to him. His fingers played with mine absently for a minute. "That thing - with HERA..." he started awkwardly and I didn't know how to help him out. I didn't know what to say. The experience alone... "It was enough," I said at last, knowing that was the truth. He smiled weakly at me and nodded before burying his head into my shoulder. We sat there like that together a long time and I relished in the feeling of him, his breathing slowing, his body relaxing as he lay against me, and eventually I realized he had fallen asleep. Carefully I lay him down on the bed, wrapping a sheet around him and running my fingers across his cheek before climbing onto the top bunk and going through the patterns I'd learned so long ago to help me fall asleep so that I wouldn't stay up thinking of him all night. ~ * ~ tbc... |
