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"Right Here Waiting"Written By: Honor Disclaimer: Honor: Mine, mine, mine! Shigeki:
No they aren’t. Honor: Shut up, muse. Rating: PG-13 Warnings: TWT, violence, language, shonen-ai,
and my warped sense of humor. Oh, and switching POV’s. Sometimes. Pairings: 3x2…your guess is as good as mine on the rest of ‘em. Author’s Notes: I stumbled across this in
my folder and read it, thinking: “Wow. This was really good.
Where’s the rest of it?” Then I remembered that I was the
one that wrote it. Oops. I figured that if I was so intrigued by the
idea, someone else out there was bound to like it as well. So I’m
going to put in the necessary effort to finish it. Summary: Duo and Heero are together but it isn't working out. When Heero breaks up with the American, Duo has a hard time coming to terms with it. *emphasized* //phone or com//
" Right Here Waiting "
Just because you love someone doesn’t mean you
have to be involved with them. Love is not a bandage to cover wounds.
Even I know when something is just too stupid to try. Granted, it’s about ten yards further than where most people draw the line, but I do have a line that even I won’t cross. When I first started eyeing Heero sideways and contemplating just how much fun it would be to jump his bones, I knew that I was a desperate man. I also knew that as much as I claimed to be the God of Death, I wasn’t a person to actually antagonize Death too much just in case it got irritated enough to kill me. Trying to date Heero Yuy would definitely be waving the red flag in front of the bull, so to speak. So what did I do? I ignored my common sense and went for it, of course. Which is probably why everything happened the way it did. Okay, let me back up. About three—no wait, it’s been at least four months . It hasn’t seemed that long…well, anyway, let me start at the beginning. ~*~*~*~ “What?” I absolutely knew that I couldn’t have heard that right. Being battered around a bit in Deathscythe was doing damage to my hearing or something. “I want this to stop.” Heero repeated in a flat tone. “Okay, so I did hear you right. Just checking.” What he meant by ‘this’ was our relationship. Our very new, very budding relationship. Unlike what everyone else was assuming, no I do not sleep around and no Heero and I hadn’t gotten off first base yet. Heck, it took me three months of intensive work to get him onto the *field* much less off first base. A few kisses, some cuddling, a lot of work on how to express emotions without a gun in one hand…yeah, like I was saying very intensive work. He had seemed fine with it. More than fine with it. Which was why I was doing a beached whale impression. “Okay…I’m going to do something really stupid here and ask a dumb question. Why?” He hesitated. It wasn’t to spare my feelings—Heero doesn’t pull his punches if he feels that something needs to be said—but more because he wanted to say it right. Or so I felt. “There’s…” “Someone else?” I hazarded, trying to keep from breaking down and bawling like a baby. It was the oldest line in the book, I know, but I couldn’t think of any other way to phrase it. “No. Some*thing* else.” Oh. I felt like a light bulb being flicked on over my head. Now I got it. I was interfering with his mission. “I’m slowin’ you down, huh?” “Duo…there’s something that I need to do. Something that I might not be able to really complete. I can’t…” Wow. The great Heero Yuy stumped for words. If the situation wasn’t so complex and painful, I would have been selling tickets. As it was, I couldn’t do anything but nod again. “Okay. I got it.” I knew better than to offer to help. “Get going. I won’t stop you.” I knew better than to say don’t worry about me. He wouldn’t anyway, it wouldn’t even occur to him. He nodded, somewhat relieved, apparently that I wasn’t going to make a scene. He turned, stopped, and looked back at me over his shoulder. “Duo, I’m sorry.” “For what?” “You wasted a great deal of time and effort on me.” Oh. Yeah, Heero would see it that way, wouldn’t he? “Heero…I saw you as a friend a lot longer than I did as a potential boyfriend. If what we went through helped you to be more human…then it wasn’t a waste. You’re never a waste of time or effort.” Something like a smile flickered over his face. He nodded to me—in acknowledgement or gratitude, I wasn’t sure—and walked out of the room. Me, I sunk onto one of the bunk beds after making sure the door to my cabin was locked and cried my eyes out. When the mission outline came in that night, I jumped on it like it was the last life raft on a sinking island. A distraction was exactly what I needed. I didn’t consider the idea that perhaps the net had been hacked into and the whole thing was one elaborate trap. I walked right into it because I wasn’t able to cut my heart out of my more logical self and focus on what I was supposed to be doing. It was something that I was cursing myself for right now. I cast a quick glance toward the plot. Way too many Leos, Aries, and ground troops that were moving in like little ants homing in on a picnic basket. Oh fun. The OZ base wasn’t going anywhere, I could always come in later and nuke it. Right now I wanted to get out of here, with my hide mostly intact, and most of Deathscythe intact as well, thank you very much. When the opening happened, I almost didn’t see it I was too busy trying to keep my head attached. Someone had screwed up on the tactical side of the field and left a part uncovered as they shifted to cope with the suits that I had destroyed. It was a narrow fit, and I dove toward it without a second of hesitation. The hesitation would have closed that gap and neatly ringed me in. I slashed, hacked, and generally made anyone who crossed my path sorry. How to get out? I dodged patrols, pedestrians—which are harder to avoid than patrols, for some reason—and managed to get Deathscythe stashed in a safe place. The last, I admit, it a freakin miracle. It’s hard to hide something that big. Caves are marvelous for this reason alone. Long story short, I was badly damaged, had quite the headache and just managed to make it out of the area and into hiding with my skin mostly intact. The same couldn’t really be said for Deathscythe. I contacted the guys when I was sure it was safe and alerted them to the fact that the net had been hacked into. Then I asked, very politely, for someone to help me figure out an escape route. It was at this point that Heero came on. //Impossible.// I blinked. “Come again?” //A rescue is not possible.// “Hey, let’s get this straight! I’m not asking for a flippin’ rescue, I want someone to help me plan a way out of this mess. I can’t see much from where I’m sitting.” //I can.// Heero’s voice would have been like a winter breeze in the depths of space. It made me shiver slightly hearing it. //The chances of you escaping the area alive or without being captured are impossible. Yuy, out.// To say that I was hurt would be equivalent to saying that Gundams were a little heavy. It took a precious minute of time to get my head disconnected from my heart so that I could try to figure it out on my own. Unfortunately, Heero was right. I wasn’t able to get out of there in Deathscythe. The area was swarming with Leos and Aries. I scrambled out of the cockpit and made sure he was well hidden. I knew the city nearby—a place called Lancaster, lovely city really—and dove into its slums. It wasn’t exactly a safe house, but it would serve my purposes for the time being. I crawled into an abandoned church, sleeping under the altar, and praying that nothing more would happen to me that day. Oz troops searching the city woke me up after a very short hour nap. Groaning, I stumbled to my feet and started running again. I dodged people, mailboxes, and OZ soldiers without looking at anything in particular. Somehow I managed to get back out of the city in a stolen truck, just waiting for the right moment to ditch it. I sent the truck into a wrecking yard, broke into a boarded up gas station, curled up under the front counter and fell instantly to sleep. + “…chances of you escaping the area alive or without being captured are impossible. Yuy, out.” Heero stifled a sigh, turning around in his chair— --and connected with a fist. The computer chair skidded out sideways as Heero snapped to the side, dumping him onto the cold tile. In something approaching astonishment, he lifted a hand to his bruised jaw before looking up to his assailant. “Barton?!” I stood watching this in cold silence, ready to pick him up and shake all the information I needed out of him. “Where is he, Yuy?” Heero’s eyes went almost impossibly wide. It was the most expression that I’ve ever seen out of him. “You—are you—” I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and hoisted him up to his feet so that I could snarl at him at eye level. “Stop asking questions and tell me Where He Is!” “Lancaster. Lancaster, California.” “I have no idea why you are so willing to betray his trust, but you can rest assured that when I have him back safely, we will have a ‘discussion’ about it.” Dropping him like a hot potato, I spun for the door. Heero’s voice was nearly its usual monotone again. “Don’t call on the coms.” I stopped short as his words penetrated. The coms? Were those tapped into as well? Snapping back around, I stared at him in dawning horror. “What you said…it was to save him.” “I can’t come to his rescue.” Heero told me, pain flickering through his eyes. “He won’t trust me after what I’ve said and done. It’s up to you.” I nodded sharply, halting in the doorway to look back. “Yuy. I’m…sorry.” He raised a hand to his swelling jaw, shrugging. “It was deserved.” “Hn.” + One of the easiest things in the world to do is to slip into a military base when they are panicking and searching for a nearby terrorist. Especially when it comes to Duo. *Everyone* is scared of Duo. It’s not catching him that’s the problem. It’s what he’ll do when he gets free. I stole a uniform, slipped into the ComOp on Edwards, and just stayed still and quiet until I heard what I wanted. “Sir.” The greenie at the computer turned to the lieutenant hovering at her shoulder. “We’ve managed to track his location down to just outside the base. He’s at the abandoned Circle K off 170th street East.” “Understood.” The lieutenant put a hand to his headset and started speaking commands into it rapidly. I listened long enough to figure out where he was pulling people from, then I slipped from the room and ran to one of the patrol cars. People were dashing around madly, grabbing up equipment and yelling at each other. I slipped into the back of one of the cars, scrunching down to avoid being noticed. It took perhaps a full minute before the five man squad was loaded up, then we were off in a squeal of tires. I had a rough idea of what I was going to do, so I pulled out my laptop and arranged for an apartment online while I was waiting. About the time that I had our ‘safe-house’ set up, one of the men in front started yelling back orders. “Robinson, Stevens, look alert! They’ve found 02. Looks like he holed up in that abandoned gas station right outside the base.” Gas station? Duo could choose the oddest places sometimes…but then, in the middle of the Mojave desert, there wasn’t a lot of cover to choose from. It hardly mattered, since this was my cue. Cracking the back window open, I took one of my throwing daggers and aimed for the front tire on the following patrol car. It hit perfectly, and the car veered sharply off the road as the tire abruptly lost all air. “Shit! Mic, call Peters and see what’s going on.” There was a garbled communication for a few minutes, during which they established that there was a flat tire and that no one was going anywhere for the next several minutes. I took this moment of distraction to take out the left tire of the last patrol car. “Dammit! I don’t like this. I don’t like going in there with just one squad.” Mic was very agitated, waving his GPS unit around. Everyone in the vehicle was wise enough to not say something like “but he’s just a kid”. They knew better. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t realize that it wasn’t just one Gundam pilot that they had to deal with, but two. When the car screeched to a stop, I leapt into action. I took out the two men nearest me, shot the driver, and leapt out of the car to take care of the other two. I needn’t have bothered. Duo was standing over their still forms, breathing hard and swaying a bit. “Tro?” It was hard, but I didn’t run up to him and grab him like I wanted to. I just put a steadying arm around his waist and helped him into the car. It took a few more precious seconds to empty the patrol car before I could slide into the driver seat and get us out of there. + “Man, Tro, I am SO glad to see you!” I flashed him a thousand watt smile and a thumbs up. Honestly, I wanted to hug him, but I didn’t want him to freeze up on me. I was never sure how to approach my silent friend when it came to demonstrative touchiness. Only Quat could seem to do that without adverse effects. He glanced at me, and a little smile passed over his mouth. “How’d you know to come to the rescue, anyway?” The words were a little bitter. I couldn’t help but remember what Heero had said, after all. “I overheard your call.” “Aaaah. Remind me to punch him when we get back.” “I wouldn’t worry about that.” Trowa’s voice became even more quiet than usual. Warning bells started going off in my head. “Ah-huh. And why is that?” “Two reasons. One, because I punched him—” “Aaaallllright!” I punched a fist up in the air in victory. “And because he did it to save your hide.” Trowa finished, eyes darkening slightly. My fist froze in mid-air. “Come again?” “It wasn’t just the net that was hacked into, Duo. All of our communications were.” Oh crap. Ohcrapohcrapohcrap! Heero would know it, too. If he had tried to give me any advice, then OZ would have countered it and captured me easily. Hell, they almost managed it without me being led by the nose into another ambush. And if he had told me he was sending help, it would have busted both me and whoever was sent. “Damn. I should have realized. ‘Ro isn’t a cold bastard, no matter what everyone thinks. Damn. I’m such an idiot.” My fist fell listlessly to my lap and I let my head thump back against the seat, eyes shut in anger. “I should have too.” Trowa didn’t sound much happier than I was. “I should have realized that he would never abandon his lover—” “We’re not lovers. Or boyfriends. Or even potential somethings.” I told him flatly, raising my head back up and looking out the side window. “…when did this happen?” “About two weeks back. He called it off. Not that I mind, much. I mean it was becoming a real chore, y’know? Love shouldn’t be like that. It should be fun, and relaxing. Not like carrying a five-ton gorilla around on your back.” Why was I telling him all of this, anyway? “I don’t blame him. But we’re supposed to be friends, dammit. And friends don’t pull shit like this. I am so going to owe him one.” Trowa nodded somberly. “So will I.” ~*~*~*~ *bam!* ~ * ~ |
