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"Friends "Written By: Karina
Series: Friends Pairings: 2+6 Ratings: M 15+ [In Australia] Rated in the event of bad language and violence. Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing or the characters. That’s the way it is. Warnings: Not a death fic despite how it starts.
Aussie spelling and unbetaed. Summary: When Milliardo Peacecraft is abducted
and left to die a solitary death Duo Maxwell decides to take a hand
in the proceedings.
Chapter 57 Duo discovered, for the third time in less than ten minutes, that he was gripping the seat tight enough to leave impressions of his hands in the seat and lose the feeling in his fingers. The closer the helicopter flew towards New Port City the more his mood darkened. They were nearing the point on the mountain's flank where the other pilots had landed and they had decided to split into two groups, provided the Preventer machine was operable and there was no reason why it should not be. Once Heero landed their intention was to transfer Marquise to the Preventer machine and they expected him to pilot the Winner Enterprises helicopter back to New Port City. And while he docilely allowed them to tell him what was best for him, they would take Zechs to the Preventer section of the airport and tamely hand him over to the bastards who had tried to kill him. He was not happy with the planned operation and he knew they knew it. He was of the opinion he had expressed himself clearly enough a dog could understand, they knew what he thought of the entire matter but... but none of them appeared to give a damn about his thoughts on the subject. No one cared what he thought they should or should not do and maybe, just maybe, they were right and he was wrong. But maybe they were the ones who were wrong; had they given that any thought? They were supposed to be his friends and friends listened, didn't they? Friends listened and understood where you were coming from. Real friends listened. That was what Sister Helen had told him. Friends made an effort to hear what you said and to understand why you were saying it. He had always believed that, but for every reason he came up with for not going to the Preventer hangers and handing Marquise over, they had a dozen counter reasons for what they were about to do. Well, let's not exaggerate here, maybe not a dozen reasons... Generally it was one or two, but the upshot was that he was firmly on the outside. And Marquise was siding with them! And wasn't that shitting him off?! What was wrong with the man? He knew what had to be waiting for him, but he was willing to go back and get himself screwed over, yet again, by people who were supposed to be his friends. Well, maybe not friends exactly; to be honest, if he gave it some thought, he could not recall Marquise had ever called them his friends. Had he? No, he was pretty sure the word `friend' and work never actually came up in relation to each other. One's work colleagues and superiors were supposed to have the best interests of the people they worked with, and protected, at heart. Or was he thinking in regards to an ideal world? How did the man survive from day to day knowing no one trusted him? That was why this scenario had come about... Lack of trust. It was... gut wrenching. It spoke of a solitary existence where no one could be trusted, where you spent your days looking over your shoulder to see who might be carrying a knife and who was looking your way with the wrong kind of interest in your activities. For a special ops agent it was deadly. If you were working in special operations you had to have trust in your team; trust in those who gave the orders and in the people who carried out those orders and managed the assignment with you. If trust was lacking you were as good as dead. Death, if not by the hands of the enemy, then by those nonexistent friends who suffered you to work for them, and only as long as they needed you. Duo felt his fingers clench tighter on the seat and made a concentrated effort to ease his grip and keep his fingers relaxed. Could he live like that in a special ops organization? Shit no! That was why he would not work for Preventer, despite the best efforts of the other pilots to enlist him in the organization. That was the reason behind why he didn't work for more than one month in any one job. Because people who did not know him, and who should give him a chance, did not trust him... and because of it he was living from day to day and learning to live and breathe distrust for everyone. Except Quatre. Somehow he knew he could trust Quatre. From the day they had met he had just... known. He had thought he might be able to trust Trowa too, but now he was not so sure. It was a dilemma, thinking he could rely on no one but himself and Quatre. Knowing Quatre understood him though they were worlds apart was the only comfort he had found since the war ended. Quatre was rich and famous, the face of Winner Enterprises, but he made time for a street rat from L2 he had met in the war. Quatre was... Different. Trowa... was different again. He wasn't like Quatre, in fact no one was like Quatre. No one seemed to be able to hold a candle to Quatre. He just seemed to know what you needed and when you needed it. He did not foist himself on you, he was simply there when needed. He hadn't reacted to anyone, ever, as he had reacted to Quatre... Until now. Until he came face to face with Zechs Marquise. The formidable Milliardo Peacecraft, Prince of Sanc, who should rightfully be a King and who was working in obscurity, a dead man walking. Hated and feared in equal measure... and likely totally misunderstood by everyone. Duo understood about being misunderstood. There was something about Marquise that stuck a cord deep within him that was almost like Quatre, but was unique to Marquise. Similar, but not the same. Duo did not understand it, he just felt it. Quatre, Marquise... The other pilots were different too, but he had more trust in them than in the organization they worked for. He did not think he could trust Preventers. It was just another branch of a government who professed to know what was best and forced them into accepting the mould it chose as appropriate. It was not just big government sponsored organizations that made him step back and consider how other people saw him. He had always been touchy feely with people and he found it more than a little uncomfortable not to touch. It was as though to touch someone was to know them and firm in his mind if they could be trusted or not. Distrust was a killer for social niceties. It murdered the feel good aspects of being a people person. He was losing it. He had to be. Was he losing it? Was he losing Duo Maxwell? What he was, who he was, had been shaped by his past and he had prided himself on rising above the horror of the streets, of bettering himself. First he had started by educating himself at the Maxwell Orphanage and, when fate had robbed him of that home, there had been the Sweepers. Studying under the Sweepers had led to becoming a Gundam Pilot. Touchy feely. The Sweepers were very much socially oriented and social interaction had become an integral part of who Duo Maxwell was. He had found it relatively easy to make friends in the orphanage, they were like him, street kids. They spoke the same language with body as well as words. He'd made friends in the Sweepers too. He liked the lifestyle and people were sociable but also knew when to give you space. In ships you lived in each other's pockets but you soon learned how to give space on a level beyond the physical. During the war, even as a Gundam Pilot, he had made friends easily enough. Howard. Hilde. The other pilots of the Gundams. There were not a great many people he had given that title to; he had many acquaintances, far fewer friends. There was a distinction between an acquaintance and a friend, after all. Because he had so few friends he felt the loss keenly and he felt that he was steadily losing the other pilots. He felt like he was losing them to the social reforms imposed on them by the government they were expected to conform to. `You are no longer guerrilla fighters.' `You are no longer rebels.' `You are expected to conform, to become productive participants in society.' Productive participants in society. The others seemed to want to be a part of that society pretty badly. They certainly were doing their utmost to conform to its standards. Where did that leave him in their lives? He could call Quatre his friend, he had no doubt of that. Howard too. Howard understood him and would make a place for him in the Sweepers; all he had to do was ask and he knew it. Howard was waiting for him to decide what he wanted to do with himself, willing to take him in when he was ready. Like a real friend Howard knew and understood he wasn't ready. Hilde... Ah, Hilde. Things had gone so wrong there and he hadn't realised at first how bad things were getting. She had wanted more from him than he could give but.... Were they still friends, just without the capital F? Oh joy, this was just grand. He was having a crisis, a mental breakdown, on the bloody chopper. No, he wasn't. It wasn't a mental crisis, it was just a... a... reassessment of his... valuables? Yes, his valuables. His treasures. His true, priceless treasures. No glitz and no glamour to make cheap knock offs look like the real deal. Straight forward truth and real life. Opening his eyes and seeing life for what was of real value; as it should be, no longer blinded by the bling. There was a shit load of bling in the world. When you lived on the streets you learned what was really valuable and that was not the material things in life. It wasn't money, it wasn't the food you might or not eat that day... It wasn't having a cardboard box you could crawl into at night for shelter. It was having a friend who might share their scrap of food with you, who might let you sleep in his box, someone who smiled at you and didn't expect anything from you. Only a friend would do that and not expect you to pay them back unless you wanted to. "Duo." The quiet word in that deep, husky voice drew his immediate attention. He had felt Marquise's attention on him for some time, but the man had remained silent throughout the flight and the others had left them alone. In fact, no one was talking on the comms, all of them attended to the drill of flying the helicopter and finding the Preventer machine, but none of them were talking socially. Business as usual in Preventers. Marquise flashed his com frequency at him, switching off the public com to a private channel and Duo did likewise, glancing toward the cockpit and noting everyone was focused on their tasks. No one seemed to care what was happening in the back of the chopper. "Yeah? You need something?" "Thank you." Those blue eyes were intense, staring into his soul, somehow seeing right through his false bravado. Understanding he did not like being alone and isolated. Understanding he was a social creature and that he hated the gap he found separating him from the rest of the world. Those blue eyes, like the finest blue tinted crystal, saw entirely too much. "For what?" "For being there." Around them the helicopter reverberated to the roar of the rotors, affording them some level of privacy in these final few minutes before they landed. It was as though the noise and the vibration was a privacy screen, walling them off from the rest of the world. A sanctuary, if only a temporary one. "Well... Guess you were lucky I was wandering past." He grinned, forcing it, still somewhat lost in what he would later denounce as a moment of self pity; a deplorable moment in which he indulged in useless self pity. He had no time for people who indulged in self pity and would give himself a stiff lecture on the virtues of shrugging, swallowing the shit and getting on with living; exactly the advice he gave to others who whinged and moaned at what life threw at them. "I will not forget what you did while you were `wandering past' and sought shelter from the storm. I will neither forget it nor will I play it up in others company... But in your presence, I will not play it down. I owe you my life and I will not forget." "Yeah, well. `S okay. Each to their own. All that sort of crap." Oh, he was out of sorts, wasn't he? He should slap himself up the side of the head and get on with getting on. Laughing was good, that was always a forward thing to do, a determined step forward and on to the next challenge. He could crack a joke and have the whole lot of them laughing. He might not feel like laughing himself, but his jesters mask was there and he knew how to wear that face quite well. "Keep your masks in their box, Duo Maxwell. I have worn a mask, of one sort or another, all of my life and I can recognize someone who wears as many as I do. All I ask is that you guard your back and you think before you leap off the deep end. I am capable of handling this, and I will handle it. And if you are of a mind, I would like to... be your friend. No demands on you, no expectations; no asking you to do something you would rather avoid. I would simply like to get to know who Duo Maxwell is when I am free to do so." "You want to know Duo Maxwell? I'm fucked if I know who he is these days." The words took him by surprise but he could not call them back and they were, if nothing else, honest. The truth. Most days he did not know who he was or what he was supposed to be. He was still looking for himself in a world that wanted nothing to do with him besides hand him labels and expect him to be that label. "Then we are well suited to be friends. We each
need to determine who we are, not who the world would have us be."
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