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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 9 Duo panted softly, leaning against the icy wall. At his feet Zechs looked to be on the verge of passing out, and Duo was frankly surprised the man had managed to retain consciousness during the move. It was only the ice on the floors, the same ice he had complained about since entering the hunting lodge that had enabled him to move the much larger and heavier man. Not once during the arduous dragging had Marquise protested the rough treatment. If for nothing else Duo had to give him points for pain tolerance. Even Heero might have grunted a time or two, but Marquise simply set his teeth and did his best to help him. "You'll need to sleep, and once I get the rest of the gear in here I'll be joining you." Duo stretched his back slowly, wincing. "Damn, do you make a habit of eating rocks?" "One small one at every meal of the day." The low voice returned. "It builds muscle, I'm told." Duo mustered a small grin and surveyed the drag trail in the outer room where they had disturbed the wind drifted snow. "Can you tell if we took skin off your feet and legs?" "Probably did, but there was no help for it. I can not walk and I'm too heavy for you to carry, dragging was the only option." Duo crouched at the side of the fire and fed a few pieces of wood to the hungry flames. "At least the cave feels warmer, although I guess that could just be the exercise." "If you can bring more wood in we might keep the fire going for a while. If we heat rocks we could use them to heat the tent and have the door held open to trap the heat inside. For a time at least." "Yeah. Good idea." Duo rose. "I guess I had better get the tent." He resisted the urge to tell Marquise to rest, there really was nothing else the man could do. He had tried to make the move easier by pushing himself with his legs while Duo dragged, and though it had not helped a great deal Duo was grateful. Left to his own devices Zechs sighed and rested his head back against one arm, raising the other to stare at the bandage wrapping his wrist. //No sign of bleeding, I guess that means it is healing and I will not be dying this time either. Death hates me.// Stupid thought. He might have thought it was all over, but it seemed the world was not finished with Zechs Marquise. There was obviously more for him to do than bleed out and freeze in a run down cabin in the highlands. He had not expected to be rescued. Who was it who was so intent on murdering him? The bloody fool had been intent on making him suffer, and missed his chance to kill him because of it. There should have been no escape from this trap, but instead of death there had come rescue. Tied to the chair, wrist slit with a blizzard battering the mountains, yes, his attacker had wanted him dead. Wouldn't he be surprised to learn he still lived? //No more surprised than I am.// Though perhaps he should not be. He was, he had learned from brutal experience, very hard to kill. Whether being blown up by exploding space fortresses or having revenge bent killers intent on doing the job he was, once again, defying death and surviving to see another day. Before Libra and the war there had been the fall of Sanc which, again against the odds, he had survived. A terrified six year old who could no longer call himself a pacifist, even then, had survived the massacre and the first few months basically on his own. He definitely should have died. Why did death seem so determined not to collect him? Would that Treize had been as indestructible. The world would be a far different place if his friend had lived and that, he knew, was precisely why Treize had ensured he died. //Noble fool.// Indestructible sounded hideously similar to unsinkable, and everyone knew of the legend of the pre colony ship Titanic. It would not do for him to consider himself indestructible, not in his line of work. By the laws of chance he should have been dead by now; a number of missions for Preventers should have seen him fail and die. To fail a mission was to die in his line of work. He was still alive, this time in no small part thanks to Duo Maxwell of all people. Being rescued from his would be killer had not occurred to him. This time he had thought there would be no escape. Who cared enough to look if, indeed, anyone had realized he was missing? He would not have expected a one time enemy, as Duo had once been, to come for him, though why Duo had bothered he did not understand. Someone had alerted Preventers to his predicament, so dare he think someone out there gave a damn? There it was again, he was entertaining the notion someone cared. In his line of work that was one of the gravest mistakes you could make. Noin had cared, but he had put a stop to that, and some days he called himself a hundred different kinds of fool for doing it. It would have been nice to have something approaching a normal life, but for him any chance of that had ended with the fall of Sanc. It was hardly normal for a Peacecraft heir to live the life he led, and he hated to think what his father would have thought of him. It was of no concern though, done was done and there was no going back. Sanc would never be what it once was, never stand for what it had once represented. The past was just that, past and it did no one any good to linger there. He had a life to live as best he could. "Damnable bloody ice!" He could not help the small smile at the explosive curse from the main room. It sounded as though Maxwell had landed on his rump once again, and he wondered how much more the man could take. There should be something he could do to help, instead of leaving it all up to his rescuer. Why had Maxwell come? Duo had given him no explanation that did not leave him with more questions. Why should Maxwell care if he lived or died? What would drive the man, a former Gundam Pilot, to come out in a frigid Sancian blizzard and fight the hellish winds of the mountains to find a man he had accounted an enemy not so many years ago? In the war there had been no actual meeting between the two of them, and at the end of the Barton problem they had actually fought on the same side. He could probably count the times they had spoken after that on the fingers of one hand. He had fled to Mars and the fledgling terra forming project, making himself scarce to remain dead for the peace of mind of the people of Earth. //What did Duo do with himself in that time?// He was a veteran of politics as well as war, and he had known he could not remain on Earth at that time. He had hoped to make a start on Mars, but that had not worked out. His past had pursued him, even to that distant ball of icy dust, and he had needed to face reality. It was no life for a woman who wanted a family, and he had firmed his resolve to make Lucrezia abandon him. There was no pleasure in succeeding in that endeavour. He had hurt her and he had hurt himself to accomplish the feat of making her turn away, but he did not regret it and he probably never would. She deserved far better than he could offer her and he had recently heard rumours she had begun dating. He wished her well. How long before he would be fit to return to duty? How long before Une called him to another mission in which he could find a reason to live? He had fought for peace, killed for peace and turned an entire planet against him… all for peace. What more was there for him to do, but defend that peace? "Remind me to take an add out in the World Press, will you? If someone has to kidnap your sorry arse again, they are to dump said arse in a tropical location, okay?" Maxwell staggered through the door, the collapsed tent being used to hold the last of their supplies as an impromptu sled. He could hear the lodge creaking in the howling wind and wondered if it would survive the night, but at least now he need not fear the roof falling in on his rescuer. If the roof caved in and killed him, well and good, it would only give him release from an existence he did not find particularly attractive. It was another thing for the roof to land on this ever smiling man who had come when he had not needed to. "Thank you." Duo looked up, one chestnut brow arched in query. He had not realized he had spoken aloud until the blue-violet eyes locked on him in question. "For what?" "For coming for me."
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