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"Iia Disera Sequel"Written By: Zazu Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing, nor do I
own the characters. I have borrowed them here for some fun and creativity,
and this is not for profit. I do, however, own the plot mentioned
here, and any instances that you may find similar to real life events
are purely a coincidence. All of the characters depicted in this story
are adults. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: Yaoi, Lemon Pairings: 1x2x1, 3x4x5 " Iia Disera Sequel" Chapter 4 They regrouped at the back room a while later and gathered around when Duo began to tap at the computers to trace the codes that had come up.
“Anything?” Shina asked softly.
“Give me a minute,” Duo muttered. “I sat down only a moment ago.”
Shina bit back his retort. Of course, Duo wouldn’t feel the rush, the desperation, that he felt.
But someone’s hand was on his shoulder. He turned and felt his heart skip as he stared into Heero’s eyes. But he reminded himself that this was Heero, not Kohru.
“I know you’re scared,” Heero said softly. “I know you’re desperate. It might sound like nothing, but I know exactly how you feel.”
Shina nodded, remembering his own surprise when he had seen Heero’s pale eyes, his bloody head, when Duo had managed to bring him back to Leo after his attempt to leave the ship. He reached up and squeezed Heero’s hand.
“Hands off my other,” Duo muttered. “I can still see you.”
Heero almost rolled his eyes, but he felt Shina immediately release him, and he also released Shina’s shoulder.
“Heero isn’t my other,” Shina said firmly. “Kohru is.”
“Here’s some code,” Duo suddenly said. “It’s got a looped reversal in your programming, Shina.”
“You mean…”
“All Kohru did was double up this code.” He tapped the screen. “It basically deleted his physical presence. The doubling though, allows him to continue to exist wherever he is in the mainframe. He’s just physically not here. All I have to do is delete it.” He proceeded to do that as everyone held their breath.
They watched as the code was removed, but even as it was being removed, the same code was being typed back out.
“Damn it, he knows I’m on to him,” Duo said. “How can I permanently remove his code, or make it so that he can’t touch it?”
“Impossible,” Wufei said. “I’m the mainframe and he’s managed to boot me out of it. He’s got more control of those codes than I do, at this very moment.”
Duo nodded. “True. How do we freeze him?”
They were silent for a moment before Heero spoke.
“Back on Earth, when we needed to cut something out of a system, we froze it with something the code didn’t recognize.”
“Like what?” Quatre asked.
“We call it a virus,” Heero replied.
“Virus?!” Shina gasped. “You want to give Kohru a virus?!”
“We’ll have to be careful about it. Like I said, I’m not familiar with Arian technology. Whatever virus we use, we have to be careful that it won’t damage Kohru.”
“Don’t you dare!” Shina yelled, grabbing Duo’s hands from the keyboard. “Don’t hurt him. You can’t hurt him!”
“Then what do you suggest we do?” Trowa asked. “We need to stop him from thwarting our attempts to delete his code.”
“Give me the code,” Shina said. “I thought about it. Let me in. I’ll talk to him in the mainframe. I can do that, right?”
“Logically speaking yes,” Wufei said. “But when I searched the mainframe, he rejected me. I was booted to another layer, or his signal vanished. What if he does that to you?”
“Kohru wouldn’t reject me like that!” Shina said, but his conviction was suddenly gone. “Would he?” he asked, suddenly doubting. “He left me…just like that, didn’t he?”
No one knew what to say. But Shina suddenly straightened, eyes narrowed. “Do it anyway,” he said.
“Shina, what good would come of it if Kohru won’t speak to you in the mainframe?” Heero asked.
“I still have to try,” Shina answered softly. “He’s my other. I have to. Give me the same code. If I can’t convince him to come out, then I’ll stay in there with him. I don’t care. I need him.”
“Shina, are you sure?” Duo asked. “If Kohru is so familiar with the mainframe, he could easily lock you up in there with him.”
“I don’t care!” Shina shouted. “I just need to be with him, wherever that is!”
For a moment, everyone was silent. “Do it, Duo. Please. If I can’t convince him, then at least I’ll be with him. I know the mainframe too, Duo. I’ll find a way to communicate to you what is going on. Don’t do anything until then.”
“Fine.” Duo began to manipulate the sequences.
“Shina,” Heero said softly. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait for other options?”
“Heero, you know I don’t want to wait.” Shina moved closer to Duo. “I’m ready when you are.”
“Ready,” Duo said after a moment, finger poised over a key. “Kohru, if you can hear us, this is it.”
When nothing happened, Duo clicked the key. The five of them watched as Shina faded from their sight.
“Now, we wait,” Duo said. “I’ll set up tracers to wait for Shina’s change of codes.”
“We’ll be in the lounge then,” Trowa said, referring to himself and his others.
“I’ll know when something in the mainframe changes,” Wufei said.
Before long, only Heero and Duo were left in the back room. As soon as Duo was done setting up the tracers, he sat back in his chair and looked up at Heero.
His other was leaning close by against the wall, arms crossed and looking at the floor. Duo reached over, setting a hand on Heero’s waist. Heero looked down at him with a sigh.
“What have I done?” he asked softly.
Duo stood quickly, pulling Heero from the wall so he could hold him. “This wasn’t your fault, Heero,” he said. “Don’t think for a moment that it was!”
“Duo…” Heero pushed Duo back. “Maybe if I had given my memories to Kohru, all of them, he would know what he was doing to Shina.”
“You were only trying to protect him.”
“And in the end it got Shina hurt.”
“No. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Duo gripped Heero’s upper arms. “Okay? Not your fault.”
Heero looked tired. “Kohru has most of my memories, Duo. And yet, he could distinguish you and Shina with ease. He had no problems with desiring others. Why do I have problems with it? If I didn’t, then he wouldn’t have done this. No matter how you look at it, it’s my fault.”
Duo suddenly slammed Heero against the wall, making him gasp in surprise. “Why does it have to be?” he asked harshly. “Why can’t it be mine and Shina’s fault? You and I are both Arians. I’m the one with complete Arian memories. Therefore, Shina has complete Arian memories. Shina was the one who had the most trouble with his desires. He was the one who called out your name when he and Kohru were being intimate!”
Duo’s eyes were lightened with anger as he continued. “Or maybe it’s my fault, because I shouldn’t have given him my memories to start with! I used Shina to get close to you; he had been made from me, made to help me get your attention! If I had never done any of that, then maybe none of this would have happened!”
Heero shook his head, but he didn’t know what to say. It felt like his fault, but his saying so obviously made Duo angry. But he’d been taught that everything had a starting point, a sort of cause and effect to keep a balance. Giving Kohru incomplete memories had caused him to second guess Duo’s importance to Heero.
Kohru would, however, have memories of Heero second guessing whether he and Duo were meant to be, even if those thoughts had occurred before Heero had found out that he was an Arian. With what human thoughts and instincts Heero had, and therefore, Kohru had, perhaps Kohru didn’t fully understand that once an Arian had chosen their other, there was no going back.
Kohru clearly gave his memories from being a human a great deal of thought. He used it to rationalize that Duo was not Shina. He used it to hold himself from being too far gone when being intimate with Shina.
Heero didn’t have a lot of Arian memories before the incident with Duo avoiding him, and he’d cut those memories from Kohru. Aside from finding out he was Arian, Kohru would only have retained memories from Heero’s human life, and then created his own new memories with Shina.
“What are you thinking now?” Duo asked in a low voice. “How can I tell you that it isn’t your fault?”
“It is,” Heero insisted. “Listen to me, Duo.”
“No!” Duo snapped. “I don’t want to hear you beat yourself up over it. It wasn’t your fault. None of this! Kohru is no longer the same person as you. Accept that!”
Heero winced when Duo’s grip tightened even more. Suddenly, Duo released him, eyes wide. “I hurt you,” he said in disbelief. “What the hell was I thinking?”
Heero shook his head. “It’s fine, Duo.”
“No, it isn’t!” Duo punched the wall, then punched it again.
“Stop!” Heero grabbed Duo by the arm. “Calm down. We both need to calm down.” He pulled Duo close. “Stop it. Don’t let your anger take over. Don’t hurt yourself.”
“I’d rather hurt myself than hurt you!” Duo clutched him.
“No,” Heero whispered. “Stop it.”
“I can’t rationalize my anger the way you and Kohru do!” Duo snapped, pulling away.
Heero’s own frustrations were upon him and he spoke before he realized what he was saying. “I’m sorry that I’m not a complete Arian, that my Hydran brain complicates things!”
He was throwing Duo’s words back at him, and for a moment the two of them stared each other down. Heero could see Duo’s hands clench and unclench. Swallowing hard, he turned to leave the back room, knowing that he was having trouble controlling his anger. He couldn’t help but tell himself that he would hurt Duo if he lost control; those words had been bad enough.
Duo grabbed him from behind, pressing against his back. “No,” he said. “Don’t walk away.”
Heero remained tense in Duo’s embrace as he tried to calm himself down.
“Iiala aysuei,” Duo whispered. “I didn’t mean it, Heero. You’re the last person to blame for having landed on Hydro. I know that. I do.” Slowly, Heero relaxed, and Duo refused to let go. He leaned his forehead down against Heero’s shoulder. “You…Your being Hydran is what makes you who you are. That’s all I care about, Heero, who you are. Sometimes, I say things before I process the words, and it comes out like…like I don’t appreciate you the way you are. But I do. Tell me you know that.”
Everything came pouring out before Heero could stop himself. “I’m so confused, Duo,” he blurted. “Sometimes, I feel like you hate the Hydran parts of me! And then I turn around and you tell me that you appreciate my Hydran side, and I feel…” he trailed off.
“Don’t stop,” Duo begged. “Tell me, my other.”
“I feel scared,” Heero said finally. “Scared that you would hate it if I changed and became too Arian. What if that makes you dislike me? What if you only hate my Hydran side when you’re overcome with your emotions, and all the other times you only want the me that you first met, when you first picked me up from my escape pod? I’m scared to change, and I’m scared that I’m not changing the way you want me to.”
Duo was shaking his head as Heero spoke. “No, no, no, no, no!” he said. “I love you for who you are, Heero! Sometimes, yes, my emotions get the better of me and I say things that I don’t mean. It’s a flaw, Heero, and there’s…there’s nothing I can do about it! But regardless, I love you for being so Hydran, and I love you for being Arian. If one day you lost all of your Hydran memories, all of your Hydran instincts, and only remember being Arian, I wouldn’t stop loving you!”
He forced Heero to turn around. “I know, Heero, I say that your Hydran instincts complicate things. I sound like I hold it against you. But…it’s because I’m jealous! I’m jealous that you can rationalize and think outside of your emotions! I can’t! You and I are both pureblood Arians and yet you don’t have that flaw! If only I didn’t have it, then I would never have said the words that hurt you the way they have.”
“It’s not a flaw,” Heero whispered. “It’s real. It makes you real, Duo. Your emotions, every one of them…they’re true. There’s no lie.”
“There is, don’t you see?” Duo pleaded. “I say things that I think I mean when I’m overcome with my emotions, but those are my lies! They may be the truths at the moment, but they aren’t the way the real me thinks.” Duo hugged Heero tight. “I don’t want you to be scared, Heero. No matter how you are, you’ll always be my other. Even if you…if you somehow became a Zepra and enslaved me, you’d still be my other! Listen to me, the real me, Heero.”
Heero took a deep breath, feeling a great weight lift from his chest as he hugged Duo in return.
“Iiala aysuei,” he whispered. “Am I…too insecure?”
“No,” Duo said firmly. “We’ll learn. This makes me learn. Just know that you’re my other and nothing can ever change that. Mireh, mine. Tell me you know that.”
Heero nodded, closing his eyes and feeling his other hold him. “I know that,” he said softly. “I do,” he added with conviction, nuzzling Duo gently.
For the first time, Heero relaxed, truly understanding that no matter how he was, Duo would accept him.
*****
Shina moved through the mainframe slowly, trying to orient himself. “Kohru?” he called softly.
It was hard to explain how the whole thing worked; Shina could feel himself, but he couldn’t see himself. He could feel the way he functioned and it was an eerie feeling. He realized that it was the first time he was ‘awake’ in the mainframe; when he had first been created, whenever Duo didn’t need him he’d simply been put to sleep. Now, he could feel the way his own coded make-up worked. Regardless, his brain was still intact; the memories he had from Duo were coded but the other ones were his own real experiences. Reaching out, he could touch other codes, and they told him somehow what their function was, how they ran Leo. He knew them via Duo’s memories, but he touched them now, because he couldn’t see them.
“Kohru?” Perhaps his speaking was merely coded through here as well. He tried to touch other codes, feeling for his other.
It took a while, but he finally touched the codes that felt familiar. “Kohru!” he exclaimed, finally finding his other.
But Kohru gave no response except to move. Shina persisted, feeling for the codes, cursing the fact that he couldn’t hold on to them in any way.
“Kohru, I’m sorry,” he said, continually tapping the code that was Kohru, the only way he could be sure that his other was close. He wondered briefly if he could be heard, but decided that he wouldn’t know and could only hope for the best. “I never meant to call out Heero’s name. You’re who I think of, always.”
Still, there was no response.
“Kohru, please,” Shina begged. “Talk to me. You want me to cut my hair? I’ll cut it. You want me to stay in the lower level and never see Heero or any of them? I’ll stay there. Please, I need you.”
There was a shift in the code, but still nothing that Shina could understand.
Shina pulled back then, knowing that he was about to hit below the belt, and also knowing that it was his last attempt to make Kohru speak to him.
“You’re my other,” he said, hoping that Kohru was still near enough to hear him. “You’re so…upset at how things have been turning out. And yet, instead of really speaking to me, you…you left me. How…no. Why, Kohru? Why was it so easy for you to just leave me?”
For a long moment there was nothing. Shina wondered if Kohru was still not responding, or whether Kohru couldn’t hear him. Or perhaps, Kohru couldn’t communicate; or he was the one who couldn’t hear Kohru?
Then, he felt a touch. It was familiar. He wanted to reach out, but he didn’t move. The code moved closer then, mingling with his.
“I’m sorry.” He heard Kohru’s voice and almost cried out in relief. “Shina, I couldn’t accept that you did what you did. I know that maybe it wasn’t intentional, but I couldn’t understand why I was the only one out of the four of us who could step back and know who his other was. Why was I the only one who didn’t have problems with desiring someone else?”
Carefully, Shina reached out and pulled Kohru’s coding even closer. “Kohru…”
“Why did Heero hold out on his memories? Tell me, Shina, what am I missing?”
“I can’t,” Shina said helplessly. “It’s something that I promised never to speak of. We can ask Heero to tell, but…I can’t tell it. But we never meant to leave you out. We didn’t want…I can’t even explain it, Kohru, but please, isn’t it enough that we are who we are now?”
“Shina…” Kohru sighed.
“It’s okay,” Shina soothed. “You were only doing what your Arian urges dictated you to, right? You were angry. You acted on that, so you wrote in the code and activated it.”
“Arian urges?” Kohru asked. “Was it really that?”
“Yes,” Shina said firmly. “But please, Kohru, don’t leave me. I don’t care how else you want to express your anger. Yes, I admit that I have trouble with my desires. You know why though, you should have memories of my pestering Heero because that was what I had initially been created to do.”
“I remember that,” Kohru said. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t want to leave you, Shina. It wasn’t easy for me, but…I felt so alone.”
“I’m sorry,” Shina apologized. “I swear I’ll work harder on it. We’ll fix it, Kohru, please, come back.”
“Just a little longer,” Kohru pleaded. “No one here but me and you. Just a little longer, please, Shina.”
Shina wanted to nod, but he didn’t think that Kohru would realize his actions. “Okay,” he said. “So long as you know how to get out of here, because I sure as hell don’t. And once we do, I’m taking you to our room and not letting you out for a long, long time.”
A moment later, Kohru’s words would have made him smile if he were capable of it. “You know, maybe we should go back now.” But it didn’t take long for Kohru to speak again. “Are they angry?” he asked.
“Worried, more like,” Shina said. “Everyone. Heero, especially. I think…he thinks that it really is all his fault. I hope Duo managed to explain that it wasn’t.”
This time, Kohru didn’t feel jealous at those words. “Shina, I…I promise I won’t leave you again.” He tapped into the codes to remove the extra bit that looped them back into the system.
They materialized in the back room, holding each other.
“Damn right,” Shina replied. “Because I’m never going to let you go. I’ll chase you down, no matter what, no matter where.”
“Kohru, Shina!” Duo’s voice cut into their moment, and they separated to look towards the voice. Heero was standing next to Duo, and the both of them looked extremely relieved.
“You’ve been in there for a while,” Heero said. “Are…are you hungry?”
Shina nodded, taking Kohru’s hand. “Heero,” he said, squeezing his other’s hand. “Maybe…you can share those memories with Kohru? I…I know I promised you and Duo I’d never speak of it, any of it. But…please, don’t make me promise to keep secrets from my other.”
Heero nodded. “Let’s go to the control center, then,” he said, taking Duo’s hand. “We’ll…I’ll tell you everything there.”
- TBC -
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