Duo was woken by screaming. The loud, anguished wail ripped him brutally from pleasant dreams, throwing him into the waking world with a violence that left his heart pounding and filled his throat with the bitter tang of pure adrenaline. For a moment he fumbled in darkness for a gun that wasn't there, grasping at his blanket and pillow with single minded but foggy desperation. His hand found not the familiar molded grip but the bedpost, slamming into the wood hard enough to hurt if not bruise. The small shock served to clear his mind of the remnants of panic and he sighed, forcing himself to lie back and relax, stilling the tremors that shook his lanky form with a strength of will that would have shocked many who knew him.
He listened in silence as the scream faded into loud, ratcheting gasps, a tiny smile curving his lips that some would have mistaken for amusement rather than ironic sadness. But how could he not find humor in his own response to his friend's madness? A year of this, of learning the habits that defined them both, and still he could not stop responding to his nightly alarm call as though it was death itself coming for him. One night too many of close calls had made him careful to keep his knives and guns safely out of reach…and yet still for those first few seconds between sleep and true waking his mind was filled only with threats and panic, even though he knew damn well the source of the ghastly cry that had disturbed him. He hated that part of himself, that mindless animal response, that primal fear of noises in the dark. Still, he supposed that dangerous, scared beast he carried in himself was no different from the monsters that haunted his companion.
The gasps grew less harsh, less frantic, settling finally into the pattern of carefully regulated breathing. Duo shifted slightly, making sure the cover on the left side of the bed was drawn back as small, scuffling noises floated out through the open door of the adjoining bedroom. They came closer until Duo could feel the power of intense dark eyes watching him blindly in the darkness, burning him with their suspicion and weary paranoia. He fought not to fidget, not to twitch, knowing any early movement would spook his visitor, send him scurrying back to his lonely nest to wait for dawn.
The bed dipped, a body settling into the sheets, the quilt whispering over skin as it was drawn up. And now Duo did move, wrapping his arms around the thin, stiff form that settled reluctantly against him, rubbing the bony back.
"Relax, Heero," he whispered, "I've got you."
"Don't…" the single word was hoarse, torn from a throat worn with mad laughter and battle cries. Duo nodded, tightening his hold and bowing his head against the soft hair that tickled his chin.
"I know, I won't let go. Go back to sleep, okay? It's still early."
Heero sighed against his chest, a small puff of air that drifted warmly across Duo's bare skin and made him shudder. The braided boy shifted them both so that the tousled head rested on his shoulder, breathing in the now familiar musky scent of fear sweat and old pain.
"I could kill him, for doing this to you." He said aloud, softly, knowing the words would be forgotten in the light of day by their unspoken but mutual agreement. If not forgotten, than definitely ignored, which was good enough for them both. "I could kill them all."
"I know," Heero mumbled, a weary acknowledgment of fact, muted by the approaching release of sleep. "I could too."
The admittance made Duo smile again, his eyes blinking closed as his own exhaustion returned to pull strongly at him. It had taken such a long time to win those words, to get Heero to realize he had a right to his pain and hate toward the man who invaded his nights with dreams of cold steel and needles, who had tortured and twisted a young soul into a bitter mockery of humanity. As he had a right to his fury at a past spent hunting for food in gutters and watching friends die, ravaged by diseases easily cured if someone had just given a damn. Between the two of them they could fill a book of sins both committed and suffered, of regrets and sorrows and agonies that only a period of peace had set free. Sometimes he wondered if they would have fought if they had known the price of it…the freedom to feel that would come after, the freedom to suffer. Well, actually he knew half the answer of that question. Heero would have fought even if he knew, even if his past had been ideal, even if he had never been ordered or coerced or forced, for that was the nature of heroes. They never really got a choice, did they? And as for Duo himself…he liked to think he would have. Liked to think he would joined the war even if he had been born to loving parents, had never witnessed those things that had changed him so early and so tragically. And if the greater part of his soul was convinced he would have run and hid…well, certainly no one else ever needed to know that, right? Some secrets you just never admitted to.
The slim frame nestled against him was limp now, the tension released by restful sleep. Duo yawned and traced the protruding vertebra one last time, feeling the raised ridge work of scars in their graceful loops and swirls. Heero muttered in his slumber, the sound not one of fear but of contentment, the murmur of a child who knows he is safe. "I won't let go," Duo promised again, a whisper given as a talisman against the demons of both their memories, an echo of the pledge he wished he had given to Solo, to the nun, the priest, to Quatre, dead now six months by suicide. "This time, I won't let go."
And the voices of the lost followed him down into his own sleep but that was a comfort, not a curse. And he did not scream.