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Scream: 1/3

By: EponineUndone

Warning: Shounen-ai/boy love, light angst, brief hetero-lust, Duo/Heero obliviousness

Rating: PG-13, I guess

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or anything else at all. This is for fun, not profit, and I think that's all I need to cover here.

Pairings: 2+OFC, 1+2+1

Summary: Duo has only ever heard Heero scream three times in his life.

The first time I ever heard Heero Yuy scream was also the first time I ever really heard him laugh.

It happened on New Year's Eve, four years after the wars, two years after us Gundam pilots became part of the (legal) job force, and three months after one Heero Yuy appeared like a stray cat on my rather rickety doorstep. Well, not exactly a stray cat. More like a hungry, displaced and tired lion, tangled mane included.

Rumors that the pilot of Wing Zero was kicking around the Preventers had started up more than a year before said pilot made his way into my household, so I wasn't that surprised. Surprised enough to deck the bastard for being such a pretentious, egotistical prick, but not surprised enough to drop my guard. There had been a bit of a scuffle after that, involving a few busted knuckles and purple bruises. After kicking his ass, and having my ass kicked in return, I invited Heero in for a beer. He's been sleeping in my guest bedroom ever since.

Except for on New Year's eve. There was to be no sleeping that night. The holiday was made for dancing and glitter and booze. At least, that was my opinion. Heero was too busy trying to blend in with the wallpaper to share his view on the matter. Of course, it wasn't really working. It was like he was at ground zero for social contact, a proverbial dead zone twenty feet in all directions around him. The party was absolutely bulging at the seams, and there was really no room for avoiding bodily contact with fellow party-goers. Yet Heero still managed it.

"The only way you could be less personable is if you stopped breathing, old Heero, old pal." I said after I half sauntered, half stumbled to his side.

"You're drunk," he answered blandly, but he still allowed me to sling an arm around his shoulders for a bit of balance.

"And you're not drunk enough. That's why I brought you this." I had a bottle of fairly pricey tequila in the hand that wasn't gripping Heero's shoulders.

"That was very... thoughtful of you." Heero deadpanned, and I laughed. My breath probably reeked of vodka, but he didn't shy away. Instead, he took the bottle from my hands, twisted the cap, and took a swig. A rather large swig, even by my standards.

"That's how to do it! Join the rest of us in the land of the living. After all, they say that what you're doing on the first midnight of the first day of the new year reflects what you'll be doing the rest of the year."

An indiscernible look passed over Heero's face, but I didn't have time to puzzle it out. Mandy, the barely legal teen who had been practically oozing sexuality over me all evening, had managed to loop my now tequila-free hand around her waste without me quite noticing. If I wasn't so drunk I would have probably been peeved at the incessant way she was tugging at my arm and the breathy little whines she was making. Instead, I was fairly intrigued by her dark stare, pouting lips and proudly displayed cleavage.

"Uh, sorry, Heero. It seems that Mandy is in need of my assistance." I managed to stutter as said dame started pulling on me more determinedly.

"It's Miranda." She sulked, but didn't wait for me to correct myself.

"Have fun," Heero's voice barely reached me through the hubbub of the party, and my fingers brushed his as we pulled apart. I turned my head to catch his expression, but the crowd closed around me and the only glimpse I captured was of Heero apparently doing his damnedest to gulp down as much tequila as possible before the worm touched his lips. And I, being the pretentious pinhead I sometimes (often times) am, was supremely proud of myself for introducing one Heero Yuy to the joys of celebratory drunkenness.

And I remained proud of myself up until seconds before midnight. Some inebriated guy in a rumpled, three thousand dollar suit had managed to climb onto the dining hall table without spilling his drink. Mandy/Miranda had to pull her hands out from underneath my shirt and take a step back, tugging on my hand (which happened to be halfway up her skirt), before I even bothered to listen to what the guy was saying.

"-for the new year!" The man stared at his watch with a level of concentration that is unique to the remarkably drunk, before he called out, "Ten! Nine! Eight-"

I looked around, grinning like a loon, before I realized that Heero's personal ground zero was now filled with unfamiliar and laughing faces. I frowned and began looking for gaps in the crowd that indicated thundercloud Yuy was working his magic.

"Seven! Six-"

"Have you seen Heero?" I yelled over the thrum of voices filling the room. The small brunette pressed against my side raised an eyebrow quizzically as she chanted with the crowd.

"Four! Three! Two!"

I caught sight of a tousled head of dark hair attached to a person who was now walking out into the darkness of the connecting balcony. "Yo, Heero!" I tried to yell, but suddenly everyone was shouting, and if it wasn't the noise that swallowed my voice, it was Miranda's tongue in my mouth.

"Happy New Year!"

How such a short girl could gain enough height to attach herself to my face like a leech, I'll never know.

But I did know that this wasn't how I wanted to spend my first moment of the new year. Less than a minute before I would have told you differently. Miranda was like Cinderella at midnight. All the magic left when the clock struck twelve, and instead of the sex kitten I was sure I was going to bring home with me at the end of the night, there was a little girl, barely eighteen, desperately pressed against me and tasting like my own mouth does the morning after a night of binge drinking.

I had to find Heero.

It was such a strong, sudden urge that I practically ripped myself away from the kiss that wasn't quite managing to roll my stomach. Miranda looked up at me, eyes still a little too frightened from the violence of the move to show hurt yet. "I have to go." I couldn't have spoken loud enough to be heard over the cheering crowd, but I knew she understood. The hurt had worked its way into her eyes. I gave her a chaste kiss on the forehead and left her there, alone in the press of people, staring after me in a way that made me feel like I had kicked a puppy. And then caught it on fire for good measure.

It took me a good five minutes before I could wrestle my way through the crowd to nearest exit. The vague sense of panic that had washed over me at the beginning of the countdown instantly vanished as I stepped out into the darkness. I could see Heero silhouetted against the bright lights of the city and the colorful burst of fireworks distantly reflecting off of the bay. When had I become so familiar with the simple, stark lines that made up his profile? Could I approach anyone else in such darkness and recognize them by their stance, by the way their hair caught the light, by the very pattern of their breath fogging away from their mouth?

"You hightailed it out of there pretty quick." I said as I took the few strides that brought me to the railing next to him.

Heero turned slowly, but he still managed to sway on his feet. I could see the tequila bottle gripped in his right hand. The dim light that reached us was gleaming against its empty insides.

I whistled appreciatively. "That's some marathon drinking you've managed, Yuy." I felt like shit. Heero Yuy does not binge drink. Not unless there's something toxic going on inside that head of his.

I carefully took the bottle from his hand and sat it at our feet. Heero wouldn't meet my eyes, but I stared into his face anyway. "If something was bothering you, why did you come?" I asked softly.

He met my eyes and answered solemnly. "You asked."

I stared at him a moment, flabbergasted. "Damnit, Heero. I could have just as easily stayed back at our place, eating popcorn and watching shitty horror movies."

"I know. That's why I agreed to come out." He turned back towards the bay.

"Hey, what I meant was that I would have been just as happy to stay home with you. I didn't drag you along because I felt sorry for you. I dragged you out because you're my friend and I wanted you to be happy and-" He wasn't responding, so I gripped his shoulder roughly and forcibly turned him back towards me. "Hey, I'm talking to you! I invited you because I missed you, you idiot. I missed you and I wanted to share the new year with you. It didn't matter where or how." I pushed him lightly with the hand on his shoulder, and it was a testament to how drunk he was that he would have fallen if I hadn't kept it there.

We stared at each other for only a moment, and then something broken and dark, darker than the shadows around us, passed through his eyes. "Do you really believe that what someone is doing in the first few seconds of the new year will reflect what they do the rest of the year?" I allowed my hand to slip from his shoulder as he turned back to the bay. I had a feeling that this was leading to what was eating Heero Yuy, what had been eating him since he first showed up on my doorstep three months before.

"I hope not, otherwise I'd be spending the rest of this year..." Without you, I finished mentally, and was suddenly filled with a dawning sort of horror. Don't do this again, Heero. Don't leave. Not again.

"I believe it," Heero said over my own silent pleas. His voice was quiet and rough. He sounded like he was dying, and I latched onto his left wrist. He looked down at where my hand was gripping him with a strength that was almost desperate, and then he met my eyes. "I killed a boy just past midnight of new year's last year. I've spent the rest of the year killing people. The boy was a hostage. The bullet I shot passed through the suspect's heart, exited out his back, and struck the kid between the eyes." A frightening, hard edged smirk twisted Heero's face. "Two birds, one stone."

"Heero, don't-"

"In February, I was stationed in Hong Kong. I arrested a bomber who claimed he had explosives rigged in public places and threatened that they would be detonated if he wasn't released. I had been watching him for just over two weeks by then, and expressed that he had not left the city block he was living in for the duration of my stay. My opinion was respected by the local authorities, and the threats were disregarded. The next day, three bombs detonated in various locations throughout Hong Kong. Twelve dead."

"Heero, none of this-"

"In June, I was stationed undercover in Montreal along with my partner. Two months in, she insisted the situation was getting too hot and that we should pull out. I disagreed, and we stayed. I misread the suspects, and she ended up dead. Raped and skinned-"

"Stop it!" I yelled, my voice loud and frightened. When he opened his mouth to speak over me, I yanked him violently towards me. We hit hard, and I stumbled back into the railing's corner. Heero was already trying to step away, but I had my arms locked at his lower back.

He was making odd noises halfway between protest and grief, and his strong hands were trying to push me away. For a moment, I thought things were going to escalate into a fight, and then his pushing turned into pulling and I found him settling into me. His hands were tangled in my quickly unraveling braid, his hip was pressed thoroughly into the top of my thigh, and his head and the curve of my neck fit together like two pieces of a puzzle. We stood there, silent and swaying, waiting for God only knows what.

It wasn't until our breathing had synchronized that he spoke again. "I received an email earlier today. I'm back on duty starting Monday."

"No." My grip tightened on him, and I felt my teeth grinding together.

"I don't have a choice-"

Pushing him away from me was almost as hard as pulling him towards me, but I managed it and met his eyes. "Yes, you do. You always have a choice. You pretend like you don't, but you do." When he continued to stare at me blankly, I ruffled his bangs and then pushed back lightly on his forehead. He stumbled backwards, still drunk enough to be off balance. I continued before he had the time to voice his outrage. "Say no, Heero."

He gaped at me, the most ridiculously stunned expression on his face. "No?"

"Yes."

"But-"

"Just, no. That's all. No explanations. Nothing. Just no."

He raked his hands through his hair and turned abruptly towards the water. He gripped the banister hard and leaned forward, his face perplexed and quite annoyed.

When I took a step towards him, he glanced my way. "What would I do instead?" He sounded angry, but I wasn't alarmed. Instead, I could feel a tiny glow of triumph starting to bloom at the center of my chest.

"Do what we all did. Get a job you can live with. Go in for the Preventers when they absolutely need you. Try to be happy." He stood there, shifting his weight from his heals to his palms on the railing. When my curiosity concerning his reaction became an itch too large to ignore, I blurted, "So?"

"So?" He shot back, looking at me.

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, come on, Yuy! Now you're just being an ass!"

And then he smirked, his eyes lighting up in a way I wasn't sure I had ever seen before. "So. I'll say no."

I couldn't help it. I whooped, my voice carrying out across the bay, and threw an arm over his shoulders. His grin grew into a full blown smile, and he began to laugh. Honest to God laugh in a way I had never heard anyone laugh, coarse and harsh, inexperienced but utterly genuine. Then his voice echoed after mine, less of a whoop and more of a harsh, triumphant scream. I'm sure everyone in hearing range was terrified out of their mind as our cries, one joyous, one primal, rang out.

As our voices faded into silence, a loud chirp issued from the watch at my wrist. I glanced down at the digital numbers. "Hey, Heero." He looked back at me, smile on his face fading into something softer, something hopeful and wary. "It's just now midnight in Texas. How 'bout we count our new year by central time?"

He watched me for a moment, the lights of the city and distant fireworks reflecting in his eyes. He nodded. "Happy new year, Duo." I could feel the weight and warmth of him at every place we touched.

"Yes, it is."