Title: Until the End of Time
Warnings: 2x1x2, lime, slight torture, and possible sadness
Disclaimer: story is mine, characters are not
Time passes and people change. Old friendships perish and new ones form. Memories are created, remembered and then forgotten. What once seemed to be the most important thing in the world gets replaced by another, until you can't remember why you cared so much for the first. But the one thing that never changes is the love you feel towards the one you are meant for. The one who knows you in and out, front to back, side to side. The one you pledge your life to. And no matter what happens, you swear to each other that your love will never burn out, not even through death.
Hi. My name is Duo Maxwell, though I haven't been called that in a while, and this is the story of my past. A time my friends now don't know about. I've kept it hidden for so long but have thought of it often. As I lay here, on my deathbed, I feel it is time I share this story with the world. The story of Heero Yuy, not the spokesman for peace, but the fighter. Who selflessly worked to save the world at all costs to himself, just to be condemned as a felon at the end of the last war. He got the blame of us all. The other pilots where forgotten about. I guess that's the burden you carry when you are known as 01, not only are you considered the best, but the role of peacemaker means you fight at all costs and when its done do what the people want without any complaint. Because that's what he did. He went to the prison cell they designed specially for him without a word of protest. Hands and feet shackled, he went into a cage. He entered this world in a white cage full of lights, probes and test, and he left it the same way. But now I'm getting ahead of myself. Before I explain what happened, let me tell you a little about the pilots.
The pilots were once known as the saviors of the world, operators of giant gundanium mobile suits. We had the respect of the world and the fear of our enemies. We were unstoppable. Sure there were protests against us, but the majority of the population both on Earth and in the colonies supported what we did and gave us refuge or supplies when we needed them. It wasn't until after the war, when people started calculating how many people actually died that we become the monsters. Our fight for peace had turned into a massacre of innocent men and women trying to protect their families. That's not how we saw it though, we saw it as a way to end war and save our asses. We didn't want to have to kill. Sending a 15 year old out to destroy all the mobile suits and enemies they encounter was not how the five of us wanted to live our lives. But we weren't really given a choice in the matter so we fulfilled our missions to the best of our abilities, praying for a day when it would all be over.
Heero Yuy, the Perfect Soldier. How he hated that name. A smile still comes to my face with all the times I use to taunt him with that, especially when we were alone. HE never liked the thought that he was better than anyone, when asked who was the better pilot out of the five he would just answer "We each have our strong points and weak points. What makes us strong is that we work together" What a mouthful, especially coming from him. But he was the most down to earth person I knew.
My relationship with Heero started to grow after the zero system was introduced into his gundam. Whether it was because he was more connected with what was going on around him with the aid of zero or just that the timing was right, but he accepted all my passes toward him. He was still a virgin, which I guess makes sense since he had never left that testing sight since he was like 7 until the day he was launched to earth.
I had to do everything slowly with him. The limited human contact he had when he was younger really messed him up for having a sexual relationship. Being able to touch was the first step. At first he wouldn't touch me at all, so I started guiding his hands over my body, showing him what I liked and what made me crazy. Despite his shyness he was a fast and eager learner. About two months into our blossoming relationship I kissed him. It was only on his forehead, but it think it was the first kiss he had ever received.
We had been laying in his bunk, snuggling close and I had just gotten this sudden urge to kiss him. His forehead was the closest thing to my lips so I used it. He had pulled away a little with a confused look. Throughout our entire relationship I had to constantly reassure him that he was a great guy and that's why I liked him. He could never understand how anyone could find such a "cold hearted killer" like him attractive. I also had to constantly reassure him that he was not a "cold hearted killer," I had less success with that one.
But after that kiss on the head and the confused look on his face I did the only thing I could think of. I connected my lips to his and kissed his softly, without any force. I was rewarded with nothing. But that's netter then what I had been expecting. I thought he would pull away more, but he didn't. He kept his place and his confused look, and when I went to kiss him again he actually leaned into it a little.
I got butterflies in my stomach. It was the happiest moment of my life, well one of them. Touching was nice, but I had sometimes wondered if Heero went along with it because he thought its what "room mates" did. But a kiss! I knew he knew a kiss was more than that, and his willingness to return one, or even just lean into one was enough to tell me that he truly did care about me. I felt like a little schoolgirl who found out her crush liked her back. I can still remember the feel of his lips on mine, the tongue wars we use to have, and most of all the taste of his mouth, sweet and fresh.
I never thought anything would be better than that, but I was wrong. Sex with Heero was the best sex I had ever had in my entire life. And in my 94 years I've had a lot, and there is no competition, no man or woman was better than he was. His innocence was what made it so good and when he learned his skill and respect for me made him the best. No matter how Heero felt he always made sure I was satisfied at the end.
It was about a year before we had sex. None of the pilots knew about or relationship, and to this day I'm not sure if any of them know, though I know Quatre and Trowa had their suspicions, but we never confirmed them for them. I donno what Wufei thought. Though we were friends that just wasn't something you talked about with him.
We only had sex a handful of times. The end of the war and Heero's confinement made it hard to do anything. His imprisonment made two groups of people happy. It made the general public happy because to them, a "mass murderer" was locked behind bars. Well not so much bars as locked in a lab room. The second group was the mass amount of scientists that got to study him. God only knows what they did to him. The little he would talk to me about it didn't sound pleasant. They would drug him and make him complete obstacle courses to see how his endurance and abilities were affected. They tortured him to test his physics and mental restraints. Anything the scientists could think up they would do to him. I tired to get them to stop, but they didn't listen to me. I was a nobody to them. Chris Stark, that's what they knew me as. That's what everyone knows me as now.
The worst part about my memory of Heero is that he never told anyone how sick he was. For who knows how long he had been suffering from head aches and stomach cramps. Sometimes when we laid in bed together I would hear him whimper or curl up into a fetal position and wrap his arms around his legs tightly. I had assumed he did these things because he was having nightmares like all war soldiers do. And maybe sometimes they were, but I don't think so. When they started to grow more frequent towards the end of the war I thought it was because of all the pressure he was under, which I'm sure helped aid in the occurrence of the pains, but were not the reason. In actuality he was just getting worse.
No matter how much pain he was in he would never cry out. He began to sleep less and less, the pain becoming to much. I tired to stay up and comfort him, but when he realized what I was doing he would pretend to be asleep until I fell asleep. He became sluggish and droopy and he began to stumble a lot. Looking back I don't know how we all missed the signs, they were so clearly visible. Even if you didn't know Heero he face was so sunken and he had dark bags under his eyes. He started buying foundation to cover them up.
I never knew how to help him or if I even should. He never asked for help, never admitted there was anything wrong. Shortly after his confinement began he started to be unable to keep food down. I found this out after he was already gone. On my few allowed visits to see him I could tell he was losing weight, but I thought it was from the small portions and many tests they preformed on him that caused it. Turns out his meals were a lot better than any prison I'd been to. Maybe because his days were filled with hell the scientists felt his food should be good. It was almost gourmet.
At first the scientists didn't know what was going on with him. They felt it was because of their testing as well, so they let up a bit. But when Heero's condition didn't change, but continued to worsen they took up their testing again knowing they only had a limited amount of time. And Heero now had a natural problem slowing him down, not an injected serum.
He sent me a letter during his trials before the confinement began. I didn't understand its true meaning until he was already gone. At first I had thought it was some kind of lame apology, but instead it was a will for his death. He only hinted to what he wanted after he died, but once he was gone it was so much easier to see them.
In the letter he had said he wanted to be able to travel the universe. I had thought this was just a confined man's dream of freedom, but it was his burial request. No land or colony grave would do for him. He wanted to be cremated and released in space. Heero didn't have a home, he was like me in that he lost his parents at a very young age. And his memories were not fond of L1. And though he liked earth he was never truly happy just being on it. If he was peter pan his happy thought would have been space. He loved being in his gundam and flying around. As a soldier you don't feel like a free man even though you wear no chains. You complete missions someone else tells you to do. But out in space, there was nothing stopping you from just flying away. He told me one that he felt most alive in space, with the stars shinning all around him. If our gundams hadn't been destroyed at the end of the war I'm sure Heero would have bargained to be sent to space in his gundam with to little fuel to make it to any colony and just float in space until he died. But since he did not have that option, he wanted his ashes to be released in space. Even though he never mentions wanting to be cremated I know that's what he meant when he said that because he never liked the idea of a body just floating around space. He would only stay whole if he could be with wing, but that was impossible now.
He only lasted 4 months in "prison" until he died and I was only allowed to see him three times. His first month there he wasn't allowed visitors, but the other three he was. I arrive before they let visitors in and I stayed as long as they would let me. At my last visit Heero looked so frail and weak. The bags under his eyes were dark and intruded on his soft features. His cheekbones were more defined and sunken in, he looked to be nothing more than skin and bone. It broke my heart to see him that way.
He died that night. The Scientists called me to tell me he had passed on informing me I could take the body away. They admitted to me they believed he waited to see me one last time before he died, because they didn't know how he could have lived as long as he had. He hadn't eaten in a week the day I saw him and he never slept. The scientists had stopped their testing two weeks before he died, certain every night that he wouldn't make it through. They learned one important lesson from Heero in those two weeks: A determined man never surrenders until he's accomplished his goal. And Heero's was to live to see me again. That selfish bastard. HE suffered two more weeks than he needed to just so he could see me again.
I called Dr. J the next day to tell him Heero had died. I hated the man but I felt he should know his finest project had died. I had called with the intention of informing him of Heero's death and hanging up, but something made me stay on the phone to listen to his shocked silence and then his apologies. I told him it wasn't his fault, but that Heero was having headaches, stomach aches and eventually unable to keep food down towards the end. He said it was his fault. He told me these were all side effects from an enhancer drug he had given Heero when he was 12. at first Heero was fine, his body usually accepted drugs without giving Heero any side effects. However, a few months later Heero told J that he had been getting mild headaches about twice a week. Dr. J hadn't thought much of it at than. No one did. Heero was working hard, straining his body to outperform his records. But by the time he was ready to leave for Earth in wing his headaches where more frequent, lasted longer and hurt more. Dr. J never told Heero that he believed it was from the drug. I couldn't believe what J was telling me. I sat there in shocked silence. Heero's suffering was no longer a mystery. It was a side effect of being trained by Dr. J.
Had I been in J's presence I probably would have strangled the man, but because I wasn't I opted for the next best thing. I hung up the phone. I couldn't believe it. All of Heero's suffering could be attributed to one little drug he was given when he was 12. That's almost 5 years. 5 years! Heero truly was an amazing person. To have to live with that for so long, with no medication that could help it or prevent it from happening.
I reread Heero's letter that night. Though I knew the whole thing by heart it wasn't the same reciting it from memory as it was holding the piece of wrinkled paper in my hand. That's when I realized that right in the letter was how he wanted to be "buried." I called the closest crematorium the next day to set up a date. Two days later Trow, Quatre, Wufei and I were the only witnesses to the burning of Heero's body and then the release of his ashes in space. Howard had owed me a favor and gave me a little ship of his to use. The four of us go in and loaded Heero's ashes onto the front of a missile. When we reached space we would release the missile in no particular direction and then shoot another missile to collide with the first and blow it up. This was to accomplish two things. One, to blow up the can Heero's ashes were in so that they could be released into space, and two to destroy the missile so that it didn't collide with a ship or satellite that could be in that direction.
After that day I never saw the other three pilots at the same time again. I saw Wufei only a handful of times and Trowa and Quatre only a few more than that. We all went on our separate ways and different lives. I moved back onto L2 and started an orphanage. I married Hilde and had two children with her. We were happy, I never told her of my time with Heero though. Why bother her with something that could never come back and make her second guess my feelings towards her. I loved her, don't get me wrong. But the true love of my life was Heero. No one could replace the love I felt towards him. But after he died I had to move on with my life, and Hilde was willing to share hers with me. Some of my best memories are with her and our children. But I do wonder what my life would have been like if Heero wasn't sick and a prisoner. Had we been allowed to be together for the rest of our lives would I have been happy? Would Heero have been happy?
To most it would seem like we were complete opposites. Though there are those that say opposites attract. I talked way to much and he hardly ever talked. I was a jokester, he was serious. But that was just his game face. Alone he was someone completely different. We had serious meaningful conversations, where I wasn't the only one doing all the talking, and we also had fun entertaining talks. Heero even joked around when we were alone, and he did it often, and I must say, speaking as a comedian, he wasn't half bad at his smart remarks and jokes.
His face was not a stonewall around me. He showed me what he was feeling even if he didn't know how to express it verbally. Just as I was the only person Heero opened up to he was the only one I opened up to. We could read each other better then we could read ourselves. I would know when Heero was having a bad day before he did and do everything in my power to make it better, and vise versa. We were a team, both of the battlefield and off. I've never had another person I could be as open with as I was with him. Hilde was my wife, but I couldn't tell her everything I had told Heero. He had been through the hardest times with me, he understood everything I was feeling because he had felt it too. I tried telling Hilde things, but she just couldn't understand.
During the day she would work at our junkyard and I would stay with the children. I was the headmaster and a teacher. There were two other teachers and helpers during the day, but at night it was just Hilde and me, and our children when they got older. The orphanage had 43 orphans. With my pension from the wars I also worked on restoring L2. With the success of our first orphanage I created a total of 8 more on the colony the last just opened a few years ago. The largest houses 200 kids. I also used the money to clean up the parks and bought up storefront property, fixed them out and rented them to respectable businesses. Now L2 was a role model to other colonies that had fallen below the threshold of a nice place to live.
I have shared this story to try and make the public understand that Heero was not a monster. He was one of the kindest people there was. He worked to save the word so that our children would not have to fight and die. So that they would never have to experience the pain that comes from losing a loved one in some bloody battle that has no clear purpose. If Heero is a monster than so am I and the rest of the Gundam pilots. Why were we spared a life in prison.
Relena was part of the reason. She had made an agreement that only one of us would have to go to jail and the others would stay free. She fought to free us all, It a a miracle she got them to agree to only having one of us. She told us that she would do everything in her power to get the one in jail out as soon as possible. No one knew who would be going, but when footage started showing up of the way Wing would annihilate his opponents people started wanting to see him behind bars. No footage was shown of the rest of the Gundams kills. Heero went before the people and gave himself up. He did it without letting any of us know, not even me. I woke up one morning to find him not next to me in the bed. When I went downstairs to see if anyone knew where he was everyone was quietly watching the news. When I saw what they where watching I sank onto an empty spot on the couch. There on the screen was a battered Heero being escorted to the jail by some cops with an angry mob around. Heero's face was set and determined. He never flinched when people's hands and arms got through the police barricade and hit him.
To satisfy the public and help them forget that there really were five of us instead of one Heero gave himself up. I have a feeling now that he didn't tell me because he knew he was getting worse and he didn't want me to see him like that. In prison he could suffer alone. Little did he know the prison he was being taken to was not a normal prison.
My one last wish when I die is to be cremated and have my ashes released in space so that I can return to Heero, and be with him until the end of time.
owari
Something different. Hope it made sense. It just kinda came to me late last night. Hope you enjoyed!