What ties the soul

By max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam wing

Note: this is slightly au, more tech, cuz that's how I roll.

The hadn't been designed as a cell. All it was was a hastily fabricated cylinder that they'd bolted down to the secondary hanger floor. The man slumped on the warm metal floor tried to smile up. Half his face was swollen though, which made it hard. His skin was dark, making his brown eyes look warm, soft, hard to look away from.

Duo perched on the top edge of the railing. The darkness in the unused hangar behind him soaked up the light from the light bar he'd dropped into the makeshift cell cast his slender face in stark shadows, lit up violet eyes with an unnatural burn. He had bits of scrap gundanium sharpened into claws on his fingertips, which he was dragging over the rough texture of the cylinder. "Ima kill you," he hissed at the wounded man.

The man shifted a little, stretching out his legs, almost purposefully exposing his abdomen, belly. His lips were thicker than Duo had ever seen and he wanted to look away from those big brown eyes, from the discomfort they left him with, but he wasn't going to give in. "Now boy," the man said, his words in a thick and strange accent, "Why you wanna do dat? Killin' a man ain't no small ting."

Duo dropped down into the cylinder, landing without a sound. Dressed all in black, excepted for the dingy white of his priest collar. "you ain't mah first," duo said, his gundanium claws lifting sparks from the metal of the cell wall. "I killed the rest of your team. You shouldna attacked our ship."

"Little man," the wounded man said, gentle, as if he were protecting the kid in front of him. "You didn't kill us. It was a space battle. Children aren't responsible for what adults do. If we'd known there were kids on this ship, we would have been more cautious."

"This is a sweeper ship," Duo said, squatting down just out of reach. "Dar are kids on'em all. You should fear us. I killed your team and Ima gonna kill all of earth!" Duo said angrily, jabbing his claws into the floor. "Ima make them starve and burn!" Duo's lips curled angrily as he spoke, violet eyes dark with rage. "You give pain -Ima give it back!"

"Wow," the man said, eyes wide. He held out his hand. "Ma name is Jean-Jackson Damice. What's yo name?"

"Death," Duo said,straight faced, prideful.

"You ain't Baron Samedi, no way, no how," Jean-Jackson said. "You a kicked dog and I'm shit sorry that you been treated so bad." His fingers flex d and suddenly there was a wrapped little candy in the palm of his other hand. They both stared at it. Darkness stained the little white paper wrapped candy.

Duo's hand snapped out, grabbing the little thing. He popped it into his mouth.

"Uh, Jean-Jackson swallowed, his lips tensing for a moment. "Ah think there was blood on that."

Duo wrinkled his nose defiantly and swallowed the candy. "Yer mine. Ah salvaged you. I can do anything ah want with you."

The bigger man pointed a long finger at him. "Folk ain't salvage, kid. Ya might kill me, but ya ain't neva gonna own me. Why the hell you call yer self death?"

"Cuz," Duo said. "Ain't you afraid of me?"

"Nope," Jean-Jackson said. "You just a kid. How old are you, fuckin ten?"

Duo scrunched up his face, nose twisting. "I'm 15!"

"No you fuckin' ain't," Jean-Jackson said.

"I am too," Duo said standing up, chin lifted. "I'm a great pilot! Ima rain death and destruction on the monsters!"

"Earth ain't filled with monsters, you little shit. Sure, people are assholes, but not all of them. Come to earth and let me show you," he challenged hi,.

Denk banged on the outside of the cylinder. "Hurry up, Duo. Kill'em! I gotta clean this hanger!"

"That's all you value life," Jean-Jackson asked sadly.

"You came here to kill me," Duo defended. "Earth took our food and medicine and left us to die! I have to kill the monsters so we're safe!"

"I," he said, pointing to himself, "came to arrest your ass for illegal weapons. If I'd known about you, I woulda added child abuse to the charges. That was really you, only you attacking us?"

"Yeah," Duo said proudly. "Arrest, kill, same thing. Soon, Earth ain't gonna take from us no more."

"A long time ago, people came to the place of my ancestors and took us...they sold us like we was property. We fought back though and we got free."

Duo squatted down again, his braid held in both hands. "What colony are yer people on?"

"I'm from Haiti. It's an island on Earth."

"What's an eye land," Duo asked, suspicious.

"It's a bit of land in the ocean - the blue parts. Have you seen Earth at all?"

"Sure I seen simulations and maps of places where people live in real close together and comfortable on all the stuff they stole," Duo said angrily. "I got real good with the tactical simulations. They got a lot of gravity and it don't never fluctuate. That's gotta be some fuckin hard core engines!"

Someone else banged on the side of the cylinder. "What's going on in there," Doctor G demanded. "Duo! Did you leave a survivor? What have I told you about that!"

Duo growled over his shoulder, "Leave me alone! I'm gettin' ready in my own way! I do what I want!"

"Like hell you do," G snapped. "I didn't give you augmentation and train you in the Gundam so you could start fucking around! Get out here!"

Not looking in the direction of G's voice, Duo flipped him off over his shoulder, while pulling what looked like a pen out of his shirt. He bounced his eyebrows at his prisoner, and turned the pen on. It turned out to be the smallest micro torch that Jean-Jackson had ever imagined, Duo quickly cut a hole in the floor and dropped down and out of sight. The hole was big enough for the man too and following the kid seemed like a real prudent thing to do.

While Jean-Jackson had been on a lot of ships in his time, nothing had ever prepared him for what was below that hanger. "What the hell is this place," he said, hurrying to catch up with the boy.

"Smelting," Duo said, "And biorecapture." Duo went around a corner, then came back, motioning for the man to hurry up. "We don't have long. They are gonna come after us."

The man just stood there, staring at a huge transparent vat full of stuff floating in a slightly blue gel. "This is my partner! What have you done to him?"

"It's biorecapture," Duo said, "If you fuckers at Earth wasted less, you wouldn't have to steal as much. Sorry about yer friend. He was dead when he went in though."

"You're sure," Jean-Jackson whispered, his hand on the glass near his friend's floating hand.

"Yeah. Messes with the enzymes if you put live shit in," Duo said. "If you don't wanna join'em though, we really gotta go."

Jean-Jackson ran his hands into his hair, eyes wide. "This ship is a fucking nightmare."

"So let's go see your eye land," Duo said, "I ought do up front reconnaissance before I wreck their shit!"

A hand still holding his head, he nodded. "If I could take you to my family's Mambo, she'd help you," he said. "How we gonna go to Earth, boy?"

"Come on," Duo said, turning and running off into the warren of vats and refining equipment.

Jean-Jackson gave chase because that was the only hope of any thing. He didn't think any of the adults in this nightmare of a ship were going to be even a little helpful.

When they finally stopped, in something that Jean-Jackson thought had to be some kind of garbage resevoir, thought it looked like it hadn't been used in decades. There was a thing that looked kind of like an escape capsule, kind of like a blender container.

"See? Ain't great!? I put a second seat in for you," Duo said, pulling part of it back, and it looked a lot like a very large gun.

Jean-Jackson's stomach felt like it was in a blender. "What the hell? You can't go anywhere in that! We're two weeks out from Earth. There wouldn't be enough air. It's a coffin."

"Who makes coffins? Are they fast?" Duo said plopping down in the front seat, "Come on. They are gonna be on us any minute. It'll be fine!"

Jean-Jackson sat down in the back seat, scrunched up uncomfortably. "I suppose living a little longer is better than living less longer."

Duo pulled his seat up a little to give him more room as the canopy slide closed around them. "Oh and we're at Earth now. We got a good jump after the battle. Hold on!"

"OH Jesus and the saints," Jean-Jackson yelled as the floor dropped away below the little craft and they fell just a little, "There are no restraints!"

"Nope," Duo said, firing on the engine. "Buildin' shit outta spare parts means sometimes ya make do."

"You build this out of spare parts," Jean-Jackson wheezed as the nose dipped and the lateral engines both fired forcing the little ship out of docking with the much larger Sweeper ship. "Have you flown her before?"

"Yup, nope," Duo said as he pulled her around so they were facing Earth and then he just hung there, in orbit around the great blue and white swirled world. "Oh."

As the Sweeper ship slipped away in a slightly higher and faster orbit, Duo reached out to touch the transparent nose of his little ship, as if he were touching Earth. "It's so big."

"Really," Jean-Jackson snapped. "You don't say!"

"It's so beautiful!"