One glance was all it took. It may have been ten years, but Duo would know Solo anywhere, at any time. Now he just has to convince the stubborn wizard to let him help. Master of Death? Sorry Snake Face, the Shinigami has no master. 02/HP, 04/03
000
Chapter Four
The stab wound went over warm and incredibly itchy, but the pain lessened to a considerable degree. Using a quick tergeo, Harry could see that it hadn't been PERFECT, but it was good enough. The wound was sealed, it would scar, and be tender for a few days, but he would be fine.
Duo pressed a burning hot hand against it in near disbelief, he must have lost a lot more blood than he thought if his body temperature had dropped that much. "You... You learned how to control it," he breathed in shock before his expression darkened. "Solo, what the fuck is going on?"
Harry grimaced, how to explain this without explaining anything?
The best answer was not to.
"The shit I didn't want you involved in," Harry stated flatly before trying to pull away, the braided boy however still had a bruising grip on his arm, "Duo, let me go. I need to deal with the others before the one that escaped brings reinforcements."
"How did they even find you?" Duo demanded, releasing the Gryffindor and then following after him as Harry stalked back through the scrap metal back to where he left the other two. Harry grimaced, if he got any closer, he was going to trip over him.
"I wish I knew," Harry answered darkly as they came to the unconscious Monty, and Mister Swordsman, still conscious and glaring at them. He had moved somewhat, obviously having been attempting to shuffle his way to his fallen sword which was still a ways out of his reach, now even further as Harry kicked it away. "Leave him unconscious," he said, nodding to poor Monty. "He's under some kind of mind control. This guy though, he's dangerous. Not many people know how to fight with a sword."
Duo's hand dropped to his gun, "This guy stabbed you?" he demanded harshly, meeting the calculating dark eyes behind the mask slits with barely contained rage.
"No," Harry refused, but didn't add the comment on how it wasn't through lack of trying sat on the tip of his tongue. Duo looked fit to kill, and Harry had no intention of making more corpses, besides, they needed information, and Harry would bet his broomstick this guy was the leader of this little operation of Death Eaters. It took a cool head and some pretty big brass ones for a Wizard to keep fighting without his wand, that spoke of someone who had earned the lead position in a team. Evil and psychotic Voldemort may have been, but he was a consummate Slytherin, give him a tool and he'll find the best use for it – even if he had distaste for its origins. He still used Snape after all, despite being a Halfblood, and Pettigrew, despite being near enough a Squib and a sack of shit besides. It was the work of a few seconds to knock Mister Swordsman unconscious and levitate the pair to the open, adding the third living Death Eater, the first one Harry attacked to their strange floating train of terrorists a moment later, when they got outside though, Harry froze.
Ocean.
Not quite crystal blue, but a dark grungy iron grey and green. As far as the eye could see over the railings of the GODDAMN SHIP.
Harry whirled around, grabbing Duo by his red shirt collar, "A ship?" he wheezed glaring at him, voice trapped in his chest as his whole body felt cold. "You dragged me onboard a SHIP?"
Where the hell was he? Was he even in England anymore? He had to be close right, or the Death Eaters wouldn't have been able to Apparate to him, or away. Right? Right?!
"Duo, where am I? Where the FUCK am I?!" he demanded, shaking him in barely contained panic and anger. "WHERE HAVE YOU TAKEN ME?!"
Duo let himself be abused, he knew that Solo would freak the second he found out. His friend absolutely hated being trapped or confined or even taken somewhere against his will as a kid, and somehow he knew it wouldn't have changed much as he got older. Tolerated it, maybe. But still most definitely hated it. Duo usually got away with it when they were kids, if a fight got too rough and Solo went down and they needed to move somewhere else quick, but apparently a ship at sea was too far out of Solo's comfort zone for even Duo to be safe from the green eyed boy's meltdown. Damage control time, damn he wished Quatre was here, his Space Heart would have come in mighty handy right about now.
"You're on board my buddy Howard's salvage ship, the Peacemillion mark one. Safest place I know. Used to hide here myself during the Colony Wars when I was on the run from both Oz and the Alliance," he explained almost gently when Harry finally stopped shaking him.
"That. Doesn't. Answer. My question," he hissed through gritted teeth.
"At the moment, I couldn't tell you. About a hundred miles out from England, there abouts," he explained further with forced nonchalance as he tried not to dwell on the uncomfortably familiar feeling of drying blood on his hands, Solo's blood. Gunna have nightmares tonight. He carefully untangled Solo's hand from his shirt collar, the grip wasn't tight enough to choke him, but it was making the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight with discomfort. He'd had far too much experience with suffocation to be comfortable with someone's hands around or near his neck, even Solo. Especially when the vindictive little bastard was in meltdown mode (Duo remembered once when they were little when Solo went meltdown and freaked out enough to set someone on fire, first and last time the local brothel tried to grab them, mainly because he accidentally killed the Madam and the place went out of business for long enough that the two of them were able to skip districts).
Harry had to take several deep breaths before he did something he would probably regret, like curse Duo into the middle of next year. Ooh. But it was TEMPTING. Abducting him against his will, dragging him out to sea, stealing his belongings, where the hell even were Ron and Hermione -
"Duo, if I'm here, where the hell are my friends?" he demanded slowly.
Duo swallowed going tense, recognising the tone for what it was, "They're in protective custody with the Preventers. They're the United Earth Sphere's peacekeepers, they're under the personal care of a few war buddies of mine. They're safe, so safe, I don't know where they are, just in case whoever is after you tries to get their location out of me," he explained carefully, well aware of the thin line he was treading with regards to Solo's temper and protective instincts.
"Duo. Take me back. Now," the green eyed youth ordered flatly, tightening his grip on his wand. He would imperio him, if he had to. The knowledge was like bitter ash on his tongue. That he would do such a thing to Duo of all people. Ten years had separated them, and while that meant nothing to Duo, it was enough that Harry wasn't quite as – it wasn't that he didn't care as much, it was – he couldn't. He wasn't allowed. Solo cared about Duo, enough to lie, cheat, murder, steal, and a hundred other disgusting things he didn't want to remember doing. But Harry didn't know Duo, couldn't know Duo, and had more important things to worry about.
Solo died in L2.
Harry was never supposed to remember.
The brunet shook his head, "No can do," Duo declared equally flatly with a bland smile. "I lost you once, I'm not losing you again. You think I haven't seen that look in your eyes before?" he demanded in increasing agitation, amethyst eyes narrowing on his face. Apparently, this had been brewing under the surface of him for a while, and now it was finally coming out. "That I haven't worn it myself? You don't think you're gunna survive this, whatever it is you're caught up in," he began to snarl, bristling, winding up, ready for another fight.
"It's my choice!" Harry snapped back, hackles rising.
Duo scoffed, "You just told me it wasn't not even a full twelve hours ago. That some geezer dragged ya into this clusterfuck cause ya looked like his buddy's kid, an' some fucker decided to go gunnin' for ya! Doesn't sound like much of a CHOICE!" he grunted loudly as Harry lashed at him with his wand, imperio on the tip of his tongue but...
He couldn't say it.
Not because it would have done him no good – as soon as he moved Duo grabbed his wrist and yanked him chest to chest while twisting it out of his hand, thumb on a pressure point – no, he just couldn't cast the spell. The words were stuck on the tip of his tongue. He couldn't say them. Couldn't cast it.
Not on Duo.
He couldn't force the words out. So he let the wand drop from his nerveless fingers, he let Duo catch his other wrist and yank it behind his back.
"Ey, Duo! Steady on, man! 'e's a'ight!" a deep voice from behind them protested. It was the guy in the Hawaiian shirt that Harry first rescued, he was limping over with a harpoon gun in hand, the blanket that Harry conjured tied over his shoulders like a cape. He was still shaking a little but his colour was significantly improved. "He's okay, man! I'll vouch!" the big man continued, hobbling over as quickly as possible looking worried as he glanced between the two and the tight grip the former Gundam Pilot had on his personal saviour, he tried not to read too much into their current position, or how they were both covered in blood, especially the short one, Duo wasn't that type of guy. "He saved my skin from one of those masked fuckers, hauled my ass outta there somewhere safe, I swear, Duo! He's a'ight!"
Duo grinned amiably at him, "I know it. Solo's just a stubborn shit who needs some sense knocked into him every now and again before he gets all self-sacrificial," he told the older man with a laugh and a grin that showed far too many teeth, not budging an inch from where he had one hand behind Harry's back, and the other outstretched with his hand empty and lax. Harry couldn't look at him. He wanted to kick himself, shout, and scream. He could make Duo take him home, make him return Ron and Hermione. He should, because there were thousands of lives resting on their ability to get the Horcrux as soon as possible, which they couldn't do if he was on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic. But he still couldn't force himself to cast that spell. The words just wouldn't come out of his mouth, they sat bitter and heavy on the tip of his tongue, and burned.
Duo seemed to realise it too, because his grip gentled, and he lowered his arm, letting the blood rush back into the previously numb limb. Harry couldn't look at him. And Duo didn't try and make him.
"We're alright, Jake. I ain't gunna hurt Solo, unless he says please an' all," the brunet added with a salacious smirk and a waggle of his eyebrows.
Harry didn't react, he felt tired all of a sudden. Tired and useless and sad.
"If I say please would you let me go home?" he asked dully.
"When it's safe I'll let you go where-ever you want, Angel. Hell, I'll drive ya personally. But only when I'm certain that fuck wits like them aren't about ta take ya to the Lord before ya time, get me?" Duo stressed firmly, his voice slipping into the harsh grate of L2 by accident.
Frustration made his eyes sting. Neither Harry nor Solo were criers. Tears did not come easily, if at all, no matter the circumstances. Solo remembered joking once that he must have been born without tear-ducts to one of the other kids at the height of the Plague before he himself had caught it, when they lost six kids in the one week. Harry hadn't even cried after Sirius's death. He had raged, he had stormed, and then he had grieved and mourned, but never had he cried. Barely twenty-four hours with Duo had him ready to do so out of sheer exhausted frustration.
"What do you not understand here, Duo?" he pleaded, shaking off his hands and gesturing to the six Death Eaters, the three bodies, and the three unconscious. "Are you really so wilfully ignorant that nothing I've said has gotten through your skull?" he demanded placing his index fingers against his temples for emphasis.
"You've said a lot but haven't told me jack shit!" Duo snapped back.
"That's because if I do, you become a target as well!" Harry snarled, gesturing to the Death Eaters, "Do you know who he is? I went to fucking school with him. He was friends with the Prefect in my House, my bestfriend's older brother used to do homework with him in the library! And yet he's here, against his will, and he rammed a knife in my side when I know for a fact that he faints at the sight of blood! The people hunting me don't give a damn who gets in the way, they don't care how many innocent people you kill, how many you arrest. They'll just go out into the street, grab another, take control, and send them out again! Do you understand? They can control people! Who's to say your Preventers aren't already under their control? The day you found me was the day they took over the British Ministry! That's why we were running, I was at my friend's wedding and they attacked. I don't even know what happened to his family, my friends, my teachers! Just because they're connected to me, they're in danger! Because some crackpot old bat with an unfortunate habit of being disturbingly correct about the future bullshitted a job interview in a pub and got overheard by the wrong people!" he ranted furiously, voice rasping hoarsely by the time he was done.
Duo's mouth worked soundlessly, unable to come up with a response to that.
Harry jabbed him in the shoulder, green eyes blazing, "I could do it too. Control you. I learned. I've had it done to me so many times I figured out how," he rasped, panting, "I tried. Just now. I tried to make you take me back, let me go. But I couldn't. I couldn't cast it. I couldn't get the goddamn words out!" he heaved, and then shoved him. "People are depending on me to end this, I was told how to end this, but I can't tell anyone because I can't trust anyone! And you're keeping me here while hundreds, thousands of people are suffering, dying, and worse!" he bellowed, thumping the former Pilot's chest. "because of you! Because I'm too weak to cast that one fucking spell! Because I can't cross that line and control someone I care about! I hate you!" his voice tore as he hit Duo again and again and again.
He never saw Jake move.
The butt of the harpoon gun impacted against the back of his head and he dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.
Duo caught the former streetrat on the way down, feeling like the biggest ball of scum on the planet.
"That... could have gone better," Jake observed uncomfortably, shuffling and cradling his gun like a nervous child.
"Yeah, no kiddin'," Duo murmured as he carefully lifted Solo into his arms, he was still worryingly light and scrawny. He'd forgotten just how bad some of Solo's meltdowns could be. But this was the first time the green eyed boy had ever told Duo that he hated him, and even though it tasted like a lie, it still hurt.
"Du, far be it from me t'butt in..." Jake began awkwardly, clutching his harpoon gun, "But it sounds like yer beau's caught up in some pretty bad stuff, if there's really that many people on his case about this... then maybe you should help, man? I mean, if there's anyone in the world who's gunna know how that feels, it'd be you Gundam Pilots, right? I'm just sayin', even if it is protective custody or whatever, keeping him here isn't going to help any," he pointed out, shuffling his feet. "The kid looks wrung out, and stressed to shit."
Duo stared at him for a moment, chewing his lower lip, "I'll think on it," he said before looking down at the collective prisoners. "Get the bodies out of the sun and bagged up, I'll call some people to pick them and our prisoners up. Let's see how much more info we can get on the situation out of them," he muttered, knowing down to the soles of his boots that they would break their silence long before Solo, no matter what the torture involved. But he wasn't about to torture Solo, even if what he was currently doing probably felt like it to the former street rat.
The pilot grimaced as he hefted Solo into his arms, making his way to the cargo elevator rather than risk trying to carry him down the ladder, meant walking a bit further, but it was safer for all involved.
Once back in his room, he laid Solo down on the bed and tugged some of the copious amounts of blankets out from under him and laid them out. He paused, giving thought to the handcuffs, but even as he touched them, he only picked them up to put them away in a draw. He wanted to protect Solo, not be the cause of his pain.
He booted up his laptop in order to contact Une. When he was finished, he'd call Sally, see what she had to say. She usually gave pretty good advice, and he was in sore need of it right now.
Une was livid that the enemy had somehow managed to get to them, she asked after his charge and Duo angled the computer so she could see him and explained how he'd become distressed and violent upon discovering where he was, they knocked him out before he did any damage.
"Apparently he was charged with ending the conflict, much like we were, but he can't trust anyone but the two you have to help. Mind control is apparently a thing that can be done, so he's freaking out over everyone's safety except his own. I honestly don't know what I'm doing, Une. I thought I was doing the right thing by keeping him out of the fighting, but now I'm not so sure," he admitted, raking a hand through his hair in frustration.
Une sighed on the otherside of the communicator, "We've managed to piece together something of a picture from your Solo's friends, and from what I already knew. This isn't the first time I've brushed up against these people, before hand, Treize usually pushed me away from the situation, so I can guarantee that individuals in significant positions of power are aware of them. Thus far, from what I understand, your Solo is part of a secret society that uses highly advanced and unknown biotechnology. I've not yet figured out just what their selection methods are, some people seem to be born into it, others are collected before they undergo puberty. More rarely are people expelled from it, but it does happen, and to a totality, none of them will speak of it. Absolutely none. And yet none of them display signs of brainwashing.
"We have interrogated the two teenagers you sent us, non-violent methods only. From what we've gathered, their Government is compromised extensively into an almost Hitler-esque regime. Undesirables are being rounded up, protestors put down, objectors ferreted out. And in the middle of it all, it seems as though the only true opposition to the regime was recently assassinated, and handed the reigns of his little war down to his successor. A teenager." She rubbed her forehead, and Duo ground his teeth, wanting nothing more than to start shooting people. Quatre would be so ashamed of him if he knew just how black Duo's rage could be.
"Do you have anything to add to that? Any information I can use to prompt the two I currently have? The boy is essentially brainless, he knows nothing of our world or technology, but he seems less likely to give us the needed information. The girl is smart, but she is naïve. If I can get under her skin, then I know she'll spill everything we need to know."
Duo rubbed his chin and thought back, "Solo said that... This wasn't the first war. Apparently his parents were murdered in the last one, just before it stopped. How that translated to him ending up on L2 when supposedly he was born in England I don't get. But apparently his Aunt and Uncle didn't like him, I can only assume they knew." He fell silent for a moment before, "he said something about some old lady with a talent for guessing the future bullshitting a job interview being the cause of the situation. She got overheard by the wrong people, and apparently that puts anyone connected to him in danger... Friends, teachers, even his friend's family members. Apparently they were at a wedding when they were attacked.
"A few years ago, the girl, Hermione, she got her lung shredded when they tried to rescue Solo's godfather; the guy, Ron, he was attacked by something, he'll have episodes where he isn't himself; there were others, Ginny and her broken ankle, Neville and his nose, Luna nearly had her spine broken. They talked into a trap, and Harry's godfather died anyway, something about an arch that killed anyone that went into it," he explained thinking hard on past conversations with Solo. Part of him didn't want to say anything about it to Une, they were private moments, words spoken to try and reassure him after he said about the Maxwell Church Massacre, but if it got his friends to open up and talk, if it made it easier for Duo to protect Solo...
"How long till your people get here to collect the prisoners?" he asked rubbing his head, Solo hit him pretty hard and he was going to have one hell of a goose-egg on his head.
"Two hours. Get some sleep, 02, you look like you need it," Une told him, blunt as ever. "And don't you worry about Solo. Give me a few days with the prisoners and I'll have everything you need to deal with him and his situation."
Duo flashed her a tired smile, "Sure thing, Une. Thanks."
They didn't bother with goodbyes, merely ended the call then and there. Duo sighed deeply as he spun his chair around to stare at Solo on the bed.
"What the fuck did they do to you, So?" he asked softly, staring at the tiny seventeen year old looking so tired and ill and, god fucking damn it all, fragile. Solo was like a mountain, a monolith, in Duo's memories. That unbending strength and determination and fiery passion, sass and snark and vicious barbs, the boy who didn't let the gutter of L2 drown him, who dragged himself up and pulled them out with them. Duo remembered following him, watching his back, that scrawny spine spun from Gundanium.
Not even the Plague could sap Solo of his strength, not until the very end. He lasted longer than everyone, pushed everyone even as his lungs were vomiting blood, and his stomach couldn't keep anything down, until he was thinner and smaller than all of them. But his eyes still burned fever bright, he still straightened that fucking Gundanium spine and forged on. He took them to the safest district, the one on the otherside of the colony. There was no where truly safe on L2, that was why their little gang moved so often. But this one was next to the weather plant, it was warmer, and the simulated winter was coming up. Solo made sure, even when he was dying that they were taken care of.
Duo scowled violently, slamming a fist down on the table.
Nothing had changed, had it?
Solo was still putting other people ahead of himself!
What he had used to admire so much in his former leader, he now hated with every fibre of his being. And he was selfish, so fucking selfish, because he didn't give a shit if that was what Solo wanted, because he wasn't going to sit back and watch him die again!
He needed to blow off some steam, he needed to – to wash Solo's blood off his hands. He needed a shower.
Some hot water would hopefully clear his thoughts.
Making sure to remove any weapons from the room, and lock it behind him, Duo made his way down to the showers at the end of the hall, towel over his shoulder. He'd take Solo to clean up when he was awake, this would just be a quick shower, he'd wash properly when he took his friend in to get cleaned up – and get a better look at that stab wound while he was at it.
000
Uncooperative chapter is uncooperative. Fuck you chapter! Fuck you!
Still, in other news, I managed to get it out. Which in of itself was quite an accomplishment I feel. Enjoy~