Duo 21
Chapter 10
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, or string theory, nope, not Newtonian physics either. No promises of scientific accuracy, nor being real close to any particular mythology system.
"I don't get it," Duo said, rubbing his temple with the ball of his thumb. "There's angels. There's Demons. There's a holy statue that's a thousand years old and it looks like me, and you're in love with it, and you want me to burgle a Heero that thinks he's gonna be god, after he offs a couple more dimensions. Oh, oh, and don't stop me yet," Duo held up a hand, "And in all that robbing of the Heero that thinks he's god, I've got to be real careful not to grow wings and turn into a shinigami for real because I'm prone to that? Wufei, you make sooo much more fucking sense when I'm drunk."
"You do seem a big more clear minded while you're drunk," Wufei admitted. "You have it nearly right, Duo. Our universe exists in…."
Duo held up both hands, eyes closed, "No. Don't try again. I'm not stupid, but I don't get it. Just let me… So, Wufei, these creatures… they're us, but because of where we lived, and the constant ka-bang, some people 'evolved'. Did I mention I'm Catholic, Wu? You know like, and on the 7th day he rested?"
"You don't believe in evolution," Wufei asked, dark eye wide. "Seriously, Duo, this is not a joke."
"Wufei. Sit down. I'm going to the bathroom and I'm going to get some painkiller. Then you're just going to explain how I can stop myself from shooting Heero, because," Duo grimaced tears thick on long lashes, "I find I just can't live with having shot him. And if I have to rob God himself, hail Mary, Mother of God, to get him back, I will. God wouldn't give me this chance if I weren't meant to have it. So you just sit yourself right there, and I'll be right back."
Duo closed the door to the bathroom and leaned against it. His head spun with all the things Wufei had tried to tell him. In the darkness of his bathroom, head against the thin wooden door, it felt like a safe house in the war, just a tiny moment in a swirl of chaos that was going to end his life one way or the other.
"I'm not fifteen," he whispered to himself, pushing off the door and moving to the cabinet above the toilet. Back behind twin stacks of neat white towels was a plastic bag, sealed and rolled tight.
Reverently, Duo pulled it out and sank down to the floor. It had been nearly a year since he opened it. Tears escaped his lashes then, rolling down his face, as he pulled Heero's green tank top from the bag. It was too small to wear for him now. His arms were bigger, chest bigger than they had been when they were fifteen. God, they were still kids, and the damage they did then, it rocked him now.
Rocked him all the way back the ruin of Maxwell Church and he buried his face in Heero's old shirt. He hadn't believed in a god he couldn't see then and he wasn't real sure he did now, but he didn't understand Wufei and he didn't know what else to do. Forehead smashing Heero's shirt to his knees, Duo let himself cry. Everyday for five years he'd been walled in his own silence, trying to find some way to prove to himself that he hadn't had any other choice, that there hadn't been any other way.
And so suddenly, his self imposed silence ended and he didn't know why. If Wufei was on crack, Duo promised himself that he'd let himself use the same gun and send himself on a one way trip to visit Heero. Hell, not that he'd have far to go, what with Heero living in his yard.
Heero. Yard. If that wasn't his Heero, but some other Heero… then what Wufei was saying might be true.. and Heero, his bright blue eyed knight and lover.. he could be saved. Duo's throat closed off and he wiped his tears with Heero's shirt. It didn't really smell like Heero anymore, but it made Duo remember the warmth and hardness of Heero's body. Holding it in one hand, the protective plastic left on the clean swept floor, Duo moved to the medicine chest. He spilled half a bottle of pills on the counter, down the sink, but got two and swallowed them dry.
Wufei's eye went wide as Duo returned to the main room of the cabin. "Don't take this like, as an insult, uh," Duo said, pointing accusingly at Wufei, the green thread worn tank top hanging limp at either end if Duo's fist. "But you got some serious weird story, Wu, and I need some collaborating evidence."
"I can take you to see the angelic form of yourself," Wufei offered, not sure at all that this would solve the problem.
"Hell, do I look like some guy that talks to angels? That's all you. I'm Shinigami, always have been. Stay here. He gets a big testy."
"What are you talking about? Oh," Wufei said, swallowing, "I'm not sure that's a good idea. From what I understand, when a person takes that form of evolution they can be quite dangerous. They seem to eat spirit energy."
"And what do your angels eat, " Duo asked, throwing the door open on a bright spring day. Kindling lay scattered across his porch where it had landed the day before. His axe lay where he'd dropped it. "And I'm dangerous too," Duo shot over his shoulder to Wufei before shutting the door.
The silence was a little much, no birds, just Wufei muttering and pacing, which was a sound that Duo could block out. He'd had practice at blocking that out. "Are you hungry?" Duo asked the empty yard, being careful not to add the 'shithead' that he was thinking about adding. Not that he hadn't called Heero's ghost every name in the book in his mind, anyway.
"Yes," a very Heero like voice whispered, "You can hear me?"
"Yeah," Duo said, the hair electric on the back of his neck. This was like the moment right before he'd take down his cloaking and start shooting the hell out of something. "I wanna talk."
"About time," Heero said, slowly misting into a ghostly form, looking almost exactly like he had in the war, but this Heero had small little fangs pressing into his lower lip.
Duo's stomach flopped. "Yeah, well, I guess I was feeling a little guilty for shooting you and well, you always told me to shut up."
"I never said that to 'my' Duo. I think I would have shot your Heero myself. Of course, It's always nice to kill oneself."
"So you're not the ghost of my Heero?"
"If by ghost you mean flittering meandering soul that just doesn't know where it wants to go, no, no I am not," the Heero said, half snarling and showing off his fang.
Duo's stomach flopped around, but he wasn't going to be intimidated. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Why didn't you notice?"
"Did you hear what Wufei was telling me?" Duo asked, giving a point to the Shinigami.
"Yes," Heero-shinigami said.
"Is he telling the truth? Is he right?"
"Mostly. One thing his has wrong is that he thinks a depressive whiner like you can steal the soulkey from Heero-Maris. He's going to crush you and then spin you around and make you sing his praises. There is nothing on any of the 'branes more powerful than Heero-Maris. It is said that he found the Godseed and he ate it."
"What's a Godseed?"
Heero shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just a little soul sucker. I only want to go back to my plane and be with my Duo. I just want to go home. I didn't mean to come here. I didn't mean to haunt you, Duo-Rei. I just, I was running from Heero-Maris and I was afraid he'd hurt Duo-Shanari."
"So what's this guy want," Duo asked, violet eyes lighting up with mission planning. "What's he care about?"
"You. He wants every Duo."
"Greedy bastard, but good taste. Isn't there an angelic me?"
"There was," Heero said, leaning forward a little. "He fell in love with angelic Wufei-Mei. The two of them opposed Heero-Maris' plan to eat the Godseed and well, no one's seen them since, but there are rumors that a frozen form of angelic Duo surfacing on some 'branes. That's just rumor, but if your Wufei has found him, then maybe that's true."
"Oh just great, just bloody great," Duo said, leaning against the railing next to shinigami Heero. "I really need to get into another war that's between us, but we're gods. I my Heero back. I can't live without him."
"Shoot yourself then, like you've been thinking about," Heero said, "And then, when your soul leaves your body, some shinigami dogs of his will collect your soul and take you right to be with the most beautiful Heero Yuy you've ever seen. You'll fall to your knees and be so deeply in love you'll never remember that there was another Heero. That's where my Duo is," Heero said, hands tucking under his arms again, as if he were just now really putting the pieces together, "Shanari is happily in the bed of a Heero he can't help but love."
"You know, I ain't that stupid," Duo said, smiling. After all, he was talking to Heero, even if it wasn't his Heero. "I bet your Shanari got himself together and he's looking for you."
"I hope not," Heero said softly. "I'm trapped here. At least with fake memories from the god Heero he'd be happy. I can't go home. You can't really get your Heero back. Shanari is a captive slave somewhere, but at least he doesn't know it."
"Oh, man, I'd always know if I was a slave. So. I'm gonna go kick this Heero's ass. You wanna come with me? Truce, uh? No more throwing solid objects at me?"
"He's going to kill me and enslave you," Heero said.
"Did you have a war in your world? Gundams? Did your Duo have a big black robot to burn chaos all around?"
"When we were mortal," Heero said and his eyes were blue, Heero's blue. "Alright. I'm sorry I haunted you. I just.. well, I guess I liked you thinking I was your Heero."
"How do you feel about Wufei?"
"Good with chocolate sauce," Heero said.
"Do you really eat people?"
"No," Heero said, "Just sexual energy. You have good dreams."
"Oh my god," Duo gasped, cheeks coloring. "You didn't."
"You didn't mind when you thought I was your Heero," Heero said, smirking.
He was so much like the Heero that he knew, not in the war, but after, after a couple years of living together and teasing and sex, great sex, and Duo wanted Heero, wanted him like his soul could tear to tatters if he didn't get him.
The kiss demanded itself. Duo grabbed the mist of Heero's shirt, as if it were solid and in his hand it felt solid, felt warm and living. Then strong fingers moved behind his head and pulled him close. Duo opened, welcoming, as life seemed to pour into him, echo back out of him, and Heero owned his mouth, soft suckling mewling, tongues swirling, lips between teeth and Duo couldn't even breath.
"Maxwell!" Wufei shouted. "What are you doing?"
Duo grinned, crooked and full of hope. "Planning a mission to kick a god's ass. What are you doing? Are you watching me kiss Heero?"
Wufei's cheeks flamed. "Well, actually, technically, that's not really Heero."
"He has an angel bias." Heero laid an arm around Duo's shoulder. Much more solid, he'd fed from Duo, without draining or harming him, just basked in soul willingly shared.
"So you got a thing for angelic Duo?" Duo asked, one chocolate eyebrow arching up. "No wonder you didn't want a blow job from little old mortal me."
"No, no! It's not like that, well, actually, kind of it is, but it's not as if I'd prefer him to you, it's just well, that you're in love with Heero, or Heeroes."
"I'm not in love with this Heero, but he's not half as bad as I was thinking. And Wu, geeze. Are you afraid of sex, or something? How many days do we have to figure out how to take down a Heero that thinks he's a god?"
"So you've accepted what I've told you then?"
"I just kissed a Heero and he's got all his teeth. My Heero was missing the a bicuspid on the left. So how many days?"
"It is frightening that you should think of such details or put your tongue in the mouth of a demon!"
Duo didn't say what he thought Wufei wanted to put into some angel version of himself, but Heero snorted in laughter that cut off too quickly. That laugh, that kiss, and Duo really stared to think he could do it. He could call down divine.. something … and bring Heero back, turn back time. "Maybe I'm a little demon myself. Wu, how many days?"
"Fifteen, but we must cross to another world and take angelic Duo with us. Then we must find our counterparts and convince them to help us. There is another world that has an angelic Duo fragment. If we recombine them, then he will be ready to wake when we have the soulkey."
"So really, we got no time. Wu, you're an angel, really." Duo rolled his eyes and went to start packing. He was really alive again. Miracles do happen. "Come on, Wu! You can cook while I pack."
Heero stepped half way through the cabin wall and looked back to Wufei with a smile, "Well, I can't cook can it? And he's got to be hungry, after a kiss like that."
Wufei twitched and followed them in.