Chapter 12: Allegedly
Author: Gilly Wrist
Ohh reviewers thank you! You tempt me to write faster so all of us can find out where this is going (I have an idea perhaps) and how its going to get there (no idea.)
I am sort've free-writing and discovering that like you. I hope you continue to enjoy!
I've got some explaining to do, I think. I suppose it is off-topic. But context is never a bad thing. It's certainly not the worst thing. It's important for appendixes.
It's not like it matters, the context is more candor and honesty for him. But he is not hearing any of this. So I guess it's more, my confession without apology.
Forgive me Father, for I have sinned? No thanks. Father Maxwell's already dead, and he's been forgiving my sins a long time, so there's no need for me to ask politely.
It's important to set the record straight though. Or that's probably wrong, it's important to point you down the crooked path I positively zigzagged. I know I've been talking in some riddles but my mind does that, when I can't say what I mean. I riddle around it, I wriggle around it, or I run and don't tell you at all.
When you are living in a lie, it's easy to talk some lies.
That's a problem because I really don't lie. If I tell you something with the look of 'I'm not lying.' I am not lying. Lies of omission are a different matter entirely.
Everything turns into shades of gray sometimes. And for me, at the time, and certainly now, a lot of things were pretty damn relative.
I was feeling better after a good night's sleep, for sure. But better meant cognizant thoughts, meant thinking back on the past few days, and sorting things out. The truth and all the pleasant little fictions. I had to discern my situation and status and untangle them from the bizarre new universe of living beside the Merquise.
When Duo woke up the man was gone as if he had never been. Duo was not sure, in fact, if the man had spent the night in the same bed. The boy had done a good enough job tossing and turning that it looked like pack of dogs could have slept on the bed. The boy frowned around a yawn, sniffing the air around him. He pressed his nose to the other pillow on the bed. It smelled neutral and clean. No trace of the man's faint aftershave.
Duo bit at his fingers, attacking a hangnail with his teeth. He was getting better. He felt better. The man could not have come to the bed, and crawled in and slept beside him without Duo waking up. He relaxed at that thought. Of that he was sure then. The man could not have slept there because Duo would have known.
The boy stared up at the ceiling before pushing the covers back; the door to the bedroom was still open as it had been last night. There was a hand penned note on the man's desk.
"Breakfast in the kitchen. Z"
Duo scowled. The Z winded around with the flourish of an aristocrat. The scowl was not at the flourish as much as the danger. The note was dangerous. Duo shook his head, exhaling against the hunger pain in his belly at the thought of food.
If he dwelled on the thought any longer he'd be livid. He never liked going more than days between missions; his energy would turn anxious, frantic really. And living with Zechs was living down the rabbit hole of pretend. If Treize or anyone, anyone saw that… The risk is just so unnecessary.
Yea, he had always thought Heero took things a little far. Over the comms after a mission it would be one rendezvous (RV) point after another. Go here, get in the car, ditch the car, go on foot, get on motor bike, leave bike at foot of trail, back on foot, backtrack, sidetrack. It was tedious. (Very tedious when he was bleeding.) 'And he wonders why I fuck things up.' Duo thought darkly. 'Then it never gets to the RV stage. It's fuckin' improvise.' He was good at improvise. Heero hated it.
Heero also hated when Duo would not maintain radio silence while getting eaten alive by the mosquitoes in the woods. Duo smirked. What Heero hated even more, was when Duo would maintain radio silence when it was imperative he did not, like during a talk-through.
The boy moved over to the kitchen, scanning the bare marble counters. He opened the fridge to find a sterling silver tray with a bowl of cereal and a pitcher of milk. Duo grabbed the bowl and milk off the ornate metal tray, preferring to eat leaning against the countertop than take the whole thing to the table in the other room.
Duo grinned as he chomped around the cheerios, thoughts back on missions and Heero. The pilots ragged on him for never shutting up, sure. But the other pilots never knew him like Heero. Yea, when he was in those safe houses he'd get frantic. He'd sing away his nightmares or whistle to break Wufei's mediations. But he did not work with them. When he'd work recovery or recon he would only work with Heero on the comms. Trowa had once, Duo winced. And never had to again. Duo shook his head.
He often wondered how after that only Heero got assigned to him. If Heero switched the orders or if someone else found out. Anyway, only Heero was assigned after. "My Houston" Duo had said once. The analogy lost as always.
If Heero snapped at him to shut up, 01 would get it right back at him tenfold. Sometimes it was not Duo's fault. Sometimes he really did need to remove the wires and go it alone. But sometimes, he'd remind the pilot just how silent he could be. One time, Duo went so far that Heero met him at an early RV point (Yes, 01 broke his own damn protocol) to choke him. The boy shook his head; Heero's anger on that day had been beyond disarmament.
Duo sighed into his cereal, struggling to avoid the cat and mouse games in his memory. The disarmament of Heero Yuy. The boy scowled, scrunching his eyes closed. It was a game that went both ways. About 15 to 25% of the time, Duo was the cat licking the cream. The rest, failed attempts.
They'd both still kill each other, yea. And it had gotten pretty close numerous times. Most recently, Duo had set off some PTX-1 by remote, well aware Heero was still well inside blast zone. And likewise, Heero had brought down buildings well aware 02 was inside. It was even. They'd both kill each other or themselves to complete an objective.
Duo frowned. And that's why he did not understand any of this. He did not know where he fucked up. Or where the kill order came from. Heero had snarled at him once that he would've been long dead if he was not the best they had. It was words Duo could hardly believe at the time. But Heero does not lie to him. And Heero certainly does not bother with semantics.
Heero knew the boy did not take the sleeping pills G prescribed him. And sometimes, if Heero fucked him hard enough, he'd sleep like he was on them anyway. Duo pushed his bangs out of his face, bringing the bowl to his lips so he could swallow the rest of the milk.
The handlers somehow found out. And then Trowa or Quatre would ask him to screw around. Orders. Or rather, strong encouragement, for 'everyone's good.' Duo snorted. It was obvious that pair wanted each other instead. It felt better in his heart somewhere anyway. Screwing around helped him rationalize his emotions. If everyone screwed him he did not feel so gullible for cat and mousing with Heero like it would pay off. If everyone screwed him the occasional prison rapes were not the biggest deal.
Duo did not even know what pay off he was looking for.
Probably someone he could confidently call a friend. That's why being the target this time hurt so damn bad. How many fucks and teasing and tending and convincing and fixing and stitching and saving and blowing up and tracking down does it take to have a friend during wartime.
What he wanted he had already found in the fucking gutter. He wanted a friend to have his back above all others. Another Solo. That's it. Another "you can sleep next to me, kid." Another "I stole ya one too." A Solo that couldn't die. A Solo that was indestructible. And Heero fit quite nicely in the indestructible compartment.
The boy frowned, re-evaluating what he had told Zechs those couple days ago. He blushed with guilt as he remembered back on how close he had been to lying. Duo shook his head; he certainly insinuated a couple lies. He'd fled from his life only hours earlier, the safe house, the cat and mouse games skirting Death by Heero and Death by mission for what. He'd pulled two smiles, a couple gentle touches, and even fewer kisses from the other pilot for what.
Maxwell shrugged. It was not a big deal, lying under capture anyway. And that's what Zechs was. Right-hand man, Enemy. 02 and Mr. #2 sharing a bed, Duo rolled his eyes. Allegedly. Again, all the rabbit hole pretend. He sighed again. The only reason he cared about not lying goes back to the gutter too. Everyone was a thief. His word was all he had. To have it compromised was everything.
Where did that kill order come from? And why wasn't Heero breaking his damn protocol.
He burned with embarrassment as he thought back to the words he shared with the Merquise. He had been tortured within inches of his last breath and not so much as a snarl had slipped past his teeth. What was different this time? He could not understand why he shared his emotions with the man. Yea his words were a simple story riddled with statements that alluded towards lies, but the feelings had been true. He had felt like nothing but a screw at the time. He did not know what possessed him to share it though. Again, the fever. Still. He was better than that.
Duo frowned. Highly unprofessional and inadvisable. And despite jokes to the contrary, Duo was a gundam pilot. And while unlucky sometimes, he was a professional.
It was something about the man's ability to pretend. It was disarming somehow.
Duo had spent so much time trying to pull the others into this world. He'd help Quatre pound their canned bean rations to a pulp that failed miserably short of the hummus the blonde missed so fervently from home. He'd hide one of Heero's knives and then hide himself, pushing the begrudging boy into a game of hide and go seek. Fucking, that's another game of pretend.
That's what it was. For the first time, someone wanted to play with him. He wanted to pretend and Zech's said, let's pretend. They played well together.
And Duo had been completely and utterly honest since that first talk.
He felt better, thinking over that.
It was tiresome, trying to weave a world for others all the time, trying to pull Heero into his own playful fantasies, trying to replicate a bit of an imagined home for Quatre. He did not know much about Trowa. Except that Trowa stopped fucking him after that botched mission. Maybe hearing a pilot get raped over the comm was not a fetish of his. Duo shrugged. To Heero it did not appear to be a turn off.
He did not know why Zechs did not sleep in his own bed last night. Duo scowled. Assumptions. Appendixes. Semantics. He did not have enough information. Maybe the man was called away. Maybe the man fell asleep at his desk. Maybe the man usually prefers to sleep on one of his weird couches. Or takes turns. Like sleeping musical chairs. That's what Duo would probably do if he had that many pieces of furniture to sleep on in one room. He had never played musical chairs. Cause he never went to a school when he was young. But he had heard a kid at the church explain it once. It sounded kinda dumb and mean. It sounded like kids playing gutter rat. The slowest always loses. If you are too slow there is no chair or no food or no blanket or you get caught. Unless you have a friend
Damn, did Duo wish he had a friend.
He wished he had a dog.
A dog, it always came back to that. Man's best friend is what everyone said. He was betting on it. That was a hope, if he outlived the war. He'd get one. He'd find one. A rescue or something. An orphan. Maybe name it Solo. Duo scrunched his nose. That would probably be a little strange. But if it was named Solo but he was able to take care of it and give it a blanket and food and stuff, some strange debt might be repaid. Duo shook his head. He could not name a future dog, Solo. It's just kind of weird. And it would kill like hell, when Dog-Solo died.
The braided boy shook his head wearily and warily. No. He did not want a dog.
And he did not want to outlive the war much either.
Damn, he really thought him and Heero were getting somewhere. A couple weeks ago they had even fell asleep together. It was only for 20 minutes after a particularly strenuous session, but after they collapsed on top of each other, sweaty and naked, he had somehow slipped past the pilot's defenses with the help of post-coital bliss and Heero Yuy fell asleep. Duo hardly dared to breathe, or move, or blink. Until finally his own eyes got too heavy, and the weight of the boy on top of him too warm and comforting, and then he was out. (before waking up with a hand on his throat, but the end of the nap is inconsequential.)
It sounded small perhaps, but it was a legendary moment. It was a mistake on Heero's part. And yes, 'perfect soldiers' make mistakes. But that was not it. It was legendary because something inside Heero had to be down. Something inside him had to have been breached. Shinigami had somehow slipped past some programming somehow. It was remarkable victory. A sliver of intrinsic trust.
The news of his own impending assassination a week ago, a rather rude defeat.
But that note was a fucking problem. Zechs should not have left one. He should know better. This room felt like a parallel dimension out of space and time but it was a ruse. It was pretend. He was in grave danger. But it felt like a weak excuse.
The boy looked down at his empty cereal bowl. Damn.
