This is ELLE back from my travels and just wanted to say thank you for the lovely reviews last chapter! :D Unfortunately, I can't say much as far as cliff-hangers go, but just know I'm not the only one who does them... *duh du dunnn* ;-P Enjoy!

21.

Each touch was pure torture on Duo's heated skin. Not those that were intended to hurt, not those that were meant to cause physical damage, as Duo could deal with those. Pain, physical pain was easy as shit to deal with – it was something that he'd dealt with his entire life – but the touches that said more – brief, fleeting, that brought with them the images in his head of so many times long gone were an agony he'd never felt before.

They made him remember, laughing in white sheets, feeling Heero's body pin him to a bed in Sanc and running his fingers through his unruly hair, leaning upwards to kiss him hard and using the moment of distraction to reverse their positions. Heero would blink up at him with those blue eyes, those blue eyes that could be harder than stone gazing up at up at him in some kind of momentary surprise before Duo would run his tongue over every available inch of skin. His body echoed with every touch, every moment – the stupid fucking school, young and inexperienced but with plenty of enthusiasm, the desperate moments aboard Peacemillion, the first time after the bunker when Heero was so unsure and needy… the first time on this goddamn colony, rough and impatient, and then Heero underneath him, vulnerable after Wade.

Those fingers that dragged over his skin, so hot that they felt like they left abrasions, were harder to deal with than the knees to his stomach. Harder than the punch to the face and feeling the blood run down his chin, his barely healed lips splitting under the pressure of Heero's fist.

He tried the smirk, that damn expression he'd used a million times before, the look he'd given his enemies as they'd exploded in front of him or when he'd seen a body crumple in front of him, a bullet impacting and leaving a crimson haze in its wake, but it was forced as much as the words he choked out.

This was the way he had to try. Try to unleash some of the anger that resided underneath the surface of Heero's calm exterior – that underneath, Duo knew the man, no, the boy who would want to lash out in the only ways he knew how. Each of his words were hollow and damn unconvincing and fuck, he did not lie but he tried, as Heero had to get out. Heero had to fucking live.

"I don't want you."

He was sure that the words didn't work even as he registered the hint of pain on Heero's face – that these could be their last words – not the "I love you" of the toilet stalls – but even then Duo couldn't make those words convincing. There was no one else he'd ever wanted – ever needed. No one else who had made his wreck of a life worth damn living, no one he'd ever wanted to return to despite how many times he'd walked away. Yeah, no one made his heart damn ache. Duo never thought he'd be this way – the survivor. Never thought that it'd be him at the end of the world – Duo Maxwell and the fucking rats and cockroaches but he'd sacrifice anything for the man in front of him. The man he loved.

"I fucking hate you," he said, each syllable ripping his throat to shreds.

Heero had to kill him. Duo had to give him the damn reason – make him think it meant nothing – confirm everything Heero thought about himself. That he was nothing more than the damaged broken soldier boy in his bunker and to Duo he was nothing more than a convenient and easy fuck. Yet his words faltered through his bloody lips and he hated himself for saying them – even as his eyes looked through the mesh, realising this, their fucked up relationship had become sport and he glanced back to Heero to see he was not as steady on his feet as he should be, blood dripping from his stomach down his leg and to the mat.

Heero wanted his hate after Wade. Duo couldn't give it to him and neither could he now. Yet he damn hoped those words had worked as Heero made those steps across the mat and he found himself on the floor and despite the fact that Heero was in pretty bad shape he was sure that he could still snap his neck if he wanted. Those years of dedicated training, the lonely boy raised in extreme violence could resurface and Heero could do what he needed to do. But Heero did something more painful than the bliss of death and blackness. He felt lips, warm and chapped against his own, bloody and numbing.

The kiss startled him, the pressure on his lips so out of place and the fingers in his hair so forceful and needy. It took a second to register that Heero had made the decision for them both – that they couldn't do it, neither of them could. Heero couldn't kill him as much as Duo couldn't… that if they both bled out on the mat in the cage then it was better than living forever with the blood of the man that you loved on your hands.

And Duo closed his eyes tight shut, feeling droplets of something on his face descending from Heero – it could've been blood, sweat or even damn tears but he didn't need to know. If this was their last moment, if bullets were going to be fired, then fuck, Duo never wanted anything else. And maybe Heero was trying one more attempt to protect him or save him or value his life above his own – his steady weight on top on him. He wanted to say that it wouldn't work, that when the bullets came there would be so many that it wouldn't matter that Heero's body was in between them but fuck, if Heero wanted their last moment to be like this then Duo wouldn't say shit – only hold on tight to the hair at the back of his head and run his fingers down that body he'd fucked, adored, admired, worshipped – loved – and waited for the inevitable hail of bullets.

The bullets didn't come. Maybe there was some rushing in his ears, maybe after all the deprivation in Kerrigan's fucking cell, his senses were dulled but he couldn't hear the sound of the buzzer or the crowd or anything. It perhaps was the moment before death, he figured, people said that your life passed before your eyes the moment before you died. Duo didn't see his life, fucking glad he didn't, but maybe there was just this moment of peace in realising that there was nothing else to be damn done.

He wondered if this was how the thousands of men he'd killed felt. Yet the moment of peace didn't last – the sudden sound of bullets and shouting around them and it was then he finally opened his eyes, their lips parting and he looked up at Heero.

"'Ro?"

The look in Heero's eyes was just as confused, the slight hint of puzzlement at why they weren't dead for the act of rebellion but it became clear as Duo turned his head to look towards the mesh and the expected gunfire rattled and ricocheted around the metallic amphitheatre.

The rich men tried to run – not that there would be anywhere to run on this colony. They'd have their shuttles but then they had the black clad forms of the Preventer extraction team who would be blocking all their exits and there would be no damn escape. Kerrigan's men let off a few half-hearted rounds, a few went down but most made the sensible damn decision of surrendering as it was clear even from the vantage point of the floor of the cage that there were a lot of fucking Preventer agents.

"You got the message out," Duo said slowly, his gaze returning to Heero's.

"I tried to stop this…" Heero stated, his words faltering and he stopped.

This. This fight. This fucked up situation where they'd had to hurt the only person they gave a shit about in the whole goddamn earth sphere. Duo's hand reached up, his fingers trembling for some fucking reason and he brushed away the dark bangs from Heero's eyes.

"I didn't mean… I just couldn't, yanno…"

Heero nodded and it was all that Duo needed. He could've said that he never meant to say that he hated him, that he didn't want him but then just looking up at him, after that kiss… well, Heero knew he'd never meant it. And it was not the time to be delving into emotional shit as the sound of shouted orders reverberated and then there was sudden movement around them.

They were both pulled to their feet, battle weary and bloody, separated by the last of Kerrigan's men. Duo felt the butt of a gun against his head, dazing him, and he fell to his knees, the mat damp with crimson underneath his skin and he looked over to Heero standing with Kerrigan, the gun pointed at his head, the barrel pressed against his forehead.

Kerrigan was a man without anything to lose now. Duo eyes met Heero's who only shook his head imperceptibly. A small gesture. Don't try anything fucking stupid. Not that Duo could – the distance too great and the gun pressed too tight against Heero's temple. That if Duo made one move, he'd watch Heero brains decorate the cage just as a hundred other men's blood had stained it. Kerrigan had nothing now – his operation gone, his colony and his world disintegrating – so he could just blow someone's brains out for the fucking hell of it.

"I shoot him if you try anything. You know I will," Kerrigan said, not bothering to veil the threat. It was directed to anyone in the general vicinity – to Duo, to the Preventer extraction team outside the cage – and he used Heero's body as a shield from the bullets of the black clad agents.

"You don't want to shoot him."

Duo turned his head in the direction of a Preventer agent, now removing the helmet and he'd recognised the damn voice but it had been so damn long since he'd seen that person – a gym at Preventer HQ, saying goodbye with a casual shrug and not knowing when he'd see him again – and it took a moment of recognition to place that voice after over a year.

Wufei looked calmly at Kerrigan. He signalled the agents to lower their weapons with only the tiniest motion of his hand as he looked through the mesh at the man who had controlled this operation for years only for it now to be crumbling in front of him.

"You don't want me to kill one of your own in front of your eyes."

"No, I don't," Wufei said coolly. "However, I believe you underestimate who you are dealing with."

There had been a moment of silent communication that had bypassed Kerrigan, his guards and the other Preventer agents as Heero pushed his elbow hard into the flesh of Kerrigan's stomach and he hit the mat as a round of bullets fired through the mesh of the cage, one perfect round entering Kerrigan's head. For a second, Duo just watched Kerrigan stand there, his face blank and unreadable, that man who had caused so much damn pain – remembered the bruising on MJ's damn arms, remembered seeing the guy beaten to death in front of his eyes, remembered his cool gaze over the fight that Wade was never meant to win. And then he fell, crumpled, the bullet from Wufei's gun precise, accurate despite the mesh in between.

With Kerrigan gone, the final few guards realised the uselessness of the situation. Kerrigan's men had always been of the less than intelligent variety – men who took orders – and without a leader did not know the correct response. Surrendering became their one damn option, Preventer agents entering the cage to dispose of weapons and clip cuffs around wrists. Duo crawled over to where Heero had landed as he had not immediately gotten to his feet. Instead, he had only risen to a kneeling position, his hand over his torso where the wound seemed to have ripped even more in the moment of exertion.

"You're hurt," he said, looking at the wound, open and bleeding. It looked damn deep and he could see that maybe there was a paleness to Heero's skin that was unusual and there was a damn lot of blood on the mat.

"It's nothing."

"You ain't fucking superman, yanno," he muttered under his breath and his level of weakness became apparent when Heero allowed for Duo help him to his feet and to lift his arm around his body, placing it around his shoulders like he'd done when they were fifteen, using his own body to support Heero's.

He must've lost a lot of blood – the wound sure as hell did not look right – infected maybe as Heero leaned a lot of his body weight against Duo, his skin hot, feverish and clammy against his own as they exited the cage, blue eyes looking back to see Kerrigan on the floor of the mat. It seemed oddly poetic. The man who had made a spectacle of death in his own damn cage.

Once outside, Wufei stood, looking at them with more than passing concern. Duo figured they must've really looked like shit for a frown to form on that usually so emotionless face.

"You both need the med team," he stated.

"And hello to you – took your damn time an' all."

"It was only after the last transmission that it became apparent we were needed."

"Yeah, well, fuck you picked your damn moment, 'Fei. All I can say…"

"Did you get Peacecraft?" Heero asked bluntly although his voice was not as contained and controlled – the hatred subtle but audible.

Wufei's face lost some of its composure at the question. "Peacecraft?"

"Yeah, Milliardo fucking Peacecraft set us up," Duo explained, his eyes flicking to Heero whose breathing seem laboured. "Don't tell me you missed the slimy bastard? He was fucking here."

"You're sure?"

"Jesus, 'Fei, don't question this shit – he was playing us the whole damn time like some fucking puppet master –"

His sentence stopped midway through, the rant to explain the whole damn labyrinth of shit they'd waded through during this time on this abandoned colony stopped by the sudden feeling of Heero slumping against him and he had a moment's notice before he realised quite what the fuck was happening. That Heero was always so damn strong, steady and even when he'd goddamn jumped from that hospital he'd been able to walk with only a small amount of support. This was the guy who'd damn self-destructed. And yeah, Duo made those superman comments still, some kind of private joke – that Heero was always going to be superhuman and utterly infallible. That he still was the genetically enhanced superstar so that when he felt his falter, Heero stumble backwards and fall against him – hot, burning, fucking hot – it felt damn wrong. Then he was slipping towards the metallic floor of the amphitheatre and Duo was supporting his descent, realising that he was going down whatever he did.

He could hear the commotion around him, hear the world that had continued moving as he reached down for fingers, twining them together, and he saw convulsions, eyes rolling back into his skull and the blood continue to pour from the wound, and it was too fucking like Heero for him not to admit he needed emergency medical attention, to stand up when he should be on the ground, to fight to some unknown damn end.

"Not now, you fucking asshole." Not now. Now when they were meant to be going home – whatever the fuck 'home' meant. He felt Heero's hand loosening around his own, his fingers sliding down that signalled he was losing damn consciousness. "Don't fucking leave me…"

Not after everything. Not after the shit storm of an undercover op. Not after whispered "I love you's" in a dirty bathroom. Not after the bloody kiss in the fucking cage. He felt a hand on his shoulder, the pressure encouraging him to move but Duo couldn't walk away, couldn't give the medical evac team the necessary space even as he was being told to get out of the way so that they could do their job. He felt Heero's hand descend towards the floor, no longer able to grip, limp and lifeless and he was being told that they needed room and that maybe he wasn't breathing…

The pressure exerted on his shoulders increased, the force of someone pulling him to his feet so that the mask could be put over Heero's mouth… so that the defibrillation machine could be applied to a chest that was clearly not rising and falling. A chest that Duo had rested his head on, warm and solid, and tangible…

"Duo…"

He heard the voice, calm and trying to reason with him – knowing it was Wufei and it was Wufei's hand on his shoulder. He didn't turn towards him, he stepped back, allowing the medics the space but his eyes didn't leave Heero as he pleaded with a god that he didn't believe in, to karma that he'd probably fucked over a thousand damn times in a life of killing people and to whatever deity may listen to a worthless kid from L2 that Heero would goddamn breathe. That he would goddamn live. That he was so damn unsure if he could live in a world without that slight quirk of lips that was a smile, those blue eyes he could fucking drown in, a world without calloused hands and a scarred body. A world that Heero didn't damn exist in.

"Stay with me," Duo whispered, his voice barely audible, eyes glazing over as he watched the med team send shocks of electricity through a prone body. It was pleading, it was something, a prayer – fucking worthless. He promised silently to never damn walk away, to never leave in the dead of the night with a casual wave and a wink, never to run, never to hide in his own fucked up version of Heero's bunker if he damn lived.

"Stay with me, 'Ro… I fucking love you."