Title: The Ribbon and the Ring 25?

Author: Seraphim Grace
Archive: if you want it ask, I just like to know where they are. http/seraphim-grace. http/ Always appreciated and replied to.
Rating: 18 (This is an open rating so I don't have to worry).
Pairings: 1x2
Warnings: Angst. Some gore. Some incredibly bad French.

Notes: AU, and features necromancy.

If Duo had wanted to learn all the swear words in Aatorian he wouldn't have thought to ask Danev. However he would have been wrong. Danev took one look at his back and managed to go for at least fifteen minutes without repeating himself. He managed it whilst laying medicated clothes across his back as gently as he could. Heero looked as if he might try the feat himself or at least try and murder someone slowly and painfully.

Duo just lay there and took it, he couldn't see how badly his back had been injured when he had accepted his penance, and to him it was just a burning pain that stretched from his ankles to his neck, he thought he had had worse so he just took it without complaint. Heero on the other hand was all for wrapping him up in a antiseptic bubble whilst actually tying him to the bed just in case he tried something as stupid again.

Danev was ruthless as he tended him, giving no thought to any sense of his frailty as he scraped unguent into the wounds. Emithi stood at the doorway with a cup of liquid she was stirring, it was clear that they were going to medicate him.

"I have to cut your hair." Danev said, then took a deep breath to explain, "it's full of blood and we can't move you to wash it until you've healed some. At the moment it's a breeding ground for infection. With your hair that long I can't prevent you getting sick and dying."

Duo couldn't think of anything to say to answer that. Heero spoke for him. "He keeps his hair as a memory."

It was Devlin that answered from the door. "Mother," he said looking at Emithi, "do you still have grandmama's bracelet?" Emithi nodded not understanding. "Heero," Devlin said, "will you undo his hair whilst I get it. It has to be cut but it doesn't have to be lost." He stepped out of the room as Heero undid the tie at the base of Duo's braid.

"You have no choice," Duo said quietly. Heero gave no hint that he had heard him. He undid the braid and laid it reverently across the pillow away from his back.

Devlin came back in with a braided black enamelled bracelet and a pair of sharp scissors. "I'm sorry, Duo." He lifted an amount of hair and cut it away. For the first time Duo acted as if he was wounded. He then went to the side and braided the hair, pushing it through the bracelet and then clamping it around Duo's wrist. Duo looked at it strangely before he closed his eyes.

Devlin went to hand Danev the scissors, but Heero took them first. "I will do it." He took a deep breath, "I'd rather you hate me," he said to Duo quietly.

"Short," Duo breathed the word out, "cut it short." He took another sigh, "It'll grow back." He knew Heero had chosen to do it himself because Duo wouldn't hate him – even if he wanted to.

Heero gave no sign that he had heard but began to cut away the hair in long hanks he dropped to the floor. It was almost solid with blood and what looked like mucus. Then when his hair was almost gone, as Heero ran his knuckles across his cheekbone, Duo finally passed out.

Heero stayed with Danev thoughout Duo's long surgery. He sat by Duo's head occasionally stroking his cheek, or running his fingertips along the line of his jaw. Danev didn't seem to care. He was as gentle as he could be. He stitched the largest of the whip marks, covering each of them with a thick honeyed unguent. Heero asked no questions, and Danev offered no answers.

Deakon popped his head in at one point to ask if Heero was hungry, that Quatre had been worried about the fact that neither of them had eaten in some time. Heero accepted the soup but Danev said nothing as he poured it away. If Deakon knew Heero hadn't eaten, he said nothing.

Devlin brought him hot kir later, for both him and Danev. He gathered up the loose hair on the floor and put it into a silk bag that he tied off and placed on the mantle. He asked if he had woken, but he hadn't. Heero didn't answer him.

As Danev finished, laying a white cloth soaked in vinegar over Duo's back, Emithi came in and tried to usher Heero out. When vocal bullying failed she frowned and grabbed his ear between forefinger and thumb. "You will leave this room. You will bathe. You will get something to eat. Whilst you are out I will arrange for a cot to be arranged so you can stay with him. Do you understand me, soldier?" Heero had been conditioned to obey orders and his training warred with his desire to stay with Duo. "Danev is sick and tired as it is, I am not going to make him care for the two of you. I tried doing this as a hostess, it didn't work so I will command you as a bishop. Do you understand me, soldier?" She punctuated the word soldier with a solid yank on his ear. "The sooner we get it done the sooner we can come back. I'll sit with him." She said, "he won't be alone."

Heero looked back at Duo, and then with another touch to his cheek. "He said that he was forgiven." Heero said quietly.

"Some people need pain to be forgiven." Emithi said, "go take care of yourself so you can look after yourself."

Heero was gone less than half an hour, and in that time Emithi had kept her word, she had arranged for a cot to be laid out beside Duo's bed, as there was no way that Heero could have stayed with him in the same bed. Emithi sat beside his head, his hand in hers. "Did he wake?" Heero asked as he took her place beside Duo's pillow.

"No," Emithi said, "I'll get some broth sent in case he wakes."

"Did Danev drug him?" Duo didn't like drugs.

"No," Emithi ruffled Heero's hair fondly, "oh to have known a man like you when I wanted a husband," She laughed to herself a little. "If any man in my life had been as devoted as you, I honestly think," she stopped, "if you were one whit less devoted, I'd steal you away. I'll send you up something to read to him." Her smile was wistful as she left the room, pulling the door shut behind her.

"This world," he told Duo sadly, "is full of women who married for duty and were desperately unhappy." He ran his knuckles over his cheek again, "and for some reason they envy us so desperately that they push us together even more than most." Lying, looking like a doll on the white sheets, Duo said nothing.

He didn't use the cot, he laid Duo's head on his thigh, stroking his short hair and slept with his back against the carved headboard, hunched over. He woke up when Trowa knocked and entered.

"I thought I'd take shift for a while," Trowa said, "give you a chance to clean up and eat before Danev comes into change the bandages."

"'Ro," Duo murmured into Heero's thigh, clutching his hand tightly for a moment before letting it go, "go on, you gotta need to pee." He took a sleepy yawn, "go on," he slithered off his knee and placed his face heavily on the pillow, "go on,"

"Do you want me to go?" Heero asked.

Duo gave a dry chuckle, "you need to pee," he answered, "and I can't tell Tro you're wonderful if you're here. Go on."

Heero went, but it was clearly unwillingly.

Duo toyed with the bracelet on his wrist, "they cut my hair, Tro," he said, "is it really that bad, because I don't feel anything."

Trowa offered him a wry smile, "remember when we were in Corsica, at the beginning of the war," Duo nodded, "and you and me and Wufei met in that restaurant and he didn't, doesn't, speak a word of French and you convinced him to order the steak, but he didn't know the word."

"And he ordered steak tartar." Duo finished.

"That's what it looks like." Trowa said, "I can only see the stitches and the blood, but Heero said it was like someone had cut you open. He's really pissed at you at the moment."

"I," Duo began, "I needed it, I needed to be forgiven."

"Well," Trowa said holding up his chin, "you're forgiven for all those Oz soldiers you and I have murdered." He sounded magnanimous and made a strange gesture with his hand he hoped was a blessing.

Duo ignored him. "It wasn't that," Duo protested, "everyone around me died and I didn't."

Trowa's face softened, "survivor guilt, that was your great sin?" He stroked Duo's head, "then you really are the baka Heero calls you. It's not up to you if you die or not, you're Catholic, you're meant to believe in predestination and God having a plan."

"I met the gods of death." Duo said, "in the temple, it was them that whipped me that I could serve my penance."

"Baka," Trowa said in a rather fair estimation of Heero, "you know I told Calydon about all the terrible things I had done, even to ignoring Aia because she likes me, and she forgave me. She didn't need to, but she did, so I know what it's like."

"You like her," Duo said, "I mean really like her."

"She's a goddess." Trowa said, "She's driven and fixed and beautiful and deadly."

"So's Dorothy Catalonia." Duo said.

"Calydon is capable of killing me, Dorothy would." Duo was still laughing when Danev brought him in the soup that they were using to drug him.

Author's Note:

When I foresaw this chapter I knew Danev would have to cut Duo's hair, when the back is would long hair gets cut to prevent infection. I spent a long time with my beta discussing a way to prevent this and we couldn't work around it, I asked doctors and all sorts. Then one night on the antiques road-show they had this brooch, and it was full of human hair. It was a piece of memoriam jewellery and we had a revelation. The Victorians were strange but by gum were they useful at times like these.