Title: Somewhat Damaged

Author: Raven (spirit_raven_willow@hotmail.com)
Contents: Yaoi!!! Semi-AU (set after endless waltz), slightly OOC, future lemons

Rating: NC-17
Pairings: 1x2, 3x4, 6x5 (6+2… sort of)
Notes: I have no real idea where this is gonna go so C&C VERY welcome. Duo, Heero and Wufei work for the Preventers, Trowa is a Journalist, Quatre works for Winner Inc and Zechs owns a gay/Bi bar (this may or may not have *any* significance to the plot I haven't decided) anyway it's after endless waltz and everyone it trying to have normal lives and forget the war but old scars don't always fade.

Italics denote flashbacks
Archive: Anywhere but ask please

Archive: Anywhere but ask please

Fanfiction.net: http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=444812

A little piece of Gundam Wing:

http://raygunworks.net/singles2/somewhat/somewhat.html

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue… All you'll get is a purple bunny named Duo and coursework.

Chapter 2 – preludes and nightmares

I woke the next morning alone in his bed. This wasn't the first time we'd slept together, we connected in ways I hadn't with any of the other pilots. We'd had comfort sex a few time… sometimes I wonder if we should get together, it'd make things a lot easier. I mean I'm not in love with him like and am with Heero but I do love him. Whenever either of us felt low we'd cuddle and sleep together but not sleep together. We both need a warm body that cares sometimes, although, sometimes I thought wistfully, I wish that I were in his bed feeling his body pressed up against me one arm wrapped round my chest, idly playing with my nipple rings when we didn't have to get up early for work. I shook myself: it'll never happen, no point in going there Maxwell, that's a road with a dead end.

I climbed out of bed not bothering to put on underwear: he'd seen me naked before and I've never been the most modest person so I didn't bother, the apartment was warm and it enveloped me like a blanket straight from the dryer. I wandered through his place across the thick plush carpet to the kitchen. The smell of hot coffee greeted me and muscular arms enveloped me from behind. I nuzzled my face in his vanilla scented hair, listening to some song on the radio that I could never remember the name of.

"So do you feel better?"

"I guess." Which was true, I was better but not *better*.

"Good." He knew I wasn't telling the whole truth, "I have to go down to the club and sort out a shipment, wanna come?"

"No I have some stuff to sort out…" he just looked at me, then moved off to get dressed. I yelled a thank you and goodbye to him as I decided to streak back to our apartment rather than try to find my clothes.

So, I entered my empty apartment: Heero must have gone to work though we don't have any cases on at the moment so we didn't have to go in but that's Heero, he can't help it. He still hasn't lost all of the 'perfect soldier' and if anything it's got worse because as he gain his humanity back he feel more guilt for the things he did in the war… what we all did… I'd like to think that if we were ever together we'd make each other all right again: we'd be so great together and we'd be so perfect, and it would be so sweet… The thought of it makes me hurt so much. I want to die. There is a pain in my chest and it hurts so much I can't stand it.

I walk into our shared kitchen and found out the toaster pastries and looked through the mail for something interesting. Ever since we'd turned 18 we had been inundated by credit card applications and other junk mail which I promptly binned, the rest were bills: they went to Heero… and at the bottom was a brown manila envelope from… myself? I ripped it open and about dozen photographs fell out onto the floor by my feet. I remembered that I'd left them with a lawyer during the war in the though that I'd have to leave in a hurry one day and forget them, I never seriously thought I'd get them back as we never knew where we'd end up, if there was anything left to go to. I thanked a God I didn't really believe in for this small reprieve for my soul.

The pictures were of the few bits of happiness we scraped together during our teenage years. Group shots of us sitting around smiling (well me and Quatre: the others were doing the personal equivalent of smiling) at one or the other of the safe houses and then there were a bunch of the best night of my life: this crazy night in Las Vegas, we had to hide there once to escape from OZ, due to the sheer volume of people we blended in easily. We'd gone to this absolute dive and danced pressed up against each other for hours: forgetting who we were and why we were fighting, we were just children once again, even if it was only for a little while. The photos were of the 'party' afterwards: us sitting around chatting, drinking vodka shots; Quatre was giggling like a girl, Wufei and Trowa were telling off colour jokes; who knew Trowa was such a hentai, I guess all that time with the mercenaries he must'a picked up something. While I was sitting in Heero's lap giving my extremely drunk interpretation of a lap dance, having been inspired by the girls in that club we went to. We'd set up the camera to go off every few minutes so no one would have to miss out on the photos to hold the camera; half the shots were of someone's ass or something, but we did get a few good pictures. I sank down onto the floor leaning against the perfect cream coloured walls and the aspen coloured Ikea bookcase and stared at our fragmented memories frozen eternally in time

None of us *seriously* thought we would survive the war. *I* never thought I'd survive the war. I was… am the God of death, the Shinigami and always will be. I sighed; anyone I've ever loved has died: It's a testament to the other pilots' skills that they survived the war… that they survived me. I slowly got up and wandered into my bedroom still naked and crawled under the covers. I was so tired all of a sudden, I just wanted to close my eyes and sleep for just a little bit.

I was in an empty place, like a cliff top open to the sky with nothing on the ground except bare cracked earth and rocks. The texture of the air changed and I turned around and saw myself standing across from me holding a scythe. I looked down and I saw nothing in my own hands to defend myself with.

My double ran forward, scythe ready to strike; I saw the blade flash in the harsh light as a clap of thunder shocked me out of my revelry. I did the first thing I could think of: I ducked and brought my hands up over my head, I heard the blade whoosh over me and I swiped my leg round to connect with what I hoped was his legs. The other Duo missed my swing by rising up off the ground with - unnoticed till now - bat like wings. The sound of the beating wings was deafening like being inside a wasp's next mixed with a heavy drum beat. I watched as the figure rose above me: wings spread out and the scythe blade lying gracefully underneath his feet in a deadly ark.

"I am you," the figure spoke, the voice clear over the sounds of the wings. "I am The Death."

I just stared upwards.

The figure bubbled and twisted like something seen through a heat haze: and above me, terrifying with scythe raised in judgement was Heero; the figure flapped his wings and swooped…

"I am you death Duo, Duo, Duo, Duo…"

 "DUO!" I woke with a start for the second time in as many days, arms failing wildly. My eyes still not having adjusted to the light, I didn't know who had grabbed my wrists, and pushed my sweat soaked bangs out of my face. The urge to fight and get away was overpowering.

"Duo, you had a nightmare." I finally placed the voice: it was Heero. The dream still lingered in my mind; I tried to get out of his vice like grip.

"Duo calm down!" the voice a mixture of impatience and worry.

"NO! NO! I won't kill you. You can't die like the rest of them." I felt my body shaking as visions of Solo and the dying body of sister Helen flashed before my eyes. I suddenly realised that Heero was gone. I ran through the apartment wildly looking into the rooms as I went. I burst into the kitchen to find Heero calmly filling a glass of water.

"Why did you go?" I asked shaking; one hand gripping the doorframe so hard I thought it might splinter in my grasp.

"I went to get this for you baka, to snap you out of it."

"Sorry," I said quietly. "I had a bad dream… it was so vivid"

"Was it of the church?" my head snapped up.

"What?"

"Was it of the church? Solo maybe? You cry out in your sleep. I found out about you demons long ago." I felt my eyes growing wide and face flushing; I stared at him, my mouth doing a creditable impersonation of a fish.

"No," I looked down. "It was something else."

"Do you want to talk about it?" I looked up at him blinking, why did he suddenly care?

"No not really, I'd rather forget it."

"Ok" he looked at me oddly as if he knew what it had been about all along, "Quatre wants us to do something, I believe his actual words were 'why be bored alone when we can be bored in a group'. It should be fun, just like Vegas, ne? Well… if you don't count Zechs.

"What?" He didn't directly answer my question but just said,

"I found the photos; those were good times, ne?"

"Yeah," I said, just realising I was still naked. "The best."