Little Tin Flower, Red Stitches and a Rain-Soaked Angel
Part VII ~ Big Machine
By Shannon the Twisted Link Worshiper
—O—
"I know you're blackmailing me," Relena said to the woman sitting across from her, as she fingered the object Stella had just handed her. One glance at the finer details printed on those strips of negatives had done nothing other than boil her blood. "I know you're trying to get at me for some motive that is not yet clear, and by God, you are doing an excellent job."
"If you are so apprehensive about my doings, then why cooperate so easily?" Stella raised a brow as she brought her teacup to her full red lips. Peering over the rim of the little white cup, she watched the young woman with dirty blondish brown hair, waiting for her reaction to these words. Seeing no change in her face, Stella went on. "Do you really think that I would be so dishonourable as to forget our agreement? If you cooperate with us, then Duo Maxwell will be dead by the end of the week."
"What is it that is so important to you that you would bother to go through this trouble to please me?" Relena said, her voice still ringing with that diplomatic air that she had developed over the years of political speaking. She still thought that killing Duo was a bit drastic, but whatever it took to keep Heero free for her to move in seemed fine by her, and since this was how Stella seemed to operate, so be it.
"We are all that remains of the old Barton Foundation, as I'm sure you know," Stella replied, her voice dangerously calm. "As the Foundation was associated with the colonies and their want for revenge on Earth… well, let's just say any action we take can be traced back up here, to the space colonists."
"You're going to make this look like a kidnapping, aren't you?" she said, realizing what Stella's need for her was at last. The puzzle pieces were beginning to slide together and even she did not need Heero's strategist brain to figure it all out anymore.
"Something like that," she said with a knowing smile. Her expression was dark and cold, like an iron mask that meant nothing but evil ambition. "We can spin together a good story that everyone will eat right up. You're abduction will lead to nothing but another war. Don't you see, Miss Relena? All you can bring to the people is war. You're thoughts that you can do more to bring about a peace that is as fragile as a wisp of smoke, with which one breath of air, can vanish forever until another match is lit, only to be blown out once more, are naïve and wrought with the misconceptions of an innocent mind that has not seen the true extent of war. You have not been on the battlefield. You do not know the life that fighting brings to the everyday soldier, to the everyday man!"
She lowered her head, knowing in her heart that at least part of what Stella had told her was true. She still was like a little child who had only caught brief glimpses of the real world through barely ajar door. "I suppose there is nothing I can do to stop you then," she said at last.
"No, no there is not," Stella answered, setting her tea aside and crossing her legs neatly at the ankles. "Not this late in the game anyway. But that does not mean that it is too late for you. As I said, I would still like to help you attain what you desire. All this time you have been arguing and fighting for other people. Don't you think it's time you took what you wanted? Don't you think it's time you did something for yourself?" The look on Relena's face said everything Stella needed to know without any words at all. She had the girl trapped, her naivety being her ultimate weakness in the end. "Besides, you are my esteemed guest. Anything at all to make your stay more enjoyable…."
"You would bring Heero to me?" She looked hopeful. Her little girl's infatuation with the perfect soldier still remained, even after all these years of Heero dropping subtle (and then some not so subtle) hints about his feelings towards her. She would not accept being a mere acquaintance. The former Queen of the World would not settle for second best, especially when second meant falling a slot behind one Duo Maxwell.
"I get to eliminate a Gundam pilot if I do," she said with a forbidding laugh. "And then I can rope in another. Your request benefits me as well."
"It seems you win out no matter what happens," Relena muttered under her breath.
"You are not in a position to make commentary about what is fair," Stella snapped, hearing the grumbling of the Vice Minister. "Besides, if I help you with your one selfish little wish, then what should you care about anything else?"
"Selfish?" Relena had never tagged the word with her want for Heero before, but suddenly it seemed that there was no other word to describe it. She decided she did not care. I have to do some things for myself, she told herself determinedly. At least about that, Stella is correct.
"Don't tell me you never thought of it like that before," the woman scoffed. It was frightening the way she seemed almost psychic, able to pick up on whatever train of thought had been chugging through her mind at the time. "But it's alright, Miss Relena. It's okay to be selfish once in a while."
Relena narrowed her eyes. She could see how Stella was angling this. "Ma'am, a person in my position can't afford to be selfish. Look what it will do now."
"Well maybe you should have listened to your friends," Stella remarked, her eyes boring right through the young Vice Minister. "Don't think like we're some kind of trite operation here, Miss Relena. While our attempts to finish of a few of the Gundam pilots might have backfired, bugging your offices seemed to be no problem. Quite simple, really," at this she let out a wild laugh, covering her mouth with the back of her hand until the dark giggles subsided. "Funny that now you want to betray the very two who had been working to protect you."
"Heero always protects me," she said sharply in the perfect soldier's defense. "He loves me, I'm sure of it."
"He protects you out of love?" Stella raised an eyebrow. "Love or duty?"
"Of course love!" Relena exclaimed.
Stella shook her head, realizing how insecure the girl was in her emotions. Stella had never even met Heero Yuy face to face, and still, she could tell from her soldiers' reports, profiles and other such data, that the ex pilot worked to uphold peace, peace and nothing more. "If that is what you believe, then it is true as far as you are concerned. And if it's not true, then perhaps you will learn the truth… unless you feel you can teach him to love you."
"I can," she nodded resolutely. "I know I can. Once he gets around the obstruction of his responsibilities, his obligations to protect his fellow comrades-at-arms, then he will have a life with which he can love."
"Is that why you want pilot .02 out of the way?" Stella prodded. Not that she cared much for the Vice Minister's reasons, but it would have been an interesting thing to hear. She was… curious.
"I…."
Stella heard the hesitation in her voice and understood immediately that Relena was indeed jealous of all the attention that pilot .02 received from .01. No one needed magic or clairvoyant abilities to be able to determine that much. "You want to be the sole person in his life?"
"I… I know it really is selfish to want something so extreme," she whispered softly to the sweaty ball of hands that lay nervously in her lap. "But I…."
A soldier suddenly burst into the little conference room. Standing at rigid attention, his hand pressed to his forehead in a salute, he said efficiently. "Commander! There is something on the main screen you should see."
Stella stood, the friendly airs she had exercised between the Peacecraft girl and she suddenly gone, the connotations of a leader now back and flowing through her veins like blood. "What is it, soldier?"
"You should really come see it," the soldier motioned for his commander to follow. Relena found herself being dragged after the pair, listening with intrigue as the combatant filled Stella in on what the crew up on the bridge had been alerted of. "An unidentified ship," he was saying as they entered the bridge area. "It's sitting right there in the docking bay, but no one here has been able to understand how it got so close to us without any warnings. And another thing…."
Stella arched a brow quizzically, waiting for him to go on.
"All the soldiers stationed in the docking bay are dead." He spoke somewhat nervously, the quavering in his voice giving it all away. "Shot neatly from behind, through the head, every one of them, like some kind of grotesque assassination."
"Is there something wrong with the security on the ship?" Stella asked, her voice suddenly tinged with the poison of a viper. One wrong answer, and the soldier was sure to end up dead.
He chose his words carefully. "We're not sure. Everything was in order when we ran the system's virus scan. If there is something wrong, it's not coming up on the check."
Stella crossed her arms in thought before turning to face the screen again. That little ship….
"I know that ship." Stella looked up to see Relena staring at the screen with wide eyes. "It's a Preventers stealth craft. Top secret weapon actually; they're still developing it."
"Interesting," Stella mused.
Just then, another soldier made a cry of alarm. He jumped from his seat, throwing his headset to the control panel as he shouted up to his commander in a worried and urgent voice, "Unauthorized movement down in the ship's hold! Looks like an intruder!"
"Bring it up," Stella ordered. The image of the Preventers ship slid to the corner of the screen as the officer maximized the surveillance footage of the entire ship. Many split screens came up, showing different areas of the star cruiser, dark and shadowy and indefinite in picture.
"There is nothing," another soldier commented, looking up at the screen.
"Wait, just wait," Stella waved the comment off, her eyes still fixated on the screen. Then her brow furrowed. "There! Did you see it?" A dark shadow that melted into the rest of the darkness flitted across one screen. "Get a team together to find out what it is!"
"It's pilot .02," Relena said blandly, staring up at the screen as if in a trance. "Duo Maxwell is on board this ship, with Heero, I'm sure. They've come to stop you, Stella."
—O—
Duo was crouched in the black shadows, curled up in the piping that ran along the ceiling over a passageway that cut along the keel of the ship. His legs and arms were wrapped around the piping as he fixed another one of the round palm sized explosives to the ceiling. His purple eyes were focused so intently on the tiny yellow numbers that glowed in the shadows, that he was barely able to keep a watch from the corner of his eye. He had to be careful, constantly looking out for anyone who might have been wandering down that corridor. Quick to duck up into the shroud of darkness above, kill or be killed, was the only way that Duo saw fit to run the operation. Dangerous work, sure, but someone had to be stupid enough to do it.
"Twenty minutes, he says," Duo growled under his breath as he finished setting the weapon. "He's pretty fucking self confident to think that he can pull an assassination, save the damn girl and pull his partner out of here in twenty fucking minutes! So much for having a damn hour, for Chrissakes!"
He shimmied about two meters along the piping, further down the corridor. He reached down to the pouch that hung about his waist, feeling past the remote detonator (just in case a premature explosion proved to be needed) for another mine. Last one, he thought with an evil smile. The fireworks sure as hell will be pretty. Just call it an early Fourth of July present, courtesy of Duo Maxwell, L3.
He had been so wrapped up in his work, he really had lost track of peering out of the side of his vision for anyone sneaking up behind him. It was rather unceremonious the way someone had padded up beneath him and yanked him from the ceiling with a hard tug on his stray braid, almost as if whoever it was had known his every trick and tactic, known just how and where to look…. Once he got over the initial shock of being wrenched away from his explosives and actually opened his eyes, letting the large violet orbs focus on the smug looking blond figure bent over him, he could do nothing but suck in gasps of shock. "Miss Relena Darlian! The hell are you doing!? What makes you think you can just go around touching my hair like that! Way uncool!"
"Thought you would be up to try and stop this, Mr. Maxwell," she said darkly as she squatted down next to his sprawled out body. It hurt him to move. There was some mysterious pain shooting down his back and pounding through his chest. "Hmm, you two really are something else. They would never have known what was going on if it weren't for me."
"Have you gone completely off your rocker?" he exclaimed, trying to sit up, failing miserably. "I thought you were Miss Pacifism, Miss Don't-Fight-Chuck-Your-Weapons-Down-the-Shit-Hole-and-all-that-Jazz!"
"Long winded title I seem to have gotten for myself," she snapped maliciously. "You're not really in a spot to be making smart remarks."
Duo managed a tiny shrug. "Never am, but that don't stop me, now does it, Miss Darlian."
"No, no it wouldn't," she sighed. "You always were the tenacious one."
"And Heero's the indestructible one, so there!" Duo stuck his tongue out at her, scrunching his face up as he reveled in the action he had wanted to perform in her presence in quite a long time. "What're you gonna do about that now?"
"We'll see," she said with a dark grin that Duo decided he did not like seeing on her face. She may have been kind of cold towards him more often than not, but such a sadistic expression most certainly did not belong on the face of darling little innocent idealistic romantic girl next door. It was definitely one of the more frightening things he had seen. "Hmm, you could do with a little… hmm…." That look still would not go away as she looked up as if contemplating just "what" Duo could use a little of. She stood and made a motion with her hand. From the darkness, two soldiers came out of nowhere, clad in their smart boy scout looking uniforms, machine guns hanging over their shoulders menacingly as they approached Relena and the barely conscious Duo. "Pick him up. Don't bother being delicate," she was saying. "I think it's time the two of discussed what we really want out of life."
He could taste the blood pouring from the corner of his mouth, both from biting his own tongue and the pistol whippings he had received from the two soldiers as he was escorted to some unknown location on board the star cruiser. The almost sweet warm liquid was mixing with the river of the same substance that poured from the bottom of his eye and his temple. And he could barely see straight, not much more than the curtain of red that drenched his eyesight and clouded his thoughts.
The pain is all in your head, Maxwell, he told himself as he was forced into a chair that sat in the corner of the rather luxurious office by the rough hands of said soldiers. If you pretend like it's not there, then it won't hurt. Think on something more pleasant… like the aqua hued sea or… the Earth's wide blue skies… Heero's Prussian eyes….
"Ecstasy is all you need,
Living in the big machine.
Oh, you're so vain.
Now your world is way to fast.
Nothing's real and nothing lasts.
And I'm aware,
I'm in love and you don't care."
"What are you doing?" Relena asked in that frozen out-of-character tone of hers as she walked into the room.
Duo stuck his tongue out at her again, squirming in his bonds. He could feel the ropes digging for blood the flesh that covered his poor already abused wrists. They had been through a lot of pain over the years, facing knives, handcuffs and all other sorts of ghastly tools of wickedness and depression that could be acquired by a fifteen-year-old soldier during a useless war. And just when most of those scars had faded, here was something new to mess up his porcelain skin again…. "Keeping my mind elsewhere," he said snidely as he turned back to his song.
"Turn your anger into lust.
I'm still here but you don't trust at all.
And I'll be waiting.
Love and sex and loneliness,
Take what's yours and leave the rest.
So I'll survive.
God it's good to be alive!"
He sang that last line loud, right at the calm looking Relena seated opposite him on a nice wooden desk, her ankles crossed as she fingered a long brown envelope with her dainty fingers, ever so often looking up to glare at him. "Will you be quiet?" she said in a voice that sounded almost like the sugary girl he once knew.
He glowered, a cruel smile crossing his lips. "Heero likes my singing. Shouldn't you as well?" He stuck his tongue out yet again, the gesture never failing to make Relena snarl, much to Duo's contentment.
"I'm torn in pieces.
I'm blind and waiting for you.
My heart is reeling.
I'm blind and waiting for you."
Maybe Heero will hear me making a racket and he'll come to save me… again, he thought smugly, knowing that the chances of that were just about as great as they were for Steve Caballero to come skating through the room on a pink board with bunny ears on his head and a bouquet of roses in his arms.
"I don't care," she said quickly as she slid off the desk and stepped brusquely towards him, brandishing the envelope. "As soon as I say what I have to say, you're going to be as dead as Trieze."
"Why do you hate me so much?" he asked angrily, shifting in his seat. His body may have been bound, but his anger was damn well leaping out of his eyes and crashing across the room like a tsunami.
She was calm as she pulled up another chair and sat before him, so close that their knees rubbed. Speaking in that diplomatic voice of hers, she said, "You know, you and I are very much alike. More so than either of us is willing to admit, I think."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Duo groaned. He hated it when people tried to skirt around answering a simple direct question with a simple direct answer. As much as Duo liked talking and words, he hated seeing them wasted, and when he wanted an answer, he was not about to listen to a thousand sugared over wasted words. He was good enough to do that for others; other 'ought to be good enough to do it in return.
"Shh, dear," she said sweetly, making Duo cringe at both sound and touch as she leaned close. "Hmm, is this what Heero smells like? After all, he's always so close to you." As she laid a tiny kiss on his cheek, asking if that was what Heero tasted like, Duo wanted nothing more than to die right then and there. There was precious little that was worth this obvious extreme in hateful torture. "We both know what we want, and we both will fight hard to get that, yes?"
"I suppose," he spat, rolling his eyes and looking away at a small insect that buzzed around the ceiling, finding it interesting that a mosquito had found a way to survive in space, much as he hated the damn little things. Maybe it will mutate and suck out her brains or something gross like that, he thought with a wicked smile. It bothered Relena to see that smile there, and the slap across his face sure let him know that.
"I'm talking, Mr. Maxwell!" she near shouted at the still ignorant boy before her. "You are so rude!"
"American nature," he sounded back, ever quick to the wise-ass remark.
"You know, you were ever the lucky one," she was back to what she had been yarning on about before, reclining back in her chair, her knees no longer pressed against his, much to Duo's relief. "He was almost always with you. I followed him, you followed him… and he followed you…. Some twisted sort of love triangle, don't you think?"
"Now hold it right there," Duo was shaking, his thick braid whipping around lethally behind his head as if it were a python. "Don't push it that far."
"Well what else are we to call it?" she said with a shrug. "And you know, no matter what happened, no matter how hard I tried to get him to notice me, it was always his best friend first. He was too preoccupied with you to give love a single thought."
"Love?" Duo raised a brow, egging her on. He could see it in her eyes that his little remarks were making her seethe. "Since when was love a part of this discussion, eh?"
"It always was," she hissed.
"Jealous, are we?" He had to do it. It was one of those golden opportunities that one, particularly one as obnoxious and straightforward as Duo did not just let wander on by. "Why would we be jealous of dear sweet Duo Maxwell, hmm? Why would the former Queen of the World have to be jealous of her infatuation's best friend?"
"Because it's so damn obvious that there is more than just brotherhood between the pair of you!" Her voice exploded like the flaming pyrotechnics used at a rock concert, sudden, loud and noticeable, her tone being even more shocking than the fact that she had just sworn (which Duo knew he had never heard her do before; he could have bet before hand that she did not even know cuss words existed, he found her so naïve) as she thrust the envelope forward, waving it under Duo's nose. She slammed her hand into the paper pouch and pulled out the negatives, thrusting them into Duo's face. "And these are old, predating even the Mariemeia incident. It's always been there! And it drives me mad!"
Duo squinted, staring with shock at the negatives, his surprise at seeing them so great he barely even thought to make a comment about Relena going insane. Had his wrists been free, he would have snatched the things out of her hands and danced off to the lamp to get a better look at the moments caught on the glossy film, moments he was sure had been lost and forgotten some time ago. "Jesus, Mary and motherfucking Joseph! I could have sworn he'd burnt these years ago!"
"Apparently not," she snarled, pulling them back. "One of Miss Stella's soldiers found them hidden behind a picture frame hanging in your apartment!"
"Could have sworn we killed that guy," Duo muttered under his breath with a sideways glare. Nevertheless, the twitching feelings radiating from his chest would not go away, despite his present condition. Heero had saved these? Are we talking about the same man?
Oh yes, he remembered that day, that New Year's day after the first war with OZ had ended. It was so fresh on his mind, almost as if he had lived it in the not so distant past. It flashed across his vision, depositing him that day that lived in his fantasies for so many years and leaving the present far behind.
"Trowa!" Quatre's smooth bell-toned voice rang out over the beach, carrying on the wind towards the green-eyed youth, as he pulled up to the house in a red jeep. "C'mere. We're all inside!"
I recall sitting in the window seat at the front of the beachside house, watching with a very amused grin, as Trowa preformed a rather impressive balancing act, juggling a few tinfoil wrapped dishes, his car keys and four neatly wrapped packages as he made his way up the stone path from the driveway towards the front door of Quatre's California home. One of many, sure, but the dear little blonde boy certainly wasn't limited in the money area, and he wasn't about to hold out on his best friends, especially when this was the first time we would ever have to enjoy each other's company together. Sad to say, it was also the last….
"Hey guys," Trowa said cheerfully (well, as cheerful as Trowa could get) as Quatre opened the door for the circus boy. It probably had something to do with the fact that it had been Quatre to greet him. Pleasant…. I had definitely grinned at that, watching the two stare at each other dumbly for about three seconds longer than de rigueur. They got an arched brow from me, obviously interested at the exchange. Flushed faces, quick turns and movements as Trowa quickly walked into the house, setting his things down on the table sitting beside the door, Quatre quickly bustling off to do something in the kitchen. That little maneuver earned the Arabian boy another smug grin from me, since I knew culinary master Wufei would never let anyone help him cook, especially his courteous host. That would have been an… injustice…. Laughs. That was something that we heard a lot more of back then, even if times had been a hell of a lot rougher.
"Ah, Duo Maxwell," Trowa had said with a small wave after standing in awkward silence on his tiptoes in the front hall, hands somehow thrust deep into the pockets of his tight jeans. He always had been quite the acrobat….
"Trowa Barton," I said with a goofy look on my face as I mimicked him. He smiled faintly at that. It wasn't the forced kind of smile that you saw on Heero's face. It was a genuine little smile, rare but still genuine. "How the hell have you been?"
"Duo, it's been barely a few days since we last saw each other," he said seriously as he walked into the living room and sat down on the couch. Leaning over the arm, he gave me another one of those weak smiles. "You can be such a moron sometimes!"
"Hey, only Heero is allowed to make derogatory remarks about my intelligence, Clown," I joked with another laugh, which (much to my surprise) was complimented by Trowa's own quiet chuckles.
"Speaking of Heero, where is he? Quatre said everyone was here," Trowa asked, resting his chin in his hands.
"Sorry, buddy, but that's a trade secret," I'd retorted with a wink. "If I told you, I'd have to kill you. The man's out, wandering by himself. Didn't want to be bothered until dinner, he said."
"Ah," Trowa nodded simply.
I had taken to staring back out the window. Beyond the silhouette of Trowa's jeep and Wufei's motorbike, each vehicle outlined in the intense orange of that excellent sunset (one of the most beautiful I've ever seen, though it's not like I've been to Earth enough to say that there are many to compare it to), I could see the blue ocean gently lapping up on the sandy beach, washing over a trail of lonely footprints… Heero's footprints…. I was busy wondering to myself where perfect soldiers went when the war was over and they needed to think, when Trowa broke the odd silence again. It was unlike him to speak so much, but I guess my silence was even weirder than him carrying on a conversation.
"So what's Chang whipping up in there?" Trowa and I may not have been particularly close, but he knew me well enough to figure out what kinds of things I liked to talk about. Food, life, sports, video games, food, comic books, the sky, food, and a bunch of other random useless things that only I could have taken interest in.
I grinned. "Some good Chinese shit, I'd wager. Personally can't wait. I love all kinds of food, particularly Oriental stuff. Hn, but I think he's making a cake for desert. Ah, strawberry too. Quatre's request," I sent another wink his way. "Clever how he knows just what you like."
Trowa did nothing but turn bright red, cross his arms and turn around, sinking deep into the cushions with embarresment. I could still see that tuft of golden brown hair sticking up from the couch, but that was about it. Bingo. Got his number pegged. Haha, hook, line and sinker.
"So what's with the packages?" I asked. After getting over my initial glee at pinning Trowa with his feelings towards a certain Arabian individual, I felt kind of bad about being so up front about it. Better ditch that odd silence. It's weird enough with Heero, but guys who I barely see… shit….
"Late Christmas gifts," Trowa shrugged as he straightened up again, though that red was still visible underneath that cascade of cedar coloured hair. "And some treats from Catherine. Brownies and stuff."
"Oh," I said with a big grin. Two things I absolutely adored, food and presents, sitting naught but a few feet away. "So what'd you get for everyone?"
"A camera for our blossoming little photographer," Trowa said with a meek smile at the mention of Quatre. Always seemed to come back to him, I noted. "Honestly, I really didn't know what to get for the rest of you. I let Catherine choose. I'm really no good at that kind of stuff. Think she bought you a leather jacket or something."
"No way," I gawked. I'd never dreamed of ever owning something that nice. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy to think that someone would think so much of me. "I don't even know the woman. How cool is that?"
"I gave her a little… insight."
"Hope you weren't too incredibly biased," I said with an evil smile. "Because then I would have to get Heero to kill you."
"I wouldn't put it past either of you," he retorted. He grinned a scathingly cynical smile in my direction as he spoke. "It's not as bad as your gutter logged brain would like to think. Long brown hair, big dumb purple eyes, kind of obsessed with death, loves black clothes, loud, chatty, flamboyant, weird paradox between lively and dark… American…"
"Everyone's always trashing the good old USA," I frowned indignantly. "Just jealous, I guess. Not everyone can be perfect."
"Thought that was Heero's forte." Admittedly, the man wasn't half bad with language, though his voice kept that deep unwavering tone (and no, it was nothing like Heero's way of speaking). It was more than I could have gotten out of Heero at the time anyway. Guess it felt nice to actually talk to someone for once, but even then, it just wasn't the same. It wasn't Heero. Even in silence, he was strangely comforting. I'm supposing that's what happens with best friends….
"Hey! Hey guys!" Wufei's sharp voice cut through the dead air. "Get your lazy asses in here! I said now! Dinner!"
"Some people just never change," Trowa said with another smile at me as he stood and started to walk towards the kitchen, scooping up his parcels and plates on the way.
I leapt up after him, noting that I was still quite a few inches shorter than him. I was about to bound into the kitchen after him, when I remembered that a very important element was missing from dinner. "Hey, give me a second. I got to go out a retrieve our resident lost boy."
Before any of the others could say a word (I really didn't need to hear the commentary; even way back then, they were always joking about the relationship that Heero and I had, between pet-names and an almost magnetic attraction to one another, which is why it's understandable I was so quick to poke fun at Trowa. See, I'm the victim here.) I was out the door and running down to the beach. My bare feet slapped the receding tides as I splashed along the water's edge, following the trail had left along the way, trying to land my foot into each of his foot prints as I went. It's not like I needed to; he had told me where he was going anyway.
I saw him a few meters further down the beach, just standing there, eyes drowning in the vast expanse of ocean and sky before him, as if he were waiting or watching something. The sun had just about sunk beyond the hazy horizon, leaving nothing but a pale golden pool of colour in its final location, the flecks of yellow splattered on the pastel blue waters. The stars were peaking out above and the crescent moon had taken on her pale glow, the beginnings of what could be an exquisite nighttime display.
"Hey, aren't you hungry?" I shouted cheerfully as I practically skipped over to him, jumping on his back and playfully wrestling him around a little. "'Fei's finished obsessing over just how much garnish to top his hotter than hell chicken, so we can eat now." (An image of this moment had made it to that forbidden roll of film, somehow.)
Heero had reached up and grabbed my arms with his tight iron grip, as if he were going to try and pry me off, though he made no such move to do so, just contented to rattle me silly. "That's good. I suppose you've been sent to bring me back."
"Yup," I laughed, suddenly tackling him onto the damp sand, landing him very succinctly on his stomach. "I got stuck on Mission Get-Heero-To-Mingle-With-The-Living 'cause I was the only one who knew where you'd gone. Inside information, if you will."
"It wouldn't have been that hard for them to find me," Heero said, spitting out a mouthful of sand. He was reaching for my braid, which lie out awry before him, twisting the little black band from around the tail with a painful jerk. He really did know how to piss me off, not that I didn't deserve it or anything. I could tell he was a little annoyed at my playfulness, but then again, he was always annoyed with me and quite frankly, I didn't give a damn. What was it I was saying about magnetism? Opposites certainly attract, folks. How the hell else could you explain this freakily twisted friendship, huh? Thought so.
"Maybe not," I rubbed noses with him, still laughing like someone who had smoked one too many joints… not that I ever had or anything. Heh, so that was a lie. Thinking lies doesn't count, now does it?
The water was washing over the pair of us, lifting my hair and toying with the long chestnut strands before dumping the now wet and salty mass in a slick mess all around the two of us. He tried to stand up, sending me rolling down his back and into a heap, lying on my back with all my hair spread out and floating around me in the shallow rinses of water as they tumbled back into the sea from which they came, only to be replaced with yet another as a sequel wave would crash down on the beach before the wake of the old one had even gone. Leaning on his side, propped up on one muscled elbow, he'd lain there, grinning at me with that self-satisfied air of his, those damn beautiful waves pouring over us. (Quatre really was pretty good at this photography stuff; he had this on film too.)
"Have a good walk?" I asked, brushing a handful of sand at him. One of those rare smiles crossed his face, much to my surprise, true and voluntary. Maybe if I were Quatre, I would have enjoyed Trowa's smiles more, but I wasn't; I was Duo, and I would enjoy seeing my best buddy smile better than even seeing such a thing from God.
"Yeah." Always those simple remarks, though I figured that with time, he would be able to give people responses that were over two syllables in length.
I lifted a chunk of my hair and draped it over my chest, saying with mock disgust. "Goddamn, Yuy, look at what you've done. Are you aware of what a pain this will be to wash?"
"Then you should cut it," he said. Yeah, and his answers were always the logical ones. Maybe that would change too. Creative thought never killed anyone before. Look at me. I'm still alive (luck is luck, my friend) and I'm the most out-of-the-box thinker in this whole damn universe.
"Right, and while I'm at it, I'll slit my wrists, gouge out my eyes, tear my heart out and feed my liver to the dogs." I hadn't said it in seriousness, but he seemed to take it that way. He always took things too damn literally, I had thought, though he has gotten a bit better about all that.
He grabbed me by each arm, pinning me to the soft sand at the elbow, hovering over me in the dim light, the whites of his eyes glowing just like the moon above. Only faint splashes of colour were able to define his features, painting his lower lip, the side of his nose and one cheekbone, his shoulders and the top of his hand. "You won't do that, will you, Maxwell?"
"Do what?" I was confused by the comment, being as I had meant it as a joke. He knew how much I loved my hair, and I figured he would have at least had the sense to get the metaphor.
"Cut your hair and slit your wrists," he said, pressing me deeper into the sand. "You won't… change, will you?"
"Only if you wanted me to," I smiled up at him, innocently. I decided I would let his mind figure that one out on his own. Yeah, so sue me. I had trouble coping with my emotions back then, no matter what kind of philosophical crap I try to dump on everyone else. I loved him back then. I always loved him. Shit, I loved him even when I pulled the trigger on him the first day we met. Don't ask me how or why; I couldn't even begin to explain it.
"What if I told you to never change," he asked, grabbing my black Hawaiian Island Creations tee desperately, distorting the shirt's printed logo image of the woman pressed against a surfboard. I had never seen such a frantic expression in those eyes of his before. Even in the darkness, I could see the cobalt blue orbs shining with angst and resolve. "What if I said that I wanted to be able to remember you just like this, and that when our paths cross again, I would want to be able to put the memory with the person. I don't want to meet you again and find you different." (Guess again, what happened to this. I could see why Relena was so pissed at these pictures; being there might have driven her to suicide, I bet)
That had been quite a bit for me. I really was not used to hearing him say so much to me at a time. But the more I thought about what he had just said, the more it frightened me. Now it was my turn to sound frenzied. I rose up, using all my strength to get the perfect soldier on his back. Placing a restraining forearm over his chest and another planted firmly in the sand beside his ear, fingers weaved into his unruly short hair. My own hair now fell in curtains around our faces, hiding us both from view. (This was another one of the seconds that Quatre had managed to capture on film; I never did get the chance to ask how he managed to do it) It could have been mistaken for a kiss; the photograph sure as hell looked that way. I'll say right now that I could only wish to have been so lucky.
"Heero, are you going away again?" I asked. I think I had almost started to cry about then. I really didn't want him to go. I never did. I always felt so damn worthless when I was alone. And yeah, I was always alone whenever he wasn't there.
"Yeah," he said softly. I almost blew up and died of a heart attack right then and there when he reached up to touch my cheek and wipe away the tears puddling in my eyelashes. I know, I know, I always say boys don't cry. But that's a joke. I cry like a fucking waterworks. "So that's why you have to tell me…. Will you always be the same? When I finally come back, will you still be Duo? My Duo?"
If it were physically possible to flood out the ocean, I did it right then. My tears were rolling down his arm, dripping between his fingers and pouring from my eyes in a rainy torrent of passion. I knew I would miss him so much. I didn't want him to leave me again! I hate being lonely. I think he knew that too.
"Always," I said softly, clutching the sand in a tight fist. "Heero, why would I have worked so hard to get you to be my friend, and then change on you? No matter what, I'll always be your same Duo, still stupid, still loud, still running, still hiding, but never lying."
He smiled and let out a sound that could have been a laugh. This Heero was like an entity bottled up inside that damn perfect shell. I loved it. I wanted to see more of this Heero, and I was going to make sure it happened. "Good," he whispered, stroking my cheekbone with his thumb, running the calloused pad over my smooth skin. "I fought to keep my friends safe. I want them to stay that way. I want you to stay that way."
"How is that?" I was practically sobbing like a three-year-old girl. "How should I stay?"
Heero looked thoughtful, still gently rubbing my cheek, his other hand idly playing with the coils of my hair that wound around us. There was a light shining in Heero's eyes that was distinctly warmer and less distant than I had ever seen them. He was being as sincere as he could have ever been. Ever….
"Be like the ocean," he said in his mysterious monotone, his words more magical than anything he had ever spoken to anyone before, I was sure. That sweet voice was so dark and beautiful, it drowned out the seagulls' cries and the water's roar, the moan of the wind and the rest of the universe. The whole fucking universe could have imploded right then and there and I would have been none the wiser. "Stay wild and free, always crashing on other shores." He suddenly rolled over, pinning me beneath him again, his nose rubbing against my cheek, near his thumb. (I really have to hand it to Quatre; he's a talented young man) "Stay beautiful, and stay Duo."
"Hee-chan," I said softly. Was that the first time I called him that? Probably not, but it was the first time he noticed it. He didn't make a big show about it like he eventually started to when I moved in but….
He slapped a hand over my mouth, his fingers pressing into my soft white skin. "Don't say anything. Don't say a word…. Just promise me that you'll stay free. That way, when I come home, I can be free too."
"Yeah," I had said quietly, leaning on his head. "I promise."
"Good." He rolled over, collapsing on his back beside me in the sand, landing with a subtle splash in the receding waves, his eyes meandering back up to the limitless skies above.
I watched as he propped himself up on his elbow again, etching something into the sand with his forefinger. "Duo and He—" the waves rolled up the beach and washed it away before he was finished. He was attempting to try again, when I caught him by the wrist, stopping his hand. The water spilled over our hands, entangled in my hair and covered in sand. "Don't seal our promise like this. The ocean may be wild and beautiful, but it won't keep our promise. It's too free spirited. Swear by the stars, Hee-chan, because heaven is immortal. Write our names up there, and it will stay forever."
"You're right," he said in that calming voice. That was the first time he had admitted that I was right. That was another thing I knew bothered him, my being correct about that kind of thing all the time. He rolled on his back once more, raising his hand over his head and tracing into the air with his thumb, "Duo and Heero – Always true to our dreams" as a shooting star sailed above us. I could tell that's what it was because I could read his lips as he did so. He didn't think I was so good at that kind of shit, but I was better at a lot of things than Mr. Perfect Soldier liked to realize.
It was also… the first time I heard him laugh. And not that insane "I'm gonna blow some shit up" laugh, but a real human sounding laugh. Heero Yuy was… a human. His laugh proved it. There was a soul in there yet.
Then he sat up, offering me a friendly hand as I too got to my feet. As we made our way back to the house, the only things on my mind was the salty wet disaster my hair had become and where the unexplained spirals of footprints that now adorned the beach had come from.
No one said anything about the extended leave of absence Heero and I had taken. Obviously, we had been much longer in returning to dinner than expected (much to chef Wufei's dismay) though no one seemed to mind it so much. Seemed weird to me at the time, but maybe they just all saw something that neither of us fools did at the time. At least one fool has figured out what that was… though God knew what the other fool thought about that day… or anything for that matter.
After the excellent (though somewhat cold) meal, Quatre had ushered us all into the kitchen, where Heero had proceeded to lift the cake off the countertop, attempting to peacefully bring it back to the table. Of course I couldn't let him alone. I wanted a premature taste of that cake, though the dark death glare that Heero shot my way as I reached for the dessert he had held high over his head was certainly not letting me anywhere near it. Trowa was gathering a stack of small dishes, and I noted that the creep was stealing icing right off the top of the thing without Heero's notice (he was too busy giving me the evil eye). Quatre had managed to get a good picture of that too, and somehow was still in the shot. Very talented young man, that….
And I'll never forget the way it all ended, that cheerful little celebration. Heero was gathering his things at the door and was about to walk off, never to be seen again (at least, that's how he had seemed to intend it at the time), when he turned to his slightly built little Arabian host and demanded the roll of film with the two of us on the beach. My jaw hit the ground that such a roll existed (I swore we were alone, though it would explain the odd silence at dinner); Quatre and Trowa seemed shocked that Heero even knew they had been spying, and Wufei was just… Wufei was Wufei. Reluctantly, Quatre had unloaded the camera and handed over said roll of film to an awaiting Heero before he stormed off into the night. The next time I saw any recollection of the get-together was when I moved in with Heero much later, and saw the small collection of photos on his wall, minus a few certain shots of a few certain people on a certain beach. Could have sworn those were gone forever… but I guess….
In any case, it was a year before any of us saw or heard from him again. Then Mariemeia, a brief meeting, before his abrupt parting (so like him), and before I knew it, I was down and out, left for dead and rotting with nothing to my name but a damn tin radio and an old baseball, waiting like gutter trash for my sad angel to find me again and be free.
"Mr. Maxwell!" He felt the harsh impact of a pistol bashing against the side of his face, snapping him from the memory. He suddenly recollected where he was and his current situation. "It would be nice if you stayed in the present!"
"Now why would I do a silly thing like that, staying in a place so close to you?" Duo screwed up his face as he snapped his witty retorts at Relena faster than machine gun fire. "Maybe you're the one who 'ought to be called tenacious, Miss Relena. You just don't give up!"
"I worked hard to convince the people that peace was the only way to live, worked hard for everyone but myself!" she shouted hoarsely at Duo. "For once, I want something for myself! Now I have time to actually have a life! And I want a life with Heero! Why is that so much to ask!?"
"Because he doesn't love you!" Duo found himself screaming back at her, his voice curt, swift, and laden with all the pain of a cracking whip. "You who worked so hard for peace; you're going to throw it away just like that? Look at what you're doing! This goes against every ideal you ever stood for! Do you know how unbelievably scathing angry Heero will be when he finds out! He always admired you for your perseverance and fought two wars to protect innocence like you! And now you're going to throw it all away!" He was thrashing about so much that Duo could feel the thick ropes beginning to fray just a bit.
"Duo…." She was suddenly lost for words. The shocking realism and truth in Duo's words struck her hard. But she had dug herself deep, why stop? She kept strong in her position. "Duo," she said again. "Are you saying that he would rather you?"
"I'm not saying anything," Duo retorted defensively with another squirm. This sitting in one spot without the luxury of freely moving his limbs was driving Duo to a state of borderline insanity. "He's my best friend, no matter how deeply I feel for him. Nothing you or I can do will change that, Relena. He will always want to stay with me. Maybe he would be more willing to spend time with you too, if you would let him breath on his own once in a while. He doesn't need someone to follow him like glue; he already has a shadow." Duo grinned at that, his eyes twinkling enigmatically.
"But I love him," she said softly, almost humbly, the wild rage she had been spewing in Duo's face for the past few minutes suddenly vaporizing into thin air. "Shouldn't he love someone who loves him? Shouldn't love be returned?"
"Yes, yes it should," Duo said, his voice still twanging with a bit of aloofness. "But you aren't willing to accept friendship. Relena, not all love is the passion of lovers. Love can be between friends. It doesn't have to be so extreme all the time. You're too much like him, you know? It's always all or nothing with you guys. Can't just accept the little things. The feelings you have for Heero are manifested from your desire for something new and exciting in your life. I can understand that, I guess. The life of a politician doesn't seem particularly thrilling and a person like Heero, kind of dark and mysterious, well, that would certainly add some dimension to a fairly dull existence. Seems like that in your efforts to attain that spice for that bland life you had been leading, I think you just became carried away with it all and let Heero become your world. Relena, can't you just let him go? I understand you wanted to give your life volume, Relena. I've tried to do that as well."
"But he couldn't kill me!" she protested. That had always been her sole argument, the one thing that convinced her of the love she was sure he possessed for her. "No matter what, he could never pull that trigger!"
"He couldn't kill me either." Duo's mouth turned up slightly in the corners, his eyes drooping a bit into a sad expression. "He told me once that he had let a mission go totally out of control. Destroyed more than just a base…. He accidentally wiped out an entire colony sector, killed many guiltless uninvolved people... killed a little girl with blonde hair and blue eyes and her dog…. He doesn't want to kill any more innocents. He doesn't want to kill anyone like you."
"Oh," she said softly. She thought about his words… and refused to believe that Heero's feelings stopped there. She was to adamant in her cause. She wanted him too badly. And even if she should have listened to someone as close to Heero as Duo, she was not about to let him slip away so easily. If he thinks that he can just explain it all away… that his chatter will make me give up… he's sorely mistaken….
"Relena?" He saw that light creeping back into her eyes, that dark frightening alien light….
"I won't have it!" Her voice cracked as the shrill scream reached its peak. Duo wished he could have found a way to plug his ears; he was certain that he was going deaf.
"Oh for God's sake, get over yourself!" Duo found himself shouting back, bouncing the chair with a loud wooden rattle against the metal floor. "Why can't you just accept Heero as he is? If you loved him, wouldn't you just want him to stay the way he is? Forcing him to love you wouldn't make it true! You can't make someone love you on command! You have to earn it!"
"I can earn it!" Her mouth was in a tight crease, her words coming out between her teeth. It looked painful to have to spit out words that way.
"And you think this is the way to do it?" Duo looked smug as he stared up at his captor. He did not try to move around as he had been before, nor did he tack on some tawdry rejoinder to the comment. He just let it hang, allowing the words to sink into her head. He knew there was not much he could do to sway her in her quest for Heero, but he hoped that one day, she would understand the significance of what he was trying to tell her. Maybe one day, she would be… happy….
She said nothing.
"His loving you would be like having a fling with… Marilyn Monroe or something. Way too much limelight for him," Duo continued after a long pause, Relena barely even able to look up from her feet to see his face anymore. "Relena, you know how hard it is for him to accept people. He likes to do his own thing. He'll be the one to let you in, and would resent you all the more if you try to force either yourself or him into anything. You should know that relatively well, Miss Relena."
"I don't need someone like you telling me how to feel or how another feels about me!" She was almost evil with her snarls. Duo could swear that this was some kind of demon who had taken over Relena's body. Sure, she had been a little annoying and a bit of jerk towards him, but she would never try to hurt anyone… he didn't think. "But now that all that is said and done," she was turning around and walking to the desk as she spoke, "I have no need for you, Duo Maxwell. The war is over, the Gundams are gone, Heero loves me… so there's no need for you!"
She was pulling a gun from one of the drawers. Duo squinted his eyes shut as he felt his life flash right before his eyes. This is how it's going to end, then? Not even on the battlefield, but here, tied up on a chair with a pacifist-gone-nuts about to blow my head apart with a fucking gun! Visions of the times Heero and he had spent together during the war, after the war (scenes from that California beach crept back to mind), his friends Quatre, Trowa and Wufei as well as the myriad of other people he had ever met or known, dancing in his head and whispering goodbye. Heh, here I come, Solo, Father Maxwell, Sister Helen; here I come now. Death is coming home.
There it was, that cold gun's muzzle pressed against his forehead. He could feel her hand clattering about nervously as she tried to steady the weapon between his eyes. Faintly, he heard the click of the hammer being drawn back, and then the clacking sound as she prepared to pull the trigger.
The bullet exploded from the barrel, but when no pain connected with Duo's head, he opened his eyes in surprise. Does Death not hurt then? Then he realized that he was still in that cramped little shuttle office, still tied to the chair. Nothing had changed… or had it? Looking down, he saw Relena, covered in her own blood, lying in a crumpled mess on the floor, still breathing faintly, a gunshot wound in the back of her shoulder. His eyes slowly meandered from the carnage on the floor to see someone who he never thought would come, but knew was the only one who ever would. "Heero, you shot her…."
"Oh God…. Yeah, I did." He staggered into the room, the gun falling from his limp fingers as he made his way over to the chair. Deftly, his fingers flew over the ropes that held Duo's hands behind his back.
Duo let out the deepest most grateful sigh of relief anyone ever could as he flexed his sore arms. He looked down at the solemn Heero who was now pressing a cloth against the wound he had created in her shoulder. "You weren't thinking, were you?"
"No," he breathed, mopping up the blood. She had long since fainted and had no idea that Heero was even there. "I knew that a friendship with someone like you would end up being my end. Look, I've just shot the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs!"
Duo looked up at him as he bent over to untie his ankles. His eyes radiated with curiosity as he asked his next question, a simple one, yes, but one that had no simple direct answer. "Why?"
"I heard you singing, and I knew that if you were making such a commotion, something had to have gone wrong," he was explaining as he tied Relena's jacket around her arm in an effort to stop the bleeding. "And then I heard her screaming at you and you screaming back…. I was so worried something might get way out of hand."
"You sure as hell were right," Duo said with a faint smile as he sunk down on Relena's other side, pressing the cloth into the wound so that Heero could wrap the jacket as tight as possible around her. "She almost killed me. And here I was thinking that I was the expendable one."
"Liar," Heero whispered faintly. Duo's eyes were round with shock when he heard that, and the look he was giving Heero sure as hell showed that. "When it came to it, I just let my instincts take over, and I shot her."
"So worried over me," Duo flashed him a classic wide grin. "How sweet."
"Hn," was all Heero could respond, purposely avoiding Duo's eyes. He picked Relena up gingerly as he stood and began to walk towards the door. "Hurry up, Duo. If I'm correct, we have two minutes to get back to the ship and get out of here before your explosives hit zero."
Duo got back to his feet, starting to take a step after Heero, and finding, much to his dismay, that his ankle was twisted into a knot of searing pain. But understanding the urgency of the moment, he decided that pain was just something that would have to come second, escape being somewhat more prominent on his mind right then. Limping as quickly as he could after Heero, they started to make their way back to the hangar. The minutes seemed to creep by almost agonizingly sluggish, and it seemed as if the world was passing by in slow motion. He could hear the dull sound of the mines starting to go off in the ship's hold, the force of the blasts going off one by one sending groaning shudders throughout the entire cruiser. The panicked screams and hustling of the soldiers were lost on the two of them as they dashed onwards with the Vice Minister in tow, her life slowly slipping away, only adding to the tension of the moment. They had just made it to the hangar and Heero was boarding the ship, when Duo found that he just could not hold himself up on his injured ankle any longer. And as he slipped, falling to the floor with a muffled thud, the world went black.
—O—
