I do not own Gundam Wing or its characters. They belong to their appropriate owners.
It contains yaoi, lemon, blood, strong language and more, may be a bit AU. Duo's POV.
A/N: Starting by Heero's POV this time.
Mission
by solange channonix
Part IV
I closed the hangar checking first if no one had gotten inside before and rode to the nearest town where our safe house was with our worn pick-up. I needed to get Duo, it was already about the time for him to leave and I couldn't know what his conditions may be. I parked the car few hundred yards away and literally ran to the safe house. On my way I met one of our teachers from school rambling something about us not going to the lessons and seeing us after playing on the streets. When I stormed past her not giving a fuck she began screaming she would call our parents to the school. Yeah, call if you want to... Whole the idea with us going to school whenever we stopped somewhere for longer was unnerving me. It was rather Duo's than mine, he was always saying he needed some human contact not involving fighting nor killing nor being ignored over screen of a laptop in his life. And I had to go with him because at some point I had found myself unable to stand the thought that he would be there, with all those annoying girls wandering after him, few guys drooling in him whenever they got the chance and cornering him alone whenever they could, and me not being there even to glare at them and never leave him alone. Most was getting the hint, I was good at glaring, only few times I needed to use my fists in order to make it obvious that I wasn't letting anyone close to him. What ? I could be protective, normally we were playing brothers. Beside that, I was letting him have his time with girls, unless there were too many of them and they were getting extremely noisy, but at the same time I couldn't stand the thought of him being with any other guy. Anyway, someone like him needed protection. He had that weird ability - whenver he appeared one could easily tell from the looks guys were giving him which of them was gay. I didn't think that any of them could stand him, maybe just because of his hair, maybe something more. Of course Duo was able to put almost everyone down in a physical combat, but I couldn't permit to a situation where he had to fight to save himself for a few times every day. I just couldn't. And the thought of him letting someone willingly... getting himself a boyfriend... was just making me... Though I didn't truly know why I cared. Anyway, now it was over. I bet after he was going to come back from Vilnius I wasn't going to see him often anymore, maybe I wasn't even going to meet him ever again, or maybe quite the contrary - I was going to meet him and taste his anger. I already decided that if he would come to punish me, strike me, take me out of my misery or whatever else, I wouldn't fight it. He had a law to have his way with me after what I had done to him. And everything that really mattered for me was that he was going to be alive. It was the most important thing, something more important than the mission, which I had failed to save him. He was the most important.
I reached our safe house and went straight to the bedroom, finding Duo
still asleep, noticing though that he had had to be awake not a long time
ago. He was lying on the sheets of my bed, by the time as blood-stained
as those on his, dressed in his black shirt, pants lying nearby on the
floor, next to the tray with few sandwiches he had been apparently trying
to eat and failed. His hair was braided the best he could, his brush lying
on the bed next to him. It wasn't quite looking like if he had peacefully
gone to sleep, rather ran out of stenght and lost consciousness. I approached
him slowly to examine him further. His underwear was soaked with blood,
flowing slowly down his thighs. He was still bleeding. I had never thought
what I had been doing to him would be that bad. After so many hours, he
had had to lost a lot of blood. He was impossibly pale from the blood-lose,
his skin more a shade of grey than anything else, his breath was even,
but somehow very weak and when I reached my hand to his neck to check on
his pulse it was... barely there. Damn... He was dying, even if I would
have woken him up he wasn't going to live through the trip to Vilnius and
back. But he had to at least get there, then there would be chance to take
care of him, that's it. I needed to get him to go. But there was no point
in waking him up just yet, here, he wasn't most likely able to walk anyway.
Duo's POV:
I woke up from the deep, dreamless slumber, being viciously shaken by a pair of rough hands on my shoulders. Their grip was painful, like if someone was trying to crush my bones. I woke up and tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids were so heavy, it was so hard to get them to move, it was so hard to keep my chest rising and falling with the rhytm of my breaths, so hard to move my nostrils in order to catch the air... so hard... I was so weak... I wanted to cease all motion, it was so hard that painful... The pain was coming from my backside but then it moved up my spine to explode in white, blinding light in my brain, making it hard to think and to concentrate in order to move. And when I was forgetting about breathing I was gasping and suffocating, so I was resuming, however much more I wanted to stop, and forget forever. All the time, I was working on opening my eyes and I did it, and saw something, an image, spinning from side to side, with something indistinct on it. I blinked, however hard it was to move my eyelids again and I saw Heero, gripping my shoulders and shaking me. I smiled up at him the best I could not wanting him to think I was really hurt and worry about me. Anyway, what had happened that had gotten me hurt ? An explosion, a gunshot, a poison ? When it had happened ? During a mission, or had we, or maybe just me, been attacked ? I tried to find the answers in my hazed mind, all the while smiling. It seemed for me it confused the hell out of Heero, really, he had that look of uncertainety and... guilt ?... written across his usually blank face. Had he done something wrong that had resulted in me getting hurt ? Why had he been guilty ?
In one moment, all in my head came into its place and in focus. He had raped me... He had hurt me so badly... Somehow I found the strenght in me to take one arm up and push him away. Then I took my time watching my surroundings, getting to know I was in the Deathscythe's cabin, and it was in the hangar ready to launch, and even the hangar's gate was open to give me the passage-way. I was going to Vilnius, wasn't I ? I felt weak, terribly weak, and in pain. I could still feel that I was bleeding, though there was something, some kind of dressing on my internal wounds that was helping it. My weakness - it had to be caused by the blood-loss and that's why I had fallen unconscious before, while I had been trying to get ready to go. But back then I had been still in our safe-house, without the dressing nor stitches or whatever else I had there then, on my wounds. Apparently, Heero had taken care of me. I looked up at him, he had been still with me in the cabin, holding a glass of water in his hand which he handed me but I shook my head. I feared I was too weak to hold it. He understood and poured few sips of water down my dry throat himself. It was good that he had brought me it, I had had nothing in mouth since yesterday evening, for the entire day. He then handed me a painkiller and I swallowed the pill and drank the last of water, and then he left, without a word, and I didn't comply, guessing that things like coordinates and schedule for the mission I was going to find stored in the memory of Deathscythe. And yes, I found it and read all before crawling out of Deathscythe and moving to the cabin of the transporter instead. I left as soon as I was sure Heero went out of the hangar and I wasn't going to knock him out while launching.
And so I went on my last mission, I was going to sacrifice my life at
for something I wasn't even believing into and kill so many innocent people.
I didn't want to, rather I had no choice. I was a coward, I was doing this
to avoid being raped, I was doing this only because of myself, regardless
of others. And I had thought I wasn't selfish. If I wasn't, how could I
even think of killing few millions innocent people, starting new order,
maybe an order made of terro, upon the Earth and the colonies, only because
I feared of being hurt myself. How could I ? But what else was I supposed
to do ? Only then it struck me that in fact I could do many things. I was
free. I went away from Heero, I really didn't have to go to Vilnius. No,
it wasn't that easy... I would have to make it impossible for Heero to
catch me then in order to go away, and there was only one way, one place
where I could go away to. Place they called hell, I was heading to anyway.
But to go out of Deathscythe and commit suicide, leaving it equipped with
the missile as it was, was going to result in Heero taking my place or
getting someone else from the other three pilots. Firing the missile in
some other place would always result in the death of innocent people, if
I would have tried to find a dessert in order to use it there I would have
been caught by Heero, who was tracing me sure as hell, most likely even
escorting me in the Wing, flying few miles away from me. Think of something
better, Maxwell, and fast ! What could I do ? Let know other pilots ? I
looked at the communication device, or rather I looked at the place where
it had used to be. Fire the missile then here and now, hoping there wouldn't
be any big city so close that the bomb could have struck it ? I didn't
even know the exact power of the missile I was carrying, I couldn't know
that. It was like shooting from a gun to the crowd hoping you wouldn't
harm anyone... I couldn't. Fuck, I couldn't do anything. I couldn't stop
or change the way I was going, because Heero was following me and nor me
nor Deathscythe, charged with the missile, were capable right now of fighting
and winning with him, I was on his mercy. And the way wasn't the shortest
possible, it was leading over the coast, damned, overpopulated coast. Firing
the missile here would have killed ten times as many people as firing it
at Vilnius. And beside that, by the time I would have landed and get Deathscythe
out and crawled to its cocpit in my conditions Heero was going to be here
and stop me, he wasn't that far away. I had no time either to make the
missile useless, like by destroying its controls. All I could really do
alternatively to getting to Vilnius and blowing the city up was landing
and ending with myself manually, putting Heero in trouble of finding new
pilot, which would have gotten some time and by that time OZ could be gone
from Vilnius, after all they hadn't probably gathered for more than two,
three days. They would have been risking too much staying there for longer.
I couldn't know how long they have been there already, but... maybe, just
maybe... until Heero would have found someone to replace me, the gathering
would be over, and the mission impossible to complete. I just hoped that
finding me dead Heero wasn't going to throw my corpse out of the cabin,
take my place and complete the mission, but after all it was something
to be excepted from him. Did they really need him so much ? What were they
going to do when he would report that I had committed suicide ? Tell him
to go and complete the mission or to find someone else ? I figured out
it would depend on time. If there would be enough of time, they would told
him to look for and control over someone else, if the gathering really
was close to its end, they were going to send Heero, and worry later about
replacing him. So, I wasn't going to achieve what I could wish to gain
by killing myself on the way. Fuck ! They had really planned it well !
Every time I thought I was seeing an error in their planning, I was ending
up figuring out that I had been just imagining things. In fact once telling
yes and going at this mission I had no choice but to complete it, and I
could have told no. I just couldn't. It was planned perfectly. I was blocked,
no matter how much I wanted to stop it I couldn't ! Only one person could
make this mission fail, Heero, as the one getting everything, including
me, ready, but he was Perfect Soldier, he wasn't failing. So the plan was
perfect. I had no choice but to complete the mission, because doing anything
else I wasn't going to change anything anyway, or make things worse, so
what was the point ? They had planned it all so well...
I don't know if there's a point in describing the following battle in details. I was half-conscious anyway when I got to Vilnius, so I don't remember much. However, I remember the city, in the rays of setting sun, beatiful, and the awful feeling I got thinking that I was going to change it into ashes in the following minutes. I remember spotting other Gundams, I couldn't contact with having my communication device taken away. I remember going out of the transporter with Deathscythe after I somehow crawled to its cabin, and standing there, tall and immobile. There were Lios and Arieses shooting at me, but I wasn't paying attention to them, though they were destroying my Gundam's weapons. I didn't care anymore, Deathscythe was going to be destroyed in the next moment anyway. It took me a while of standing like that to get to feel ready to push the self-destruction button, but I did, finally, and held my breath waiting for death to come to take me...
...but nothing happened, and no one came. Nothing fired, like if I didn't push that button at all. It was a bit like a dream, I was pushing the self-destruction button over and over again and still nothing was happening. I didn't know why, but only thanks to this I'm still alive.
I remember one of Arieses shooting at the Deathscythe's feet then, losing
my balance and falling down onto one of the buildings of the base, something
exploding inside it, other shots to the back of my Gundam and slowly losing
my concsiousness as the pain coming from my backside with renewed force
got so intense that I couldn't even stay aware of my surroundings... I
passed out, the last thing I remember from the battle I was supposed to
die in.
I woke up in the double bedroom in a safe-house I remembered from a few months before, lying in the clean bed, under clean, freshly washed sheets, dressed in my pajamas, with my hair falling lose onto my shoulders. I felt clean and... there was no pain, anymore, no pain at all, almost at least. I wasn't bleeding and there was no blinding pain coming from my backside, it was gone, only the slightest itching remained. I blinked several times and rubbed my eyes. Had I been dreaming or something ? But then, the itching wouldn't have been there... I sat on the bed, only to see Heero, sitting at the desk and typing on his laptop. I jumped to my feet and walked closer to him, looking over his shoulder at what was written on the screen. Description of the mission at Vilnius, starting by two words, formed of big, red letters: MISSION FAILED. The cause: Failure of connection between self-destruction button and self-destruction unit of Deathscythe. What the fuck ? They had to be kidding. I was alive only because some cables in my Gundam had disconnected ? But who had brought me here, pampered me back to health and then left me with Heero again ? Or had it been him ? I turned my head to look at him, and at the same moment he turned to look at me, our gazes locking, his expression blank, as most the time. Not taking his eyes off my face he turned the computer down. I needed to know if it had really been him.
" Who brought me back ? Was I in a hospital ?"
" I brought you. Yes, you were, for the night after Vilnius, they put you stitches and things. Then I took you from there, they were going to call the police."
" And then, for how long was I out ?"
" Just another day. You didn't miss much."
I just looked at him for a long time. I couldn't understand... Why ?
He had raped me to make me complete the mission, which I had failed after
all, but instead of leaving me somewhere to die, or letting someone else
take care of me, he had taken me to the hospital and then taken care of
me for another day, apparently had washed me, dressed me, brushed my hair.
Why ? Maybe he had done it so I would kind of owe him something, so that
I would never tell anyone that he was a rapist. I didn't know ! And I never
got to know.
We left it as it was, and never talked about it again. And yes, we stayed partners to the end of the war, but it wasn't like if things between us didn't change. They changed a lot. However hard could have been for the others to notice it, since when we were in public I was still smiling at him, blabbering about everything to him and he was always annoyed with it, but once we were left alone, only the two of us, there was a silence between us. Silence broken only by the single, absolutely necessary words, no talking about anything. And no physical contact, I wasn't even able to stand his closeness. My heart was beginning to beat twice as fast when he was standing closer than a yard away, and I think he knew that if he tried to approach further I would have fired a gun at him, without hesitation. What he had done to me just wasn't something to be forgotten, nor forgiven, we both knew it equally well. He had not only hurt me but also intented to kill me and had nearly succeeded, if not my luck with that cable's disconnection, I would have been dead by then, as would have been all of the other pilots, beside him. It wasn't something to be forgiven, ever.
But despite that I was somehow still capable of loving him, of dreaming
about a better world when we actually could be together, where he hadn't
ever hurt me so badly. I love him still, to this moment. Despite what happened
then and the fact that I haven't seen him in such a long time... Ever since
the end of the war, when we were both merely 17. Now I'm 22, close to ending
my education at university, so that means we haven't seen each other in...
what ?... five years. A lot of time. To forget, about what had happened,
about him, about what I may feel for him. But not enough for me. And so
leading my happy peaceful life, sometimes, just sometimes, mostly at nights,
I wonder where has gone the Perfect Soldier, now, when the war is over,
and if I'm ever going to look into beautiful Prussian blue eyes again...
...and if I will be ever able to stop loving them, or to forgive him,
if never forget.
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