Unbroken 05/07 + Prologue & Epilogue
V of the "Chasing Down the Moon" Arc
Rating: pg13
Series: Gundam Wing
Genre: General/Romance
Pairings: 1+2+1
Spoilers: None
Warnings: Shounen Ai; Relena Bashing; Baiting of the Hee-chan; Duo-torture; Heero-torture; Humor; Language; Perverted YaoiFanGirls (like Little Shrimp); Tiny Cross-over
By Moon Faery
Archived: (eventually at) Moon Faery's Garden (); Kiss of Death (); Lev's Lair ()
Disclaimer: A statement created solely to save one's ass from becoming lawn for the proverbial legal mower. I do not own Gundam Wing. All materials are used without the permission of their various owners. However, this story line, characters and plot are MINE. (Holds fic close to her.) Grrrr....
Author Notes: Okay, I played fast and loose with my scheduled plotline. I was getting tired of the plot heading off in it's own happy little direction, so I took a bit longer than I had planned and got the whole fic done in one long shot, then divided it up into chapters. ^^;; I think I'll do that from now on; I seem to have a problem regaining my momentum after I've ended a chapter. So the next few chapters are short, but they're all done and ready to post. ^^ I'll send one out every time I check my email (usually once every day or two) until they're all posted.
***
Duct tape, Duo quickly dicovered, had not lost any of it's legendary strength or versatility even several hundred years after it's creation, in spite of having little in the way of improvement or evolution since. A full fifteen minutes of struggling brought him nothing more than chafed wrists, which in turn brought several more minutes of colorful, if muffled, oaths. Duo was particularly proud of the one which involved his captor, one Heero Yuy, and a vacuum cleaner in several compromising position. If only he hadn't been gagged when he said it; it probably would have been even more impressive.
'Smart move, Maxwell,' he thought to himself grumpily, prvented from vocalizing his thoughts by his hastily prepared but well-tied gag of a sock, a handkerchief and even more duct tape. 'You should've known that running wouldn't help.'
If his mouth hadn't been taped shut, Duo would have grinned. Even though the chase had ended with Heero winning, interrogating him and eventually taping him up and tossing him into the closet, Duo was pleased with the result. On the downside of current events, it was probably going to take him forever to escape and he was going to have to wear his sleeves rolled down until the red marks faded. Once he found out where Heero had hidden his clothes, of course.
There were plus sides that more than made up for all of the bad, though. For one, Heero had been very careful to keep from catching his hair in the tape. That particular feat astounded the owner of said hair since he knew exactly how hard it was to keep the mass out of his waistband when putting on his pants, much less out of one of the most stubborn substances ever created by human hands. Secondly, Heero had relaxed enough around him to start the run around the grounds in the first place. Admittedly, it was while shouting death threats, but Duo liked to tell himself that he took what life forked over. A few weeks ago, Heero would have just let him run and pulled a gun on him as soon as he returned to their shared room, not chased him around like an almost-normal person.
It said something about Duo that he didn't even pause to for a second thought about the threats Heero had made on his life.
There was a trick to escaping duct tape, but Heero must have known about it. Why else would he have covered Duo's mouth so thoroughly, other than to keep him from using his teeth on the stuff? Besides his teeth, the only thing Duo could do was squirm and hope that it was an old roll with little stickiness left.
Duo's eyes lit up in the dark cloest. 'Stickiness! That's it!'
Slowly, Duo forces his mouth open as much as the tape would allow, wincing as it pulled on the baby fine facial hair that he'd been trying unsucessfully to cultivate into an actual beard. After much wriggling, pushing and general work, he managed to push his tongue to the front of the gag. Ignoring the disgusting taste of duct tape glue, he licked around the edges of his mouth until the duct tape that kept the sock and bandana in place fell to the floor, soaked and useless. After that it was only a few minutes work to spit out the offending gymsock and work the bandana down to his chin.
All in all, Duo was pretty proud of himself. Now he just had to figure out how to bend enough to chew through where his ankles and wrists were taped together. 'It can't be that hard,' the braided boy told himself optimistically.
Hours later, Duo conceded that yes, it was indeed that hard.
***
Duo moaned and rubbed his sore back, certain that he'd pulled at least three muscles in his escape. His pants were left unbuttoned and his shirt was on backwards and inside out from getting dressed in a dark cloest, but he was finally free. And it only took three hours, not including the time spent picking the lock on the closet from the inside out.
"At least he didn't do anything worse."
The low-pitched mumble was barely audible, but it was still anough to pull Heero's attention from a piece of paper he was reading. Causually, he raised an eyebrow. "I was expecting you an hour ago."
"Shut up." Duo flopped down onto his bed, rubbing his wrists and trying not to wince. The abrasions weren't nearly as bad as he thought they'd be, but they were still painful.
Heero's expression spoke for him, but he vocalized his thoughts anyway. "I'm supposed to tell you that."
"Yeah, well..." For once, Duo couldn't think of a rebuttal. After all, it was his own fault for not telling Heero about Elisia sooner. Like Heero had said before he'd bundled Duo up and tossed him in the closet, if he'd known earlier they might have been able to figure a way out of it. A quick change of topic was in order. "What're you reading?"
"Missive from Zero-Three."
Before Duo knew what he was doing, he sat up in bed and swung around to face Heero, smacking himself in the chest with his braid. "From Trowa? I thought he was playing toy soldier."
Absently, Heero nodded and refolded the one-page letter. "He is. I had him do some research in the enemy database while he had access."
There was a long pause while Duo waited for his partner to continue. After several minutes, it became obvious that Heero had no intention saying anything else. "Um..." Duo cleared his throat. "So what did Trowa say?"
There was another moment of silence while Heero looked at Duo, almost as if deciding whether or not to make him beg for the information. He must have decided that it wasn't worth the effort, because he frowned and started talking. "Oz doesn't know anything about what brought us here, or if they do it's not in their systems."
If he hadn't already sat up, Duo would have done it again. "But OZ is always up to it's eyeballs in paperwork! How'd this one get out of the usual pile?" His eyes widened. "Unless..."
Heero confirmed Duo's guess with a quick jerk of his head. "It was an outside job."
There was a short pause as they considered the implications. Suddenly, Duo's eyes brightened and he leaned forward. "Does this mean we get to leave?"
"Yes." At Duo's relieved expression, Heero snorted. "We're not out of that damned deal yet, Duo. It's going to take us at least a few days to arrange tranfer papers, and we can't afford to leave an obvious trail."
Duo's expression fell and his braid seemed to go limp. "Please say we'll leave before Monday?"
"No."
"Why not?" It was as close to whining as Duo ever got.
The blue-eyed boy was starting to develop a headache. "Because we won't be ready to go until Monday afternoon."
"Well shit."
"Exactly."
***
Saturday morning found the halls full of students, as usual. "Hey, Relena!" A brown braid snapped through the air as Duo ran through the crowd to reach his former charge, dressed comfortably in jeans and an unbuttoned dress shirt. "Good news!" He was in such a good mood that he barely noticed the unidentified hand that brushed up against his crotch.
Relena's eyes lit up. "Bad Luck is coming to our school for a nude photo shoot?" she asked hopefully, eyes glittering miscieviously. "And Heero's joining them?"
The Gundam Pilot nearly fell over, twitching. "No!" He paused, blinking as her comment about Heero burrowed into his brain enticingly. It took a secon for Duo to shake the mental image of Heero posing as the centerfold for some exotic magazine. "And no." He was rather proud that he didn't sound as pitiful as he felt.
"Oh." She managed to look disappointed. "Then what?"
"We're through!" Duo explained enthusiasticly. "No threat, no guard duty, no reason to stay, we're out of here!"
Meanwhile, the Peacecraft princess was getting paler with every word. When Duo finished, she swayed back and forth woozily. "But- but..."
"Isn't it great?" Duo asked cheerfully, not noticing Relena's distress. "We've got to stay 'til Monday, but-"
The breath Relena had been holding wooshed out of her. "Until Monday? That's wonderful!"
Duo stopped and twisted around on a heel to look at her. "Are you joking? Oh, wait. Heero."
The blonde looked confused for a moment, but then she nodded happily. "Yes. Heero." Someone behind Duo caught her eye. "Oh, there's Mrs. Elderson! I... um, need to talk to her about a... thing!" Before Duo could stop her, she had vanished down a a connecting hall. He stared after her, wondering what he had just missed and chalking it up to girl stuff.
***
The Saturday afternoon sun glinted overhead, looking down on Heero and Duo, who were once more at the stables. Duo was on his knees in the dirt, clutching at the tail of Heero's shirt.
"Can I PLEASE ride an old one?" he begged, using what he hoped were Quatre-quality puppy dog eyes. Unfortunately for him, Heero's were better.
"I already told you, you have to practice with Mud," Heero explained, eyebrow twitching. Duo had been bothering him for several hours, and he was starting to re-think re-thinking his attraction to the long-haired whiner. "Now get up off the floor and act like a man!"
Duo pouted, but removed himself from the floor. "I'm not a man," he grubled. "I'm a teenager."
"Only a few years difference," Duo was told as Heero shoved the halter in his hands. "Now move it."
This time the process of tacking up went smoothly. Mud was in a good mood, which meant that Duo's toes were spared almost completely. The walk out the the arena was accomplished without a hitch, and somehow they had managed to loose their followers. Things were looking up. Or at least, they were until Duo swung himself up. He didn't even have time to curse before his face was being rubbed into the sawdust of the arena floor.
Duo spit dirt out of his mouth, brushing some sawdust from his face. "That's it." He climbed to his feet, ignoring the fact that his meeting with the ground had nearly taken the breath out of him. Mud backed up a step when his rider reached for the reins.
The human was pissed.
A vein on Duo's forehead became slightly visible as the horse danced just out of reach. He reached again, and Mud evaded him once more. His jaw tensed.
On the sidelines, Heero was frozen in place. He should have been going to get the animal for his partner, but the sheer determination on Duo's face kept him at bay. So much for his well-known shoot first, think later reflexes.
Without so much as tensing a muscle to warn his prey of his intentions, Duo dived for Mud's shoulder, swinging himself up into the saddle before the horse could do more than sidestep in surprise. Rather than bothering with the reins or stirups, he fisted his hands in Mud's mane and shoved his butt as deep into the saddle as he could and tried to hang on for what he knew was coming.
Mud did not disappoint.
A small crowd gathered at the fence to cheer Duo on as the famed Flight Instructor did his best to give Duo a few lessons, bucking, kicking and spinning for all he was worth. At times the only thing keeping Duo attached to the horse was the handful of horsehair knotted around his hands and the fact that he wasn't dumb enough to try to do more than sit there and hold on.
For his part, Mud was not pleased. One particularly spectaular attempt at ramming his rider into the fence had resulted in Duo throwing his weight far enough to the side that they had nearly gone down together. Worse, the end of his unraveling braid had flipped around and smacked the horse right in his sensitve nose, which only made recovering his balance all the harder. Either the boy had more guts than he'd given him credit for, or was just that stupid. Either way, he was unexpectedly competent.
That being said, he had to go.
Bunching himself up like a coiled spring, Mud launched himself into the air for one last attempt at dislodging his unwelcome guest. At the top of the jump his hind legs kicked upwards for all he was worth, cracking like a whip. Duo was slammed down against the horse's neck, legs jarred loose from their anchoring at Mud's ribs. Automatically, he locked them again, knees now cutting into Mud's neck instead. Duo forgot to breathe as they reached the top of the arc. Then they were headed back down to Earth, wind whipping through their collective hair, hearts thundering.
All of a sudden, it wasn't about winning anymore.
Heero nearly cracked his head on the wall he had been leaning against as Duo cried out fromt the arena.
"WOOHOO!"
Mud had apparently decided that bucking was pointless and was now sprinting around the ring as fast as the enclosed area would allow him. Duo had somehow managed to get his butt back in the saddle and was actually urging the horse on, grinning wide enough that Heero knew his jaw would be hurting later. He had a good seat when he wasn't fighting to stay on, Heero noticed. He also saw how much Duo was enjoying himself.
'Some things,' Heero told himself with resignation, 'were never meant to be understood.' His eyes tracked the pair in the arena. 'And I think Duo's one of those things.'
***
"That was a rush!" Duo crowed, sitting on the edge of his bed and rubbing a towel through his freshly washed hair while Heero bent over something at their shared desk. "Why didn't you tell me it could be so much fun?"
Heero managed to supress a sigh; Duo had been rambling on about his expereience for over two hours, and there was no sign that he was going to stop. Usually Duo managed to at least compress his thoughts, numerous as they were, into a brief statement. That didn't mean that didn't speak much, only that he spoke of various subjects, and spoke intelligently at that. However, his mind appeared to have somehow gotten stuck on his experience riding earlier that afternoon. Heero was fighting the amazingly strong urge to wrap Duo up in duct tape again and stuff him back into the closet. He DID still owe him for the incident at lunch a few days ago... Although, in Duo's defense, his lap had been the only place in the room to sit at the time. The squirming involved when Duo sat in said lap, however, had been entirely unnecessary.
Ever so slowly, Heero's head slid down until his forehead was resting on the desk. He was attempting to forget everything ELSE that had gone wrong on this mission, most of which wasn't Duo's fault, but still seemed to revolve around him in one way or another.
"Heero, are you alright?"
Heero fell sideways out of his chair as he suddenly register Duo's prescenece beside him, landing on the floor with a harsh THUD, gun half-drawn. Duo's eyes looked down at him, hovering back and forth between an almost-blue and blackish purple, like they weren't sure what color to be.
"Heero?" Duo leaned a little farther over him, eyebrows furrowed worriedly. "You looked like you were in pain, I thought maybe you had a headache or something..."
The pilot from L1 stared up at his partner, noticing absently that his knees were still caught on the seat of the chair, left dangling over the floor uselessly. There was something oddly comical about that that made him chuckle. He holstered his gun and sat up, accepting Duo's offered arm and pulling himself to his feet and settling back into his chair.
Duo was still looking at him oddly. "I was... thinking," Heero told him, pulling up a diagram on his laptop and doing his best to regain his composure. Duo may have been a good influence as far as Heero was concerened, but Heero was staring to understand that if he was on the receiving end of much more of that influence one of the others was likely to insist that he have a psychiatric evaluation. "We need an escape plan for Monday. This is the-"
"It's a school, Heero, not a max-security prison," Duo told him gently, biting back a laugh. "'Escape' is simple, we walk out the door."
Heero looked mildly put out. "What if someone attempts to stop us?"
One chestnut eyebrow went up. "Like Lady Une holding the school hostage?" [1] he asked sarcastically. "Heero, the worst thing that'll happen is a teacher'll catch us and we'll have to try again." He turned pale as pieces of his recent life flashed before his eyes. "No, the worst thing that can happen is that we'll get caught by a girl and get passed around like a bowl of popcorn until they either get tired of us or accidentally kill us."
A blue eye glinted as Heero looked at him. "I thought you were the cheerful one."
"I thought teenage boys were supposed to enjoy getting mauled by teenage girls," Duo replied blandly, manfully keeping his face equally placid. "Looks like I'm not the only one who's wrong, huh?"
The Japanese boy grunted. "If I'm supposed to be the cheerful one, we're in a lot of trouble."
Without answering, Duo took a few steps to the left and opened the door to their shared bathroom, pointing at the remote camera they had disabled in the shower with a grin. "You say that like it's a new thing."
There was a thud and a moan of internal pain as Heero let his head fall back onto the desk again.
***
[1] Would you believe that was my original plan? (hangs head in shame) It was such a good idea, too... But it just didn't work out. (sob)
