By Shannon the Twisted Link Worshiper ~ Part XVII ~
Death Comes As The End
"You are aware it's only an hour to lunch," Heero said matter-of-factly to Duo as they strolled right out the front doors of the school about a half hour later, after they had each made quick detours to their rooms to change into casual clothes. Duo had not hesitated to ditch the female disguise for this excursion and had even manipulated his thick brown hair into his trademark braid. They meandered towards the parking lot nearby where Duo had left his glistening red racing bike, Duo blissfully ignoring Heero's comments with a bouncy step and silly grin as he played absently with the tail of his braid. Heero sighed and added, "As in, there's still about four hours left in the school day."
"So?" Duo turned around, walking backwards so he could face Heero so he could speak easier to him. "Don't really care, if you catch my meaning," Duo said with a laugh, shoving a hand into each of pocket of his tight leather pants. "I mean, it's not like we're planning to stay here very long, are we? Most of the stuff they try and teach us here we've known already."
"We?" Heero repeated. He thought about it for a second, jamming his hands into the large front pouch of his baggy white sweatshirt. "Do you mean you want me to come with you after the mission?"
Duo blinked at him, his feet coming to a halt. "Well yeah," he said with a shrug. He started tracing patterns with his toe on the sidewalk beneath his feet. "That is, if you want to."
Heero closed the space between them, drawing his hands from his sweatshirt and laying them upon each of Duo's shoulders. "Duo," he began, bringing a finger beneath his chin so he could lift Duo's eyes to meet his. "Of course I want to. Do you think I'm stupid enough to stay here in this stuffy constricting school with a bunch of rich snobs and jocks who wouldn't know what war was if it slapped them in the face? Why would I do that when I could escape with you, Duo? Why?"
Duo's apprehensive frown turned about into a relieved smile. "I don't know," he grinned, turning himself so he could wrap an arm around Heero's waist and walk beside him. "But sometimes, not even I can figure out why you do the things you do."
"Well I should say you're the one who understands the things I do best," Heero reprimanded as he twined his arm around Duo's waist as well, continuing their walk towards Duo's motorcycle pressed together hip-to-hip. "And I would never let you just wander off into the sunset without me. I should hate to think what would have happened if you had never slipped up and I had never realized you were here."
"I was going to pop out eventually," Duo assured him with a tender squeeze. He put a mock pout on his face as he said in a feigned whinny voice, "You don't have enough faith in me, Hee-chan."
"I have plenty of faith in you Duo," Heero smirked as they crossed the parking lot and neared Duo's shining red motorcycle. Duo pulled himself from the mesh of their arms and went about pulling out a pair of helmets from a compartment beneath the leather black seat. Duo handed him a dark blue helmet that seemed to gleam as if it were new, though the dents and scratches on it suggested otherwise. Heero glanced down at it with an arched brow, recognizing it as the helmet Duo used to keep for him. "You still tote around both helmets, Duo?"
"Eh, I couldn't physically bring myself to just put your old helmet aside," Duo admitted as he fitted his own black helmet over his head, banging it down with his fist. "I don't know. I always loved our crazy daredevil joyrides together on that old green bike we used to have. I was so upset when it died." He whispered nostalgically before laughing wildly as he gestured to his crimson red motorcycle, "But this sure makes up for it, don't you think?"
"Very nice, Duo," Heero smiled back, stroking the sleek red metal vehicle. "You've done well for yourself. I'm glad."
"To a point," Duo corrected with a wave of one hand, the other digging around in his leather jacket pocket for his key. Finding it, he let both hands fall to his sides as he stared at Heero, eyes wide and shoulders slightly heaving. "I didn't do so well without you. Yeah, so I managed to afford myself a new motorcycle on my Preventers' salary, and sure, life's been pretty much easy street. But… it's not quite the breeze it seems it should be, Heero. Life was… still is… very hard when I have to face it alone." He hung his head sadly, his braid seeming to droop with his troubled air. And even though Heero could not clearly see Duo's eyes with the helmet on, he could tell that he was whimpering a little. "I hate being alone. Ever since I was a little kid, I could never deal with being by myself. And even working with Preventers with all those other people, I've still been by myself…. I mean, even my teammates weren't quite…. Well, none of them were… you… Heero. I just wanted you."
The former Wing Zero pilot closed his eyes and gathered his strength, opening his mouth barely enough to speak. "You know," Heero said quietly, reaching across the bike to clasp Duo's slender hand, his thin fingers clad in fingerless black leather gloves. "I hate being alone too. And I…." Heero hung his head as well, staring down at his sneakers. "I've always been alone."
"Hee-chan…."
Heero met Duo's eyes again, his dark Prussian eyes dancing with sadness. "When I met you, I realized I didn't have to be alone anymore. I wanted to be with you. You… you were the only person who truly understood the loneliness I felt. I wanted to cling to you and…." Heero bit his lip at then gently licked the tender area where his teeth had sunk into his flesh. He looked up desperately towards Duo, his eyes imploring for forgiveness. "…And I think I let that feeling of being wanted mushroom totally out of control! So if you could find it in your heart to forgive me for my past transgressions against you, I would feel like the world has been lifted off my shoulders!"
Duo had never seen Heero quite like this. Of course he knew that Heero had been having a treasure trove of problems over the past three years, but he had never seen Heero practically fall to his knees and beg forgiveness for anything he had done, even if he did regret it. Duo's confused expression became softer as he squeezed Heero's now limp hand. "Heero," he whispered to his lover, watching as Heero slowly raised his eyes. "Heero I will always forgive you. And I don't care that we took the long painful road to what we have because I don't regret a minute of it. A straight line might be the quickest way to a destination, but by no means is it the most interesting. All our troubles were forgotten the moment you said you loved me."
The corners of Heero's mouth rose into a gentle smile. Duo always had been the one who understood him best. "I do love you, Duo Maxwell," he affirmed softly. "I won't ever have to be alone again."
"Do you know why that is?" Duo asked in a muted gentle tone. It was a rhetorical question that Duo answered for Heero himself. "It's because I love you, Heero. You won't have to be alone because I love you too much to ever leave you." Duo stroked Heero's knuckles with his thumb as he lifted his hand a little to linger in the air before his lips before ghosting a soft kiss upon Heero's fingertips. "And… I hate seeing you cry. Tears don't become a man like you."
"If you don't want me to cry, then I won't," Heero stated firmly. Duo gave him a friendly nod in return, letting their fingers fall apart. The braided boy then mounted his motorcycle and eased it off the kickstand. With a jerk of his head, he motioned for Heero to clamber on behind him before inserting the little silver key into the ignition and revving up the bike.
They shot off from the school's property and into the town. As they made their ways down random streets, past little shops and townhouses, Duo called back over his shoulder at Heero, "So what are we looking for again?"
"Anything, really," Heero answered, his sweatshirt billowing out around him in a white puff as the wind whipped past them. "I was thinking we could find a nice secluded place that we could lure Cawdor to. It would make our lives so much easier if we got him off campus. As long as he's at that school, he's safe." He paused a minute before adding, "And I think he knows that."
"He's not as dumb as he's leading on," Duo mused, eyes focused intently on the road ahead of him. "He knows more about the Gundams and our former lives than we ever thought possible. I'm not kidding when I say he's got folders stuffed with files on all of us, right down to the last most personal detail. He's been singling you out since the day you transferred into that school, Heero."
"I figured as much," Heero muttered to himself as his eyes followed the streaking scenery as they zoomed by. His arms tightened around Duo's waist, as if he were trying to cling to him for support. A sudden question popped into his head and he quickly asked, "Duo, he doesn't know that you're there, do you?"
"Well, he knows I'm there," Duo answered, feeling Heero's arms wrap even tighter around his hips at the admission. He quickly added on for reassurance, "But he doesn't know that I'm 'Hoshi.' Hopefully, that disguise will hold out long enough to serve our purposes."
"That doesn't leave you totally safe though," Heero answered gravely. Duo's pause before he gave back a response somewhat unnerved the former perfect soldier somewhat and he tried hard to tell himself that he was just being overly paranoid, as usual.
"Yeah," Duo agreed, his voice a dark growl. "He seems to have figured out that 'Hoshi' is a Preventers agent, which is true. He just doesn't realize that she's actually me."
"I suppose that's the best we can do for now," Heero said. "What's done is done. No use trying to cover up tracks that are already in the open."
"Yeah," Duo sighed and returned to concentrating on the road.
They scoured through the small urban sprawl, finding a few suitable places for their plans, but not really finding one that screamed perfection. It was not until they were speeding along a road that traced the outskirts of the city that they passed a large empty warehouse. "Double back around, Duo," Heero called as his eyes quickly scanned the place on their first drive by. "Let's stop and have a look at that place."
Duo complied with Heero's request and drove a little further down the road, spinning the motorbike in a perfect U-turn a few meters away. "Uh, Duo," Heero called tentatively as they sped by again from the other direction, "You're supposed to stop. I want to go inside that old building."
"Dammit Heero! I can't stop!" Duo shouted back, his voice far more irate and frustrated that Heero had expected it to be. "There's something fucked up going on with my bike! The brakes are shot!"
"Shit," Heero muttered in his usual sterile monotone. He noticed with dismay that they actually seemed to be gaining speed as Duo guided the bike smoothly around the curving road as it meandered further from the city and out towards the ocean-side cliffs just outside of town. "What the hell are we supposed to do now?"
"We've got to jump for it. Let's run it off one of the cliffs," Duo decided, already starting to veer off the road, despite Heero's small whimper of protest. The Japanese boy had learned over the years that recklessness really did not pay much in the long run, despite his dependency on it. Unfortunately, Duo happened to be one of the most reckless people he knew, himself following at a close second. "We can hop off at the last moment," Duo was saying, jarring Heero from his thoughts as they ran speedily through the dying brownish underbrush that fluffed across the cliff-sides.
"What a waste," Heero said regretfully, a tricky smile materializing on his face despite the desperate circumstances they were currently in. "It sure was a nice bike."
"You pick the weirdest times to exercise your sarcasm, Hee-chan," Duo commented back with his own smirking tone. He turned the bike towards the cliff's edge and sucked in a heavy breath. "Okay lover, this is it. We jump now or we die."
"Fine then," Heero responded. He swiftly calculated the distance between their current position and the edge of the cliff. "We have seven and a half seconds before we have to jump if you keep at this speed," he reported a few moments later, staring determinedly at the shimmering blue sea that sparkled out beyond the beaches at the cliff's base. "When I say 'Go', we jump, got it?"
"Yessir!" Duo responded automatically, bending down over the handlebars of the bike as he prepared himself for the hazardous leap. One small error and they could both be destroyed in either the explosion of the bike hitting the rocky beach below or severely wounded by a very dangerous fall. "If we make it out of this alive, I will first make passionate love to you all night long and second, find the bastard who ruined my beautiful motorcycle!"
Heero barely had time to grin, because just then, the alarm on his internal clock rang wildly through his head as he shouted, "Okay, go!" He pulled his arms from around Duo and vaulted off the bike, landing with a tumble in the itchy brush weed. Rolling a few feet away from the danger, he pulled himself up onto his elbows to look for Duo, hoping that he had made it out as well he had. After a frantic sweep over the area, his Prussian eyes flew back to the still speeding motorbike as it hurried towards the cliff side. The front wheel was just flying off the edge and much to his horror, Duo was barely off the bike. Heero could do nothing more than lie where he was and watch in horror as the bike flew off the cliff and hovered in the air for a moment as if in slow motion. The world seem to come to a careening halt and all sound froze, Duo's slightly curved form lingering in the air just above the bike right after letting go just a moment too late. Then gravity kicked in and both bike and boy went plummeting down towards the earth.
"Duo-o-o-o!" Heero screamed, ripping the helmet off his head and tossing it aside as the world suddenly began to spin around again. Amid the sounds produced by the sudden rush of a wild motor and tires desperate to cling to something other than just air, Heero found himself yelling Duo's name desperately as he clambered to his feet and stumbled along the squelched tire treads that ran crazily over the cliff.
Reaching the edge, he steeled his nerves and peered over, afraid for the worst. Just as his eyes peeked downwards, the bike hit bottom, exploding upon the beach's jagged rocks with a monstrous explosion of gas and oil. A surge of wind and smoke flew up into his face, forcing Heero to shield his eyes behind his sleeve. When the grit and mess subsided from the air around him, Heero slowly lowered his arm and looked down towards the wreckage below. He was just in time to see Duo's black helmet fall down into the smoldering ruin of a bike. "Duo?" Heero called, hoping that Duo had not met a similar fate as his helmet. Frightening images of a mangled bloody Duo ravaged his mind and he had to mentally grasp his forehead and shake the dastardly thoughts away before he could get a proper grip on himself once more. "Duo-o-o-o!" he called out again.
"Heero!" a meek and desperate voice whispered on the sea breeze.
Heero snapped to attention at the sound of his lover's voice. "Duo?" he called out, not quite sure where he 'ought to be looking. "Duo, are you okay? Where are you?"
"Um, well, in theory I'm okay," the voice answered. Heero determined it was coming from somewhere below him and his eyes went back to desperately roving the beach. "But if you don't get me out of here soon, I'll be far from okay."
"What do you mean?" Heero demanded.
"Like dead."
"Where are you?" Heero said again, his voice much more firm than before. Now that all the emotional trouble was out of the way, it was time to do things by the efficient soldier approach. "Tell me now so I can help you."
"Down here," Duo called, his voice a little stronger than before. Heero looked over the cliff and, not seeing Duo down on the beach, let his eyes climb up the crumbly rock wall. He soon found Duo, hanging by just a bare thread from a thick root that was protruding out from between two large rocks in the cliff's face, braid fluttering out behind him in the breeze like a streamer. The somewhat scraggly tree the root was attached to was threatening to deracinate itself from its spot just above the pair of rocks with Duo's added weight tugging at its base. "This stupid weed won't hold me much longer, Hee-chan!"
"Maybe if you cut down on your daily pastry intake, you wouldn't have this problem," Heero shouted down wryly as he desperately searched around for a rope or something he could use to haul Duo up.
"Hey!" Duo snapped. "There is always room for cake!"
"Maybe in your stomach Duo, your stomach," Heero responded automatically, his mind bitching and moaning at him that he had not been resourceful enough to already find some other means of dragging Duo up from his perilous spot. He stood up and gave the greater area a broad sweep with his acute vision.
"Leave my stomach alone! It does just fine without any help from you!" he heard Duo shout back. Heero rolled his eyes, though he was not sure if out of amusement or despair. Duo always managed to keep cheerful no matter how sick things got, and the fact that Duo was acting extremely good-natured despite his life-threatening situation greatly disturbed Heero. The livelier Duo seemed, the worse things tended to be. His jester's mask was almost perfect.
Heero returned to the cliff's edge and looked over once again, mentally slapping himself for already wasting so much time. In even the few short seconds it had taken him to look around him, Duo's tree had loosened quite a bit. And though Duo seemed quite aware of this, he refused to let that wide grin slip. Heero knew he was only acting happy for his benefit. Had Duo been alone, Shinigami might have come out to play.
Glancing to his right, he noticed a tiny shrubbery. With a quick fleeting look back down at Duo, Heero inched over to the plant and gave it a tug, noting its whiplash like quality when he pulled at its branches. He sighed and stole another glimpse down at Duo. Looks like my best bet, he mused dejectedly to himself. Great, the life of the most valuable person I know rests in the branches of one crappy little bush.
"Heero!" Duo shouted up at him again, his voice a little more edgy than it had been before. Obviously Duo was starting to realize that the time for play was gone, and he might be a large Duo pancake if something was not done soon. "I sure hope you're thinking of a really great plan up there, because I'm kind of shot for ideas and falling. Fast."
"Shut up Duo! I know!" Heero growled angrily, his frustration becoming more evident with each passing second. He grabbed the whippy trunk of the bush, prayed for luck and jumped. He fell down a couple feet, yellow sneakers dangling in the air as he hung there with one hand wrapped in an iron fist around the strained bent over bush. He was still a foot or so above Duo's location.
"Uh, Hee-chan," Duo called up to his koi, staring up at the rubbery white soles of Heero's shoes. Heero peered down his shoulder at him, his eyes riddled with that computerized soldier glare as he evaluated what to do. "We still have a problem here. If anything, it's worse than it was before."
"Duo, shut up!" Heero snapped, spinning a little, reminding Duo far too much of a lynched corpse. He let out a heavy calming breath and took control of the situation again. "I think I know what I'm doing. Do you think you can grab onto me and climb up?"
"I don't know. M-Maybe," Duo stammered as he gave the rocky beach and the still burning wreckage beneath his dangling feet another glance. He looked back up at Heero, who was still hanging on steadily, his hand extended towards him with fingers spread wide. "I sure hope you can hold me."
"I can," Heero reassured him, reaching his hand down a bit further. "You got to just trust me this once, Duo."
"Oh, you hit me where it hurts, Hee-chan," Duo smiled for the first time in a long while since he had gotten himself into this mess. "Okay, okay," he said, huffing supportive breath in and out. "I'm gonna jump now, Hee-chan. Get ready; I weigh a ton." He squeezed his eyes shut tight and swung a bit on his tree root, unintentionally loosening it a little more. Then, when he felt he had enough propulsion, he let go and flung himself upwards, making a desperate grab at Heero's ankles. When Duo finally reopened his large violet eyes, he found himself a little higher up and gripping Heero's legs for all he was worth. With a relieved sigh, he said, "Hwoo, Heero, look, I'm still alive." He squeezed Heero's ankles tighter and looked up at his rescuer with a tart smile. "Goddamn, Heero, you have really sexy legs."
"If you'd hurry and climb up," Heero said, his voice smug as a tiny smirk teased his pouty lips, "I could get up there, wrap my legs around you and kiss you hard."
"A very tempting proposition, Hee-chan," Duo called back. "Very tempting indeed. I'll have to take you up on it real soon."
"Yes, do," Heero answered. "Quit stalling. I really don't think I can hold onto this twig much longer." As if to accentuate his statement, the branch he was hanging onto snapped a little bit with a crackling noise. He bit his lip hard and looked back to Duo, who was still holding tightly to his ankles. "Please Duo."
"But what if you can't get up too?" Duo fretted.
Heero sent one of his frightening I'm-Not-Changing-My-Mind stares to silence Duo. Despite his angry expression, Heero added some soft words to comfort Duo's worries. "Look, kitten," he said warmly, forgetting where and when he was for a minute and the strange and precarious situation they both dangled in. "If you get up to the top of the cliff, at least one of us will be okay. I really don't want you to waste any time worrying about whether or not I'll be fine. You just have to trust that I'll find a way to survive. You said yourself that I've always had trouble dying."
"You better not break that promise, Hee-chan," Duo stated firmly, "because if you do end up dead after all this, I'll kill you!"
"Good. Glad that you got that out of your system," Heero muttered, trying hard to readjust his grip without slipping. Suddenly, he felt a strange liberation upon his left leg and a shuddering gasp. Peering back down his shoulder, he cursed all the scientific laws of gravity as he watched one of his ratty yellow sneakers plummet towards the beach, followed not far behind by one of his cotton white socks. Staring hard at his now bare foot, he realized what had initiated this premature disrobing, noting dismally that one of Duo's hands had slipped, leaving him hanging from only Heero's other ankle. He nibbled his lip as he tended to when he was nervous and snarled in a most mechanical and frustrated tone, "Enough of your pussyfooting, Duo! You have to climb up now! What happened to the brave Duo Maxwell I used to know; the Duo Maxwell that used to not be afraid of anything?"
"Heero, if you're not planning to get out of this, than neither am I," Duo answered resolutely, staring forlornly after Heero's sneaker as it hit bottom. "I don't want to be alive if you're not. I don't think I could deal with it."
"Duo, that's stupid and you know it!" Heero snapped. Duo could feel the perfect soldier tensing all the way down to his pretty oriental feet and he figured if he did not start moving soon, he might have to worry more about a rogue Heero than a hazardous fall. "Get moving… NOW!!!'
Duo swallowed his pride and complied, slowly starting to shimmy his way up Heero's dangling body. Soon his arms were around his hips, then his shoulders, and soon, Duo was staring Heero straight in the eye. But with every inch, the stress on Heero's branch intensified, slowly straining the poor little shrub to a point that was just short of breaking.
"Heero," Duo breathed softly as he gazed into his lover's deep blue eyes. He was rewarded with one of Heero's secret smiles that bathed Duo in all the warmth and glory the world could offer, and with that look, realized that everything would end up all right… that he had nothing to fear.
Just as he was placing a tiny kiss on Heero's soft pink lips, there was an ear-splitting crack that seemed to rip through the serenity around them. A pair of birds, a crow and a small whitish-grey seagull that had been roosting somewhere on the cliff, took off in a panic at the sound, shooting off together for the seaward horizon. Both Heero and Duo snapped upwards to watch in horror as the little shrub finally gave all it could give, its short bent trunk shattering to splinters as it ruptured at its center from too much stress and weight.
As they both began to plummet downwards, sure to experience the same fate as their wayward motorcycle, they crushed their lips together, as if in a desperate farewell kiss, like they might never gaze into each other's eyes ever again.
This sucks, I'm sleep and yet, I can't go to bed. Eeh, I feel really sick.... I ate way too much at dinner. The sad thing is, I was really hungry too, but now I regret such a big meal. Cut me back a few dollars for Otakon too... Oh yeah! Speaking of Otakon! Who's all going!? If you're gonna be there, keep an eye out for me to say hello! I'll be wearing a Princess Zelda dress. Yeah Zelda!
As for the story... well... just keep reading and reviewing... I dunno.... :)