Hey all you funky dudes and dudettes!! Been so long since I've written anything. Sorry all…my muse only just came back from long service leave….but now I hope she's back for good, even though she seems to want to quit!!!!

Disclaimer: Do have to write this? *Get's whipped by muse* ok ok, no need to get narky…I'll write the disclaimer if you let me out of this cage, and unchain me from my desk. *muse nodds head slowly* Ok, then, I don't own anything…except the planet they are on…I made it up out of my warped imagination and to cut a long story short, I OWN NOTHING!!

Warnings: slight Duo OOC, I think, and slight Heero OOC…other than that, nothing…and constant gory mentions of war and blood

Learning to survive

The giant ship lands filled with soldiers, one with his face pressed to the window watching eagerly till the ship touches down. The giant door opens and the soldiers pour out looking eagerly and anxiously, as they haven't seen a city for years. Being watched warily by the locals he wonders through the mysterious city looking at the tall grey buildings all around him. Suddenly, an arm lands around his shoulders.

"Hey Heero, wake up, we need a place to stay, somewhere to start our new fresh life." He laughed he pulls Heero towards the old building right in the heart of the city surrounded by tiny shops filled with anything and everything.

Heero looked around seeing only grey buildings with tinted offices in an otherwise grey concrete sky. He looked up and saw a grey concrete sky with hints of blue, as if the blue sky were hiding from him, he felt like the building was closing in on him and he suddenly felt claustrophobic in such a crowded city. In the expanse of space where he had been fighting there was endless amounts of space…he was dragged out of the war with Duo yelling in his ear.

"Earth to Heero, come in Heero let's go. There's a bed in there calling my name," Duo dragged Heero into the shabby looking two-storey house.

Heero was overwhelmed by the smell of rotting wood, downstairs was nothing. There was stuff just stuffed there, broken chairs, bits of beds, and old broken rocking horse. Reaching around, and resting his arm across the small of his back, Heero continued to follow Duo as he gave a guided tour of the house.

"This was all I could afford, there's nothing down here, we'll live upstairs," He lead Heero upstairs "There's only one bed but there's a couch and some rugs. I don't care what you do, just get out of my face." He walked into the bedroom. Heero smiled, Duo had taken him under his wing, treating him like a younger brother. Heero went back outside, it had been a long time since he had been able to walk around a city like this.

Long before... nah, he didn't want to think about that. He nimbly climbed a small house sitting on a balcony. He watched as people bustled round each after to slow moving cars.

He watched all those people, thinking about the one thing he was trying not to... the war. He heard agonised screams as people realised they were going to die. He could still see the bodies dead and life less in their space fighters.

He thought about the few times he fought on land, the towns he'd been ordered to destroy. All those innocent people he'd been forced to kill. Tears sprung to his eyes as he thought about all the lives he'd hurt and all the people he'd killed. Innocent or otherwise, they were still just pawns in the war like him.

He got off the building and headed back to his home. He thought sadly as anger filled him. He thought about the few times he'd fought on land. The towns he'd been ordered to destroy. All those innocent people he'd been forced to kill.

He calmed himself quickly. "No use holding old grudges", he thought looking at his hands as they were guiding him along the rail around the stairs, he hadn't noticed how dirty they were. Blood stained and covered in dirt and cuts, his own blood and the blood of others.

He headed into the bathroom he'd seen when he first entered the house. Turning the rusty taps, Heero watched as brown water trickled out of the old taps. He patted down the side of his pants, searching for the nailbrush his mother had always made him carry with him on trips. After a tiny panic attack he found it in his sock pocket. Old habits stick hard he thought, remembering that he will never see her again made the anger he had just washed away boil at burning point once again.

He found the brush and a small container with a small cake of soap. He soaped up his hands and scrubbed at them, softly at first, then harder, digging the brush into his skin, up his arm, he stopped long enough to remove his shirt, and kept on scrubbing. Soon he was sitting on the side of the bathtub with everything stripped off his except his boxers. He was scrubbing so hard he was taking away at his own body, layer by layer. Suddenly someone called him. He didn't answer, slow footsteps Heeroe up to the bathroom, but he kept scrubbing. He had just drawn blood when someone when someone grabbed his hand, stopping it from causing any more harm.

"What the hell are you doing?" Duo growled, taking the brush out of Heero's hands. Heero looked at him dazedly.

"Huh?"

"What the hell are you doing to yourself?" Duo asked, Heero still couldn't work out what he was talking about. "Give me your arm", Duo grabbed Heero's wrist and pointed to the blood on his arm. "Why are you doing this to yourself?"

"Duo, I don't think."

"I can see that," he gestured to the bleeding arm and sighed. "Come with me kid, let's get you cleaned up. Don't scare me like that mate." He pulled on Heero's wrist and pulled him into the room with the couch. Duo pushed Heero on the couch and knelt in front of him.

"Have you got a band aid?" he said, wiping what he could of the blood with a grimy handkerchief. Heero nodded and reached into his pocket with his other hand and pulled out a couple of scrunched up band-aids and handed them to Duo.

"Do you want to tell me what this is all about kid?"

"Have you thought about all the people we killed? All the lives we destroyed. We're murderers Duo. I've killed so many people." He sighed. "My hands are covered in blood and I can't get it off, no matter how hard I scrub. Pulsing through my veins is the ability to kill in cold blood…"

Duo only sighed and pulled himself up beside Heero on the couch.

"Mate, during the war, it ain't murder. We have to do those bloody things that no one usually talks about. No one wants to do it, so we all just try and ignore it, hoping it will go away. It won't mate, the only way to get rid of the blood is to talk about it…or so they tell us. Those of us, like you 'n me, who can't afford therapists and what not, are stuck with each other. Just tryin' to live our lives and forget about the years we was in the war. None of it makes us murderers."

"Then what does it make us?"

"Regular people protecting their home an' their land."

"I can't sleep at night, their faces haunt me and I hear their screams in the silence."

"Mate, it ain't your fault they died, you didn' wish 'em to die, they jus' did. It's just…one of those things…" he looked at the bandage on Heero's arm. "You jus' gotta fin' a person you can talk to 'em about the war and whatchya thinkin' an' feelin'. I know you got no one else, and hey, me neither, so for a while, we jus' got each other. So for a while, while you find your feet again, you talk to me OK?"

"It's just so intoxicating…"

"I know kid, believe me, I know, but ya gotta promise me somethin' Heero. When you can't sleep, or you hear voices or you feelin' a little crazy, I want ya to come an' talk to me OK?"

Heero nodded, and looked at his arm and then at Duo it's been a long time…