Warnings: Shounen-ai content. Damn, I like the sound of that...
Disclaimer: My current defence against any corporate lawyers who might decide to beat down my door and present a "cease and desist" order from BanDai is that I've been working on this for a WHOLE YEAR now, and if they even tried to shut me down, they'd have hordes of angry fans swarming all over them and plucking out each and every one of their body hairs, one by one by one. Right guys? *looks expectantly at her readers* ... *crickets chirp* ... =o_o;= *gulp* Uh...right? =D
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Episode Fifty-Two: The Unseen Shackles "What we do not understand, we do not possess." ~Johann Wolfgang von GoetheJuly 2nd, 1902 Few things brought such ravenous hordes to the local fruit markets as the advent of the summer strawberry crop. In celebration of the season, Relena had declared that there would be a lavish strawberry social at her estate, to which the entire neighbourhood was invited, and for which Duo had a great deal of extra shopping to do. He took Heero along as backup, and together they fought through the hungry crowds that glutted the marketplace in order to procure two enormous bushels of premium berries, while Hilde and Quatre went off in another direction in search of fresh cream. There was a long, hot day of baking cakes and mixing lemonade ahead for the chef, so he enjoyed what little sunshine he could afford before locking himself away in his brown-tiled dungeon. As they waddled back to Trowa and the carriage with their juicy burdens, Heero caught Duo pausing yet again to balance his bushel on one knee and pop a berry into his mouth. "What will you do when you get home and realize we only brought back half as much as we bought?" he asked a bit snidely. "But I'm hungry!" Duo whined, smiling mischievously. "And the more I eat, the lighter my load will be, so I won't pull a muscle. I've got six jumbo chocolate marble pound cakes to bake! You want me to be able to lift those, don't you?" Heero smirked and grunted, already too tired to argue. He was severely envious of Duo's all-white uniform compared to his jet black suit, which was soaking up the sun's heat at an alarmingly quicker rate. Duo had a point about the baskets being heavy, too; they were cleverly constructed in several woven wicker layers so that one could carry three times as much without the berries on the bottom getting squashed. Trowa had parked Relena's carriage well out of the way of the early morning throng, and was brushing the horses fastidiously with a wet brush to keep them cool. By the time Duo and Heero arrived, the fresh cream delegation hadn't returned yet, so they began loading the berry bushels inside so they would know as soon as possible how much sitting room was left for persons once the ingredients had been taken care of. Duo set his bushel down first, then climbed inside the carriage and had it handed to him from the sidewalk. "You ever notice how all these society parties are during working hours?" Duo remarked. "Is that all they've got to do all day, visit each other for tea and cucumber sandwiches, and say 'How nice your hair looks!' and 'What a lovely dress, is it new?' Don't these people have jobs!?" Heero shifted the load of the first bushel to the chef's arms, not commenting on how Trowa rolled his eyes a few feet away. "I'll take that to be a rhetorical question," the butler said. "Would you like some cheese with your whine?" Trowa said at the very bottom of his voice. Duo immediately poked his head out the side window. "I heard that, Mr. 'I can't work outside between eleven and two because I get sunburned easily'!" Trowa rolled his eyes a second time in response. Smirking at their silliness, Heero turned and leaned over to pick up the second bushel, but on the way up, a figure in white caught his attention, skulking around in an alley down the road a bit, and across the way. It was Wufei, and he was gazing intensely at Heero as if he had some important message to deliver. A message had been expected ever since Arthur reported that the boy had vanished, and the time had apparently come. Heero straightened up, passed the bushel to Duo, and the pair exchanged a secretive glance, during which Heero pointed to the alley with his eyes. Duo put the bushel down on the carriage floor, peeked out the opposite window, and quickly caught on. "Want us to wait for you?" he asked. "If you would," Heero agreed. "This shouldn't take long." He crossed the street in between horse carts and pedestrians, and looked all around the marketplace for hidden observers before ducking into the alley. Wufei leaned back against the brick wall, completely engulfed in shadow. "Miss me?" he said with a sweet smile and a devious glare. They might have been technically on the same side, but Wufei still had a few scraps of animosity saved up, just for Heero. "Terribly," Heero said sarcastically. "What's happened?" "Jeffrhyss is in London," Wufei answered without humour. "He wants to meet with you, alone." "No chance." "Don't tell me to go back to him with a refusal," the Chinese boy barked. "I'm probably in enough trouble already for breaking contact with him myself. If you send me away without the words he wants to hear, I'll catch hell for it, and I'll be passing the suffering on to you, understand?" Heero folded his arms and looked away. "Go ahead." Wufei frowned, then lowered his voice, almost humbly. "Alright...then would you just think of yourself and your little 'friend' before you turn your back on your whole career. Every day you ignore your responsibilities you're compounding your eventual punishment." "I'm not going to be alone with him for any reason," Heero declared. "Duo and I agreed that we'll both fight him for as long as we have to even if it means waiting until he dies of old age. At least then I'll know I'm safe." Wufei's eyes clouded over, his spirit dimmed by his unfortunate reacquaintance with the organization's policies. "No one in this whole world is safe...and even if Jeffrhyss died, someone else would take his place, you know that." He stared Heero down, hoping for his sake that he could see the strategic sense in fighting within the system, rather than against it. "He never told me specifically that he would try to reappropriate you at this meeting. As far as I know, he just wants to talk. Even you've got to admit, that's an improvement." Heero thought quietly, then paced slowly back and forth across a ten-foot stretch of the alley, once, twice, and a third time before halting. "I'll talk...but not alone. Tell him to meet me in Trafalgar Square at seven tonight." "A public place on a summer evening!?" Wufei griped. "It'll be full of civilians! He'll never agree to that!" Heero shrugged as he turned to leave the alley. "Final offer." He walked straight back to the carriage where Quatre, Hilde, and four jugs of fresh cream had regrouped with the rest of the party and were ready to go. He only told Duo about the proposed meeting, in quiet, and Duo immediately wanted to come along, but eventually, Heero talked him out of it, reasoning that the suggested locale was the safest place he could be. **********It was turning out to be a beautiful summer, and Relena was tired of moping around the house in a suspended state of presumptuous mourning. She had already wasted most of spring in a fog of self-pity, and fully intended to break the habit before it became a way of life. With this in mind, she single-handedly hired a small string orchestra, arranged rentals of four large white marquee tents plus a plethora of tables and chairs, and made out an order to her chef for enough food and drink to satisfy the whole street. The sheer effort of so much delegation was exhausting, but it was worth it. Based on the strong and enthusiastic attendance, her strawberry social was a phenomenal success. Seated languidly around the hostess' table under the centre tent were four of the neighbourhood girls who were roughly Relena's age, one of whom had just returned from an extended trip to India with her father, a local politician. She joyfully regaled the others with fanciful tales of life in the savage jungle, and Relena listened happily in a very relaxed mood, grateful to hear something other than doom and gloom. "And not only that, but I learned how to ride an elephant too!" said the blue-eyed girl with the raven black hair held back by a pink ribbon. "It's not nearly as hard as it looks, once you learn to balance properly." "But wasn't it monstrously hot?" said the girl with the short blonde hair. "Oh, it was like living in an oven!" the brunette answered dramatically. "The mosquitos were terrible too. I had to sleep in a big gauze tent every night, right inside my room so I wouldn't be eaten alive!" "Ohhh!" the other girls moaned in wonderment. "Still, Daddy told me that our guide told him that I was very brave about it, and some women have run screaming into the jungle trying to get away and ended up being really eaten alive by wild tigers!" "Wowww!" the chorus buzzed again. The dark-haired girl smiled and sucked up the attention like a giant anteater, pleased to have the others eating out of the palm of her hand. "We were quite worried, of course, that we might not make it back to England in time for the coronation, but now that it's been delayed, everything's worked out perfectly!" "Yes, but what an awful way for it to happen," said the girl with the dark tan hair that stuck out a bit at the sides. "Think of poor Prince Edward, lying around in utter agony, without the strength to even--" "It was only appendicitis," said the girl with the shoulder-length auburn hair and the shiny brown eyes. "Don't make it sound as if he's on his deathbed." Relena put down her glass lemonade after a drawn-out sip, and addressed the group. "It was still very serious. He had to have surgery, and as he's destined for the throne of England, I think we have a duty to wish him well." Despite her eloquence, something in her tone suggested that she still wasn't happy with the situation. "I frequently get the impression from you that you don't particularly approve of Edward's ascension," the tan-haired girl said haughtily. "What exactly do you have against him, dear?" "It's not that I dislike him," Relena said, "I just don't think he's the right man for the job." Slyly, the blue-eyed brunette leaned toward the other three and whispered, "Her father didn't think much of him," to which the girls hummed thoughtfully as if to say, 'I see.' "This is my opinion, not my father's! Edward's never shown a drop of responsibility in his life! He spends each month in a different mansion, going pheasant-hunting, and theatre-hopping, he bets on horses, he gorges himself on five meals a day, and before I even knew he existed, he had a forty-eight inch waist! He can't care much about the health of the Empire if he doesn't care enough about his own health, and he's been on a habit of a dozen cigars every day, plus almost two dozen cigarettes! And he's a womanizer! In his younger days, he had a list of mistresses from here to the back porch! He drinks! He gambles! He was caught at an illegal card game and he's even been to court! And don't even get me started on his political views! Once he's made King, he'll pack the house full of Conservatives and the women's movement will be pushed back thirty years, and I wouldn't be surprised if he sent our military back to Africa to try and rekindle the war which can only lead to disaster because the Empire is a bubble that can only grow so big before it collapses under its own weight!" The four girls stared. Relena looked each one of them in the eye and saw that they really had no idea what was going on in the world. "Don't you people read the newspapers?" Her friends took this to be a rhetorical question. The blonde girl cleared her throat. "Well, even if everything you say is true, most of it happened a long time ago, and frankly, I think anything that happened before I was born is no concern of mine." "Yes, and why tell us we should be feeling bad for him if he's as horrible as you say he is, hm?" the auburn-haired girl chimed in. Fighting a blush that she knew she didn't deserve, Relena ducked her head momentarily before lifting her chin proudly and staring icily back at them. "In the end, it doesn't matter whether or not we, the people, approve of our monarchs. They have been chosen for us since 1066 and it's our duty to follow them and endure whatever comes from their choosing. I know I can't change what's about to happen, but as a free citizen, I have a right to reserve my approval until he shows that he's not the reckless gadabout he used to be." The tan-haired girl waggled her eyebrows in a superior way. "Sounds to me like someone's confused." "Yes, Relena dear, I think you've been reading too many of those rotten old newspapers," the brunette added. "You should stick to the society column where you belong." "Like us!" the blonde girl chirped happily. Relena sighed as the four of them went off on an unrelated tangent about the latest fashions from Paris. After seeing the way their faces scrunched up at what she was saying, she wondered if she really was confused, and if she hadn't understood what the papers were saying as well as she thought she did. She looked to her left and saw Heero under another tent, carrying a freshly-refilled pitcher of lemonade to a distant table and topping up the glasses of Mr. and Mrs. Stableforth from three doors down the road. It was only because of him that I started reading the whole newspaper in the first place. He combs through it so carefully...he thinks I haven't seen him do it, but I have. If he'd just talk to me like a friend, I'll bet he could explain everything to me, the workings of the entire world, and then I wouldn't sound so silly trying to explain it to my friends. She looked to her right next, and saw Marcus and his parents, sitting under the third tent and carrying on a jolly conversation with Sir Richard Rotheby from the Binsbraughn estate. Marcus knows a lot about the world too, but it was him that told me it's far too difficult trying to change things, and that I should just 'roll with it'. He could explain a lot, but he'd tell me not to concern myself with it immediately afterwards. I'll admit, it sounds rather nice...I mean, what am I other than an orphan girl with a borrowed title? I couldn't change anything I dislike about the world... The other four girls were clearly ignoring her, not prepared to let her join in the fun until she was ready to talk sensibly. Relena looked them over and realized that they were all horribly shallow, and was further shocked to realize that she used to be one of them. Still, she hated the thought of being without friends. As soon as there was a reasonable gap in their chattering, she took another sip of lemonade and attempted to rebuild the bridge. "You know what the worst part is about this coronation business?" "What?" the girls asked in unison. "I have to wait for days and days before I can show you all the new dress I bought for it." The quartet smiled and welcomed her back into the fold, and they all went off on yet another unrelated tangent, forgetting all about boring things like world leaders and political distress. **********At precisely seven that evening, two potential combatants entered an invisible arena from opposite ends of Trafalgar square. Just as Heero presumed, it was teeming with large numbers of people on a leisurely summer stroll, men in suits discussing politics, nannies with prams walking the perimeter where there were fewer pigeons, and children leaning over the edges of the sprawling fountains and dipping their hands in the water. On all sides were mammoth examples of fine architecture, declaring the expanse to be an unparalleled display of man's acheivement. Four great bronze lions kept watch over the scene from different corners, and as the authoritative statue of Admiral Nelson stood as always atop a tall column, it looked down at the people and reaffirmed that all was well in his domain. Heero blended in surprisingly well, but considering his task for the evening, his attire was daring to say the least. For some strange reason, Lord Jeffrhyss thought stylish, casual clothes were a total waste of time and resources, so when he spotted his agent across a wide expanse of concrete dressed in a tan lounge jacket, cream-coloured cuffed trousers, brown pointed-toe patent leather shoes and no necktie, leaving his white shirt infuriatingly unbuttoned at the neck, the old man shook his head. Heero, for his part, looked his master over furtively from a distance and noted that his attire never changed; he still looked like he was on his way either to or from a funeral. Heero looked by far the luckier of the two for having Duo around to help him pick out new clothes. Lord Jeffrhyss was sitting uncomfortably forward on the flat-topped, semicircular edge jutting out from the side of one of the fountains, facing the National Gallery, with his hand and hook perched on his cane in a classic pose. He peered out at the jubilant passers-by through the same dark round spectacles, out from under the same black homburg, and must have been roasting under the same long black overcoat, but gave no outward indication to that effect. He remained perfectly still as Heero approached from a very wide angle and sat a good four feet away from him on the other side of the rounded fountain's edge, tilted more towards the church of St. Martin's in the Fields, immediately crossing all four limbs and looking away in a well-choreographed snub. "You're looking well," Jeffrhyss said eventually. This meant that the good life didn't appear to have made Heero soft, not that he seemed happy or personally fulfilled. "You're looking unreadable," Heero answered. Jeffrhyss loved to hear things like that, but hated to hear them from Heero, for he had no one but himself to blame for training the boy well enough in psychology to know he loved to hear things like that. Heero silently revelled in the knowledge that he had just cleverly complimented and insulted the master strategist in one blow. Just one of Jeffrhyss' remaining fingers twitched in annoyance. "I don't care much for your choice of venue for this meeting, I must say." Heero turned his head just enough to snatch a look at the man from the corner of his eye, but said nothing. "I suppose you thought you wouldn't see the light of day again if we met without witnesses," His Lordship continued, "and you've probably been wondering why I've waited so long to contact you. As a result, you imagine you've been forgotten, that you can wander about all day and not accomplish anything. You are not the sole focal point of my universe, boy. I've had other matters to attend to lately. Now that these matters are over and done with, I have made the trip here to remind you of your duties." Heero wanted to sigh very deeply, then became amazed at himself for wanting something so futile and self-indulgent, and suppressed it. "I've found every piece of information you asked for. What else can you possibly want?" "I want you to watch for any change in Khushrenada's status!" the old man grumbled. "The coronation is looming over our heads like an enormous thundercloud! The fact that it's been delayed is all that's saved you from a forcible recall! We can't afford to lose sight of him, especially now!" ...what's so important about the coronation? Heero wondered. Never mind, I can't think about that now. I'll just say what I came here to say. "I don't want anything else to do with you or your organization," he said boldly as they both continued to stare straight ahead. "There are plenty of others who could take my place. Choose one of them and let me go." "Ah yes...your note." Jeffrhyss' voice took on a patronizing tone like a teacher scolding a naughty child, and he dipped his hand inside his coat, pulling out the last piece of correspondence they had shared. It still bore the extra words Heero had contributed: 'You don't own me.' He turned and held it up to him. "This message of yours perplexed me greatly. You act as if you're a slave, though you've been handsomely paid for your services." "Don't try to make it sound like I'm a hired hand," Heero protested as gently as he could. "You've always treated me like property, and tried to obscure it with all those stories about how I would have died in the gutter if you hadn't rescued me. None of it meant anything in the end." As soon as the boy had finished speaking, an astounding thing happened. Lord Jeffrhyss put both 'hands' back on his cane, still holding the letter, and nodded thoughtfully. "You're right." Heero snapped his head around to look at the man, eyes wide. Never in living memory had he ever heard the words 'you're right' coming from his master. It defied rational thought. "That was another reason why I opted to join you in this absurdly silly place, not just because you've grown so slack in self-discipline that you speak without asking permission," His Lordship said. "I rather think it's time I owned up to something. Over the years, I've built up a reputation for always telling the truth, a reputation my entire organization has come to depend on. Now seems an appropriate time to admit that I have lied to you." More deeply shocked, Heero just stared. "Just once, mind you. I have solidly maintained that you were an orphan when I found you. Someone left you in the street, destined to suffer a slow death from starvation, disease, or more likely, a combination of both. I snatched you from the blackness and gave your life purpose. That is precisely what I have always told you, is it not?" Heero felt his mouth going dry and his stomach clenching for some unknown reason. "...yes..." In the elongated pause that followed, Jeffrhyss put the letter back inside his coat and took out another piece of paper, this one worn and weathered, with the appearance of having been folded and re-folded several times. "I didn't find you. I obtained you...from your parents." ".....my.......my what?" Heero froze after that, unable to verbalize his emotions. Jeffrhyss shook his head again, disappointed at how easily the boy was allowing his thoughts to surface. "How slothful you've become...but we'll deal with that later. What you will discover now is the terms under which I acquired you. That note you sent me about ownership was quite amusing, because, you see...I do own you." He stretched out his arm and passed the worn paper to Heero, who slowly grabbed it with a numb hand. "They came to me purely by chance, having travelled as far west as they could before they ran out of money, and by then, all they had left was you. Desperate to get back home, they sold you to me for the cost of two oceanic fares back to Japan. It's all there, see for yourself." Suddenly feeling sick, Heero nearly ripped the page at the folded seams trying to get it open in less than two seconds. It was a contract of sale, neatly typed and adequately witnessed, promising ownership of one small boy, aged approximately four years, for a paltry few thousand Belgian francs. Beside Lord Jeffrhyss' scrawly signature were the marks of two others, brushed with smooth black ink in graceful Japanese characters, both beginning with the family name 'Yuy'. "...this is a forgery," Heero said shakily, swallowing often. "You forged Prince Edward's name once before, so you must hav--" "I assure you, it is one hundred percent genuine," Jeffrhyss cut him off. "They authenticated it with their own hands, in front of witnesses. It doesn't matter how many times you tell yourself that you no longer want any part in my plans, because there will always be some place in the world where one human being can own another under the law, and when the rest of society turns their backs on us, we shall go there together. You will always belong to me, Heero." Heero heard, but did not answer. He was still poring over the contract, looking for any small imperfection that might have proved it was a fake, but there were no extra features that couldn't be explained by age. Then he started looking for a legal loophole, but the language was compact, precise, and absolutely perfect. There was no way out but death, and trying to challenge Jeffrhyss' iron will in public courts could easily have the same result. "You may keep that...I have plenty of copies all over my network of training facilities. I may have lied that one time, but everything else I've told you is the truth. Without me, you would have grown up to be a drudge, a mindless lump without direction or a higher purpose. You would have been just as drab and average as everyone else, if you didn't simply die in your infancy...I developed and enhanced your natural talents beyond the capabilities of two foreign peasants, far beyond any school yet built, and I have asked for nothing in return except your obedience, and perhaps your gratitude." Slowly, the old man lifted his cane, stretched it out to the side and hovered the tip an inch above Heero's shoulder. The boy was still sickeningly engrossed in the contract and didn't notice. "I know more about you than anyone else, and I didn't raise you to be selfish, did I?" With that, Jeffrhyss let the cane drop, tapping Heero on the shoulder. Startled, Heero leapt off the bench, swatting at his shoulder like one brushes off an ugly spider. He backed up sharply, still clutching the contract, and wanted to growl something like 'Stay away from me,' but he was paralysed from the neck up. Some random impulse in his brain got a message through the fog of panic and told his legs to move, and he turned and lurched quickly away, almost crashing into a strolling couple in his haste. Jeffrhyss returned to the sitting position he was in before Heero arrived, and watched him. Dizzy from feelings he couldn't understand, Heero speed-walked away from the fountains and towards the street, and was just about to detour around a small clump of people when a vacant-eyed young man about his age in shabby gray clothes stepped out from behind them. It was one of Jeffrhyss' grunts. Heero stopped, made brief eye contact with the automaton, and headed off in another direction, but he didn't get more than ten yards before another grunt stepped out from behind a carriage. Every direction he turned, there was someone waiting for him, trying to herd him back to the fountain, and there was a constant recirculation of pigeons all around him as they fluttered out of the way each time he moved. He was feeling dizzier by the second. Soon, the grunts were closing in on all sides, walking slowly enough not to frighten the flock of birds at their feet. Heero told himself that this was all just a scare tactic, and that he'd be a sorry excuse for an agent if he couldn't think his way out of it calmly, for grunts were far slower, both mentally and physically. He waited until the grand total of eight grunts had formed a circle around him no larger than ten feet across, then quick as a flash, drew his gun and fired a single shot into the air. Everyone in the square gasped and whirled around looking for the source of the noise, and the pigeons didn't like it one bit either. The entire flock flew up from the ground all at once, flapping right into the faces of the dim-witted grunts, and while they waved their arms madly in front of their faces to bat the bags of feathers away, Heero ran straight through them, out of the park and down the street. It happened so quickly that even the few policemen standing about had no idea what happened. At the fountain's edge, Lord Jeffrhyss let one of his fingers twitch in annoyance yet again. **********About an hour after Heero left, Duo took a chair and plunked himself out on the balcony to their bedroom, next to the Arabian Jasmine plant, which had already outgrown two earthenware flower pots. He watched the sun set, watched Relena's guests slowly trickle back to their own homes, and finally watched the band leave, and the rental firms collect their tents, tables, and chairs. He thought to himself that Heero was taking an awfully long time to get back from his 'meeting,' and that he really should have followed him at a distance anyway, just to be sure, but it was too late for that. At some point, he heard the distant echo of the front door opening and closing, and sighed happily, guessing that Heero had made it back safely as he promised he would. Several minutes ticked by, however, and he failed to come upstairs for a rest. Fifteen minutes later, Duo got a little bit worried, for that was more than enough time to touch base with Otto and explain that there was a last-minute errand that had to be completed, and that was why he left the house. He should have been up here by now. Duo tip-toed downstairs, but found the foyer empty. He scoured the kitchen area and asked around to anyone who would pause long enough to hear his question, but that turned up nothing as well. Lastly, he wandered out into the garden and patrolled the entire perimeter of the house, and it was while he was standing on the front walk looking up that he found his answer, and sighed again. Duo hastily went back indoors through the kitchen, picked up an item he'd been saving all afternoon, and plodded upstairs to the attic. Just as he suspected, the faint candle glow he saw from the front of the house was coming from their old room. The housemaids were all still downstairs working, so it was perfectly safe to hide there for a little while. He nudged the door open just a bit and saw Heero, sitting on their old bed with his back propped up against the wall, one arm hanging off his bent knee and the other leg stretched out across the full width of the flimsy mattress. His eyelids were three-quarters down, and he didn't look very alert. "Hey," Duo said quietly. There was no visible or audible reply. "I saved us some strawberries...lucky I did, Relena's giggling girly friends are little piglets." Again he waited in vain for a response, then shut the door quietly and sat down on the bed next to Heero, balancing the ceramic bowl of strawberries on his lap. "C'mon, talk to me...please? I can't fix whatever's wrong if I don't know what it is." Heero drew a long breath and continued to stare at nothing. "Do you ever imagine what your real parents must have been like?" That was a particularly confusing issue for Duo, and he had to think about it first. "Well...since I found out my parents weren't my parents after all...yeah, I guess so." "Do you ever wonder why they would give you up for adoption?" "Geez, I dunno...could be their parents forced them to do it because they just weren't ready to have a kid...could be they both died at the same time...or they just couldn't afford me. There's lots of reasons it could happen. I think I pretty much saw them all at the orphanage." Heero nodded once, still staring. Now Duo was very worried. His friend didn't seem right at all, and it was a little bit scary after watching him come to life over the past several weeks. "Why do you wanna know? Did something go wrong tonight?" Wordlessly, Heero reached into his tan lounge jacket and took out the folded piece of paper he'd been given earlier, passing it over to Duo without making eye contact. Duo looked oddly at it, opened it, looked even more oddly at it, and struggled to string together all the big words he didn't know. Overall, he eventually got the gist of it, and after seeing the squiggly markings at the bottom amongst other official-looking signatures, felt a prickly heat creeping up the back of his neck. "What the hell is this!?" he shouted. "He said he knew my parents, briefly. He said they left their home and travelled west, but he didn't say why." Heero's voice suddenly turned sarcastically sing-song. "They ran out of money to get home, so they sold their first-born into slavery to a madman with a cane." Duo let the hand holding the paper fall down next to him and banged his head back against the wall. "They can't do that. Nobody does that. No matter how bad things get, you don't sell your kid. It just isn't done." "First time for everything." "How do you even know this is real!?" Duo hollered, glaring intensely at him and gesturing sharply with both hands. "Need I remind you about that 'royal pardon' hanging up in the drawing room? The man's a forgery genius! How hard would it have been to fake this!?" Heero's eyes shifted to the left ever so slightly, towards Duo. "It feels real. I don't know why. He showed me that contract to make a point, that he owns me outright, and that he'll never let me go." Saddened by the whole revelation, Duo set aside the contract and the bowl of strawberries, and scooted closer to Heero, wrapping both arms around his waist and nestling against his shoulder. He may not have had first-hand experience at being slave labour, but he knew what it felt like not to be wanted by one's own family. "Hey, I'm making decent money here...if I start saving now, maybe I can buy you off him." Heero's mouth twitched upwards at the idea, and a small piece of a trapped laugh escaped as he exhaled through his nose. "That'd be something, a mouse owning a tiger," Duo added with a smile and a squeeze. Just then, he detected a whiff of alcohol coming from Heero and was convinced that he had no skills for coping with emotional pain because he was never expected to have any. Duo squeezed a little harder and nuzzled his neck in sympathy. Finally waking up from his nightmare, Heero pulled his left arm free and wrapped it around Duo, squeezing back. "I know why he told me about this today and not before. He considers it a symptom of my rebellion that I'm able to be hurt at all, and if he hurts me enough, he thinks I'll run back to him, because he can make sure I never feel anything else ever again. He's trying to break me." "...he won't...will he?" Liking the familiar warmth that had suddenly wrapped itself around him, Heero smiled a bit and reached across Duo's side to grab the bowl of strawberries with his right hand. "That depends on you," he said in a velvety tone, balancing the bowl between them and plucking out a berry for himself. Duo smiled and hummed thoughtfully as they both dove into the bowl. "So, the better I make you feel, the less likely you'll go running back to him to have the bad feelings erased?" "I don't think I could stand to go back in any case. The food in his compounds is terrible," Heero quipped, taking a bite out of a plump, oversized berry and holding the other half in mid-air. "I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, then," Duo laughed, biting down on his umpteenth berry of the day. He immediately made a face and swallowed it as quickly as he could. "Bleh...that one was bitter." Heero saw an opportunity, and the tricky smile appeared. "Have some of mine." Duo looked up at the uneaten half of Heero's strawberry, expecting to have it handed to him, but instead, he felt a sudden pressure on his left shoulder. Heero pulled him up, angled his head down, and planted a surprise kiss on the boy, letting one thick, sweet taste mingle between them for several blissful seconds. When they pulled apart, Duo was again wondering and puzzling to himself over Heero's spectacular skill. One of these days, I'm going to find out how you got so good at that overnight, he thought as he snuggled happily back against Heero's shoulder. Soon after that, voices and footsteps wafted up through the servants' stairwell; the housemaids were on their way up. The boys snuffed out the candle and waited for the girls to settle into their room and shut the door. Ever so quietly, Duo and Heero crept out on tip-toe, sneaking down the stairs to their newer, more comfortable room, and of course, they took the bowl of strawberries with them. |
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| Next, in Episode Fifty-Three: Fuelled by discontent over his position, Wufei picks a fight with Jeffrhyss and learns something he never wanted to know. Heero takes Duo along on a pilgrimage to find memories of his youth and runs into a familiar face with information to share. |
*kissy face* I've done that strawberry kiss before, and it really works. *yum* Mark down July 12th for the next eppy, and I'm going to make a real effort to publish earlier in the day during the summer months, since I figure a lot of my readers are out of school now. =^_~=