Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or any of the characters therein, but Heero's psychotic alter ego is unfortunately mine.

Warnings: shonen-ai, violence, angst, FLUFF (well they were asking for it!),

Chapter 12

Of dreams and kisses

It was all dark, like a black hole in my mind. I felt like I was walking, even though I knew I was asleep. It was as if I was in someone else's body, my mind swishing back and forth between wakefulness and unconsciousness. I tried to grasp onto reality, holding on to the hope that I wouldn't have to dream again, but the pull was inevitable. It was as if my mind was rebelling against me, making me watch it over and over again. I felt like crying out but I couldn't move, paralyzed yet still walking those filthy rain slick streets under the dirty orange glow of the streetlights.

"Hey there cutie," the sickly sweet voice husked at me from some dark corner making my stomach lurch, "lookin' for a good time?"

Then I was turning towards the source of that voice, turning to see that girl emerging form the darkness like some sort of distorted angel. Her long blonde hair was sleek yet a little dirty, her black leather miny skirt tight around her skinny thighs with her malnourished legs sticking out from beneath. Her revealing belly top revealed just as skinny a torso, her arms covered by a baggy leather jacket that did little against the cold. Yet, despite her stick like figure, her face was like a light in the darkness. Her long hair framed her love heart shaped face and the large blinking baby blue eyes that stared out from her pale flesh. Her nose was petite and slightly out of proportion to the rest of her face giving her and innocent childlike look that made my eyes water.

"Hey, mister?" she looked concerned at my silence, and as I continued to stare her concern seemed to shift to anxiety, "are you okay?"

"Me?" I spoke, yet it wasn't my own voice that emanated from within that dark figure that I had become, I didn't recognise it anymore.

"Yeah, I was talkin' to you," she said with a slight pout, arms crossing over her chest, "don't see anyone else around here."

"No," came that dark voice once more, thick and laced with malice, "that's the idea."

To that she just smirked, her angelic features shifting to that of one hardened by the streets with no more need for the innocence of youth. She started to walk slowly towards me, her hips swaying seductively as she slipped her jacket down over her shoulders. Her eyes held a gruesome glint in the darkness, that glint reflecting the one I knew was in my own eyes. The darkness was becoming thicker and pitcher as she approached, almost blacking out everything as her eyes began to fill my vision. She leaned in towards me, her body pressed up against mine hip to hip so she could whisper in my ear.

"So," she said seductively, "what do you want hmm?"

"Oh, you don't want to know," the voice replied softly into her hair as I slipped my arms around her gaunt frame.

Then it was all so quick, so slick and professional that I couldn't stop it, not that I ever could, not that I had been able to. The grip became death like, holding the astonished girl like a vice as she was dragged kicking and screaming into the maw of the waiting alley.

-Oh god, no, - I shouted, not this please. Please! Stop, STOP! STOPSTOPSTOP… -

"…STOP! Stop it!" I jumped awake as I felt my throat constrict under weak pale fingers, almost suffocated with the fear.

Then everything was still and calm once more, everything was still dark but not oppressive anymore. It was just dark. Just dark…until the door opened violently spilling in that intrusive light and even more intrusive eyes.

"Heero..?" came Duo's groggy half alert voice from the doorway as he stood there, gun in hand looking wildly about the place.

I almost laughed at the scene, I would have if I wasn't so…upset. Instead I just calmed my erratic breathing, wiped the sweat from my brow and turned my face from the dark into that light to face him. It stung my eyes for a moment but they soon adjusted revealing the silhouette of my flatmate. His hair was fuzzed from sleep and the light reflected off of it making hundreds of little halo's around his head. I just stared at him for a moment before realising he had spoken. There was another silence.

"Are you alright?" he asked concernedly, taking a step into the darkness.

"Yes," I replied flatly before he could take another step.

"I…heard shouting," he said warily, "what's wrong?"

"Nothing," I said just as monotonously, "just a nightmare."

I heard the sound of Duo let out a breath, un-cocking his gun and slipping it onto the cabinet top at his right. He stood there for a moment longer, just looking at me as I shivered imperceptibly against the pillow. Suddenly I was very aware of his eyes on me as I lay there stock still trying to get back to sleep. It would be impossible of course; I knew that after having so many nightmares in my life that I'm surprised that I ever got to sleep at all. Yet it was easier back then to just ignore them, so much easier to just lock everything away and pretend I didn't care.

I heard him sigh before stepping lightly across the floor, the boards creaking unevenly beneath his feet as he navigated around the table to slump down beside the couch.

"What about?" he asked casually.

"None of your business," I informed him calmly as I closed my eyes.

"Hey, no way, don't think you're waking me up at this hour in the morning and getting away with it that easily," Duo raised an eyebrow in warning as I slit open an eye to regard him.

There was another silence then, broken only by the slight rustling of covers as Duo pulled my duvet around his shoulders. He looked up at me expectantly as I sat sullenly in my darkness and, surprisingly enough, I spoke…even though it was a lie.

"It was…did I ever tell you," I started, "about the time I came across a little girl after an Alliance attack back on the colony where I grew up?"

Duo regarded me cautiously, almost as if he could tell I was evading him somehow yet he couldn't quite figure it out. He let it slide however in favour of answering me.

"No," he said shaking his head, "you didn't."

"I had been sent out to train, told to kill any Alliance personnel I came into contact with. I found her in amongst the rubble all alone, crying, holding a puppy to her chest. They were both so helpless, I found I couldn't kill her. She was so young, so scared, like I had been once. She posed no threat, so I decided to help her."

I paused for a moment just to remember the scene in my mind, the charred and smoking remains of a house with the girl and puppy nestled inside. I had never told anyone about this before, and even though my newest personal nightmare was much worse than this I still wondered what Duo would think of me. I know that I had never forgiven myself.

"I took her hand, she held the puppy. We were half way from the scene of the attack before he turned up."

"Who?" Duo asked with a slight frown.

"Dr. J," I said flatly, noting Duo's snort of disgust at the mention of his name, "he just stood there looking at me with those silver shielded eyes. I remember the little girl began to cry again as he looked at her. He just stared at me, at her hand in my own until I let go instinctively. He just stood there, all the time he just stood there staring at me, until he spoke curtly to me. "Kill her" he said as if it was as easy as that."

Duo looked up at me in shock, not that I thought he would be shocked that a man like J would command such a thing. His eyes glinted in the darkness, wide and full of pity.

"He threw me a gun. The girl screamed, I remember that, she tried to back away, her eyes riveted to me. In that moment…it was me or her, I knew J would kill me if I disobeyed. He had ordered me to do it, to kill her for no reason other than she inadvertently went against his principals. To this day I don't actually remember pulling the trigger…but I remember that he forced me to look in her face, streaming with blood. Her eyes were still open. I'd shot her right between the eyes."

"Heero…" Duo said softly, placing his hand over my own, his face pained.

"I…I don't know what to think of it, I never have," I said slowly, staring up at the ceiling away from Duo's concerned gaze, "he ordered me to do it, but I…I pulled the trigger, I killed her, I…I've killed…so many people."

"No, don't say it like that!" Duo admonished me, squeezing my hand comfortingly, "Heero, it was war, people die. It wasn't like you went around doing it for fun. We were all forced into taking lives, but look what it has brought us. We have had peace for two years now."

"You have," I corrected him.

"Hey," he said sitting up and taking my face in his hands to make me look at him, the gesture surprising me, "you can't take this all on your own shoulders y'know. Why do you always have to do that? It wasn't just you who killed, it wasn't only you who was forced to slaughter innocents. God Heero think of Quatre when the Zero system drove him mad, he killed hundreds of colonists, gees he almost killed you!"

"That's not the same," I growled, feeling defensive and edgy at the thought that Duo could compare Quatre of all people to as big a monster as myself, "his mind was being controlled, he was driven mad. I had full control of my actions when I pulled that trigger and killed that girl; I made a conscious decision to murder her."

"No, Heero don't you get it, you know that you were a different person back then! You were ruled by the Doctors, we all were but you most of all. It was almost as bad as having your mind controlled."

"No, it's not the same dammit! Why do you have to try and justify my atrocities all the time!?" I roughly pushed his kind hands from my face and sat up, "Why can't you just face it Duo, I'm a murderer and I…I don't deserve…"

"Deserve what?" Duo asked, his face hurt and worried as he sat back a little.

"To live," I said simply.

His eyes widened at that statement. He shook his head imperceptibly and his expression shifted to one of horror. His movements were too quick to follow as he leaned forwards and wrapped his arms around me tightly. I gasped at the gesture, trying to squirm from his hold but his grip was infallible. I felt my heart quicken as his bare arms slid against my shoulders, his hair tickling my neck as he brought me in close to him.

"Dammit Yuy," he said with a slightly choked laugh, "why do you have to keep doing this to me huh?"

"Wh-what do you mean?" I asked slowly, my arms hanging uselessly at my sides.

"One minute I feel like I could kill you you're so frustrating, and then the next minute I feel like I…" he stopped slowly, sighing into my hair.

"Like what?" I asked in no more than a whisper, almost as if I were afraid of what he would say.

"Just, just don't ever say anything like that again okay?" he replied evasively holding me tighter.

Then there was that damned silence again. I just sat there in Duo's arms, confused and upset and…I don't know what else. I just felt like wrapping my arms around him too, but I couldn't bring myself to give into the luxury of such comfort. I just let my head fall forwards instead to rest against Duo's warm shoulder with his hair tickling my nose. I sighed softly and murmured something about "promising not to" before I felt my arms lifting and moving almost against my will. I was just so tired, so cold and alone; I needed Duo's warmth, he was so…alive…I felt so dead inside. I felt my arms warming against his back as they wrapped around him, the slight shiver down his spine as my hands splayed out against his shirt.

"So…you don't hate me?" I asked pathetically.

"No, Heero I don't hate you," Duo shook his head and gave me a comforting squeeze for reassurance.

"But, I…" I started to protest.

"Look Yuy, I don't hate you okay? Isn't that enough?" he asked me seriously.

I didn't answer him. Instead I just evaded the single question that I was to afraid to even think about never mind answer. I changed the subject before he had a chance to ask me again.

"What were you going to say?" I muttered against his skin to break the silence.

"Huh?" he asked sleepily.

"You said that sometimes you feel like killing me and other times you feel like…" I prompted him by leaving the sentence open for him to finish.

"Oh right," he chuckled softly, "well, it doesn't matter."

"Hmm, so I can't get out of things just by dismissing you, but you can?" I asked with a raise of an eyebrow.

"Yes," he said nodding as he suddenly pulled back out of the comfortable embrace.

"No way," I mimicked his tone and wagged a finger, "tell me."

"Get lost," he said shoving me playfully.

"You get lost," I shoved him back with a smirk.

"Fine then," he sniffed, feigning insult as he stood to leave, "be like that!"

"Duo," I said suddenly, stopping him in his retreat, "thank you…for listening."

"Hey, no sweat," he winked at me, picking up his gun from the cabinet, "I'm always here for ya buddy."

"Well, the last time we spoke," I reminded him, "you did say I could go and talk to a wall for all you cared."

"Heh, well that was one of your more "I could kill you right now" moments," he laughed softly.

"And what about now?" I asked him seriously.

"Now?" he said walking back over to me with a smile, leaning down to look right into my eyes, "is more of an "I could kiss you right now" moment."

So he did, right on the cheek. I was a little shocked by the admission and the action, but didn't let it show on my face. Instead I just nodded to Duo as he said goodnight, closing the door behind him as he left leaving me in darkness once more; and for some inexplicable reason, I no longer felt cold. It was as if there was a fire burning along my skin, making me shiver with pleasure and comfort. I almost completely forgot about the reason Duo had come running through in the first place, almost but not quite completely.

I let the warmth flowing around my body lull me to sleep, too aware that I had to get up in another five hours to go on a mission with Miss-I'm-too-happy-for-my-own-good. So I just sighed happily and let the darkness cloud my mind, hoping that sweeter dreams would come when I slept.

AN: Aww, couldn't resist a bit of fluff! Heero's shaping up to have one hell of a secret locked away in that messed up mind of his! Ha harrr! As ever please R&R and tell me what you think.