Santa Clarita: Going Home 3/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing.

Heero shifted up a little onto his elbow so he could see Duo more clearly. Laying there next to him, dark chocolate honey hair like paint strokes around a perfect angelic face, see him him was exactly like seeing him in his memory, but different, new, breathing. Reverently, Heero touched the edge of Duo's eyelashes, then long sun lightened strands of hair. So much silkier than his own and in that moment, the difference in their hair, one silk, one baby bamboo, made it seem like their was an ocean between them to Heero.

Duo's eyes opened, shifting to give Heero the eye.

Unlike his usual experience, this time Duo glaring at him only filled Heero with joy. Lovingly he caressed Duo's cheek, so smooth, and then things began to fall into place. "Let's just stay like this for another moment, please?"

"M'kay," Duo said, snuggling back against him, an arm going around Heero's arm, pulling it to his chest. "Then you gonna tell me what's wrong?"

Heero grunted against Duo's shoulder. It was only a few inches of growth, but he was taller than Duo now, even though he knew that when they were both adults, Duo would be taller than he was. Being there in Brazil again, before his world had come to an end, that was everything he could want in that moment. There is a scent to things when the sun warms them, some kind of oxidation that is hard to describe. The stick of petroleum based fuels being burned weighed down the air, but coconut, spiced food, human habitation, all of it lifted the air in the Brazilian no man's land they'd found their nest in. "I will always tell you what I know. You trust me, right?"

Duo wiggled rolling over to look at Heero.

Heero could see it in his face, that Duo had already realized the size difference, that it was different then when they'd gone to bed six hours before. Duo's fingers went to the new scar on Heero's face, left cheek, below his eye. He'd forgotten all about it, but when Duo's fingers touched it, he remembered the day he'd gotten it, the bullet that grazed him and knocked him from the wall. They were only hours from when he'd gotten it, but it was nearly half a decade healed for him now. Duo licked his pink lips, those violet eyes fully awake and focused now. "Talk."

"One more moment, just being here with you, please?" Heero tried to smile, arms not holding Duo too tight, easy so as not to spook him.

The thought process was so transparent to Heero and that Duo even considered giving him what he asked for was a great gift.

"Ima feelin a bit jumpy now, so tell me what's goin' on. Why're you older now? That's what it is, isn't it? You're older. Time travel. Something went wrong... like today, and you came back to prevent it. Do you die?"

"No," Heero said, not wanting to pull him closer or pull away, for fear that this distance trying to be born between them would come to fruition.

"Do I did?"

"No."

"But it's time travel?"

"In a way."

"GOD DAMN IT! Talk!"

The back of Heero's head tightened, pressure rising, and he thought he understood what a neutron star felt like, crushing and spinning to fast. "I'm going to tell you everything, but I'm a little afraid. I don't want to lose you. Please, Duo, don't leave me. I love you more than I can express."

"Holy shit," Duo said, taking a deep breath and forcing himself to relax. "I think that's the first time you've said you love me, like in words."

"I'm very sorry I didn't do it sooner, Duo."

Duo ran his hand over Heero's much shorter hair. "You're really different. What happened to the Heero who went to bed with me?"

"I am him," Heero said, feeling badly because he knew what it felt like to find one's lover wasn't the lover one remembered. "In three hours, thirty-three minutes, world peacekeepers, well armed and intent on their mission, are going to break into our flat. We run. Part of their strategy is to separate us. It works. That's where I got the scar you just touched. We are both arrested. The world court tries, you, me, Quatre, and Wufei for crimes against humanity. We are found guilty and sentenced to high school and rehabilitation. Wuf..."

"Wait!" Duo holds out his hand, his eyebrows arched in indignation. "I don't get sent to fucking prison? They send me to school with a bunch o'fucking kids? Are they stupid?"

"It was a political move, designed to placate all sides. Wufei is sent back to the Imperial Chinese. Quatre goes home to his people. I am sent to a nice family in Boston, but you were abducted."

"I don't remember any of this," Duo said gently.

"You haven't lived it. I will explain."

"'Kay. Who abducted me?"

"I never found out their identity, but I did find you. It took me four years."

"That's why you're older?"

"Yes. I devoted all my energy to finding you. I am so sorry it took me so long."

Duo's hands cupped Heero's face, worry putting his brows together. "Are you sure I'm not dead?"

"When we extracted you, you looked exactly the same as today. You had been in a cryogenic tube, your mind connected to a gigantic virtual reality."

"That sounds... unusual," Duo said and it was clear from his inflection that the word he really meant was unlikely.

"When you work up, by your time it had been six hundred years. You had technological capabilities that dwarfed what the world knew. I..." Heero closed his eyes, lifting his head into Duo's gentle comforting touch. "I felt small next to the you that you became."

"Did you kill me?"

"Never," Heero said, eyes snapping open. "He did not fit in well into the world. The world was growing to fear him. I followed him into his world and asked for you back."

Duo sat up, suddenly shuddered not unlike a dog shaking water off as he made this grotesque face. "That's some shit, 'Ro. I need a fuckin' beer."

"You shouldn't. You're only 13."

Duo bounced out of the bed, wearing nothing but a growing scheme in violet eyes and a pirate's smirk. He pointed an imperious finger at Heero. "I'm one of the best pilots of the world, and probably guilty of some bullshit crimes against humanity, Ima drink as much beer as ah fuckin' want." Duo spun on his heel, striding to their small refrigerator, which he had cobbled together from parts, including a weaponized ice maker, which he had been quite amused with at the time, "I'm fuckin' fifteen." He pulled out a beer, popped the top with the gundanium part he'd bolted to the side of the fridge and put down half the bottle. "They really coming through our door in like two hours fifteen?"

"Everything seems exactly as it was. From what I understand of the virtual reality system, it runs as close to the real world as possible. There is a more pressing concern though."

"More pressing than getting arrested and tried for crimes against humanity?"

"Yes. So the world system that developed around your mind has awoken and is rapidly building a spaceship that can traverse solar systems. They intend to leave Earth and never come back. We have three days to decide if we want to go with them, or if want to go back to Earth."

Duo stood there, naked, which didn't seem to bother him in the least, tongue worrying at the corner of his mouth, finger moving around the rim of the beer bottle. "So we're not on Earth now and we're in a really complex and beautiful virtual reality?"

"Yes, I guess," Heero said, finding it a little hard to believe because he could feel the bed he sat on, had the memory of Duo's heart beating against his arm, the scent of sunshine baking everything outside their little flat. It was just too real. Time travel seemed more likely, even though he knew that wasn't logical.

Duo tilted his head, took another sip of the beer.

Heero sat there on the bed, his stomach tightening up into the neutron star that had been his head. It was possible not to see things that were right in front of you, if you weren't looking. He reviewed what he knew with reasonable accuracy about Duo, that there had been early nutritional deficiencies, early neglect that would lead to attachment disorders, and yet Duo was not what a person would project from that kind of deprivation. He was clever, exceptional with trajectories and vectors, good with people, at least on a manipulation level, and awkward and tender in private. This added up to a brain that Heero had never considered before and watching Duo work out the details of their world, just standing there sipping beer and thinking it through, Heero began to truly fear what such a mind would concoct in 600 years of unfettered creativity.

Then Heero realized those violet eyes were watching him intensely, little finger tapping on the cool brown of the beer bottle. "You're afraid of me. Why?"

"I," Heero started, wanting to deny it, but he'd always promised there would be no lies. "Because you're able to do things I can't understand."

"That's always been true. I tried to use a balloon for a condom."

Heero's eyes shifted to the side and keeping his face neutral took all the effort he had.

"Yeah, yeah, we both know that came out like shit," Duo said, moving to the bed, and running a hand over Heero's head. "I love you. I'm super sorry I'm just a copy of the Duo you loved, but I'm a real good copy. If it helps at all, we're all just a copy of the person we were just a moment before whatever present."

Heero sighed, looking up at Duo, again who looked like the small Duo he'd remembered from that morning, but was already not that Duo. "Well, it was worth a try. Will you cease to exist? Like just go back into being part of the older Duo?"

"What the shit are you talking about," Duo asked. "I'm unique. I'm me. Are you saying you don't want me? It was your own mental contamination that you brought into this world that make me look for things, but seriously, 'Ro, I don't want to be that boy who was in so much pain. Please don't ask it of me, just accept me as I am?" Duo asked letting his body slowly age as he straddled Heero's lap. He pressed the chill bottle to Heero's face, to chase away the unrelenting Rio heat. "Ain't it the nature of life that shit changes and unexpected shit happens? You don't value yourself enough, Heero. If you're 19, I'll be 19. We'll grow up together. We'll explore the universe together and if you wanna go back to Earth, I'll go with you. I love you."

He felt so inferior, so lost to have such a beautiful and fae creature sitting on his lap, smiling adoringly at him. Duo had to be smiling at someone else because it couldn't be him. His value was that he was stronger, more durable. He knew that he was neither of those things in comparison to this Duo, or the other 600 year old Duo. Maybe that's how the world always went. Duo was always something more and that's why he'd been drawn to him.

"Do you want to see you through my eyes?" Duo asked, kissing Heero's lips softly. "Let me know you how I see you."

"No," came across his lips, but he knew he didn't mean it. The shift in perspective felt smooth, as if it had always been his perspective, but the light of it shown into the cracks left by the military training, the destruction of his childhood, being taught without question his only value was in winning the battle, but from Duo's point-of-view he was the sun. He was strong and kind and making him happy was the greatest joy in the world. His blue eyes were so beautiful and the sound of his voice brought joy that Heero didn't know how to measure. Everything Duo felt was so much more vivid and vibrant than his own feelings, but Duo adored him.

The experience took almost no time, but once he was back in his own consciousness, he was physically shaking, the rules and order of his life broke down, everything that had held him together while he searched for Duo, all the negotiations with Relena for resources, even farther back all the war and trying to negotiate with the families of innocents that he'd killed, everything had been a negotiation, all ordered and sorted, but in that moment there was only his own vibrant spark of life. Duo's arms went around him, holding him, rocking him, a hand soothing over his hair. "Heero, please, be okay with me, please, please stay with me. We'll figure everything out!"

Still shaking, Heero locked his arms around Duo, holding him close. "Yes."

Kissing Heero's shoulder, then tugging his hair with his lips, Duo's violet eyes sparkled with mischief. "You found me, Heero. I wouldn't have woken up with you. Something about me woke you up. We're a matched set."

Heero twisted a bit, so he could see Duo's face. With one still trembling hand he pushed dark bangs back. "Yes."