Title: The Ribbon and the Ring 19?
Author: Seraphim Grace
Archive: if you want it ask, I just like to know where they are. Always appreciated and replied to.
Rating: 18 (This is an open rating so I don't have to worry).
Pairings: 1x2
Warnings: Angst. Some gore. Some incredibly bad French.

Notes: AU, and features necromancy. The boys arrive in Halcyon to meet some old friends and some new.

Duo awoke to Trowa sitting on the end of the bed; his weight displaced him from Heero's arms. "Not you, sleepyhead." He said with a wicked grin, "Heero has weapons training."

Heero grunted out what might have been a curse before burrowing down further into the blankets.

This amused Trowa even more. "Heero, you have to get up, because the Cadacus is asking for you and frankly, he scares me."

Heero's death glare could have stripped paint.

"I'm not telling him that you can't come because you're holed up with your," he paused to smirk, "husband in a little do it yourself love nest," it really did look like he might, at any moment, burst into fits of laughter, "because between you and me, his sword is bigger than me, and Wufei's already found himself on the business end of Mr Pointy."

"Ran," Duo corrected sleepily, "it's called Ran, not Mr Pointy."

Heero sat bolt upright, "I'll kill him," he snarled, "I'll fucking kill him." He was wearing cotton pants and just pulled his leather trousers on as he ran out of the room.

"Did I say something?" Trowa asked watching him go.

"Hard to tell." Duo said then snuggled back into the blankets and the warm space Heero's abrupt departure had left. "Do you want something else?" He asked looking at Trowa.

"Shift over," Trowa said and then kicking off his boots climbed into the bed with him, "it's bloody cold and you look warm."

"Aren't you a little worried? I mean I don't mind but Heero might get the wrong idea." Duo said as Trowa lay beside him.

"I'm hiding," Trowa protested, "Aia has this idea that I'm her one true love and I'm counting on you to protect me, and if Heero comes back just say I suggested a threesome." He was smirking, "besides we never get to talk, just you and me."

"Are you suggesting that you got into my bed to have a heart to heart?" Duo asked, up close Trowa could see a sorrow in his eyes that he had never noticed before.

"Well it's hard to catch you without your shadow." Trowa said, he was lying on his side and his hair was away from his face. "And you never told us about you and Heero, and well, you're my friend, and I may not be able to kick his ass if he hurts you, but you can say on my gravestone that I tried."

Duo barked out a laugh, "it's complicated, Tro," then he sighed. "I'm in over my head and I think I want to be."

"Well," Trowa said, "perhaps if you start at the beginning, I mean I know you've always looked at Heero differently to say Wufei or me, but surely this started somewhere."

"He's my senshisha." Duo said sadly, "that means he has to love me, and I don't want him to."

"You don't want him to love you?" Trowa qualified.

"No," Duo protested, "I don't want him to have to, I want him to want to." He looked a little wild about the eyes, "and what if I only feel for him what I do because I am the Tennosha and I don't have a choice in the matter either, I mean, what if we're destined to be in love and…" He looked at Trowa, "don't look at me like that, you look like you're about to burst out into that quiet little Tro laugh."

"Duo," Trowa said in his most sober tone of voice, which was belied by the fact that he was about to burst into laughter, "I can't even see Fate making the two of you do what you don't want to, you can lead Duo to Heero but you can't make them fornicate."

Duo blushed bright red, "Trowa!" He protested.

"You mean you haven't?" Trowa asked with a laugh.

"I don't' see you getting all groiny with Aia." Duo pointed out,

Trowa stopped laughing. "That fellow with the scar pointed out that she's a Shiko-me, that's a girl who turns into a big nasty insect with poisonous claws, and teeth."

"She's got teeth now." Duo said, it was his turn to be amused.

"Not there she hasn't." Trowa pointed out, "and I refuse to get all groiny with someone when someone's groin could bite mine off, I'm rather attached to my groin I hasten to point out."

"She's got teeth there?" Duo asked, a little scandalised. "Well that'll teach you to save demons in the woods." Then he sniggered to himself, "teeth, there?"

"Apparently." Trowa said, "but anyway, we weren't talking about me getting all groiny with Aia, we were talking about you getting all groiny with Heero."

"I haven't." Duo protested, "we've kissed a bit."

"And?" Trowa pressed.

"Well there was a bit of drunken dry humping." Duo admitted.

"And?" Trowa continued.

"That's it, okay," Duo snapped, pulling the blanket up around his face.

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about," Trowa said, "and it sounds like you have doubts about how he feels about you."

Duo sat up, "I don't doubt that he loves me, it's that he has to I hate, just because he is my guardian he has to love me, I want him to love me because he loves me not because the Kindly Ones have said that he has to because it makes protecting me better, and fuck that whilst we're at it, I can look after myself just fine." He fell back heavily unto the bed.

"Duo," Trowa said softly, rolling unto his back and looking up at the canopy, "your bed's nicer than mine." He pointed out suddenly.

"We had this room before, I'm not sure it's not the same bed." Duo pointed out, "it looks the same."

"Six hundred years is a long time not to change the bedding." Trowa pointed out, "but all I can smell on the sheets is," he look a deep breath, "well Heero and," he took another breath, "hmmm," he did it again, "myrrh, must be the bath oil."

"And how do you know what Heero smells like?" Duo said acting mock offended.

"He smells like rain on the fourth of July." Trowa pointed out,

"Like wet grass and cordite." Duo agreed. "Like Quatre kinda smells of cinnamon and peppery and sunshine, and Wu would deny it but he smells of the almond oil he puts on his hair, and night jasmine."

"And you and I," Trowa said with a sigh, "smell of teenage boy in heat."

"That's not true," Duo said, "Most of the time you smell of candy floss, sawdust and hot dog onions."

"That's because everything smells of hot dog onions, it's how you know the circus is in town, and you can't smell the animals, just the onions." Trowa admitted, "I'm not surprised, it just gets in your hair, and no amount of shampoo gets it out."

"I know, once a smell gets in your hair," Duo left it open.

"Oh remember that mission where the two of us had to get part time jobs in that restaurant." Trowa said.

"I thought I'd never get the smell of burger grease out of my hair." Duo lamented alongside him, "and the acne, it looked like I had plague."

Trowa laughed, "do you know Heero still looked at you like you were the most precious thing in the universe." He sounded kind of wistful, "I don't think he noticed, but he did buy you the anti spot gel."

"It wasn't as good as the stuff Dr G, but the thought was sweet."

"And he did that before all this Tennosha Senshisha business." Trowa pointed out solemnly looking up at the pleated canopy of the bed. "What is that anyway?"

"The dead talk to me." Duo said a little sadly.

"Of course, you're the god of death." Trowa told him firmly. "If they were going to talk to anyone they'd talk to you."

"I can see your mother," Duo said, "She's tall and kinda horsy, yanno." Trowa nodded as if he did, "and Quat's mom, and just stray people wandering around, especially here, and then there's Leney and she's great and she tries to make it all make sense but she was murdered and then there's Achren and I don't know what she wants, and sometimes it gets so much and that's what Tennosha means, it means Lord of the Dead."

"And Senshisha?" Trowa asked.

"He is my guardian, my rock in the storm, Mina said, she said that he would shelter me, that I couldn't' see his dead and then Achren said that he only loved me because he had to, that it was his destiny." He sounded a little put out, "and her and the Cadacus, they were like star crossed, and they loved each other so much despite that they hated each other, and I have to wonder if they hated each other because they had to love each other and then I find out that Mamoru's not dead, but actually he is, he's just some kinda zombie thing and he has no heart beat and Deakon says his guts keep falling out where he disembowelled himself because he failed her because she was killed, and I came here to kill Danan to find out he's six hundred years dead, and everyone's panicking because there's war coming and we're right in the thick of it and I don't know what the hell is going on."

Trowa rolled over and put his arm around Duo. He didn't say anything, He didn't need to, he laid a feathery and rather fraternal kiss on his forehead. It calmed him somewhat.

"And the only thing that made any sense was that Heero was here."

"Then does it matter that it's his destiny?" He asked.

"Yes, Tro," Duo answered, "I want him to want me because he wants me."

"I'm sure he does." Trowa told him, "he's too stubborn to do something just because he has to."