Title: The Ribbon and the Ring 27?

Author: Seraphim Grace
Archive: if you want it ask, I just like to know where they are. http/seraphim-grace. http/ 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.

Duo never did find out if Danev's black eye and his release from bed coincided. He just knew that Trowa seemed smug about it, and that Heero hovered about him like a moth to a lit bulb. However Heero often ran at the mention at Emithi who seemed unable to decide whether or not he was a beloved son or a potential lover. Sometimes Duo was jealous and sometimes he would just give out peals of silvery laughter at how frightened of a small woman he was.

Duo was no longer completely confined to bed although through lack of blood he was forced back again and again. It was turning cold and Fenrir had found himself a thick rug in front of the fireplace in Duo's room. Often, when Heero had found himself some hiding place from the Bishop Duo would climb out his bed, his bones moving like those of an old person, he would curl up on the rug beside Fenrir, and bury his hand in the thick, coarse fur, rubbing his nose along it, and then resting his face in the hard juncture between shoulder and elbow. Fenrir smelt of safety and pack and the forest. He would sleep there, twisted up against the wilding like a puppy, and when Heero returned to him, rather than carry him back to his bed; he would pull the blanket from the bed and curl up beside him. Fenrir would then growl at anyone who came near the two boys.

When Emithi found them, she slipped out quietly and called her artist in residence and had them sketched in almost silence. She later had the image painted and carved in marble, two boys twined in amongst their own limbs as a large wolf watched over them, occasionally noticing the artist as he sketched them. She presented it to them later, when it was finished, because she knew that they would give it the honour that such beauty deserved.

Duo awoke to a soft voice and the sensation of someone stroking his hair. He felt at peace because his soldier's instincts told him that he was safe, "in her sepulchre by the sea." The line sounded comfortable as if he remembered it but he knew he had not heard it before.

His head was pillowed on Deakon's thigh. "Don't send me away," he said and when he spoke it was thick with an accent that was not Deakon's own, it was slower, deeper, more nasal. "I petitioned hard to see you."

Duo knew that Deakon had given his body over to the dead that now inhabited him. That just as Verdande had seized control of his body then he could give it over to the dead if he wanted to.

"Who are you?" Duo said but the way he stroked the tip of his finger down the bridge of his nose was soothing and painfully familiar though he couldn't remember why.

"I thought you'd recognise me." Deakon said softly in that strangely familiar voice, "but it's been a long time."

Duo looked up at Deakon's eyes, they were like gold chips in his head which was something that he had never noticed before, but there was an intensity to him that he had never seen before. It looked like his own. "I wanted to tell you of a gift that I gave you. It is no use to you, not here, but when you return, when I can no longer speak to you. I gave you a gift, an honour. When the war is over, when you are safe, when the time comes to register you as a citizen," he stroked his face, "ask about Dixie's law."

"Mama," Duo said softly, surprised at who Deakon had allowed through his tightly prized control.

"They said that you were dead." Deakon told him, still running the very tip of his finger along the line of Duo's nose as Dixie obviously had when he was a baby. It was the sort of gesture that a mother gave a baby in her arms to soothe them. "They told me to give up, even your father." His voice was soft and thick with a strong American accent, "my little man, my little angel-child." Duo was silent and just listened. "So I took your papa's money and I petitioned and I fought, I gave you something, your blood will lead you home, my little man, your blood will lead you home."

"I don't understand."

"It tires him, to give me so much." Dixie said through Deakon's voice. "It is a great gift, to give me even this small amount of time with you. It costs nothing to pass on a message, which is all I asked, but this, this is too much for him. Even the powers of death can take their toll upon a human child. Remember, love, that your blood will bring you to your papa. The blood will out."

"I don't understand, Mama." Duo protested, half sure it was a dream, as Deakon wavered against the headboard, the last of his strength failing. "I don't understand."

"Le dieu de la mort est le sang de mon sang." He said in his heavily accented voice, "and the blood will bring you home." With a feathery kiss on his forehead Deakon collapsed over Duo.

Heero stepped into view. "He said he had a message for you." He said as he moved Deakon off to the side and helped Duo out of the bed. "He asked so sweetly, that I let him, had I realised that he would hurt you so."

"He didn't hurt me." Duo said, "He confused me. She wanted to tell me something, but I didn't know what it was she wanted to tell me. She said that my blood would bring me home. She said to mention Dixie's law."

"I don't know what that is." Heero said softly. "You still look tired."

"A little sleep hung-over," Duo conceded, "and a lot confused." He shrugged. "I want so many things, I don't even know what I want."

"I want to kiss you." Heero said a propos of nothing. "You look," he held out his hand, "wild, and free, I want to touch you to remind myself that you are still there, and not some fey creature to escape if I come too near."

Duo smiled. "I'd take you to bed if someone else wasn't hogging it." There was a laugh in his voice.

"He gave you a great gift." Heero said taking Duo's hand within his own, "to let your mother speak to you."

"Jealous?" Duo asked.

"Yes," Heero answered, "a little. Mina told me some things of my mother, but,"

Duo reached forward and kissed him, "all it does is whet the appetite for more. Did you ask Deakon of her?"

"There were so many things I wanted to ask Deakon," Heero said, "so many things that only he could make sense of, that I thought that it best not to ask him anything. He is," he looked at the boy unconscious on the bed, on his side with his feet sticking out the side of the bed, "did they tell you what he did at Muchine?"

Duo squeezed Heero's hand before he realised it and covered Deakon in the blanket. A quick glance at Fenrir and the wolf wearily stood up; stretched with a squeaking yawn and climbed up into the bed beside the boy. "Take me outside, Heero, I tire of this room, and you can tell me of Muchine and why of all the people in this world, it's a boy that can barely defend himself that frightens you so?"

Amitre was a holy city, a cosmopolitan city. It was a city where people travelled to in pilgrimage and never left. The Catedrale was a vast and imposing building but it sheltered Emithi's palace from the view of the arches. In its shadow was a cloister where a small pathway was covered; one side was heavy walls and the other were arches to reveal rose bushes cut back for the autumn and thick grass. There was a wrought iron bench and it was here that Heero led Duo, with one arm around his waist.

When they sat down Heero did it in such a way that he almost completely covered Duo with his body, so that Duo was resting against his warmth and curled into the circle of his arm. "Please," he said suddenly, "let me kiss you."

Duo smiled and bridged the slight gap between them, "I've never stopped you." He said against Heero's mouth and then pressed his lips against them, sliding them over Heero's and then pressing his tongue against them to garner entrance. Heero quickly obliged him. They sat like that for a short while, their fingers twisting in amongst each other's hair and trying to force each other together as much as they could.

When they pulled back Duo was pleasantly flushed and gasping for air. "I haven't kissed you since you went into the temple." Heero said, stroking his cheek with his palm, Duo leant into the heat of it.

"You make it sound like you wanted to. You could have kissed me anytime, Heero."

"Danev kept you locked up tight, when you weren't drugged, you were sleeping." Heero said, "and I wanted to curl along side you but I was scared that I would hurt you, and you were so angry, so full of rage that I might only love you because I had to, that I thought that you would reject my touch."

Duo sighed. "I wanted you to want to." He said softly, as Heero traced the tips of his fingers over his lips. "It's so much bigger than me, this thing between us, it scares me." He kissed the callused fingertips against his mouth, "it scares me so much."

"I would take that fear from you." Heero said.

"And I would let you." Duo told him honestly. "It's so big, and terrifies me so much that sometimes I can't even breathe. Sometimes I think I want to be sick but you're there and it doesn't matter, and the idea that you had no choice in the matter made me sick to my very bones." He shifted slightly and laid his head on Heero's thigh, and gave himself over to the stroking hand. "You are my rock, you are all that keeps me sane and you are the one driving me mad."

"I understand." Heero said, "it is like I am drowning and I don't know whether your hand is pulling me up and pushing me under and sometimes all I know is that I want to touch you and never stop." His hand was warm though the air was cool. "Sometimes I get a fire in my blood like I will burst into flames and all I want to do is touch you and move against you until I explode."

"Like you did that night in Dathyl?" Duo asked softly. There was no recrimination in his voice.

"The wine made me bold, my control fell away, I could not help myself. You should have stopped me." His hand still stroked his face, "and then you curled up against me the next day, you teased me and smiled at me and I felt like I was born anew in your touch."

"You don't talk much," Duo said, "but when you do you know how to woo a boy." Heero offered him a small, slight smile. It was a genuine smile and Duo wanted to bask in it. "Sometimes," Duo said rubbing his cheek against Heero's thigh, "sometimes I get that fire in my blood too, and I like you touching me." He looked up at Heero with mischief in his eyes, "sometimes, I want to ask just how to make you explode, I think if we finish this," He took Heero's hand in his own, "if I give myself to you totally, if you give yourself to me, then we'll understand, and sometimes," he looked saddened by it, "I wonder if that will be the thing to drive me mad."

"Sometimes, I think that too, and it scares me. I wonder what will happen if you lose control. Bunny told me what happened in Muchine and I felt the cold sickness in my stomach that it might happen to you. I remember what happened in Samrath when you called those creatures. Sometimes I am scared of you, and sometimes I want to bask in your strength.

"I am your shield and I am terrified of you and drawn to you in equal measure."

Duo offered him a bright and sunny smile. "It's easier to talk to Trowa, to tell him how scared I am, what I want, because I don't love him the way that I love you."

Heero sighed. "I understand that," he took another deep breath as he searched for the words, "when I was a boy I was looked after by an assassin, and at night, when I was in my bed, he would tell me stories, such beautiful stories. I always wanted to tell them to you, we always talked instead." For the first time in Duo's knowledge Heero looked very young and vulnerable. "Let me tell you a story, one of the beautiful stories that Odin used to tell me."

"In the beginning," he said softly, "there were the gods, there were many gods but no one to worship them, so they gathered together and made a great council to decide what was to be done about it." He was stroking Duo's hair softly, the great length of it gone so that it was now as short as his own. "So they gathered together all of their virtues and out of clay they made a race of people, breathing into them souls, and wisdom and goodness.

"They called them the golden people.

"Now the golden people were good and just, but they were devoted to their gods so much that they gave themselves no life apart from the gods. They hunted only to perform sacrifice to the gods and they died.

"This caused a terrible problem for the gods, so they gathered their council again and took the clay and the souls and they created a second race of people, but this time they gave them no virtues, and gave them hunger and breathed life into them.

"They called them the silver people.

"Now where the golden people were good and just, the silver people were lawless and wild and did war upon themselves, and just like the golden people before them they died.

"The council of the gods was consternated, and argued for a long time. Eventually a compromise was reached and they took the clay and split it in half and gave some people great virtue, and some people great hunger. But they could make no more souls, so they took each soul and tore it in two, giving half to each figure of clay to breathe life into it.

"So every person in the world has half a soul and when they meet that person that has the other half of their soul the soul knows."

"Soul mates." Duo said calmly.

"Yes," Heero said, "but just because someone is the mate of your soul does not mean that they build the fire inside you, that they cause this terror and sickness." He bent down so that his face was close to Duo. "I envy Trowa because I believe that he is your soul mate, but that does not make him first in your heart."

"You own that."

"I know, but it doesn't mean that I don't envy him."

"Even if he is my soul mate," Duo said impishly, "you are my Senshisha, my sword and my shield," he turned his face up for a kiss, "and you are the fire in my belly." Heero laughed a he settled into the kiss Duo offered him.