A/N: Glad to hear that people liked the new fic. Wasn't sure since it's my first Hellsing. I'm now officially on my very short summer vacation before the new quarter starts up. No more dealing with lazy reporters until the fall. Yay! does a happy dance Anyway, here's the new chapter for your reading pleasure. Same disclaimer as last chapter. Read and review!
"Violet Turned Red"
Chapter Two
Death of Death
He couldn't breath; there was something lying across his chest. A support beam, his mind told him. He coughed and tasted blood.
"-Maxwell, please answer! Agent Maxwell!"
He smiled lazily, wishing his eyes would focus. "Call," he coughed, "call me Duo."
There was something warm dripping onto his face. Tears? It didn't feel like water…
"Kid?!"
Duo's eyes snapped wide. Impossible. He coughed again, forcing a choked word through his lips. "Solo."
The dead man's voice was casual, but Duo could hear the sadness layered in it. "Long time no see. Should of known we'd meet again like this."
"I'm dying, aren't I?" the pilot asked, closing his eyes again. They were already playing tricks on him even as his sight faded, so why bother looking? Solo'd never gotten the chance to grow up after all, and he certainly didn't remember his old gang leader sporting an eye patch.
"Yeah, yeah, you are," Solo said. At least he still had his accent.
Wufei's face swam into his mind's eye, and grief settled over his heart. "I don't want to die, Solo."
"Well, sometimes we don't get to decide that," the ghost said.
"I can't die now; I promised him," Duo said, firming his jaw stubbornly. He tried looking at Solo, but could only make out a vague blur. "I don't care if it damns me for all eternity, but I can't die now!"
A pair of arms held him, and he fought against them with the last of his strength as his heart slowed. By the time a pair of lips pressed against his throat and there was a sharp pain, he was unable to do much more than shake.
Who'd of thought that the kiss of death would be so literal?
And with that thought in his mind and his lover's name on his lips, Duo Maxwell's heart stopped.
-
It was taking four Preventer agents to keep Heero from running into the building after his partner. He'd been calm long enough to see most of the junior agents out safely, but that had been before the building had shook with the force of the bomb exploding, parts of the structure collapsing in upon themselves.
"Sir, you can't go in there!" a third-year agent insisted, desperately trying to hold onto the struggling pilot. "It's not safe!"
"Duo's in there!" Heero growled. He'd managed to throw two of them off when a pair of figures became discernable through the dust, a long braid swinging behind the taller of the two.
"Yuy, Commander Une's just informed us that two Hellsing agents were in the building as well. Their base was on the other side of the block," their communications op called out from the van. "Pip Bernadotte and Seras Victoria. Their commander should be joining us shortly."
But Heero barely heard the man, his eyes locked on the two approaching them. The braided silhouette was wrong, and he was carrying a limp form: A limp form with a dark brown braid and a Preventers' uniform. No.
"Oh God," one of the agents Heero's thrown whispered. "Not Maxwell."
The woman was covered in blood, little of it hers from the looks of it. She grimly paced her partner while carrying a sizable gun. The man dressed in tan and was armed to the teeth, a reddish braid swinging behind him. In his arms he carried a too still, too quiet, and too pale Duo Maxwell.
"I couldn't convince him to run," the woman, who must have been the Hellsing agent Victoria, said quietly. "He shielded me."
Heero didn't want to look too closely; he didn't want to really see. Removing his Preventers jacket, he draped it over the elven face. Even that didn't cover the sight completely, as one arm dangled down past the coat in the traditional pose of tragic death.
"Bernadotte. Victoria. What the hell happened?"
A longhaired blonde woman in a suit stormed toward them, followed by a couple other Hellsing soldiers. Victoria gave a snappy salute while her partner nodded to his commander, hands full.
"Sir, the Preventers target had rigged the building with explosives, and Agent Maxwell fell disarming them as much as he could," Seras reported. Something seemed to pass between the two women, and Sir Hellsing nodded. "With your permission, Preventer, we have our own ambulance already waiting."
"Go," Heero said shortly, no emotion in his voice. "We'll inform his next of kin."
"Our examiner will send you the autopsy," Sir Hellsing said.
"Thank you," Heero said. Inside, his mind was reeling. How was he going to tell Wufei? He'd failed his partner and two of his closest friends.
If he'd been willing to look Duo's face, he'd of seen the bloody tears staining the pale face as well as the two puncture wounds marring the pilot's elegant neck.
-
Seras uncovered Duo's face as soon as the doors to their van had shut. Her hands shook as she wiped blood from his face, fingers darting to his lips to pull the upper one back. A sharp fang gleamed in the lights.
"Why hasn't he woken up yet?" Pip asked, searching the man's face for movement. Damn had he been right when he'd said that the kid was going to grow up to be a heart breaker. Just like he'd been right when he'd known that even on L2, the odd-eyed street brat would survive despite the odds stacked against him.
"His body's still repairing itself," Seras said uncertainly. "I wasn't able to give him very much blood, and there was a lot of damage. Sir Hellsing is going to be so angry with me."
On cue, the passenger door snapped open. Integra shot them a dark look over her shoulder before barking for the driver to return them to the manor. Seras cringed, knowing that she was really going to get it once they were home and away from prying eyes. And once her master got back from his own mission… She didn't want to think about it.
