just a step | By : tomigod Category: Gundam Wing/AC > General Views: 571 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing/AC, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. |
Disclaimer: GW and the amazing bishounen and biseinen portrayed here are not property of the god tomi!!! were they, he wouldn't be currently trying to survive on a too low budget O_o. since he is not getting the hell of a coin out of this, plz don’t sue.
Website www.geocities.com/tomi_god
With thin noises of well-oiled mechanisms, the door slides open. Silently revealing the depths of hell itself, or so it seems to him.
The cell is dim.
The boy is chained to the wall, the chains length barely enough to allow him a sitting position. Perfectly still, his eyes are closed.
Heero holds his breath, for it sounds like the shattering of innocence and life.
A soft thud and the door shuts closed; not even the noise makes the boy open his eyes. Heero kneels beside him, inserts the magnetic card in the scanner on the wall; when he enters the right code the manacles open, letting his hands fall limp.
“Who is there?” He asks in a whisper. His face is deadly pale and somehow expressionless, drained of emotions like he doesn’t care any more about what’s happening to him..
“It’s me, Duo. And I have a very little time.” Heero takes Duo’s hand in his ones; swollen and cold: he has to draw back blood in them, for soon those fingers may have to be secure on a trigger.
“Heero?” Duo’s eyes snap open. “Is that you?” Also his eyes are blank, so dark and empty in the low light. What in the hell occurred to him?
“It’s me.” He lifts a hand to touch his face, Duo retreats slightly. “Don’t fear. It’s me, Heero, do you remember?”
The boy nods.
“You haven’t a weapon,” he says in thin voice. His gaze refuses to meet Heero’s one.
“I keep it in the waistband, since I don’t need it: it’s only me and you, I did everything at my very best.”
Silence.
“I’m here to rescue you, baka, no more tricks this time. How are your hands?” He asks, keeping on massaging them.
“They hurt. Like hundreds of needles.”
“That’s good. Broken bones? Injuries?”
“Don’t think so. Just some minor scratches and bruises.” The boy turns slightly to face him; this is the first move he makes, Heero notices suddenly: it won’t be easy bringing him out of there.
“Can you get up?”
“Dunno. I’m not in a good shape, anyway.” The honest answer comes.
“We have to fly away. Like fast and silent birds, you know. I’d be very glad if you could do this on your own legs.”
“I will.” The boy begins to stand upright, using the wall as support; each move slow and painful, or so it seems. “I will accomplish this,” he continues in broken breaths.” You’ll be absolutely. Delighted. Of me.” He never raises his face to meet Heero’s gaze.
Heero supports the boy; when he’s finally on his feet he’s in Heero arms, too. His thin frame shakes slightly. “Soon we’ll be out of here.” He states. “And I’m delighted of you in any case.”
“Hn.” Duo’s face is inches from his one; with a hand he sweeps away thick, dark locks. Exposing him better to the light, he sees: bruises, dried blood on the corners of his mouth and the rim ofthe nostrils. A moment of silence, blankness. Were in his hands the beasts who caused this to him. To Duo. He would. He would. He shakes slightly his head, the rage turns in a gentle touch on the boy’s cheek.
“Here we go.” He says. “We wasted even too much time.”
Duo nods and moves an hesitant step, then another one. Leaning heavily on him, but he walks. Very well. They would. They will. God help us, he thinks fervently, activating his wrist-com unit. “Grasshopper? Grasshopper! Mouse here.”
Among static, the voice comes unexpectedly clear. “Mouse, I have you.”
“Ready?”
“Sure as hell.” Trowa’s voice is just icy. Good.
“In about for minutes rendez-vous at Condor point.”
“Acknowledged. Grasshopper out.”
“Mouse out.”
This time the hiss of the cell door opening is a glorious soundtrack for Duo’s marching out. Free. At least by now, safe in Heero’s strong grip. And it’s Heero’s duty to make this last.
“Trowa cannot wait, Duo. Fast and silent, remember?” Duo glares briefly at him; under all the pain and tiredness, still his eyes are challenging as the boy forces his feet to a steadier pace.
At the end of the hall there’s afire escape, he inserts some magnetic card in the reader to deactivate the alarm, then the door opens under his push. They’re on the side of the building, on a small metallic terrace; narrow stairways depart from it; only two ramps and they will be on the roof, where Trowa will rescue their arses. “We have to climb.”
“Hn.”
Heero readjusts his hold on him and up they go. Duo’s breath gives the rhythm to their feet and up they go. When they finally reach the top, a glorious flood of light surrounds them; the air is suddenly filled by the helicopter mighty roar: in front of him, with the sun at its back. As they planned: the thin edge to assure their escape.
“Run!” He orders doing the same, Duo’s hand tightly gripped on his own one. The boy seems to go along with him, then stumbles and fall. No! “Few meters!” He almost shouts, trying to drag Duo and to pull him on his feet at the same time. As the boy is practically upright he jumps in the helicopter, suspended few feet above the roof, but turning to help Duo he hears a loud blast resounding in front of him.
“They traced us.” Trowa’s voice icy states from behind. ”We have to get away.” The helicopter begins to gain quote.
“Stop this!” Heero shouts. “Duo is still on the ground.” Even Duo jumps, but too weakly: he just grabs the helicopter skate. In the corner of his vision Heero catches a movement.
“On the left!” He screams, leaning to rescue Duo. “Cover us.”
Pointing the gun out of the open window, Trowa fires; a body falls down from a small tower on the edge of the building. The helicopter takes flight.
“Give me your hand, Duo.” Heero’s voice is lower, now. Struggling to climb the thick metal bar, the boy stretches his arm. Heero leans as more as he can, but still inches of air separate their tensed fingers. Suddenly Duo slippers, a blur of movement, he manages to grip the skate with both hands.
“Duo!” He cries. “Duo come on!”
Duo tries again, finally reaching the safety of Heero’s grip. He holds him tightly, lifting him in the cockpit; giving his last effort the boy collapses on the floor, panting heavily.
“It looks like you accomplished it.” The well-known cold voice from behind.
He turns to look at Trowa. “It looks like we accomplished it.”
Kneeling besides him, he rolls gently Duo on his back; his chest heaves labouredly. The boy half opens an eye. “I’m here,” he says lifting a trembling hand. So lighthearted, Heero thinks, and brave: who could have said. Leaning on him he lifts Duo up, supported by his own chest; in his arms he feels the tense body slowly relax.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “We’re going far enough from here.”
In few minutes the helicopter lands in a small parking lot at the edge of a city.
“Arrived?” Duo mumbles.
“Just the first stage: there are two cars for us.” Trowa replies, rising up from the pilot chair. “The black corvette is for the two of you, and it is currently registered as an Oz’s officer one. See you tomorrow.” Heero raises his head: the keys are at his eyes height, dangling from Trowa’s finger. He nods, taking them; the other boy turns with a brief wave and he’s out in the sun, gone in a moment with the engine roar.
The loss of a single second could make the difference between death and salvation; Heero lifts Duo in his arms, ignoring the boy’s weak protests. They delayed even too much.
The corvette looks fast and silent; he sets Duo on his feet then opens the door: in the brilliant light everything seems possible. “Get in, ” he orders the boy. “We’re going home.”
Duo looks directly at him. “I’ve never had a home. Except. Except. But it didn’t last.”
“Home is the place where you are safe: we are going to one of our safehouses.”
“Where can we be safe?” Duo replies, sitting carefully in the car. With a sigh he sinks in the seat and fastens the belt.
Heero starts the engine, the powerful humming fills his thoughts. Here we go, he thinks; they won’t have the time to reorganize, we will be quicker. He presses his feet on the accelerator, savouring the feeling of the road running softly under the tyres, dancing nervously on the thin edge of their runaway. A couple of miles ofdeserted road before the first city, where they can easily disappear in the traffic. Just for a moment he feels too exposed: only an Oz number plate covers them and they’d be easily tracked there, in the middle of nothing, but asthey enter the city, he regains some confidence and slows down considerably. No need to be noticed. From the passenger seat, Duo is silent .
“Are you ok?” He asks in low tone, without turning the head. It’s easy getting lost in that labyrinth of streets, despite the navigator embedded in the dashboard, and surely finding the place at first attempt would be a good idea. Hearing no answer, he takes a glance of his comrade. Half asleep, lulled by the soft rolling of the way; his head lolls gently on the seat back. “I know,” he says in a whisper, “I cannot swear it won’t happen anymore. I’m not this stubborn, but this time. It seems we managed it.”
The boy doesn’t reply, curled on the seat, eyelids closed. Completely defenceless. Now. Heero remains silent through their trip of the most hidden suburbia of that city, which name he’s not able to remember; he’s fairly relieved when he finally parks the car in front of a small house. Currently they are in a the residential area: not too big and not too small, and near enough to the base to be a suitable hideaway for the rest of the day. There will be blockade places on every street before night: their camouflage is too thin, he needs to stop to find a different strategy, and to explore the surroundings searching for a safe route to follow. And more than everything, Duo seems in desperate need of first aid and some rest.
“Arrived.” He states, more to himself than to Duo, shaking slightly the boy’s forearm. “We’ll stay here for a while.” There’s a small garden in front of the yellowish, tiny building. If he remembers correctly, it’sbeen hired using the identity of some Quatre’s wealthy relative. Relatively safe, so. A couple of moments pass before the boy opens tired eyes.
“Hn?” He mumbles, questioningly.
“Arrived.” Heero repeats, exiting the car and getting to his side, to help him out too.
“My legs are feeble.” He pulls himself on feet, leaning heavily against the car door. Tentatively, he rubs his forehead with a trembling hand. “Where are we?”
“In a relatively safe place. I don’t remember the name of the city.” Trying to support Duo, he encircles his waist with an arm; suddenly he feels the boy’s weight shifting on him. “Can you walk?” He asks. “I’d be even glad to carry you in.” In the end, Heero smiles slightly, feeling a strange itch in the motion of muscles unused for a long time. Relatively safe, he said just before. Can be enough, he thinks now, feeling a heavy burden being lift from his stomach. And now he can see Duo: aching, shaken, tired to pain but he’s glorious in the full light. For the simple fact he’s there again. Heero doesn’t know the name of this feeling, but it’s going to overwhelm him; without caring about its rightness, he bathes in its warmth.
Duo stares gently at him. “I will,” he whispers.
Just a step, half a step to reach him: in a moment Heero chooses, without even knowing it, and trespasses that thin brink. In a moment Duo’s frail frame is in his arms; the boy leans his head on Heero’s shoulder. “I feared,” he says in the boy’s ear, “that I’d never heard your voice again. For annoying I could have thought it was.” Duo smells of fear and tiredness, his grip on Heero’s shirt is unexpectedly tight. Gently he strokes his nap under the heavy mass of an unravelled braid. Finally the boy raises his head.
“Say so?” The reply comes thin, suffocated among hair and fabric and days of pain and loneliness.
“Say so. Come,” he continues gently, guiding him to the house, “there’s a bed waiting for you.” Duo’s steps are slow and imprecise, he feels his body tense against him in the effort of putting every step behind the other. Past the garden, he opens the door. Inside the light is lower; Duo parts slightly his lips, just to say something, then closes them again. Strangely silent and somehow concentrated, an unusual condition for him.
There’s a room on the left; with a sigh of relief, Duo lets himself fall on the bed and there he rests, half laid, legs bent over the mattress edge, head tilted back on the pillow, just glancing Heero from behind half closed eyelids, then covers his eyes with a forearm.
Heero kneels near Duo’s feet, beginning to unfasten his heavy boots.
“What are you doing?” The boy asks insecurely. Heero smiles, lowering even more the head on the task he’s performing.
“Setting you in the right attire to stay in a bed.”
Duo doesn’t reply. Boots go away, then sockets follow. Heero puts Duo’s legs on the bed, then sits beside him.
“Will you let me check your conditions?” Without waiting for an answer he unzips the battered red shirt. Surely he’s prepared: it was crystal clear, just seeing the boy’s cautious movements; so he doesn’t wince at the awful sight, since he experienced pain many times against his own flesh. But it’s quite different seeing its marks on someone else’s body. So thin and frail, to all appearances, even though he well knows Duo’s strength: he wouldn’t ever break down, even suffering much more harm than this. Turning the head to look at his face, he suddenly realizes that this is the point. So exhausted and pale are his features: the lone fact he can suffer all of this doesn’t mean he has to.
Feeling observed the boy raises his arm and stares at him, almost challenging. “Nothing remarkable.” He states slowly. “Just some beatings as I told you before. Nothing I cannot stand.”
Exactly this. “Not the amount of mistreating you can stand is important, Duo, but the fact you don’t deserve any of them.” He murmurs tiredly, just to himself. But Duo catches the words.
“Is Mr. Perfect Soldier speaking?” A hint of rage sparkles in his eyes, the tone sounds low and dangerous. “Given the fact that you don’t seem doing anything but suffer in your whole fucking life, what does it mean: that you are made for this, while I’m not?”
Heero lowers again his gaze on the boy’s chest.Every kind of bruise is represented, in an endless variety of painful shapes, covering the whole colours spectrum..
“No, Duo.” He answers without lifting the eyes. “But it’s easier when it’s yourself suffering, not someone else. Someone you. Someone I.” Despite the word crowding in his mouth he’s unable to end decently his phrase.
Duo remains speechless for a while. “Why are you telling me this?” Coming out, his voice is slightly frightened.
Heero half smiles. Obviously you don’t see yourself, Duo Maxwell, he thinks, why should you know? “I don’t know.” He lies instead, cautiously checking for broken bones. “Please don’t be angry with me.” On his lips, this strange begging seems funny even to him.
Duo rolls his eyes, looking at the ceiling. “I’m not.” He sighs. “You just saved my life. But you’re acting quite strangely, let mesay so.” Again, his violet irises set on him. “Look at me, Heero, I’m not any kind of blessed, like you aren’t, like the others aren’t. Like no one born in these obscure days is.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Even though this doesn’t absolutely explain the urge he feels, to take care of him; something hadn’t ever happened towards anyone else. Not because Duo isn’t able to handle bad situations, he’s even too skilled, in fact. But his bright spirit is wasted on a battlefield and living like this is darkening him. And you? I’m already dark, unable to save myself, he thinks, I should have figured useless this kind of salvation, and impossible to me, since long ago. Instead, he lingers on such thoughts. Like now. “But I think you’re not. ”
With this he stands up and gets to the bathroom. What did he just say? Sure, he’s acting foolishly; but some minutes ago a week of agony just quit. Seven days it took him, to track Duo, without even knowing whether he was dead or alive. Like the other time, but now something in him is different. He learnt something, that implied Duo, yet not only this.
He takes a towel and dampens it with cool water. Just a bit of relief, he thinks.
Regaining his former position, he begins to clean gently Duo’s face from the blood and the dirt.
The boy looks gratefully at him. “Thanks.” He eventually says, letting a smile appear on his broken lips. Heero half smiles, too, and smiling he leans to hug Duo. Again. But somehow this fits Heero’s plans of salvation, healing his own soul on the way, too. It has always been this way, for him: to live properly he needs to be devoted to a cause. Like being continuously set on a holy war: once he used to fight for the colonies, for everyone’s freedom. Now his aim is slightly changed, he perfectly understand the danger coming with this: a simple silencing operation wouldn’t have been so dangerous, today. And probably the worst has to come yet: Oz won’t let go so easily on such a prisoner. But he just knew that he wouldn’t have been able to silence that loud, funny mouth; not even mention allow someone else to do the job for him.
Duo’s arms slowly lift to welcome him.
Without a word. All so silent and calm: Heero smiles once more against the soft curve of his neck. “Thank you.” Duo whispers again. “Thank you.”
He is able to feel Duo’s soft touch on his hair, before quickly rising up. What’s happening? Tomorrow will bring answers, by now he gently helps Duo out of his outfit. Every inch of garment reveals a new set of scratches and bruises, but Duo doesn’t wince, not even a sound escapes his lips.Finally he lies on the dark green blanket, unreal, paler and thinner than ever.
“I will get you some painkillers.” Heero says
Duo nods. He rummages in the first aid kit, finding in the end a endermic patch. “Here it is,” He gets back to the bed and sticks it on Duo’s left wrist. “Enjoy.”
“I feel already better.” Duo states almost relaxed.
“You will feel much more better, in a short while.” Heero replies, helping him under the sheets. “Now rest.”
Home again. It’s a warm thought.
Heero gets up to close the shutters, then without a true reason why sits silently back on the edge of the mattress. In the dim light, broken by tiny shards of sun entering the windows, he watches Duo shift minutely in the bed. His face is framed by tousled, chestnut brown locks. Slowly he sweeps them away, feeling before seeing Duo’s hand clutch reassuringly at his fingers.
Everything seems to hold breath; Heero accomplishes the stillness, strictly entangled in Duo’s world. Perfectly peaceful, framed by dusty light.
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