• 1-Destination Eden (revised)
• 2-Chapter 1
• 3-Chapter 2
• 4-Chapter 3
• 5-Chapter 4
• 6-Chapter 5
• 7-Chapter 6
• 8-Chapter 7
• 9-Chapter 8
• 10-Chapter 9
• 11-Chapter 10
• 12-Chapter 11
• 13-Chapter 12
• 14-Chapter 13
• 15-Chapter 14
• 16-Chapter 15
• 17-Chapter 16
• 18-Chapter 17
• 19-Chapter 18
• 20-Chapter 19
• 21-Chapter 20
• 22-Chapter 21
• 23-Chapter 22
• 24-Epilogue

Chapter
11

From that moment on, his
life took a turn for the worst. Before him he could now see two paths, but no
matter which one he would choose to take, either way, it would have a
snowball-effect. He could stop, or at least try to stop caring about Duo, but
he knew that this would, sooner or later, result in a nervous breakdown or
suicide. Or he could pay no heed to the prohibition to love, but then he would
live in constant fear of Doctor J. It would be a dreadful game of cat and mouse
of which only Doctor J would decide when to forfeit. Two roads, but the happy
medium Heidi had been talking about, he could not see. No, she didn’t know what
Doctor J was capable of.

One way or another, he had
made it back to his work. He wanted to go back to his friends. He hadn’t even
taken care of his injuries yet. The emotional pain hurt a thousand times more.

Trembling and barely able to
stand on his feet, he went, or rather limped back to his office to bandage his
bleeding wrists a bit, and to soothe the aching wounds all over his body with
some ointment.

In front of him stood a huge
dilemma. Just when he was determined to shoot Duo, his mind switched back to
kicking Doctor J in the butt, as dangerous as that might be. At the moment he
was about to enter his office, he had a rather strong tendency to head one
office ahead and turn his heart into the lead he would shoot, but that thought
scattered before it got a chance to attach itself to his brain when he saw Duo,
beautiful, merry Duo, together with his girlfriend, darting toward him with an
expression of utmost concern on his face. His funny braid bounced ridiculously
behind him, and at once an overwhelming urge to fling his arms around his neck
and burst out in tears against his warm and soothing chest, surfaced. It took
the greatest effort to push that comforting thought away and not to go acting
like a childish brat, like Duo could be sometimes, but he succeeded.

“Dear God, what has happened
to you?!” Duo cried.

“Has Doctor J done that?!”
Heidi asked anxiously.

He lowered his eyes and let
out a shuddering breath. A gaze, which he knew wasn’t there, but could appear
any moment, burned into his back, and the unpleasant feeling that he was being
watched hung over him like a heavy shadow, hindering his breathing. “Let’s get
inside,” he said in a quiet voice, nodding his head towards the door of his
office.

The first thing he did when
they were inside, was reach for the bandages and the tube of ointment, which he
could find blindly by now. Still a habit from the earlier days. He always kept
bandages and ointment close to him.

Duo watched as Heero hopped
on one foot to one of the cupboards. The other leg hanging in the air. Between
shoe and pants, he could see a bit of sock. This morning it must’ve been white.
Now it was red. “Hee-chan…” Duo said almost breathlessly.

Heero tensed where he stood,
his back turned to the couple. The nickname pained his ears. In his head he
heard that same nickname, only filled with an unbearable pain and a reproaching
disappointment.

“What’s wrong, Hee-chan?”
Duo said.

“I wish you wouldn’t call me
that any longer,” he replied.

“What do you mean?” Duo
asked, starting to feel pretty disquieted. He thought, now they were a couple,
he wouldn’t mind any more about that nickname. “Why not?”

The panic in his voice made
Heero smile, in spite of his pain. Endearing how he worried about their
dangerous, early relationship. “Don’t be afraid. I still love you. Doctor J can
torture me any way he wishes, I’ll never kill you.” I’ll never kill you. Those
words just had to sound absurd in Duo’s ears. Very absurd. Absurd and without
reason.

I’ll never kill you. Words
that flogged Duo’s heart, to know he actually walked around with that thought
in head. Heero kill him? Explanation was due. “Hee-chan…” Mental punch. Heero! “Heero,
why would you kill me?” Crazy old scientist, falling in love with the risk of
bleeding wrists. Let the pieces of the puzzle fall together. “Because you feel,
Heero? Because you love me?”

Heero turned around again
and looked with dazed blue in the violet of Duo’s eyes. “Duo,” he said. “What
do you do when you have the one person you have longed for the most?”

“Dunno,” Duo said shrugging.
“Humping like hell?” It was the Duo from present day that felt compassion for
him, but the Duo from earlier days that had spoken.

Heero heard Heidi chuckling,
but he continued as if his words had been blown away before they had reached
his ears. “You take everything for granted. You feel happy. So happy that you
go blind and become reckless. You live with your head up in the clouds, but
through those clouds you can no longer distinguish dream from reality. You take
things less seriously, and that can lead to grave mistakes.”

Heidi hadn’t meant to
chuckle. She felt sorry for the boy, no doubt about that. No, it had been Duo
who had made her laugh. Simple guy. Humping like hell. The notorious Duo from
earlier days was making his comeback. “Heero, what are you trying to say?” she
asked carefully.

As if waking up from a daze,
Heero blinked and looked down at his wrists. “It can injure you. Body and soul.
It can scare you. I’m scared, Duo. I don’t dare to love you anymore.”

“What are you saying, you
silly guy?” Duo asked, running his fingers through his silken, dark-brown
locks. “If we close that door, and shut those curtains, no-one will ever know
what we’re doing here.”

“See, that’s were you’re mistaken,”
he said, his eyes strangely cold.

“What?” Duo asked
sheepishly.

“Haven’t you ever noticed
that the walls in this building are paper-thin? You can hear almost everything
through them.”

“You can’t be serious about
that!” Duo yd wid with a catch in his voice, blushing to the roots of his hair.

“Oh believe me, I am.”

With a stupid look on his
face, he turned to Heidi.

“What are you looking at me like
that for? You think I knew?!” she wailed, also with a deep shade of pink on her
cheeks.

“You see what I mean?” Heero
said.

“Reckless, indeed,” Duo
sighed.

Heidi blinked her eyes.
Amongst Duo and Heero’s bickering, she was suddenly aware of a dripping sound.
She looked around in confusion, determined to find out where the sound was
coming from, until she saw what it was from the corner of her eye. Scarlet
drops, falling on the floor and pooling between Heero’s feet.

“Heero,” she said. “Your
wrists.”

The two boys promptly shut
their mouths. Heero hadn’t been paying attention to it anymore, so accustomed
he was to pain. But she was right. They had to be taken care of, or they would
get worse.

“Please Heero, let me fix
it.”

“Hai, thank you,” he said,
sitting down in a chair and laying the bandages on his desk. She wet a cloth to
cleanse his wounds, and as she did so, she threw a glance at the tube of
ointment. It was almost empty, but she paid no heed to that, since his wrists
were her first concern. As she kneeled in front of him however, her mouth
almost literally fell open when she saw how many burns he had. She had already
noticed some, but had no idea there were so many. His arms and legs were
practically littered with them, and as far as she could see his trunk as well.
Even his face.

“God, Heero,” she whispered
in awe. “You’ll never have enough ointment for all those burns.” She got up
again and pushed the cloth into Duo’s hands. “I’ll go fetch some more. There
should still be some in the first aid kit. Now Duo,” she still said to the boy,
like a teacher to her pupil, before running to their own office, “You disinfect
those wounds thoroughly before you bandage them.” Then she darted away and left
the two of them alone.

Disinfect? Oh? Usually he
would’ve wrapped the bandages around his wrists without cleaning them at all,
and only now did it dawn upon him that that was probably the reason why he
always had troubles when he was wounded himself. Unlike the fact that he
thought himself clever at times, this once again proved he was wrong. Why did
he always insist on taking care of his wounds himself anyway? Hadn’t Solo
taught him anything?

He shook his head clear of
the thoughts, drew a chair opposite of Heero and took one of his hands in his.
Heero flinched only a little when theth wth was gently rubbed against his wrist
to wash the blood away. A burning anger awakened inside of Duo. That man who
dared to call himself Heero’s foster father had hurt him. How was it possible
that someone attached so little value to a person’s life, that someone could
torture another person because things weren't the way they wished them to be.
To torture. The mere thought he even had to use that word. They were living in
the year After Colony 200, no longer the time of the Spanish inquisition. Let
him combine that mere thought with the boy he loved, and it was enough to make
rage flourish. I hereby swear to you,
Heero Yuy, that Doctor J will pay for this.

He wanted to ask him
something, but he had to bite his tongue not to call him by his nickname again.

“Heero,” he said.

“Hn.”

“Why don’t you want me to
call you Hee-chan anymore?”

Heero kept on staring
blankly in front of him to the silver crucifix dangling down from Duo’s neck
and seemed pretty reluctant to give him an answer on that. He didn’t want Duo
to know exactly what Doctor J had done
to him. Oh, but wait. Duo was on his side. He had a right to know. Just when
Duo was about to pose his question again, ‘coz he nd tod to know, Heero began
to speak.

“He has done everything in
his power to make me stop loving you. Not only has he punished me physically,
he also has tried to contort my mind. He has drugged me with something, and
that caused me to have visions where I did horrible things to you. Don’t ask me
what, you don’t want to know. But he can’t make me stop loving you. No one can.
It’s only that when you call me Hee-chan, it reminds me of those visions. That’s
the only reason, I swear.” When he was done confessing, he looked up to Duo’s
face, and had to chuckle at the expression of shock displayed on it. “Duo, I’m
still alive, you know,” he smiled, ruffling Duo’s hair with his free hand, but
smearing his cheek with blood in the process.

Duo wiped the blood off with
his finger and looked at it. “If you call this a life…”

Heero’s smile faded and his
irresolute gaze rested upon Duo as he proceeded to clean his wrist. When he had
bandaged both wrists and ankle, Heero gave a little, contented sigh. “Thank
you, love. You know, Kami-sama’s a good man for giving you to me,” he said.

Slightly confused, Duo
looked up at him. Who’s Kami-sama?” he asked.

“That’s God,” he replied,
softly tugging at the rosary and venturing a kio:p>o:p>

Duo smiled and bent over to
meet Heero’s soft lips with his own. You’re
welcome, Heero, the kiss said. His hand went roaming through his hair,
further down and was only satisfied when he had reached his neck. Through his
parted lips, his tongue sneaked inside Heero’s mouth, and he found no objection
as he found his boyfriend’s tongue.

Heero jumped slightly when
he heard the door opening. He tried to pull away and look aside. Doctor J!

“You guys are just so
adorable.” Not exactly something Doctor J would say. Duo was quick to re find
Heero’s lips once he saw he was reassured. A quick glance shot to Heidi’s hand.
Found the ointment? Fine. She enjoyed
seeing it, even though it was just a simple kiss. He knew that. Heero knew that
too, and soon he felt the boy relaxing in his arms again. Lips teased, warm
velvet dueled in each other’s mouths, hands danced over needy bodies. A dance
that could last forever. Duo heard Heero moaning, purring like a contented cat.
The finest music. Another moan, so pretty. And anotone,one, so… alarmed? His
muscles. Why so tensed? His eyes. Why so scared?

He pulled his head back to
see what the hell was going on. Heidi! Where was that mischief on two legs?
What had she been up to this time?

Heidi recognized the acid
glance Duo threw at her. She looked back with eyes that radiated innocence.
Really, she hadn’t done anything. I plead
innocent!

Innocent,
my ass, Duo thought. Just look at the boy. He’s trembling all over, cold sweat
beading on his forehead, his breathing heavy and his look extremely frightened.
Alright, revision of the pleading, this couldn’t have been her doing. There was
more to this. A lot more.

“Heero? What on earth is the
matter with you?” Duo asked, concern clearly woven through his question.

“I have… seen you,” Heero
stammered.

“Well yeah, I’m sitting
right in front of you,” Duo stated simplistically.

Heero urgently grabbed his
shoulders and shook his head. “No, no, you don’t understand,” he said. “I’ve
had another one of those visions. You were standing with you hands tied and…”

“Wow!” Duo interrupted him. “Me
with my hands tied? Shyeah right, that would be the day!”

“Duo, let him finish,” Heidi
grumbled. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Oh,
so we’re gonna broadcast bedroom secrets now? “Hold your tongue,” he
muttered “Go on, Heero. What else did you see?”

“That’s everything. It was
only a flash. Either way, it was very obvious to me that it was not being tied
up in the way Heidi meant. You were scared. But I don’t know why.”

Duo didn’t quite know what
to think about that, or how to feel. Should he be disquieted now, or was he
just fooling around? The expression on Heero's face told him otherwise, though.

“It must be the after effect
of that foul drug,” Heero sighed, burying his face in his hands. “God, how I
hate that twisted lunatic. The war stopped ages ago, even the Gundams were
destroyed. But does he leave me in peace? No. Just when I thought I could
breathe a sigh of relief, that I could finally try to let you know how I feel,
he pops up again, like an evil little devil, and keeps on forbidding me to
love.”

Compassion filled Duo’s
heart and he tenderly closed his arms around the sobbing boy. “Heero…” he said
softly.

There, he had his warm and
soothing chest to cry against and it was like a heaven’s gift, not only the
chest, but mostly the owner of that chest.

“Duo,” he said softly,
looking up at him. “Will you teach me how to love?”

“I don’t have to,” Duo
replied, giving him a loving smile. “Because you already know.”

“I do?”

“Of course you do. You can
love, more than you can imagine. And you’ve already proven that more than
enough. Two nights ago, you made love
to me, and later that night, I made love to you. Now, did that feel good,
Heero?”

“You bet it did,” he smiled.
“For the first time in my life, I experienced how true love felt.”

“Ouch, I guess Relena wouldn’t
be very pleased to hear that,” Heidi said, pulling him away from Duo, so she
could remove his shirt.

“You know what? Relena can
kiss my ass!” he suddenly shouted, an expression of realization coming over his
face before he had even finished his sentence. “Oh my God, did I just say that?”

Duo smiled to see him
obviously less tense. Another swift kithenthen he stood up and took the old
tube of ointment.

As grateful Heero was, fear
reared its head again. Something told him that this would happen a lot from now
on. “Thanks, you guys. I can pull it off on my own from here,” Heero said,
standing and leading them to the door.

“Na-ah, sit!” Heidi
commanded. “We’re gonna help you. How else will you do your back?”

“But… if Doctor J finds out…”
he whined, peering nervously at the door. “I’m sure he’s back already.”

Stubborn as he was, Duo took
Heero’s hand and pulled him back to his chair. “Now, you listen to me, Heero
Yuy. Maybe he can forbid you not to care, but he doesn’t have control over us.
We can care about you as much as we want,” he said. “So if you don’t mind, let
the two of us nurse you.” Thereupon he carried him in his arms to the chair,
and Heero had to admit, that got his heartbeat going. He saw Heidi frowning in
surprise. He failed to see the reason, though.

The cool salve on his heated
and battered skin felt good and made Heero gasp. It softened the pain
instantly, and not only that pain. Also the pain he felt inside from the many
years battle he had fought with himself, but that wasn’t the ointment’s doing.
Duo, foolish guy. He too didn’t know what Doctor J was capable of.

To be continued…