Adult-FanFiction.org : Gundam, Beyblade, DBZ, FMA

Witching Hour	By : kracken Category: Gundam Wing/AC > Yaoi - Male/Male > Heero/Duo Views: 650 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own gundam Wing and I don't make any money off of this.

Chapter List
- 1-Witching Hour
- 2-2
- 3-3
- 2
- 3
Quatre arrived with the sunset, expensive jump ship landing like a bug on the launch pad. It kicked up sand as he scrambled out, and allowed it to shoot upward again to make room for his men to land.

From his bedroom window, Duo could see Heero come out to meet him, talking as the back draft from the ships rippled over them. The red sunset gave everything an eerie tint, and took Duo back to the war, as a blatant troop deployment took place. Two large cargo ships dropped boats into the water and then dropped men onto them, men who would be patrolling the waters around the island.

Quatre was frowning at Heero and nodding as they headed back to the house. The winds picked at his coat, making it fly open, and Duo saw that he was strapped with weapons.

Duo sat on his bed and waited for his summons, arms clenched around his knees. The red sunlight colored his room like blood and he couldn't help a shiver. He felt himself slipping, almost feeling the restraints on his arms and legs, the chemical drips stuck in veins, and the loud voice shouting in anger as his blood pooled at his feet, someone having gone too far and broken something;bone going through flesh.

Duo stared at his ankle, remembering having it worked on without anesthesia. The pain could still come back, like a demon in his memory, clear and present, as if it was happening again. His tormentors had enjoyed kicking it when they had grown particularly bored.

The sound of wooden blinds being closed made Duo jerk in alarm. Quatre was looking at him cautiously, his hand on the cord. The red light was overtaken by calming yellow from a bedside lamp. Duo took a long moment to collect himself, to bring himself back. Quatre waited patiently, never moving, until Duo managed a small, "Hey."

Quatre relaxed, then, moving to gingerly sit in a chair. "Duo," was his soft reply, but his eyes were sad and saying much more than that.

Duo felt tears sting his own eyes and he had to look away. He choked on a sob and forced out, "I knew... I knew if I looked... I could see..."

"Do you see?" Quatre wanted to know.

"Tell me the truth," Duo urged, wiping at trembling lips and sniffling loudly as he tried not to emotionally collapse completely.

"You already know the truth," Quatre replied and moved from his chair to sit on the bed with Duo, not side by side, but close enough for Duo to strike him if he wanted to. "Stop listening to the pain and remember what you know."

Duo closed his eyes tightly. "It hurt so badly."

"And that fuels your doubts," Quatre understood. "No one wants to feel that pain more than once. The pain of betrayal, by those we love the most, has no equal."

"Heero..." Duo tried and then swallowed hard. "I didn't want to know for sure. Doubts were better."

"The truth is better," Quatre replied. He eased his coat around his guns. "Especially now, when you're in danger."

Duo found a snort of humor at that. "All of those people that you brought here can't protect me?"

"Here," Quatre replied, "Not out there, though. We will have to take the fight to them, once we have gone over satellite feeds and discover where they came from."

"When those men don't come back, their friends will run to bolt holes," Duo scoffed.

"No one has a zero presence, especially planet side," Quatre assured him. "We'll find their trail."

Duo touched his head, where they had removed the implant. "I don't know what's real and what isn't. They messed me up, Quatre. Maybe I won't ever think clearly again? Maybe, I'll always be a danger, to you, to Heero? Maybe it doesn't matter what the truth is when the lie won't get out of my head?"

"I've had experience with that," Quatre reminded him. "Heero as well. We both overcame the influence of a machine. It can be done."

Duo rubbed at his face and sighed. "Just- Just be ready, like Heero. Don't trust me to make the right decisions, Quatre."

"What do you see when you look in my eyes?" Quatre wanted to know.

Duo looked up and met them. "Sympathy and compassion. Hurt, because my suffering hurts you, too."

"You didn't see any of that in Heero's eyes?" Quatre wondered.

"I see a soldier on a mission," Duo replied fretfully, "A man totally focused. Earlier, though, I think that I saw something else, something that could make me believe in him. I just... I just need to convince my head, Quatre."

"You have time," Quatre assured him. "My men and I will keep you safe until you heal."

Duo rose and limped to the blinds, looking through at the scrambling men, getting their orders from Rashid. the red sunlight bathed his face. "Am I worth all of this? For simple friendship?"

"Yes," Quatre assured him. "This and more."

_______________________________________

That's not real. Duo told himself that when the antiseptic smell overwhelmed him, yet again, and nightmare picked at the edges of reality. The nurse felt him stiffen, and probably saw the wild light in his eyes. When Duo limped out of the infirmary and onto a balcony, she was wise enough not to follow.

It was screaming that was the worst, Duo thought as, he looked out at the ocean and felt the hot sun on his skin., anchoring him to the here and now. It was his own screaming, Duo knew, hoarse and ashamed as he endured their torments. He could forgive himself the loss of control, but the sobbing along with it, pricked harshly at his pride. It turned his stomach when he thought of how far they had broken him down.

Hadn't that been the age old trick? Break a man down and he will become yours, totally. Military and Interrogation tool number one. Duo had always been tough, used to enduring and trained by the best to come out of any situation like that on top. A body could only take so much, though, and they had been relentless and inventive.

Duo took a shuddering breath and rubbed at his forehead, trying not to resurrect the ghosts of pain. When it was at its worst, and he was back in those machines, that had tested his endurance beyond what any mind and body should be able to endure, it sometimes took days to recover, to stop twitching with the remembered fire and burn along every nerve. When he was like that, no one dared get into his personal space. It was a shock when Quatre came onto the balcony with him as if he wasn't in any danger at all.

"It's the smell, isn't it?" Quatre asked. "It's like a hospital in there."

The sun made his hair look like spun gold, and his blue eyes, seem to sparkle like the ocean. His soft smile was sympathetic as he admitted, "It bothers me as well."

Quatre had spent some time in hospitals, Duo remembered, during the war and after it. Still, it made Duo sneer and say, "Doesn't really compare."

Quatre's mouth went into a thin line, a show of temper, but then he was letting it go and replying, "I know."

"You should go away," Duo warned him, turning away and trying to keep his mind on the soaring of a seagull, and not on darker things.

"I'm going to order some prefab," Quatre told him, ignoring his plea."We'll move the clinic out of the house. I'll tell the staff to stop treating the place like a hospital."

It was both a relief and fuel for Duo's depression. When he wondered how long it would be until his recovery, things happened to make him think that the day might never come. Building new out buildings, to accommodate his madness, added to that feeling. Everyone seemed prepared to spend years helping him, as if they didn't have lives of their own.

"You and Heero should go back home," Duo told Quatre. "You don't need to baby sit me."

Quatre was quiet and then he replied, "I will be leaving soon. I do have a great deal of work to do. I will be coming back, periodically, to see you, though."

"Take Heero with you," Duo said and felt a sharp pain at the thought of Heero being gone, at the thought of the man getting on with his life and an island without his constant presence.

"Do you mean that?" Quatre wanted to know.

"Maybe I can sort out reality without either of you here, messing with my head?" Duo replied.

"You don't believe that," Quatre retorted. "You know that your belief, that we hurt and used you, is the root of your problem. Heero going away won't help that."

"Maybe I care about him?" Duo replied softly. "If he's really the good guy, he shouldn't have to suffer being here,day after day, wondering if I'm going to figure out how to kill him."

"He wants to be here," Quatre told him. "You know why. This is where his life is. Where you are."

Duo frowned. "I'm not going there, so don't you try it. Heero hasn't said anything. He shouldn't."

Quatre sighed. "I know. It's not the time. You should know, though, that this is his choice. It's not a burden for him."

"Do you hate her?" Duo suddenly asked.

Quatre blinked, caught off guard. He didn't say anything, trying to puzzle out what Duo meant.

When Duo saw the light of understanding in Quatre's eyes he added, "Do you feel the cold kiss of that steel sword, sometimes, like it's happening just then? Do you feel it sliding into flesh, between ribs, and deep into your body? Do you remember her jamming it in, wanting you dead?"

Quatre shivered viably, going pale. "Yes," he replied softly.

"So... imagine my... difficulty," Duo explained bitterly. "I have months of torture to remember, to feel... They kept telling me it was Heero who was pushing them the hardest for results. It was Heero ordering the worst of it. Heero was the one jamming it in. Get it?"

Quatre nodded, looking away.

"You haven't 'gotten over it'," Duo pointed out. "You probably won't... ever. Every time that you see her, it has to be that much worse, that much of a trigger to feel it again."

"I don't see her," Quatre said tightly, eyes narrowed and almost dangerous.

"You don't follow you own advice?" Duo wondered.

Quatre shrugged irritably.

"Don't want to talk about it?" Duo pressed.

"No!" Quatre snapped and glared at him. "I don't love her, though, Duo. It's not the same thing. I don't have any desire to 'get over' anything with her."

"No desire or no ability?" Duo asked brutally. He leaned in close to Quatre and saw the man tense. He looked Quatre in the eye and said, "They use to love making me piss myself from the torture. They thought that they had a good day when that happened. I spent months believing that it was Heero who liked that."

Quatre backed up a step and his hand went to a gun involuntarily, seeing something in Duo's eyes that made him wary.

"I'm trapped on this island," Duo told him, turning away and gripping the railing hard. "I'm surrounded by doctors. The only thing that's different is the local and the treatment."

"For your protection," Quatre insisted."So that you can heal. Now that we know that they are after you, that they want to kill you to cover up their involvement, it's even more important for you to be here, surrounded by my men."

Duo chewed on a thumbnail viciously to keep himself from shouting at Quatre. They wanted him safe. They wanted everyone else. To them, this was the best solution, keeping him isolated and contained, even though it fueled his fears and his doubts.

There was nothing to say after that. When Quatre left the island, soon after, promising to return with the next shipment of supplies, it was without his personal army. They stayed on the horizon, a flotilla of boats, just visible from the beach, and more so from a balcony. It ruined the peaceful isolation of the island and it put Duo on edge. It was not a good thing that he felt more a prisoner there than ever.

-------------------------------------------------------------

In the end he was who he was, the best. They couldn't hold Duo if he chose to escape. He had only needed to wait until they believed that he was complacent, for them to believe that he couldn't be ruthless enough to do what he needed. He didn't kill, but he doubted that the people that he took out of his way, wouldn't need some downtime to recover from it.

Duo was a hundred clicks from the island before he was discovered, the jumpship burning fuel as he revved the engines to take it all at once, and give him the edge that he needed to make any pursuit ineffectual. He turned off the radio, ignoring Heero's frantic call, and took the ship down into the water. It imploded far below the waves while Duo inflated the escape boat and slammed the engine attached to it into another fuel burning sprint towards escape.

The tiny island boasted a landing strip and a lazy collection of shacks with an old refueling depot. Duo had located it on a stolen GPS. It hadn't been used by the well outfitted Maguanacs, but the supply ships had been frequenting it as a hopping point to the island. Duo grounded his boat and sprinted towards the rickety hover ship owned by the one loan caretaker of the depot. He heard the man shout and saw him out of the corner of his eye, coming from one of the shacks. A gun pointed the man's way shut him up as Duo threw himself into the ship and took off with yet another blast of fuel.

A hundred more clicks and he would reach the mainland, crowds, and a chance to disappear. The hover craft was meant for slow going, near the water, not much better than a boat, but Duo pushed it to dangerous speeds, disabling heat sensors and the old computer that would have tripped automatic shut offs. It died close to shore, streaming smoke, and Duo dived off to swim for shore, tugging a water proof pack behind him.

"You okay?" a man on the shore asked, as bathers stared in consternation at the burning craft and Duo, in shorts and a tank top, walking onto shore.

"Fine," Duo replied as he whipped out a hat, stuffed his wet braid into it, without breaking stride, and told the man, "I'll go call the tow service. Damn thing burned out."

"It's no wonder," the man snorted in derision," the thing looks ancient. Who the hell has hover craft anymore?"

Duo strode off the beach, pausing only long enough to put on shoes. He then lost himself in a crowded straw market, bought clothing, and changed into them in a public restroom.

It didn't take any time at all to lift a ticket, from an oblivious tourist, for the next transport inland. Heero and Quatre's forces would never find him now. They had no one to protect, no one to spend outrageous amounts of money on to cure, and no one to draw down fire on them, or innocents, from him or the people trying to kill him. He was free and so were they.

It was a relief, but that relief was also wrapped up in sadness peppered with anxiety. His mind wanted to tell him that he was escaping danger, but his heart was telling him that he was running away from his friends, and especially running away from Heero. It was perverse of him that he had felt the need to have lunch with the man, on a high balcony in the sunlight, before his escape. He remembered Heero's smile, the tilt of his head that had let sunshine catch in his dark blue eyes, and the way he had said, 'You mean everything to me, Duo. I wanted to tell you that, before all of this happened. I wanted so much for us and I still do.'

Away from the island, away from his captivity, Duo could hear the sincerity of those words. A man couldn't lie that well, could he? A man couldn't look into your soul and touch it with just a few words if they were nothing but lies?

He needed space, time to think clearly, Duo decided. Without his overwhelming memories, triggered by Heero and his confusion, it was possible that he could remember more of his captivity. It was possible that he could find out, for himself, who had truly betrayed him.

____________________________________________________

It took months of traveling, using every skill that he knew, to finally find who he was looking for. Those months had been filled with pain, flashbacks, and living like a hungry wolf on the scent of prey. Heero and Preventers had dogged Duo's steps the entire way, always on his horizon, but never finding the clues that he paid blood for and bits of his soul. Torturing a man until he revealed names, by shoving glass into his fingers, one by one, left its mark on the psyche. He could only tell himself that they deserved it so many times before it began to ring hollow, before the scales began to tip towards him, instead of his enemy.
When he was finally standing in the shadows, watching the man, who had orchestrated it all, sipping cognac before a gas fireplace, Duo couldn't help feeling bitter disappointment. This wealthy man was small, bald, and well on in years. His robe hung loosely and he gave a sickly cough as he took a puff from an expensive cigar. He was relaxed, confident that he was safe in is mansion, that guards and security systems were unassailable. Duo was certain that the man considered his secret just as safe. His men had not revealed his role as their leader easily. They had held out with the zeal of men afraid of far worse consequences if they should talk.

A frightened man lied to save his life. Duo hadn't trusted to forced confessions. He had already hacked into files and infiltrated where pertinent information was kept. He knew the entire plan and none of it had ever included help from Heero, or anyone else dear to him. This man had tried to make Duo his weapon. He had wanted the cream of Preventers eliminated so that his destruction of the government stood a greater chance of succeeding. His operatives were already in place in key positions, waiting for this man to signal them to act. Duo's failure had not eliminated the plan, only set it back. This man had ordered Duo's termination, to keep his secret, and the destruction of the Preventer building. Messy, he had written in an email to a bomb expert, but necessary, now.

The Preventer in Duo urged him to call Heero, to set into motion agents who could act before anything happened. The man who had spent months being tortured and lied to, the man who's life had been ripped to shreds, wanted his pound of flesh.

"Do you know why I wear a braid?" Duo asked as he stepped out of the shadows.

The man whirled, stumbling and dropping his drink. The glass bounced on a polar bear skin rug, spilling the drink and staining the white fur. His eyes were huge, darting here and there as if hoping for rescue. Duo stepped into that panicked gaze, weaving to get the man's full attention as he came almost toe to toe with him.

"Do you know why?" Duo asked again.

"W-why?" the man stammered in a bare whisper.

"To remember why I fight," Duo told him. "To remember lives lost to assholes like you. To remember that they need their revenge.Well, now the braid is for me, and for all of those agents, government officials, and civilians your were ready to kill for your own ambitions."

"Y-You're wrong!" the man exclaimed. "I haven't done anything! I defy you to find evidence that I have."

"Not a good bluff," Duo replied and took a step forward. The man tripped over the head of the polar bear and went sprawling.

"Do you know who I am?" the man exploded, making a last ditch effort to intimidate Duo."I am Lukes Crowley, head of Government finance. Questions will be asked. You will stand trial. You will rot in jail and face death for my murder."

Duo reached down, grabbed the man by the front of his robe and brought him to his feet. He glared into the man's eyes and said viciously,"I am Shinigami. What ever happens after, the God of Death won't be cheated, now."

"My men will take their revenge!" Crowley shouted in terror as Duo dragged him to a large window. Rain lashed against it from a thunderstorm. The man could see his own frightened face in the reflection before Duo unlocked it and thrust the pane outward.

"You have one chance for life," Duo said as he bent the man forward.

"W-What's that?" the man demanded.

"Learn how to fly," Duo said near his ear, and then shoved the man out into the storm.

Lightening drowned out the scream as the man fell four stories to a courtyard below. Duo was already moving, though, and he slipped out of the mansion as easily as he had slipped into it.

_________________________________

"You're taking a big chance, coming here," Duo whispered.

"It's my chance to take," Heero replied, looking as if he were trying to see Duo properly in the gloom of the burned out building.

Duo was seated in a window without any glass, staring at the long drop to the busy city street. "I'm a killer. Come to arrest me?" he asked.

"No."

"Then you'll quit Preventers," Duo wondered bitterly, "and break the law for me?"

"I don't have proof that you committed any crimes," Heero told him.

"Then justice must be blind," Duo retorted and finally turned to him as Heero switched his small pen light to a wider beam. Duo knew what he was seeing, a hallow eyed, haunted man.

"You were hard to find," Heero told him softly. "A woman saw you go in here, though. You were careless... on purpose."

"Just tired of running and hiding," Duo admitted, a mere breath of sound that Heero had to strain to hear, "and I missed you."

Heero was across the room then, light bobbing as he took a chance with his life. The light went on the windowsill, a beacon to those outside, and then he had his arms wrapped around Duo tightly. Duo trembled with weariness and reaction; fearing his own potential for violence.

"I love you," Heero told him desperately."I can't stand back, any longer. I can't. You need help. Let me help you. Let me be with you, Duo."

His arms were painfully tight, as if he wanted to keep Duo from running away. Duo didn't want to do that. He had told the truth. He was done running and hiding. He was too tired in body and soul. His violence had run its course at last and he had found that there was nothing after it. He was lost, alone, and wanting.

When the rain started,splattering them both through the open window, Heero pulled Duo out of it and put his jacket on him. Duo felt like protesting, but he had nothing but ragged clothing and Heero at least had a sweater under his coat. The warmth and the bite of the freezing rain made him shiver all the harder, though.

"I'll take you where ever you want to go," Heero promised him, "as long as you let me stay with you."

The building stunk of rain, old smoke, and mildew. The city outside was cold and heartless, uncaring of all the lost souls walking it's streets, everyone blinded by their own troubles.

"The island," Duo told him, remembering warmth, peace, and healing there. He could accept it now. He might even heal enough to accept what Heero was offering.

Heero seemed relieved as he put an arm around him. Duo found, as he tried to take a few steps, that he needed that support. He had worn his body down to air and need.

"I don't know why you want to be with me," Duo said softly, as they picked their way over fallen ceiling and holed flooring, Heero's light bobbed uncertainly as he searched for a safe way out."It might take years, or never, for me come to terms with what happened to me."

"We can be friends," Heero insisted. "As long as I'm close to you. As long as you let me be a part of your life."

Duo smiled and laughed shakily, "I think I want more than friendship with you, but..."

"I can wait," Heero insisted.

"I hope so," Duo said feverently as they reached the front door of the building.

"Trust in me," Heero begged as they walked into the rain and sought out his car. "I will never betray you. Never."

"I can... almost believe that," Duo replied.

"It's a start," Heero told him as he helped Duo into his car. When he was settled in the driver's seat, Duo saw that the car clock was just reaching Twelve midnight. He chuckled darkly and Heero asked, "What is it?"

"Witching Hour," Duo explained. "A nun told me once, that all bad creatures come out, then. Living on the street, I found that true. Now, I'm the bad creature."

"Not bad," Heero corrected as he slipped a hand into Duo's, "Just abused and angry."

Duo's hand tightened in Heero's as the man drove away, taking him from the city and to an airport and a private jump ship. Maybe he could trust, Duo thought, maybe he could find his way back from the nightmare? Heero's warm hand in his made him believe in possibilities. It gave him hope.

END
- 2
- 3
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Witching Hour