Standard disclaimers apply
There was no light where she was.
How had it all gone wrong? She had been so close, poised on the brink of success, failure a distant figure looming on the horizon. Another hour and she would have had Heero Unlocked and the world would know the true meaning of the word decimation and the Palazzio. The evil within would be destroyed forever, the world rid of a virus that threatened to consume it.
Betrayed by her own sister. It left a bitter taste in her mouth, sour like old grapes. Sandalith had not had that kind of power the last time she'd tested her. Which meant somehow, Dominic had enhanced her abilities. That was a mystery for another time, a question that, while perplexing, was not the issue at hand.
Darius and the others faced certain failure if they fought without the five Gundam pilots; yet, there was no way they could succeed without Heero. There was a bright core inside of him that attracted everyone to him. It was a dangerous thing, to have people falling left and right at his suicidal and often reckless feet.
And now Heero and Duo were out of the Palazzio, away from the one thing that could Unlock their powers, and it was all her fault. She should have seen it coming, should have felt the cold winds announcing the arrival of an inter-dimensional portal.
Closing her eyes, she let her consciousness float, past the walls of the world she was trapped in, into the blonde boy's Gundam. Heero lay beneath Duo, one hand absently running up and down his long, silky braid. The action was simple, but obviously possessive. His lips were moving; he was speaking to Duo, or to their Chinese companion.
'...Gundam was captured and destroyed,' he finished. Duo peeked at his lover through chestnut bangs, looking unhappy at the prospect of Heero fighting without his preferred Gundam.
'We could rebuild,' he suggested. Then he turned towards Heero, obstructing her view of his lips. '...J's plans somewhere. I don't think he ate them,' he deadpanned, lips quirking slightly. Heero was forced to agree as the other boy kissed him deeply, preventing any more talk of resurrecting Wing Zero.
Heero! she cried, but it was useless. The veil between worlds was too strong for any kind of weak interference to pass through. Yalith bit her lip, contemplating the only solution she could come up with. Was it worth it? They might not even understand the message...
After a few moments, she shook her head and continued to watch.
They landed uneventfully, no block parties with banners welcoming the Gundam pilots. After the past few days, all any of them wanted to do was lie down and sleep for the rest of their lives. It seemed as if fate had thrown a lifetime's worth of revelations and epiphanies and packed them into four days.
Duo headed to the former mess hall of the OZ base to think. Heero had gone to see Sarsis, who Quatre and Trowa declared was a healer, for reasons he refused to disclose to the curious American. Duo had finally relented, one eyebrow raised in suspicion, reminding himself to quiz the Japanese boy later.
Think, he commanded himself, shutting the door carefully behind him. Think...
He knew there was something important he was missing. Something that could change everything. He was sure of it; the Maxwell hunch never failed. It hadn't failed him when it told him that Heero Yuy, the boy pointing a gun at a seemingly defenseless girl, was going to end up as his lover and soulmate. Duo had fancied it the ends of a runaway imagination, but now he wasn't so sure. Recounting the times it had saved his ass in a battle, disbelief began to whittle into a semblance of faith.
So he had some kind of sixth sense. So did Quatre. That...space heart...thing of his confused Duo to no end. For some reason, he had always attributed Quatre's knowledge of his little hurts and aches to the Arabian boy's own innate compassion and reason. But maybe that wasn't true. He paused for a moment, waiting to see if a roaring denial would surge from his gut. Nope. Nothing.
That didn't mean it was reliable.
Thinking as hard as he could, Duo screamed mentally, <I AM NOT IN LOVE WITH HEERO YUY!!!!!!>, then doubled over in pain as his insides cramped.
< Duo?> Heero sounded mildly chagrined. <Everything ok?>
< Oops, gomen, Hee-chan,> he replied dutifully. <Just trying something.>
< Hn. Don't try anything else, I think I'm going to have a stomach ache for the rest of the day and I'd rather not have a headache.> Duo could almost see the little smirk on his lover's face.
< Will do,> he chirped, blowing a mental kiss. His eyes widened in surprise as Heero caught and pressed it to his heart. <Later?>
< Later,> Heero agreed, and then he disappeared. Not off the face of the earth, but out of Duo's range of 'hearing'. Even as he turned to collapse onto one of the long wooden tables for a nap, he couldn't help the heat that pooled in his belly, warming his whole body. Everything they'd been through: Heero getting wings, Yalith dying, barely escaping being crushed by Quatre, it was all worth it.
Even the...rats were worth it. Because now he had Heero, and he wasn't going to let anyone else even look at him sideways. Duo had been through a lot in his short life. Waking every day on the streets of his homeworld to find rats nibbling at his fingers and feet, biting what flesh he'd been unable to tuck inside his coat. He would never forget returning to his gang's safehouse to bury Solo, only to find rats surrounding his body like...
His dream. He'd had a dream. Duo could remember hanging above the pits, eyes suddenly snapping open, the dream still captured in the front of his mind, words perched on the tip of his tongue, about to spill over. And then he had seen the rats, and the dream had scurried away, frightened by his sudden cry. It was infuriating to him that he was unable to remember exactly what had happened. The only thing the American could recall were flames, hot and red, wavering uncertainly in the slight breeze.
So something about flames. Duo laid his head down on the solid oak, marveling at the decadence of even the soldier's dining halls. He was beginning to trust his gut instinct; so far, it hadn't steered him wrong.
The only problem was, what was it saying to him?
And why did he feel as if they should never have left the Palazzio?
"They are lovers," Darius observed as he and Armand watched the long-haired boy and the smaller dark-headed boy enter the facility through the window of the office they had taken over. His lover snuggled against him, wings flapping gently behind him, eyes trained on the dark-haired one.
"How can you tell?"
"See the way his arm wraps around the smaller one's waist as soon as he sees Pierce, though he was content to let it rest at his side when he thought no one was watching? He is claiming him, in his own way." He chuckled darkly. "The dark-haired one you are watching so intently--is he Unlocked?"
Armand paused, letting his senses flow outward, wrapping around both of the boys, and shakes his head. "Not yet, though he has his wings. I can't imagine why Yalith didn't Unlock him first and Bind him second. It was a fool thing to do. Now we have the lovely task of doing it for her."
"Let the poor woman rest in peace," Darius murmured softly, stroking Armand's cheek with a determined hand. "She is dead and we are here. There is nothing we can do."
"He will seek out Sarsis," Armand said softly. "He knows. He *must* know."
"It doesn't matter whether he knows it or not. We have to Unlock him and then we can at last launch our attack." His eyes gleamed eagerly as a small tongue darted out to wet his chapped lips. "And we can destroy Dominic easily."
"How are we to Unlock him?" Armand questioned suspiciously. "Yalith Unlocked all of us with an extensive ritual that none of us have the knowledge or the experience to replicate. There is no other way," he stated flatly.
"That's not true. As it was done to me..." He leaned forward, whispering in Armand's ear, tongue occasionally tracing abstract symbols on his jaw.
"I know exactly what your problem is," Sarsis said as soon as Heero had finished, his arms crossed across his chest protectively. "You haven't been Unlocked." Motioning for Heero to sit down and shrugging as he refused, the young healer went on.
"There is a core center of being to everyone. Call it what you like. Your ki, your chi, whatever. It is what it is and no post-modernist labels can change it. It was brought to the surface when you switched bodies and it is locked inside of you, churning and causing trouble, and, every now and then, leaking out.
"Your brain can't handle an influx of power like that, so parts of it shut down. Hence the blackouts, the dizziness and numbness. The only person that I knew who could shift the focus of your core, and who is currently, well, dead, is--"
"Yalith," Heero said slowly. Sarsis nodded glumly. "So I'm fucked."
"Well, yes." He could see no way around it and found no reason to deceive Heero. He rather liked him--Heero was like a younger Pierce, in a way. So jaded, and both so pure in their hearts.
Unconsciously, Heero hugged one knee to his chest, a poor substitute for the braided American. Sarsis blushed as one lean thigh was suddenly put on display, the muscles flexing beneath skin that would probably feel like velvet...
"Achem," a loud voice coughed from the doorway. "Am I interrupting?" It was Duo; and he looked rather annoyed at finding the now crimson healer ogling Heero. His every movement, every breath, every flicker of his eyelids screamed "MINE!".
"I took a nice long nap and now I'm all better," Duo said, playfully tweaking Heero's nose. His eyes crossed for a split-second, then righted themselves with a faint look of amusement about them. Not very open, he noted. A former soldier.
"That's good," Heero replied. Then he seemed to realize that it was actually *Duo* standing there and asked, "Duo, why are you here?"
"Just missed you," he said casually, shooting daggers at Sarsis with his lovely violet eyes. "So what's wrong with Heero?"
"Um..." He made a great show of adjusting his white tee-shirt, smoothing out the wrinkles. "Heero needs to be Unlocked."
"Unlocked?" The American's nose wrinkled. "What's that mean?"
"Unlocked. We've all got certain innate talents, but for the most part they stay hidden. Humans usually can't be Unlocked except under certain circumstances that are so rare they could qualify as miracles. Heero needs to be Unlocked soon."
"Or else?" Duo made an impatient wiggling gesture with his fingers that grated on his nerves. He was lucky he was so cute, or else someone would have put a foot up his ass a long time ago.
"Or else he'll die," Sarsis snapped, eyes widening as he realized he was close to losing his temper. Heero's face went stoically blank, as he'd known it would. Duo's features grew stolidly determined, disguising the wild fluctuation of emotion inside of him. His instability was making the room feel cramped, giving him a headache.
"How can we Unlock him?" he questioned, peering closely at Heero like there was some tag attached to his neck with care instructions. Heero swatted at his attempts to pull off his shirt, instead catching Duo's wrists in his stronger hands.
"We can't. And the only person we know who can is dead." Waves of guilt crashed down on him as the braided boy's features crumpled and his hands, wrenching from Heero's lax grip, flew to his face, muffling his cry.
End Book Two, Part Three
Ariana
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