July 4, 2000
I can't believe it's over! ::sob:: Oh well, it was a hell of a lot of fun! I think I'm going to concentrate on finishing Cruel Intentions next...part nine is almost done, anyway, and I think it's only going to go to 12 parts...
ja ne
~ana~
Dedicated to Mini, who always makes me laugh. ^_^
Warnings: OOCness. Severe severe OOCness. But hell, I had fun writing it and I hope you have fun reading it.
I've taken the...coughcough...liberty of using songs from the 1990's and the...er...00's. Pretend they're from AC 195.
For the best effects, listen to the song posted at the beginning of each part while reading. ^_^
This part's song is "Thriller" by Michael Jackson.
Relena lifted her hand to her mouth to bite her nails, then stopped, swallowing hard. "Are you sure?" she asked softly. "He's just...gone?" Sally nodded slowly, folding her hands loosely in the lap of her wool knit skirt. "But...that's impossible. A man as influential as J can't just fade away into the sunset!"
Sally shrugged. "He'll turn up, I'm sure."
The blonde Queen of Pop stared at the nonchalant woman. "What is *that* supposed to mean?" she demanded.
Sally patted her on the head. "Trust me, Relena. If Heero also turns up missing, he'll swoop down and collect the money as his next of kin. I've seen it happen before." She sighed. "When there's billions of credits involved, relatives are like crows to road-kill."
"Which means what? You're just going to sit there and let Heero die just because you've seen it before? I knew you were jaded, but I didn't know you were apt to let yourself become an accessory to MURDER!" Relena hollered, slamming one pale fist onto Sally's desk.
"What am I supposed to do, Relena? I work for these people! I'll be ostracized if I try anything. It's easy for you to say, Miss 1,000,000 Credits a Day Relena Darlian." Sally sniffed and opened the door for the blonde girl. "I don't want to hear from you until this blows over."
"But--" Relena stopped as Sally shoved her outside and slammed the door in her face.
"Well, if YOU won't do something about it, maybe I will!" she screamed, then stomped down the stairs, her black knee-high Prada boots clicking menacingly.
Something was happening. It was obvious from the voices and boots pounding the sand, running around in distress, and several banging noises, like doors being thrown open and closed. Several loud explosions rocked the row of cells, and then a soft murmur began to ripple through the prisoners.
"...Specials..."
"...attacking...Specials are here..."
"Who're the Specials?" Heero asked Quatre, careful not to move his hands. "Quatre?" The blonde let out a ragged breath, but there were no tears in his eyes.
"They're the criminally insane pilots of a squadron of Gundams. If they're really here, I suppose we'll either die in a mass execution by Romafeller or from the falling debris of their careless aim." Then he curled up in a little ball and refused to say another word. Heero stroked his hair gently, wishing shamefully that Trowa had been taken instead. At least he would have known what to do.
That was before the roof of the cells was completely blown off by a high-powered laser.
"Hey, watch it!" Duo hollered at the pilot as one of her blasts nearly decimated a building. "The prisoners could be in there!"
"They are. That's why I did it," she replied tersely, and steered her Gundam down to the ground. Duo's opinion of the Specials' brand of insanity skyrocketed as he saw dozens of soldiers, looking a bit bruised, but none the worse for wear, pouring over the low walls. He looked for his friends, for Angel and Quatre and Heero, among the fleeing crowd. Nothing so far, but...
Trowa saw the shimmer of that blonde hair and his heart nearly ceased pounding in his rib cage. Then he noticed that Quatre was cradling his hands against his chest, almost as if they were hurt. He hoped not; the boy had enjoyed relative fame in Europe as a violinist.
"Hey," he called out to the pilot, "could you touch down here? My friend's hurt." There was no reply, and for a moment Trowa thought he was ignoring him.
Then they landed. The Gundam seemed to have been put on auto- pilot; it continued firing at various targets, never ceasing its hail of bullets. "Tell him to enter through the foot; there's a ladder there." The voice seemed too high--a woman?
"He won't be able to hear me--"
"You are more than friends, *aren't* you? Call him." With a sigh, the woman tugged off her helmet to reveal a slender girl with too pale skin and glittering eyes. They reflected as she moved, masking the true color. "We don't have much time. Romafeller is regrouping quickly; most of the prisoners have already escaped in tanks and trucks. Hurry, now!"
Trowa took a deep breath.
His smile had been big enough to split his lips as he saw the blonde entering the Gundam gingerly, as if it pained him to open the hatch. And then he saw Angel, driving a truck into the desert. It would take them better of four hours to reach the camp, where reinforcements and planes were no doubt waiting to take them away.
But there was still no Heero. The flow of men trickled away into nothing and he could feel something inside of him dying.
"Hey," he said as the thrusters began to crackle with energy, "what are you--Stop! Heero's not out yet! He didn't make it out!"
The reply was short and muffled, but it rang out loudly in Duo's ears.
"Then he's dead."
Inwardly, Heero the Popstar with a Bad Attitude was laughing hysterically. The entire situation was ridiculous. Shortly after the blast that had opened the cells, one lone guard had begun executing the prisoners with brutal efficiency; Quatre, flying out of nowhere, took his down and started to beat the shit out of him with his broken fingers.
It had taken Heero almost five minutes before he could get Quatre to move. The blonde boy had made out in one of those Gundams; he'd watched as he crawled into the foot. The Japanese boy began to run, darting around various pieces of mortar and stone. He fell flat on his face as a hand reached out and closed around his ankle.
One of the soldiers. He had a small bullet hole in his leg, nothing life-threatening. Yet he was making the most desperate wheezing noises. Heero looked around, seeing only the emptiness of the cells. The Specials had mostly obliterated the camp, but even as they spoke Romafeller guards were trying to shoot the Gundams down.
"Please..."
The Japanese boy paused, hands clenching into fists, releasing as pain flared through his wrist. Someone's lover...someone's Duo...
It hurt that the American hadn't come after him, hadn't even looked for him. Which meant he was going to have to survive so he could give the baka a piece of his mind the next time he saw him.
"Come on," Heero said encouragingly, bending down in the dirt and dust.
Looping one arm around the man's waist, he dragged him outside and into the bay, where trucks full of prisoners were jetting out of camp faster than any car was ever meant to go. Grunting with the exertion, he shoved the man into the backseat of a smaller cargo vehicle and took off. It was, he reflected absently, a good thing he'd learned to drive during his tour on L-2.
They were barreling down the desert, sand flying everywhere behind them. He could see several of the other soldiers' cars ahead, and started to press down harder on the gas.
An explosion rocked them from behind. The soldiers back at the camp were firing the guns meant to destroy mobile suits at the fleeing vehicles.
"What the--SHIT!" He began trying to drive and put out the flames at the same time, swerving dangerously near the rough. "SHIT!" He smelled gas leaking and stopped the car, about to jump out when the Jeep burst into flames, sending him and the other wounded soldier flying.
Heero landed face first with a mouthful of sand. "Hey," he coughed, wiping the small particles out of his eyes, "you okay? Hey!" He crawled over to the man, trembling violently as he checked for a pulse. None.
He was dead. His eyes were closed, thankfully, and there was no blood, at least. Drawing a deep breath, he pulled himself to his feet and began to walk. He had only gone about ten steps when he heard an engine behind him, far in the distance. A ball of laser- based energy flashed by his ear, turning the sand into black charcoal.
Heero started to run, as fast as his skinny legs would take him. He was by no means slow, but he was tired and he was hurt and hungry and despairing of ever seeing a certain violet-eyed boy again.
Choking down a breath of sand and cold night air, he darted to the left, then doubled back and threw himself into the bushes just as another shot rang out. A minute later, the car drove by, carrying four soldiers and Heero's blood pressure with them.
"I swear," he growled as he navigated the small weed-like plants that kept trying to tangle in his hair, "I'll kill Duo the next time I see him."
Four hours later, he was no nearer to the camp. His feet ached, with blisters forming rapidly on the ends of his toes; Duo's feet were bigger than his and he kept sliding forward as he walked. His back ached and he was beginning to see spinning stars.
Duo. He had to keep thinking of Duo.
"Maybe you missed him," Trowa said as Duo paced back and forth in the tent. "I mean...Okay, no," he finished as Duo turned a glare on him that Heero would have envied. "Did you look away at anytime during the assault? Heero could have slipped by then--"
"No!" Duo yelled. "For the tenth time, no!"
They stared at each other, Duo panting slightly, then turned away. Trowa had to go look after his own lover and Duo still wanted to run around the camp, looking for anyone who might know what had happened to Heero.
But they both knew it was getting darker, and colder, and things were getting more and more desperate for their missing friend.
Heero grunted as he burrowed under his makeshift bed, a pile of reedy looking weed things. He tucked his hands behind his head and stared up at the moon. If Duo was here...
He didn't allow himself to finish that thought. He couldn't stray from his mission, couldn't let what-ifs and maybes keep him from making it back to the camp. Instead, he rested his head on his hands and tried to ignore the calls of the coyotes as they circled somewhere nearby.
He woke the next morning to find a huge, black, hairy spider sitting on his chest. His shout shook through the desert, swallowed by the mountainous hills of power-like stones ground to dust. Swatting hastily at the thing, it crawled away, red eyes still glowering at him as it walked away. Its movements were almost jaunty; it sauntered like an affronted cat.
Heero got up and started to walk.
One foot in front of the other, he reminded himself. You've done it thousands of times, millions of times, without trouble. But this was different, somehow. It wasn't just one step staring him in the face, or half a dozen. It was an endless amount until his lover, until he reached camp and could safely collapse.
The midday sun beat broadly on his back, soaking his fatigues with sweat. Eventually he tossed his shirt away, leaving it behind in the sand, a white flag. He could feel its malicious fingers dragging red burns down white skin, but he didn't care. He couldn't think about the burns, only Duo. And one foot. Then the other.
"What the--?" Relena sprinted down the stairs, nearly tripping as the heel of her boot caught on the edge of the red carpet. "Hey!" she said, pointing at one tired-looking boy. "What's going on here?"
"We're in a war, Miss Relena. You might want to turn around and get back on that plane," he advised solemnly as another soldier patched up his wounds, minor for the most part. She rolled her eyes; where was Heero? If she knew him--and she did--he would be in the middle of the fray, doing something to make a nuisance of himself.
"I don't think so," she said smirking. And she began to speak, as eloquently as any politician or peace leader. When she was finished, some began to clap. Not everyone, as many had ignored the blond girl as she jumped onto a make-shift soapbox. "In short, I am here to see that justice is served."
Duo heard her before he saw her. Relena Darlian--he looked skeptically at his CD, strewn on the ground, then headed out.
"Heero's missing!" he announced. She stared at him for a moment, miffed, then called out to Duo.
"Isn't he here?"
"No! He didn't make it out of the camp. We have to go back and look for him." The boy's violet eyes pleaded with her to save him. Sighing, Relena crooked a finger.
"Come here, sir. What's your name?" He grinned; cute smile, she noted. He'd be good for Heero. Having received the Relena Darlian Seal of Approval, the American seemed more at ease, shoulders relaxing.
"Duo Maxwell, ma'am."
"Well, Duo Maxwell, let's get back on the plane. We're going Heero-hunting." Duo smiled wanly; he could almost picture the added cackle at the end.
Sometimes he didn't wonder if people that got lost and had to trudge through the wilderness survived the environment, or the boredom. Oh yes, he remembered, pick foot up. Set foot down. Repeat.
He was terribly sunburned; he felt dizzy, but that was probably because he hadn't had a drink of water in two days and no food in longer. Feverish red dots began to explode in his vision and he faltered. Pick foot up. And then....what?
It seemed like everything was moving in slow motion; the plane flying overhead, the low growl of its engine as it passed over him, its shadow cooling his body. Feeling sand clench in between his fingers, Heero fell onto the warm white granules, letting his head pillow amongst the sand beetles.
He was still wondering what else he'd forgotten when he blacked out.
The movies had it all wrong.
Heero opened his eyes, but saw nothing. Sound was the first thing to return; he could hear the faint blip of machines. A hospital. Or he was dead. He preferred the latter.
Then the world emerged from darkness, blurring into focus gradually. There was no one hovering over his bed. He could smell medicine, sterilized metal and plastic. And something else.
He tried to sit up, but collapsed back against the pillows, his body screaming in protest. He gave in...for now.
And slept again.
The second time, he blinked the sleep from his eyes and found he could sit up, kind of. He had to use his elbows to prop his thinner body, but at least he could see past the metal railings now.
That other smell was present too. He stretched his neck a bit, wincing as he heard something crackle and pop. How long had he been sleeping? His Prussian eyes strayed towards a sleeping figure, covered by a fleece blanket. Against the odds, his heart leapt. Duo...? The blob shifted and the blanket fell in a puddle at the person's feet.
A female figure. Her face was turned away from him; Relena, probably, judging from the red Prada boots. Swallowing his disappointment, he tried to speak but found his voice inaccessible. That was bad, he thought mildly. He needed his voice, for something that his incoherent mind wouldn't tell him just yet.
He needed Duo. His mind supplied him with a plethora of images of that baka, braided and de-. But the American was nowhere to be seen. Maybe it would be better just to go back to sleep and never wake up.
Heero closed his eyes.
With shaking fingers, Duo punched the little button next to 10 and watched as it lit up. In one hand he clutched a vase of daisies; the field they had kissed in was full of them. Not that he'd gone back to the camp for an armful of daisies.
He could still hear Relena's voice on his answering machine. Petulant and almost whiny, but still right. "Duo Maxwell, I believe you're hiding." He chuckled at the thought; so he had been hiding. From Heero or from himself, he wasn't sure.
The war was over. It had been over the first week after the Japanese boy had entered his comatose state, and remained there for a three weeks. A global outcry was raised against Romafeller for kidnapping a civilian, let alone a rich and famous and loved one.
Heero...
He hadn't visited his former lover, not even once. What was there to see? The prognosis had been bleak. Did he want to see Heero, emaciated and frail, sleeping in a bed, his face peaceful, destined to sleep his life away? More than once in a bleak state Duo had wished that he'd never met him. That if all he was destined for was a life confined to a bed, then maybe Heero would be better off dead.
"He's awake."
Those words had cut through the bubble of a life he'd erected for himself, right through the tickertape parade of a job he'd gotten as a stage manager for a troupe of mimes. Through the junky apartment with the boxes that remained packed, and the overdue rent.
So he'd taken the train to the Sanc Kingdom, stopped at a florist for something, anything, that might help his pitiful excuses. Because he knew Heero well enough to know that his Japanese boy would be relatively pissed off that Duo hadn't been there when he'd woken up.
Then he'd made a detour in the bathroom on the first floor and thrown up his lunch. Which meant another detour at the gift shop for some extra-strength mint gum. He supported the Sanc Kingdom Lion's Club and bought some peppermints too, just in case Heero wanted a kiss or something.
So now he was on an elevator to the tenth floor, to the boy he'd sworn to love no matter what, and he was frightened to death.
The metal doors opened ominously and he started to step through, then hit the 'close doors' button and rode all the way back to the ground floor.
Now that he thought about it, he was sure that Heero would be *really* pissed. Once they'd had some down time, he and Trowa and Quatre had sat down and talked things over, trying to figure out exactly what had happened. The Japanese boy had changed places with Duo, for what reason the American still couldn't figure out. And Duo had taken off for parts unknown without even visiting him.
Poor Quatre. He felt terribly for the blonde boy; his fingers had been irreparably crushed. Quatre refused to speak about it; he just couldn't, and started to vomit violently whenever he did. Whatever happened, it never stopped *him* from visiting Heero. In fact, according to the visitor's log, he stopped by at least once a week. On Thursdays.
Today was Thursday. He was hoping to see his friend, hoping to catch up. The end of the war had come as a terrible shock to everyone, including himself, if he was being honest. It was a day for honesty. They'd scattered; he hadn't seen Quatre since that day at the train station, when he'd walked away with Trowa into the proverbial sunset.
He'd reached the bottom. Taking a deep breath, he punched '10' again, and vowed that this time he would step through once the doors opened.
It took him another two tries and four skipped heartbeats, but he found himself knocking at room 1021 half an hour later. He peered in through the glass; Relena was sitting bedside, reading a newspaper aloud.
Duo pushed the door open, surprised by its weight. Four eyes trained on him, and he grinned sheepishly. "Hi..." He stopped, unsure of how to continue. 'Hi Heero! how's it going?' Or no, he liked this one better: 'Hey there, recovering from your coma, I see!' He cursed his mind's inability to come with anything appropriate and instead moved beside Relena, avoiding the burning blue eyes that were making Heero-sized holes in his head.
"Duo." Relena held out her hands, and for a moment the American panicked. "The flowers?" He laughed easily, all too aware of the sweat beading on his upper lip, and handed over the daisies. She set them on the windowsill next to a dozen bouquets of red roses. He should have bought roses, he thought worriedly.
Relena broke the silence first. "I'm going to get some coffee," she said. "You want any?" It occurred to Duo several moments later that she was talking to him.
"No thanks," he said quickly, eyes darting away from her knowing smile and accidentally falling on the reason for his visit. He felt his breath catch, and scolded himself for being silly. He still looked good, only a tiny bit thinner than the last time he'd seen him, in the plane as they flew eight hours back to the Sanc Kingdom, and the hospital.
If he could have laughed, Duo would have laughed for all he was worth. "This is kind of awkward--" he began.
Heero waved him off and motioned for him to come closer. Duo leaned down, inhaling the soft scent of his body, and smiled as Heero held up the headlines in that day's newspaper. His uncle had been indicted on charges of fraud and attempted murder, thanks to the efforts of teen pop queen Relena Darlian.
"Doesn't that make you sad?" he teased. The Japanese boy shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest casually to hide his trembling hands.
Duo saw right through him, and captured his long, thin fingers in his hands. "You can't fool me, Heero Yuy. Remember, I was in infatuated with you for almost six years." Heero eyes widened abruptly; Duo held a finger to his lips. "Don't say anything." That provoked a smile. "I know the difference, I think." He leaned down to kiss him, that stopped, confused, as Heero shook his head.
"What?" Heero growled in frustration, grabbing him by the shoulders and spinning him around until he faced the windowsill where all the flowers were displayed. He heard him shifting in bed behind him, and nearly melted into a big Duo-puddle as he felt the barest touch of lips on his neck.
Almost gingerly, Heero dislodged the metal bars, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He nearly fell as his knees threatened to give out, unused to the weight of 110 pounds of boy. But he hadn't been in a coma that long, and in a few seconds he worked up the courage to walk over to the windowsill and extract a single daisy from the bouquet Duo brought him. Wrinkling his nose at the heavy scent of rose that permeated his clothes, even, he stood in front of the ex-soldier and urged him to lower his head.
"You grew," Heero noted huskily, even as he tied the flower to his hair. It bounced up and down as Duo chuckled.
"Yeah."
Heero smirked as he avoided another one of Duo's kisses, the American nearly falling over. "I know the difference too, baka." One sweeping gesture at the identical rose arrangements said it all.
Well, Relena thought, bristling as she passed a few gawking fangirls, she'd drank over four cups of coffee. She sincerely hoped they were done reacquainting themselves. Of course, if they were doing that other thing, it could be a while before--
She cut off her own hentai thoughts and peered in through the window. Duo and Heero were sprawled out on the bed, the Japanese boy occasionally ducking any attempts to push their relationship in a physical direction, more for the look on Duo's face than for anything else, she suspected. Heero was known for being a tease.
She opened the door and her jaw dropped as she got a *really* good look at Duo.
The handsome man had almost every daisy from the bouquet braided or twisted into his hair. When he giggled, his daisy wig bobbled up and down like a Weeble. Combined with his elfish looking ears and violet eyes, he looked like a fairy straight from a child's storybook.
Smirking, she excused herself, noting that neither of the boys even looked up. Their laughter followed her down the hall and elevator, out the rotating hospital door, and into the car. Even as she drove away, Relena fancied that she could still hear it.
"Oh SHIT!" She swore as she nearly ran into a tall, thin blonde wearing pink Prada boots. As subtly as she could, she checked herself out in the rear view mirror, noting with distaste that her eyeshadow had smudged.
She jumped over the driver's side door of her pink convertible and said, "Oh my God! Are you all right?!?" The blonde steadied herself on the hood of the car and nodded slowly. Relena noted a strange resemblance to Dorotea Catalonia, but said nothing. When you were in the business long enough, you become savvy to the fact that it was annoying to always have people asking you, "Hey, are you related to...?" or "Hey, you look like..."
Instead, she held out her hand. "I'm Relena." The girl, a gorgeous thing with long, forked eyebrows, smiled.
"Dorothy. Daughter of," she sighed, and Relena nodded. They appraised each other for one long moment, then Dorothy began to laugh. It appeared they understood each other perfectly.
"I'm in the mood to go shopping."
"I am too! That is--"
"Of course. Get in, the guy driving the ambulance behind us looks ready to have a heart attack himself."
"Why, that's rather senseless. No provocation or anything."
"I don't think--"
"Provocation would be this."
"What are you--MMPH!"
And somewhere, Heero and Duo laughed.
End Part Ten
Ariana
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