31-May-2001
Title: Every You, Every Me (1/?)
Author: Ryan Harbin
Pairings: 1+2, Sorta OC x Sorta OC
Warnings: shounen ai, yaoi, alternate universes
Archive: GWA
Suggested listening is, of course, 'Every You Every Me' by Placebo! ^^ Any of the versions are acceptable. ^_~
Everything hurt when he woke, his body largely evidenced in a dull, deep throb, the inescapable kind of pain that was liable to drive you crazy if you couldn't ignore it, chased every so often by a sharp jab in places he supposed he was more heavily injured. He slowly tested all his muscles, pleased that everything seemed functional, if damaged.
His slightly damaged mind took its sweet time recalling his situation, though. Slowly he recollected the circumstances that had landed him here, starting with the battle. He and Duo had accepted a mission to investigate some apparently strange happenings just beyond the moon. There they'd been ambushed by about two dozen OZ mobile suits, a pitifully small force for two Gundams. As he'd expected, they'd made piecemeal of it, and in just a few minutes were down to only two left... That was a as far as his memory progressed, continuing into a sudden blank. Zero had experienced a total system loss, had begun a slow plummet through space, and then -
That was it. He frowned at his inability to recall the following events, struggling into an awkward sprawl and surveying his surroundings. He supposed he'd been captured, and the ease of the maneuver was slightly disturbing. He hadn't gotten the slightest hint that there'd been some outside force. But wait... There'd been a small glimmer on the scans, something that couldn't have been bigger than a few square meters. He'd ignored it, and now he cursed himself for his oversight. Obviously it had been the catalyst for whatever force had been capable of yanking both him and his Gundam here.
His head fell. He'd failed. In the most abject, complete way possible. He'd been captured, and he didn't even have the remotest idea where he was, who had done it, or even how.
Ninmu shippai.
The contingency plans for such a failure were specific. Dispose of yourself, as you were now a liability. He'd never had a problem with those orders before, and he could perform them just as well now. Though hopefully with more efficient results.
Although... he checked briefly over his person, dismayed as the realization that they'd confiscated his weapon. He'd just have to compensate, then...
He looked at the barren cell, devoid of even furnishing with the exception of a small cot. Absolutely nothing. Well, maybe, when the came to interrogate him, as they undoubtedly would, he could be belligerent enough that they would kill him accidentally... Of course, they still had his Gundam.
Suddenly he remembered the other factors. Duo! If they'd taken Heero and Zero, what would stop them from similarly abducting Deathscythe and its pilot? So that meant that Duo was most likely someone on this same base. So he would most likely have to dispose of his fellow pilot, and use to same method to remove himself from all equations.
He quelled the pang at that thought. He hadn't managed to kill Duo before, why was he so sure he could now? The answer was simple - He wasn't. Something in him quailed at the thought of looking into Duo's innocent eyes and pulling the trigger thoughtlessly, something akin to the hesitation at the notion of killing Relena, yet something different at the same time.
He tried to brush away the thoughts, but succeeded only in becoming more irritated as he failed. Yielding to the inevitable, he allowed himself to analyze this reluctance, its mediums and causes and results. However, whatever he was seeking eluded him expertly, a wraith whose misty trail he almost managed to grasp just before it vanished.
A fault in design of the building he occupied became obvious as the sound of approaching footsteps echoed slowing and then halting on the other side of the large door.
He blinked at the invasion of light as the door was cracked open with the creak of either age or misuse. Could be either, he knew, if he was truly on some tiny, previously unknown outpost .
But his breath nearly caught as he was finally able to make out the figure. His first suspicion came from the glint of light illuminating chestnut hair that swished over the shoulder of its owner. Then a bare violet glint, and finally that oh-so-familiar form silhouetted in the sudden shine.
"C'mon," Duo said, the same voice he knew but -
He paused, taking advantage of the new lighting to probe his surroundings in more depth. Now that he could make out the substance of the walls and floor, he realized how unfamiliar it was. And he knew he could positively identify any substance that would be utilized in a prison or other military establishment with ease.
"Hey," interrupted the intruder. "We have to -"
Heero's eyes narrowed. That wasn't Duo. The accent was all wrong, and this person's hair, while an exact clone in hue and texture, was a foot or two shorter than Duo's, a change too drastic to have been allowed by the pilot.
But apparently the look-alike wanted him to believe he was Duo, for some reason that was not yet apparent. After a quick calculation, he ruled it would be best to play along, to see what he could get from this imposter. Drawing himself slowly to his feet, ignoring the body-wide ache that still pervaded his whole form, he followed, eyes darting quickly for any possible threats or further skullduggery.
There was one guard, an immature looking obvious greenhorn, whose gun was too out of reach to be really useful in a firefight and was clearly not in the best shape. Heero gave him five seconds, tops.
And the supposed Duo... Oh, he was slim enough, all right. He had the same basic body shape, easily flattered and gracefully formed, but without some of Duo's wiry muscle, and he moved differently. Not like someone who'd grown up having to look over their back at all times.
He sure talked enough, though. As they journeyed to the unknown destination, he filled Heero in on their location, though it took barely thirty seconds to determine that none of the information was relevant. It seemed to center about a man named Kyouji, but any further details were inconsequential. He tuned his guide out, instead using his eyes and ears to search out possible escape routes, the corridor that might lead to a hangar or an armory.
And then he heard it. He halted himself in mid step, not moving further, even to equate his balance. He thought he'd heard, at least...
But wait - There it was again. All he could determine that it was down the hall to his right, though how far its echo had rebounded was unidentifiable.
He acted instantly, leaping at the guard before the buffoon knew he was moving, effectively immobilizing him with a swift, stiff-fingered jab to the neck. He grabbed the firearm from where it had skittered a few feet away and, making one last, small attack at the fake Duo, just enough to overbalance him, he took off sprinting, following that one sound that could be his rescue, but could be his undoing.
Duo regarded the doppelganger suspiciously, further advancing his theory that there was something extremely unkosher going on here. He shifted his weight to the other foot, though it did nothing to alleviate the slow pain throbbing through all his muscles. He wondered if its source was related to the strange energy that had pulled Deathscythe and Duo himself from the midst of a battle, sending them straight here, where he'd woken up to, well, Heero.
No, not Heero. The resemblance was more than uncanny, it was identical. An exact duplicate, the angles and lines of Heero's face and figure replicated expertly. There were enough differences to be significant, though, starting with the hair. It was cropped short, sheared within a half inch of the scalp. This man carried himself differently, without the cautious gestures of a warrior. Not a shift of form was insignificant to Heero, not a movement extraneous. This man illustrated his surrounding illustriously, indicating this or that with broad sweeps of his hand and ever-changing voice that were entirely uncharacteristic for Heero. In fact, his whole body was different, as if you had taken Heero's skeletal structure, stripped it of the amazingly compact muscles that wired the small frame, and replaced them with a softer, albeit still nice, mass. Add to that his demeanor, which was closer to, say, Quatre than Heero's rigid self control, and you had a totally different person.!
And, to top it off, he had glasses.
Oh, Duo wasn't fooled. He was, though, entirely intrigued. This likeness was not unnatural or faked. This man was entirely comfortably with everything about him, from the deep blue eyes to the finely boned hands and almost feminine face.
The man hadn't said much to reveal their location, simply pointing out the location of the bathroom or mess hall. He'd surprised Duo by speaking English, and he seemed the polar opposite of every OZ soldier Duo had ever encountered, and he wasn't sure what to make of it. Duo had also surprised himself, by answering some of the man's idle questions.
Heero would have known what to do, he was sure. Maybe it would have been to ignore all pretenses of humanity and shoot the man, paving a way to escape, but that would have been better than the indecision that plagued Duo now. A decision for a course of action eluded him proficiently.
Now that he thought of it, Heero may be somewhere in the same base that currently held Duo himself. If they'd captured Deathscythe, they probably could, and would, have given similar treatment to Wing and its sullen pilot. Although Heero would have been making more trouble with himself... He couldn't stop the slow smile that spread across his face at that thought.
A distant shout caught his attention, an automatic key for his body to throw itself into the ingrained readiness in case of a struggle. At strict attention, he cautiously eyed the direction of the apparent scuffle.
The situation soon resolved itself, as two figures came around a corner, still too far away for him to make either out. However, he realized with a thrill, the lead seemed to be Heero.
The Japanese pilot recognized Duo at about the same instant, throwing more effort into his stride. Dimly Duo noticed his escort making shocked exclamations and sputtering at the guard, but he paid little attention.
Heero was wielding a gun, one which he trained unflinchingly at the single guard that had accompanied Duo and the other man. The trembling soldier echoed the gesture, obviously more unsure of attacking this clear aggressor than Duo or Heero would ever be in any situation.
And Heero approached...
Thinking quickly, Duo wrenched the gun from the untrained guard's hesitant grasp, all his suspicions towards that accusation confirmed at the lack of resistance.
He brought the weapon to bear expertly on his blue-eyed escort as Heero came to an abrupt stop beside him, easily dispatching the unfortunate guard.
"You all right?" he asked Heero - the real Heero - not diverting his eyes from the increasingly shocked man before him. He wasn't dangerous, he in fact seemed to have no idea of a plan of action. He looked from one gun wielding assassin to the second, then back again, until finally his gaze centered between, or rather, behind them, face lighting up.
Duo whirled, expecting more guards, but was instead confronted with... himself? The firearm nearly dropped from his hands as his fingers went nerveless in surprise. It had been bizarre, but still easy to accept that there was somewhat so akin to Heero in the galaxy, but finding someone who undoubtedly could fool everyone who didn't know Duo personally into thinking he was Duo was much more unsettling.
As with the other, this man seemed slightly older than Duo himself, and had he grown up differently, would have resembled Duo exactly, in both stature and features. Now he appeared just a carbon copy made with slightly different materials. As with Duo himself, his hair was cut longer than was normally acceptable for males, though it was still short in comparison to Duo's own, tips lightly stroking his shoulders as he moved.
"So I've got one, too?" Duo asked lightly, concealing his burgeoning confusion by presenting a facade that he could care less.
"It appears so," Heero answered flatly, at least appearing to be similarly unaffected.
"Ah... Excuse me?" asked the facsimile Heero, his earlier shock melted away to reveal nervous, shifting embarrassment. Almost, Duo realized, an expression akin to a child caught with his hands in the cookie jar and lips smeared chocolate. An honest expression, something he could only barely recall from the darkest, most painful recesses of his recollection.
Unsure of how to react, he saw the barrel waver with suddenly blurry vision. Not Now! he railed to himself, having to exert force to calm his breathing. Forcing the memory of a kindly smiling woman and equally gentle, caring man from his mind, he willed his attention back to his current situation.
Heero's deep blue eyes flicked to him momentarily, something unfamiliar flying through them. Lingering for barely a second, he returned his attention to the two look-alikes, who had shifted to be next each other, and appeared curiously comforted by each other's presence.
"Explain," he ordered coldly.
The pair flicked uncertain gazes to each other, painfully familiar eyes mirroring each others' emotion.
"Well, ah, you see -" began the man who looked like Duo.
Any explanation was stillborn as a blaring alarm stung Duo's ears, and he reflexively cringed, noticing all but Heero duplicate his action.
"They're here," the replica Heero told them grimly, face slack in fear. "You have to fight them."
"Fight them?" Duo repeated incredulously.
"You have to. Or, I guarantee you, we'll all die."
End Part 1
Yeah, the end of part one. Boring. I'm off to work on something else, though.
Ryan Harbin
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