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"Heero Yuy, L6, and the Second Suit Wars "Part 3Written By: ELLE Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from Gundam
Wing (unfortunately) and they were used without permission, but all
the words are my own. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: occurs post-EW, language, angst, sex,
hopefully acceptable OOC, 1st person POV (*shudder* sorry, no way
around it!), plus a ton of minor and a few major OCs (since it's 1st
person, you get to avoid dealing with them too much.) Pairings: 1x2x1 plus others TBD Summary: Jack Kaufmann has no recollection of the braided man who claims they were once more than friends, but his quest to recover his memories leads him to discover a plot much larger than himself that is a threat to the peace he'd once fought to protect... The lovely Miss-Murdered beta'd this for me and frankly this story wouldn't exist without her encouragement.
"Restitution of a Former Life " 3.4 The Take-off
Quatre sent us up dinner and flight suits, though we never heard the staff member come up. I found relaxation so much easier after Duo fucked me that I fell into a deep sleep wrapped up in his arms. And when I awoke, my head was clearer than it had been and I felt better than I had in a long time and we ate with energized apprehension. When he came down in his flight suit with his helmet tucked under his arm, his eyes were wide and gleaming and excited and his whole body practically hummed with nervous energy and I felt a strange nostalgic lust bottom out in my stomach as I saw those same eyes at fifteen all over again. Fifteen - when he was new to me, exotic, so smart and capable and interesting and so unlike anyone I had ever met before. My attraction to him was instantaneous. I fought it fiercely, so unwilling to let anything distract me, but every time I saw him it was worse and I fought it even harder until I couldn't stand it any more and when he met me in that spaceport on L1 I finally kissed him - all trembling lips and wanton desperation. And I kissed him now, a distant echo of that moment nearly ten years ago, and I pressed my palm to his cheek and really spent the time to taste him, to appreciate him, and after several long moments he was left breathless in a completely different way than usual between us. It wasn't sexual tension - it was an emotional promise that left us both feeling light headed and unsure. "I won't let anything happen to you," I whispered unsteadily, overwrought by my sudden desperation to never let him go again. "I trust you," he returned quietly, his fingers brushing lightly against the back of my hand where I held it to his face. I certainly knew the significance of that undeserved statement. I don't think I will ever truly understand what drove him to say that in that moment or how he could possibly have mean it honestly but I simultaneously had no doubt that he was being anything but absolutely sincere and it bolstered my confidence immensely. Breaking that contact between us was incredibly difficult but after several long moments I did just that, turning and leading him back down to the parlor where I knew Quatre would be waiting to take us down. Quatre appraised us coolly in the elevator and I didn't want to believe it but he almost seemed pissed that we were clearly on better terms than we were a few hours ago. I couldn't believe the jealous, angry man he had become over the past four years. Then again, I had become absorbed by paranoia. I had shut down, again, stopped listening to my emotions, forced myself away from the one person I truly loved in an effort to protect him. I guess I could understand Quatre's changed character. Once the doors slid open I strode forward, ready to be out of here, ready to be away from this cesspool of guilt and anger, ready to be piloting again. It felt like every little thing I had thought of every day since the war was maybe finally useful again. Every morning I awoke I automatically thought of the alignment of the Sun, Earth, and Moon on that particular day. Every colony or continent I was on I would constantly be calculating where I was in relation to our corner of the solar system and how much thrust and acceleration it would take to get me out. Every ship or shuttle I was in I couldn't help but factor the thrust capacity, the weight of it, the fuel requirements and how far it should be able to go realistically based on theoretical fuel tank size. These thoughts I could never turn off, so ingrained in me they were second nature. But they had no place in this world any more. Not unless I was strapped into a cockpit. Duo, however, had hung back and must've pulled Quatre back as well because I heard him asking if Quatre would be okay once we left, asking if we should stay. I knew he couldn't possibly be seriously offering that suggestion but I guessed it was a nice thing to say to a friend who was clearly suffering. Quatre's response was canned, as expected. After all, he set us up for this meeting, he needed us to go as much as I needed to be away from him. "There's a drop under each suit that will eject you into space once I input the code," Quatre was explaining as he shook Duo off and increased the length of his stride to catch up with me. "It'll position you on the dark side of the colony. If you adjust your trajectory to Earth accordingly, you should be able to get by undetected, as there are only resource satellites in those quadrants." I nodded and Duo caught up to me as well, taking up position at my other shoulder, regarding Quatre warily. "I assume you'll take Zeus, Heero," he continued. "Duo, you can take Ares. He was designed as a combination of Deathscythe and Shenlong." Duo sighed. I heard him mumble a dejected, "Never though I'd hafta be the God of War." It struck me then how different he was now. No longer the optimistic kid that could put on a smile and try to see the good in what he was doing. No longer willing to sacrifice himself for the cause. He had seen too much. And he was tired. He'd said it so many times - let someone else handle this, contact Preventer, contact Une - but I'd forced him into it and now he here he was - about to step into a system he didn't want to pilot to face a potential war against children to fix a problem started by a partner who abandoned him without a single explanation and I couldn't blame him for having a shitty attitude, all things considered. We stopped and stared up at the suits, with equal amounts of respect and anticipation, I'm sure. I turned my head to look at Duo, the grim set to his lips, the determination written across his face, and I said his name quietly, as a question. He turned to look at me then, and a smile smacked across his face so fast I was surprised he didn't get whiplash. "Sorry. Was getting a bit serious there," he teased and I wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him and tell him not to be like this. He didn't have to fake it for me. He never had to fake it for me. But then I realized, maybe he had to fake it for himself. I pursed my lips and saved the things I wanted to say for when we no longer had an audience and then I turned to Quatre. "Give us a few minutes to get adjusted to HERA. I'll let you know when we're ready." Quatre agreed and moved to take up a seat behind the control panel. I turned back to Duo and saw he was already winding his braid over the back of his head to accommodate his helmet. I always thought that balancing act looked particularly ridiculous, but then when he took his helmet off and the braid fell loose... I thought that was one of the hottest things I'd ever seen. "The passcode is H-E-R-A," I told him before he slipped the helmet on. He nodded. I hesitated, caught up in his eyes. Once again I was motivated to say something, but then didn't want it to be subject to Quatre's jealousy. So instead we climbed up to the scaffolding together and he wandered down to his suit while I slid into the cockpit once more. It looked like the blood had been removed since my last attempt. I took a shaky breath and tried to get my wayward emotions under control. I could control this system. It was just different. A unique challenge. I input the code and felt that second consciousness join mine. I tried pointedly to think of only one thing - that I was in control. I'm not sure if it was so much trying to game the AI as it was trying to convince myself of that fact. Hello, Heero. I will connect you via intercom to Duo Maxwell. I will monitor his condition for any abnormalities and report them to you. I was somewhat impressed by the system's anticipation of my desires. I understand we will be headed to Earth. 60°18' South, 150°45' West. It was undeniably more efficient to have the AIs communicate with each other and input data automatically although it took me a moment to realize I didn't need to be checking the physical systems manually. I did it anyway, though, feeling more comfortable looking at the gauges myself. Duo Maxwell is experiencing undue stress. And then, suddenly, I was hit with a wash of fear and anxiety and uncertainty so strong I found my arms shaking as I gripped the throttles. It was incredibly strange to feel his emotions like that. They were different than my own, deep and raw, but they were also familiar as I'd observed, felt, tried to understand, and been on the receiving end of those same emotions so many times. Immediately I responded with all the things I had wanted to say to him before we stepped into these suits - that he would be okay, that he could master this system, that I hated to ask this of him but that I appreciated every moment he stood by my side, that I could never truly thank him for everything he's done for me over the years, that fate brought us together and that despite our explosive fights and emotional lows, he was the only thing that ever made me truly happy. "He-Heero?" I heard his voice over the intercom, shaky, and then an explosion of pure love poured through me and I gasped, finding it difficult to breath under the onslaught of Duo's feelings for me. My heart leapt to respond, assuring him of my reciprocal feelings, and I felt a perverse level of satisfaction, of happiness, of self-assurance as I basked in a sensation more powerful than orgasm. And the best part was that I knew he felt exactly the same way and our feelings harmonized with one another and built into an overpowering cacophony that had me trembling with the force of it. Then I was left empty, panting, drained emotionally as that connection was suddenly severed and HERA's voice was filling my mind. Your heart rate was becoming erratic. Fuck it was, I thought angrily, of course it was! We had been able to express things to each other we never could have with actual words, how the hell else was I supposed to respond? I clutched the grips anxiously as I worked to bring my heart rate down again. "Heero?" I heard the breathy voice of my partner over the speaker and I responded cautiously. "Duo?" "I..." "Yeah." What the hell could we say to each other after that? After experiencing the most intimate parts of one another? "Let's not do that again," he chuckled. I couldn't help but smirk. "Yeah, let's not." Despite the intensity of the experience, he did sound much more relaxed then when we parted on the scaffolding. "Hey. Visual?" Duo's face flashed on the screen in front of me. He was smiling, flushed, his eyes seeming shy. I wished I could reach out and touch him. "You ready?" I asked and he nodded, clicking down the visor on his helmet. "Yeah, you know - I was born ready." The words, the self-confident edge to them - it was the Duo that hooked me all those years ago. My lips curled slightly. "Dumb question," I replied indulgently as I clicked down my visor as well. Then Duo winked and cut his feed while I flicked a switch to connect to Quatre, letting him know we were good to go. He responded with a light affirmative. I engaged the thrusters and felt the hum of the machine truly coming to life around me. And only moments later we fell together though a corridor and out of the colony into the wonderful, welcoming expanse of space. ~ * ~ tbc... |
