Bound Part 6
An Enemy's Honor
The guards' unified cries of utter surprise as Heero burst into the room were eerily identical. A flurry of wood splinters flew as the door was slammed forward, knocking one of the guards into the far wall. Heero rolled into a crouch from the spot he had landed in the floor, aimed at the first guard to catch his eye, the one that had been knocked half-senseless by the flying door. The pistol in Heero's hand cracked, leaving a neat evenly- rimmed hole in the dazed guard's forehead.
The warden shoved Duo aside, out of his chair, flipping the table and crouching behind it, using it as a buckler.
Heero's gun cracked again, recoiling, and another of the guards fell, the man's weapon falling from his dying fingers. He aimed for the third in a matter of split seconds, got his gun up, fired.
(Click.)
// Shit. Misfire. //
"Got you, motherfucker," the guard whispered, bringing up his gun.
Out of the corner of his eye, Heero saw Duo move forward, even though the violet-eyed pilot was bound and seemingly helpless.
// He knows the man will kill him, but he thinks he's the only one who can save me now. Ready to die for me. What in the hell did I ever do to spark such horrible loyalty? Which sin am I being punished for through his devotion? //
Duo saw Heero's misfire from where he had been thrown into the wall, saw the guard raise his gun to blow Heero away, and he kicked his legs out, knocking the guard's feet out from under him. The guard's gun fired, and with a nasty jolt of terror, Duo was afraid his move had been too late.
The bullet was wild. At least, it didn't kill him. Heero didn't particularly consider a bullet so close you could hear the sound of it as it passed your head and singed your hair wild. But he didn't dwell on it. Instead of shooting this time, he turned the gun and clubbed the soldier as hard as he could, feeling skull give beneath the butt of the pistol.
The warden stood up, moving his aim not to Heero, but to Duo, fettered and unable to escape the man's gun. The warden of Redstone Military Base could think of nothing but killing the little shit that had caused all this trouble in the first place, the pretty-eyed long-haired soldier that was lying near his feet now. If there was anything he wanted to do before he died, it was blow that little smartassed fucker away. He narrowed his eyes, preparing to squeeze the trigger.
"Iie. No," Heero whispered, almost soundlessly, and the warden turned to look at him; despite Heero's unerring hatred of the man, Heero saw a kind of strange steadfastness in his gaze, a fierce determination that even he had to admire.
The warden brought his gun around from Duo to Heero, but Heero would not give him time to fire. Heero shot him twice, driving him to the floor. Suddenly, from behind him, he felt a sting in his calf, like a bee's sting. He whirled around to find the guard he had clubbed grasping his ankle; a hypodermic needle was protruding from his leg. He reached down and swiftly broke the guard's neck, jerked the syringe from his leg, and turned back to where the warden had fallen, not yet dead. Heero moved to stand over him, methodically emptying the rest of the chambers into the man.
Zechs walked in silently just in time to see this gruesome, precise execution. Duo, having sunk into a half-consciousness in his fallen position against the wall, his head hanging in lassitude.
Zechs stared in amazement. He knew that under almost any other circumstances, Heero would have been able to hear him coming up. He knew from previous experiences that the soldier's reflexes and senses were extraordinarily perceptive, almost inhumanly so. But Heero appeared not to have heard him at all.
Heero stood over the warden, his body quaking visibly even from where Duo lay, silently firing the pistol he held over the warden over and over, as if the man could and would never be dead enough for him. The gun clicked again and again, empty of bullets, but that didn't matter to Heero. His eyes were glazed over with battle-rage, managing to blaze out of his pale, blood-streaked face, and still remain as frigid as fathomless arctic waters.
Zechs stood behind Heero in the doorway, out of Heero's line of sight or fire. He stood and waited for the deadly assault that would come with the Perfect Soldier realized he was there and when it never came, he knew that Heero was truly finished. Every soldier left in the base except for the two Gundam pilots and him were dead. Any others had ran from the base like their hair was on fire and their asses were catching.
"Quit, Yuy," Zechs said flatly, walking forward slowly to where Heero stood.
Heero ignored him and kept firing the empty gun.
"Heero," Duo whispered, lifting his head a little from the spot against the wall where he had been flung during the battle.
Heero ignored Duo, too. His body was turned away from either of them. The cold, murderous eyes of the Perfect Soldier were locked on the dead warden's face.
"Quit, Yuy. You've killed him. You've destroyed them all. It's over." Zechs put a hand on the outstretched pistol, meaning to take it away, but Heero whirled without looking at him and gave him a hard one-handed shove. Zechs was so surprised that he fell on his ass, suddenly finding himself on the floor, against the wall, next to the recovering Duo Maxwell. He had been thrown halfway across the room. As bad as Heero appeared, Zechs thought, he obviously wasn't as wounded as he looked at first glance.
He signed and moved to a kneeling position, removing his keys and moving over to Duo.
"If you won't fight, I'll let you go from this," Zechs said quietly to the half-conscious pilot, who looked up at him in a daze. He unlocked the cuffs at the pilot's ankles and wrists, then stood back, watching.
Duo got wearily to his feet, newly shortened hair hanging irritatingly in his eyes, reeled, and then stood firm. He walked unsteadily over in Heero's direction.
"Heero," he said, his voice a soft, scream-hoarse whisper. "Heero, it's over. They're dead. Your shoulder..." He reached for the Perfect Soldier, but Heero recoiled away from his hand like a wild animal that means to bite.
"Don't." Heero's voice was expressionless.
Duo ignored his warning, embracing him. The gun Heero held hit the hard tile floor with a clatter, falling from his hand as he was overwhelmed. Heero looked around himself dazedly for a moment, realizing the extent of the slaughter he had done, and the humanity in him that was so often shoved violently aside made his heart give a heavy, horrid wrench at the sight of it.
// What I've done... what I was trained to do... to take life... not to protect it... //
His head was throbbing. His nose closed with tears and his sinuses pounded with his heartbeat. With a distant sort of dismay, he felt his eyes welling with tears. He tried to hold them in, but it was no use. He snorted the tears back and put one blood-flecked hand to his face.
Zechs watched. He saw the most efficient killer he'd ever known stiffen for a few seconds, then relax. Heero's face worked, and Zechs saw in him for a moment the child he must have been before the rebels found him, a hurt boy that looked both young and lost. Zechs looked respectfully away as the Perfect Soldier's chilling self-possession shattered and Heero began to cry. He looked away and did not see Heero's blood-streaked arms come up to cling desperately at Duo's neck, a clutching embrace as tight as steel bands. Even though the grip wasn't painful, Duo could feel the unimaginable power there. If Heero pulled abruptly forward, he could snap Duo's collarbones like twigs. If he shoved, he could just as easily break Duo's back or neck.
But he didn't.
// Treize wouldn't want them captured. He idolizes these young soldiers. It would break his ideal of them to see them broken like this, // Zechs though, still looking down at his polished military boots as he listened to Duo's own tear-choked voice shush Heero. He did not raise his head until both of their sobs had stopped.
When he looked back up, both of them were staring at him, looking like scared wild animals that were cornered and ready to fight to the death. Zechs observed that their faces were too pale, and the signs that they had both been badly beaten were clearly evident. Heero stood slightly in front of his partner, his legs almost imperceptibly bent into a defensive crouch, as if ready to leap at Zechs to protect Duo. Zechs saw with wonder that 02's severed braid was wrapped around Heero's neck like some sort of bizarre scarf.
Heero's face was calm and composed again; tracks showed on his cheeks where he had wept. "Zechs... are you here to capture us?"
"Yes."
"We won't go alive."
"I know."
"Then you'll kill us?"
"... I haven't decided."
"I love him." Heero moved to the left, blocking Duo further from any attack. There was no embarrassment in his voice, only a solemn, fatalistic dignity. His expression was serene, almost tranquil, and Zechs was starting to see a glazed look in his eyes, though this time, it didn't seem to be due to battle-haze. Behind him, Duo's face was as shocked as Zech's might have been, if he had not been taught to hide his emotions. Obviously, it was never a technique taught to the violet-eyed pilot.
Zech's eyes widened behind his mask, but he did not let his surprise show. "Yes?"
"Yes. If you hurt him--" Heero's voice was beginning to slur, but Zechs could still hear the forewarning malice beneath it. Zechs wondered absently if it was the drugs that were making Heero so frank about his emotions. He could tell by the look on Duo's face that such frank confession was definitely not common with the Perfect Soldier.
"I'll do what has to be done for peace," Zechs interrupted, his voice as calm as Heero's.
"The colonies weren't peaceful enough without Earth's intervention. Is that it?"
"Treize respects you for your cause. So do I."
"That doesn't answer my question, Marquis. You'll never give up, will you?"
"No."
"No surrender." Heero looked at him with a strange mix of respect and love and hatred and a reckless yearning for understanding. For a moment, hatred flashed brighter than anything in those sparkling cobalt eyes. "For your priceless peace."
"I will end the war. To save my priceless peace and your priceless colonies. Not to mention your priceless lives," Zechs replied pointedly, his voice sharp with emphasis. "Do you really wish the war to last forever? Is endless battle what you want?"
"I am a soldier." Heero answered shortly, his monotone voice slurring badly, barely coherent.
There was silence from the Gundam pilots except for Duo's pained, ragged breathing. Zechs was silent, too. If there was a comeback to that particular remark, Zechs couldn't for the life of him think of what it was.
~*~
While Heero spoke to Zechs, he tried to keep his mind focused on the problem at hand. Getting both of them out of there. But with the sedative running through his bloodstream, it was rapidly becoming harder. Soon it would be impossible.
// We have to run. // Then, immediately after that first decisive thought, was his follow-up, the Soldier's cold, blue-steel voice.
// Can't run. Drugged. Bleeding. I'll fall. And once I fall, I won't get up. //
It was in his nature to keep going until someone made him stop, to live until someone forced him to die, and then even a few more yards after that, if he could get away with it.
// I can be beaten, but I cannot allow it to happen. Create that stillness, Yuy. That one that comes down from your shoulders and twists around you until it is a merciless blanket of cold. You can be beaten, but you can't let it happen. Not with Duo here. You can't make a mistake, and you can't run. //
He couldn't run, but he couldn't fight, either. The drugs were too strong, the exhaustion too great. He felt himself succumbing, just as he had seen Duo do. His head was sliding towards his chest, and his knees felt watery with weakness. But he would not fall. The unseen hands of his iron will grasped him beneath the jaw, forcing him to hold his head high. He raised his chin wearily and looked up. He looked into Zech's stern ice-blue eyes and knew that the Lightning Baron, if he chose, could capture them, kill them, do whatever the hell he wanted with them. They were practically helpless. Valor would not be enough this time, if Zechs meant to conquer them. But so what? If courage was all it came down to, so fucking what? Heero was willing to work with what he had left.
He was quiet and absolutely still. He was battered and bleeding. Before, when he had been killing, the last thing his victims had seen was the magnificence of his movements, the feline grace there, the flowing brutal beauty of strength in action. Now that he had stilled and the battle-fire had been put aside in him, Zechs could see and remember that the Japanese pilot had taken a harsh punishment during his imprisonment and his escape. His torn tank top was dark and soaked with blood where he had been shot in the shoulder, and his swollen, fractured left arm was curled protectively against his chest, like a bird's broken wing. His other hand was clenched in a defiant fist at his side.
Turning his back to Zechs again, he walked unsteadily over and reached for the fallen pistol, his good hand trembling with the effort. He grabbed it and stood straight again. His head swam and he almost fell as he turned back to Zechs, raising the gun to eye level. His cold-blooded cobalt gaze was chillingly direct, brimming with unspoken nobility.
Zechs stared back at him. Heero could see the expression in his eyes.
Heero squeezed the trigger.
(Click.)
// That's right. I have nothing left. //
He collapsed.
~*~
Duo caught him from behind, stepping forward and around him, a protective human shield, and even on the edge of consciousness, Heero felt a heated blush of shame and self-loathing flood his pale face. What had he ever done in his short, damned life to deserve such an ardent guardian? Nothing he could think of.
Heero tried to tell Duo he was all right, he could stand, he was all right, but his voice sounded muffled and incoherent, as if cotton batting had been stuffed in his ears. He wasn't even sure if he was actually speaking aloud at all.
If he was talking out loud, Duo was ignoring him. Heero's eyes closed and he leaned against Duo's arm, his body going loose and his head dropping to the side, as if it had become too heavy for him to keep erect. Duo bent down and slipped his other arm under Heero's knees, picking Heero up as if he weighed nothing, like a child that is allowed to stay up to late and has to be carried to his bed. Duo was painstakingly gentle, trying to avoid jarring Heero or putting any unnecessary pressure on his shoulder or arm. The gunshot wound was not bleeding badly now, so he didn't bother trying to cover it.
Heero wanted to tell him that he was glad to be carried, glad for once to be the defended one, but he also wanted to tell Duo that he had not given up, even in the end, even locked away in that hellhole all alone. He had seen the resigned reverence in Zech's gaze, had seen his respect for them even before Heero stood up to him. He wanted to tell Duo something, but Duo was talking to Zechs, not looking at him, and Heero wasn't even sure if he was being heard anyway.
He was still trying to say "I came for you, Duo" when he fainted.
~*~
Duo looked squarely at Zechs, his arms full of a surprisingly heavy Heero.
// Goddamn... and he looks so light, too. // Duo tried to subtly shift the Wing pilot's weight in his arms without looking down at him. His eyes remained locked with Zech's as he stepped forward. Zech's revolver remained holstered at his side.
"Kill us or move the hell out of my way, Marquis."
"Run, then," Zechs replied bluntly. Duo began to move past him, turning towards the right, and Zechs drew his revolver in a flash, as if to shoot Duo in the back. Instead, he tapped Duo's shoulder with the barrel. "No, not that way. Treize and his guards are at the entrance. Leave through the hangar in the back. And if I ever see either of you again, I'll be the last thing you ever see. You can pass the message on to him for me when he wakes up. Now run!"
Duo didn't need to be told twice. He hauled ass.
TBC...
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