Sacrifice Part 9
Confession
The five of them boarded a small passenger shuttle and headed towards the neighboring LaGrange. Zechs piloted the shuttle, and as soon as he had left the rest of them, Wufei visibly relaxed. None of the others had realized the Tallgeese pilot had been making Wufei so tense.
Duo leaned against the wall of the shuttle, looking out the window. The billions of stars rolled lazily across his vision like diamonds on a jeweler's felt, reflecting in his eyes. He felt a hand touch his shoulder softly. "Are you okay, Duo?"
Duo turned his head to see Quatre leaning over the seats, looking at him in concern. Good old Q-man, who would think the only reason there wasn't air in outer space was because he wasn't putting in enough effort. Enough concern for the whole damned universe.
Duo felt the old Maxwell grin sliding over his face, a grin that was part manic cheer, part foolish good will, and a little bit of lunacy. When he replied, his voice was warm, rich, confident, even cocky. It was the voice of Shinigami. It was an I'm-all-right-let-me-at'em, I-can-piss-vinegar- and-shit-cement-and-I'm-not-scared-not-one-bit voice. But it was absolute bullshit. The biggest lie he had ever told in his life. It was half of his life. He had learned that the other side of him, the darker side, would scare people. So he used this one.
"'Course I'm okay. We're on our way to kick ass and take names, Quat. Why wouldn't I be okay?" He didn't mention Heero at all. Didn't think about him. Just thinking about his friend, held and tortured, was enough to make his mask crumble in a heartbeat. And he didn't want anyone else to see.
Quatre smiled uncertainly and left him alone. Duo shook his head. The mask didn't work with Quatre. Quatre could see anything, and Duo couldn't fool him. Shinigami didn't scare him. Sometimes it irritated the hell out of Duo, to be seen through so clearly. Other times it made him feel like going to Quatre and having a good cry on the Arabian's shoulder, just knowing Quatre knew what he felt without him having to explain it.
Wufei and Trowa were in the very back of the shuttle, catching some sleep. The silence was very loud. "Not bad," Duo said, closing his eyes and smiling again, this time just a shadow of the grin on his face.
But this was bad. All of it. And it had knocked him for a loop. He felt like he had taken a hard hit and hadn't even seen it coming. But he couldn't handle it now. No sweat.
"War again," he whispered to the stars. They didn't answer. "My playground," he said, and laughed quietly. It wasn't a good laugh. And it scared him, too, because only crazy people laughed in empty rooms.
But he had to laugh. It was easier to be big, bad and brave when you were laughing it off. And if you weren't laughing, you were crying. And boys don't cry.
So why did he feel like bawling?
He grabbed the bag at his feet and shuffled through it aimlessly. His good old trusty pistol and knives. An AK. Kevlar vest, courtesy of the good people at Preventer Corps. A change of clothes. First aid. An orange and a Snickers bar. Mm.
Most people had a comfort food when they were feeling like shit. To Duo, an orphan growing up on the streets, any food was comfort food.
He peeled the orange and sang softly to himself. "Pearls that swim bereft of me... long and weary my road has been, I was lost in the cities... alone in the hills, no sorrow I feel... for anything I feel yeah-"
::Baka...:: A ghostly voice whispered in his head, and he startled, cutting his song off, looking for the source of it before realizing it was only his imagination. He laughed again, nervously, and popped a section of orange into his mouth.
He looked back out the window. / Don't worry, Heero. Don't be... afraid. We're coming to bring you home. I'm coming to bring you home. I'll protect you. I promised. /
He remembered once, when he had been sneaking out of the safehouse to go to church, when Heero had caught him and asked him where he was going.
::I'm going to confession, Heero.::
::What is confession?::
::You talk to a priest, you know, and tell him all the terrible things you've done. You... want to come with me?::
::..No one could listen long enough.::
And that had been the end of that.
Duo dropped the rest of the orange in his lap, raising a hand to his forehead. Ah, Christ, that wasn't anything he wanted to remember, not now, not when he had finally scraped some sort of life together for himself. He had strived for the type of normalcy other civilians seemed to enjoy, and he had just about succeeded, in most aspects. Of course, he still awoke in the middle of the nights sometimes with nightmares so vivid they made him physically ill, but a diagnosis for post traumatic stress disorder and an ongoing prescription for Valium had taken care of that problem quite nicely. He heard Solo's voice in his head. Ever since the older orphan had died, Duo wasn't surprised to hear him there. // Yeah, but what about Heero's life? How the hell do you think he's felt, knowing we left him there. Knowing that we wouldn't be coming to save him? What kind of life has he had?! //
/ He said not to get involved. He said he didn't want our help. They would have killed him if we had! /
// You think maybe he would rather choose death over that torture again, Duo? Because you sure as hell would. //
Duo had nothing to say to that. He shivered, looking back out the window. Doors were opening again, doors in the bottom of his mind he hadn't wanted to open ever again.
// You're not Duo "Scrapper" Maxwell now, kiddo. You're goin' back to war and you're Shinigami again. You're not a big tough Preventer now, you're lil' fifteen year-old 02, teenage terrorist again, so how about that? //
/ Shut up! / He tried to shake those thoughts off. / Thing to remember is that I'm okay. I'm okay, you're okay. Duo Maxwell... is O..K. Just need a cigarette, that's all. /
He had started after the first war, and quit two years after he started, after the Waltz. His cigarette when he had met the others was his first in years, but he could use one now, all right. He started rummaging through his bag again, looking for a pack.
// You're not Duo "Scrapper" Maxwell down there, pally; down there you're just Duo "Shinigami" Maxwell and you're with your buddies and you're so scared on the inside it feels like your balls are turning into jelly and so brave on the outside you think you're invincible, untouchable, even though deep down you know you could buy a farm as easily as anybody. Those aren't doors, and they're not opening. Those are coffins, Duo my man. They're cracking open and the enemies you thought were dead are coming out again. And they're not just coming for you, D. They're coming for everybody. //
Jesus! Even a Millennium Marlboro would do, for Christ's sweet sake. Cowboy killers for the new generation.
In his mind, he saw himself as an orphan on the streets, a little brat armed with a switchblade and in ragged clothes, running from the tough guys, a smart-mouthed, thin kid with a pale face that seemed to scream for a beating. But that kid grew up into an older boy, still braided, still with a smartass mouth that earned him more beatings than he would care to dwell on. He had matured from wearing a switchblade to a Kalashnikov, .08 mm. He didn't run, anymore. Didn't want to. He attacked... bringing death without warning...
He grabbed the wooden rosary beads in his pocket, fingering them. They didn't give him any comfort now. A shudder worked through him, and he told himself, almost desperately. / You're okay, Duo-kid. What would Heero say? Duo no baka. /
The first real terror hit him then, and it wasn't unfamiliar to him at all. It was the knowledge that your life... the life you were happy and familiar with, could be trashed all to hell in one five minute phone call. It was easy as pie. Just walk into the shadows and become the dreaded Shinigami once again. Back in L2, this time.... the devil coming back to his hometown. Ready to wreak havoc.
"Man, that's fuckin' scary," he said, and realized he had just talked to himself...again. He sighed and stared out the window into the vast bleakness of outer space.
/ Heero Yuy. Set-your-own-leg-kill-your-best-friend-blow-yourself-up-omae-o-korosu-soulless-bastard. Perfect Soldier, we all called him... the cold-blooded, stone-faced perfect soldier... engine of destruction, a lethal killing machine... and he was perfect. Cold and beautiful and cruel and perfect. /
Ever since he had met Heero, he felt a compelling loyalty to the Wing pilot. He wasn't alone in that, though. There was something about Heero... something in those deep cobalt eyes that sparked loyalty. Infatuation. Some alien streak of charisma that made Relena Peacecraft chase him across the world, and made thousands of others adore him as a hero.
But for Duo, sometime in the four years they had worked alongside each other, that loyalty had evolved into deep affection, and then to love. Unrequited, of course. Duo had never met any human being that could make him feel so wonderful and miserable at the same time.
He had tried to disappear after the Waltz and Heero's kidnapping, hiding in his work and his pathetic attempt at a relatively civilian life, and how fast all of their faces disappeared. What a bunch of killers they had all been: Quatre, so sweet you could only talk with him so long without that absolutely innocent-looking smile driving you almost dogshit, a smile that always reminded Duo of the colony destroyed by the timid-looking Neo-Arabian; Trowa, with that gravity-defying hair and those intensely burning emerald eyes; Wufei, with his ranting about justice and weakness, who couldn't manage anything above a growl before he had his coffee in the morning; icy-eyed cold-blooded frigid-to-a-fault Heero Yuy, who hid a tormented soul behind a mask of stone; Duo "Shinigami" Maxwell, orphan altarboy turned executioner of the aristocratic class. Was there a word for what they had been? Sure enough. There always was. Les enfants terribles. The terrible children of the stars. In this case les enfants terribles were interstellar teenage terrorists, and how do you like that, buddy?
One phone call had brought it all back, and how he was sitting here in the belly of a shuttle rocketing back towards his hometown and shivering like an L2 stray caught in the rain. No cigarettes. He had forgotten to buy another pack before they left the hotel lobby. Christ on a crutch.
Suddenly, a pack of menthols landed in his lap next to the half-devoured orange. Wufei slid into the seat next to him, curling up cross-legged. Duo looked over at him. "I didn't know you smoked, Wufei."
Wufei looked back at him for a moment, sloe-dark eyes inscrutable. "I don't."
Duo opened the pack and brought a cigarette to his lips, lighting it with a practiced ease.
"You should not smoke on shuttles, Maxwell."
Duo took a deep puff and stared back out the window. "I don't really feel like talkin', Wuffers." He let the smoke out on a sigh.
Wufei put on a pair of reading glasses and tranquilly opened a paperback he had had in his hand. "Who said I came to talk to you?"
Duo turned to reply to him, but saw that Wufei was serious; the Chinese pilot was deeply absorbed in the book, reading with the book resting on his drawn-up knees and his seat leaned back. Duo squirmed a little. No matter what situation he was in, he couldn't stand the thought of someone being near him without talking to him. No matter how much he didn't feel like talking.
"Whatcha readin?"
Instead of answering, Wufei turned the book's cover, so he could look at it. "Danielle Steele?"
Wufei cocked a friendly eye at him. "What were you expecting? Sun Tzu on The Art of War?"
"Uh... yeah."
Wufei smirked a little and turned back to his romance novel. "Everybody has a hobby, Maxwell."
After a few minutes of watching Wufei read silently, Duo realized why the Chinese pilot had come to sit beside him. He hadn't come for conversation. He had come simply to show Duo that he was there, if Duo needed him. He knew Duo didn't want to talk, so he would simply sit there and express his support in the most candid way he knew how. He knew Duo didn't want to be alone. Duo hated to be alone.
He wanted to thank Wufei for it-it was one of the nicest things anybody had ever done for him- but it would simply embarrass the Chinese pilot and ruin everything. So he didn't.
He confessed something to Wufei that he would never tell anyone else. "Wufei, do you remember when I rescued Heero from the military hospital?"
"...He told me about it. Yes."
"He asked me why I did it. He told me he never would have done the same thing for me. He said he would have let me die in there." Wufei didn't answer.
"But... he didn't, you know? When I got captured by OZ, he came in after me. And when they took him after the Waltz... I was too afraid to protect him. I was a coward, Wufei," he finished, in a whisper. Somehow, it had not been as hard to think about as it was to say.
Wufei looked up from his book and over at Duo. His voice held that crisp, sharp edge that said whatever he would say was not going to be repeated. "You are not a coward, and Heero would not ask you to give your life to protect him. If you haven't noticed, he's perfectly capable of protecting himself. Get some sleep before we get to the colony. It's going to be a long night."
Wufei turned back to his novel, and Duo took that as a signal that those were the last words the Chinese pilot would say on that particular subject.
And that was that.
Turning away from the comforting presence of the calm, composed Shenlong pilot sitting next to him, as serene as a pagoda statue, Duo leaned up against the wall of the shuttle and closed his eyes, slipping into a deep sleep that could only be attained by those who felt safe.
As the shuttle drew closer to Lagrange Point 2, he dreamed of Heero.
TBC...
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