Notes: If you do not know what the "Por Una Cabeza" is, it's the tango played in "The Scent Of A Woman" and "True Lies". If that still doesn't ring a bell, here's an URL for a free Mp3 download of it by Quintango. (The download is under the group picture.) I'm only noting this because it's a pretty awesome song, and the violin in it reminds me so much of Quatre... (http://mp3.washingtonpost.com/bands/joan_singer.shtml)
"The wail of the tango, it is said, speaks of more than frustrated love. It speaks of fatality, of destinies engulfed in pain. It is the dance of sorrow."
--- The History of Tango
"There is always room for a man of force, and he makes room for many."
--- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Et tu, Brute?"
--- William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
Requiem for the Sinners Part 4
Last Dance For All
If the politicians were at all worried or frightened about Duo's outburst earlier at the World Nation, they showed no signs of it at the ball following.
Heero leaned in the corner, arms crossed over his immaculate white uniform front, watching with a jaundiced eye, all while somehow managing courtesy as he declined an invitation to dance from roughly half the females present.
The chandeliers had been fit with gorgeous white and red and green lights in honor of the second Christmas in the peace era following the Endless Waltz. A tango started softly from the corner, Quatre obliging the lead violinist with a duet as he borrowed one of the musician's instruments.
The opening strains of "Por Una Cabeza" drifted across the dance floor. A burst of applause followed the beginnings of the spontaneous performance.
"Dance with me, Heero?"
Heero startled a little at the deep voice. Duo stood alongside him, looking decidedly amused. His hair was loose and ironed tonight. It fell down from his head in feathery waves over the cape around his shoulders. "Snuck up on ya, did I? I think you're losing your touch."
"You know I don't dance."
Duo grabbed him by the arm, threading his own through it and pulling him onto the dance floor forcibly. Heero had forgotten that Duo was much stronger than he looked. "You do now."
Heero gave in and allowed himself to be led by Duo's arm through his, aware of all the eyes on him. Murmurs swept the room as the infamous young councillor of L2 took the dance floor. Wordlessly, the dance floor cleared, couples and groups making way for the two young men heading towards the center of the dance floor. Duo moved sinuously through the crowd until it was just the two of them in the center.
Alone.
"Duo..."
"Just play along. Please, Heero. Just this one last time," Duo asked softly, and there was something in his voice, something in his eyes, that made Heero surrender. He put his hand on the plane of Duo's shoulder, feeling the soft texture of the fabric warmed by Duo's body.
One last time...
Duo grasped his hand gently, but firmly. Duo's arm circled his back and pulled Heero against him. Heero could smell him, a mix of vanilla and something else he couldn't place.
With the first step, the rest of the crowd melted into the backdrop. Heero rested his forehead against Duo's face, letting Duo take control of the dance. He let himself find the resonance in Duo's sweeping movements and tuned himself to that. He settled effortlessly into the closed world of their embrace.
Their union became the center of the universe. Or at least the ball. The music was their gravity, anchoring them. Nothing else existed but the music, the dance that was almost like a duel as they pushed and fought for control and went through dizzying figures over the polished white marble.
Heero felt the urge to drink the music into his very soul as the piano pounded, cuing the refrain. He could feel the reverberant shrilling of Quatre's sweet violin as he went into a passionate solo, his instrument drowning out all the others.
He found his center and his balance as he shifted dominance, taking control of the dance. He found his center and his balance, savoring the joy of grace without violence.
But all too soon, the dance was over. Heero could not even recall when it had began. Maybe he had been dancing it all his life.
They glided into their final position, holding the embrace for one last, long moment, ended with their foreheads touching, bodies held flush against each other, breathing hard, with no space between them.
The crowds broke into spontaneous applause.
"Thanks," Duo whispered, brushing his lips over Heero's gently in something that was not quite a kiss, then pulled away, walking towards Relena.
~*~
In the corner, Quatre handed the violin back over to the musician he had borrowed it from, thanking him profusely, blushing in pleasure. It had been so long since he played anything for an audience...
The small band settled into the waltz again.
No matter where they played, the waltz was always what everyone wanted to hear.
~*~
Heero watched as Duo went straight up to Relena, who was standing in the back near the band. He took her hand. Heero couldn't see Duo's face as he spoke, but he saw Relena's change from nervous surprise to pleasure. She looked at Heero, then laughed.
So it was all just a show then, was it? Just one of your games?
Heero shook his head and turned away in disgust, walking towards the buffet.
~*~
Duo leaned in and whispered something into Relena. Disbelief filled her sky blue eyes as she stared over his shoulder. He kissed her on the cheek.
"NOW!!"
~*~
An explosion of automatic gunfire rocked the front room, hammering through the waltz and breaking it into discord. The party-goers erupted into screams and panicked shouts.
Heero glanced around wildly, pushing his way towards the sounds of the shots, but there were so many people, he couldn't see where-
Relena! Where is Relena?!
He glanced at the center of the floor. Relena lay in a crumpled sprawl.
Heero shouted the only names he could think of. The first ones that came to his mind.
"Quatre! Duo!"
Duo...
A hail of bullets mowed through the crowd. Even as he was reaching for his gun, for the first time, Heero saw the person who had opened fire. He was dressed in a long black military coat. It was the young man who had been guarding Duo's room. Harper. Isaac or Ian or whatever the hell his name had been-
He spotted Quatre. Quatre was trying to make his way towards his sister, who was lying in a boneless sprawl as her blood spread on the polished marble floor and mixed with the blood of others.
"Quatre!! Quatre look out behind you!"
Quatre looked up, his face pale and grief-stricken and furious and terrified, and he met Heero's eyes. But he never heard.
Harper opened on him, firing three times. The first and second shots went wild, one shattering the punchbowl on the banquet table and sending green punch flooding the floor in a slick as it mixed with blood. The third caught Quatre in the back.
Quatre staggered towards Heero anyway, blood soaking into the back of his tuxedo jacket. He caught Heero's eye again before he collapsed, his wrist resting on the leg of none other than the Alderman of the former United States, who had had half his face blown away in the middle of a bad joke.
The first gunman finished his rounds and pulled behind a column to reload. "Shift!"
Another man in black -one that Heero recognized from Duo's "representatives," but could not remember the name of- appeared through the loda and fired from the opposite side of the crowd.
Where are my men? Heero thought coldly as he raised his pistol to aim at the second assassin.
He had slipped back into the cold, buzzing static of the Soldier as easily as if he had never left it, being able to pick out a killing shot with a careful, merciless eye. His hands were trained for the trigger.
But it wasn't just the two of them. More of the L2 politicians were pouring through the lodas in a militia of sweeping black and silver, picking off the survivors with clean, explosive shots, their eyes filled with zealous fire.
Someone shot out the chandeliers. They fell to the floor with a crash of shattering crystal and glass. There was a scream as someone was crushed. It sounded like Noin.
Now the only lights were the glassed torches at the tops of the columns, throwing the ball into a hellish half-light.
Most of those politicians who had survived the initial attacks were lying on the floor with their hands over their heads. They may have been politicians, but they were still civilian. And they were frightened.
With good reason, Heero thought absently, as his pistol picked the targets in black with dreadful accuracy.
Just as they killed the politicians, Heero killed them. The assassins never hesitated, even though Heero never missed a kill. He felt all alone on the battlefield again, the civilian dead lying all around him, the musicians draped gracelessly over their instruments, one dead violinist still gripping his bow.
Heero stalked forward towards the mass of L2 killers that blocked the exits, reloading mindlessly, as he had done a thousand times before. Blood, feverishly vivid under the remaining lights, was flecked across Heero's face and white uniform.
But he didn't notice. He couldn't see. He couldn't hear anything but the waltz.
He fought head-long as he always had, the unthinkable pounding itself into his brain. Relena was dead. So many dead. The politicians. The musicians. Most likely Quatre, too. All of them dead. The world had been turned on its axis in less than two minutes.
Now it was war again, and Heero had never been afraid of that particular prospect.
Heero dodged a shower of bullets and pressed himself against a nearby column for cover.
Mariemeia.
Heero stared at the girl crouched behind the other column, legs drawned to her chest, arms wrapped around them, trying to make herself as small as humanly possible. Her eyes were wide with terror and sparkling with unspilled tears.
Shield, not a sword. He had to protect her. He was responsible.
Somewhere, Heero could hear Zechs bellowing something (Milliardo, they call him Milliardo now), but he couldn't understand what it was. The assassins were falling back now, covering themselves with a rattle of automatic fire. He could hear sirens in the distance, somewhere over the gunfire and the screams.
Heero moved from one column to the other, and Mariemeia clutched at him with panicky tightness. He sometimes forgot that she was still a child.
The sirens were louder now. The gunfire fading into individual shots. Help was coming, but probably too late. Too late. He pulled Mariemeia closely to him, leaning around the column to return fire. She sobbed silently, tearlessly, shoulders hitching under his one protective hand holding her firmly against him. Her small hands were clenched in his uniform.
"Heero."
Heero whirled. Duo stood in front of him, pistol in hand. Heero raised his own, tried to squeeze the trigger, but his hand wouldn't obey him.
In fifteen years, he had never had to think about pulling off a shot. But now he couldn't pull the trigger. His hand clenched convulsively around his gun. He couldn't shoot. His cobalt eyes were wide and swimming.
Duo?! You, Duo?
"Sorry, Heero." Duo's voice was soft. He raised the pistol and loosed three flat, atonal shots. Heero was hit in the chest and thrown backwards, his head cracking against the column. Black spots flickered across his vision.
Mariemeia screamed and dropped to her knees, hands held over her ears. Her eyes were closed tightly, like a child defying the darkness, even when she knew the monsters under her bed were real."Heero!"
Two more shots. Mariemeia's scream was cut off.
Duo...
"Sorry..." Duo whispered again, and it sounded fuzzy, far away, as if it was heard across a far expanse of fog. The black-clad ex-Gundam pilot disappeared into the decimated crowd, following his team in a curtain of cover-fire. The remaining shots took on an echoing, surreal quality. Red was blossoming on the front of Heero's uniform like roses in snow.
Heero had a disjointed memory of Duo lying across the floor in their dorm room, flipping through a magazine, back during the Wars. Duo, making mashed potato sculptures in the lunches from the cafeteria. Duo smiling at him, teasing him, even when he never acknowledged it. Even when Heero spent whole weeks at a time ignoring him, he never went away.
Heero sank against the marble column, hand still clutching convulsively at his gun as he lost consciousness, helplessly watching Duo leave through a deepening snowdrift of gray that crossed his fading vision.
And he still couldn't return fire.
The gun fell from his lax hand as the gray drifted into black.
TBC...
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