Kyuuketsuki Duo: The, Uh, Not So Wonder Years Part 2
Insidiae -- Part 5

He woke abruptly from the terrible nightmare, gasping for breath, yet he was instantly aware the moment Heero entered the room of their familiar abode. The warrior glided silently to his side, impassive mask hiding his features.

"Heero?" he asked hesitantly. "Is it really you?" There had been one element missing, for the most part, from his terrible visions. His partner. And now he latched onto the sight of him as an addict in desperate need of his fix. Too many dreams had come and passed where Heero had played no part at all -- in fact, whenever he had instinctively sought out his friend's supportive presence, he had continuously been jarred by the terrifying lack of his existence. In most cases, the shock of utter wrongness had been enough to allow him to fight back at least weakly against the nightmare scenes. Heero had slowly become the center of his reality; without him, it was much easier for him to realize more immediately that he was trapped in unreality.

::Yes, Duo. It's me.:: The mindvoice seemed distant, and unfamiliar.

A tremulous uplifting of his lips graced his pale face as he clutched his blankets tightly to his chest. "It's... over?"

::Yes. I freed you. He's no longer a threat.:: There was no need to ask whom he was referring to.

"And... and you're real, right? I mean... you know...." He trailed off uncertainly, suddenly struck by the fact that Heero was wearing his mask in their home, when he had promised that he would take it off, when it was just the two of them, in their humble surroundings. He had also made no move to come very close to the trembling guardian, offered no comforting embrace, nor done more than answer when asked. He seemed almost to be as he had been so many years ago, when they had first met. He hadn't... dreamed all the intervening years, had he?

::Of course I'm real, Duo.:: Heero's hand raised to remove his mask, and Duo's eyes tracked its progress, strangely captivated by the sequence proceeding frame by slow frame. The mask was lifted off, revealing only two prussian blue flames floating where the eyes should have been on the face that wasn't there. ::Of course I'm real.::

Gasping in terror, Duo scooted away as quickly as he could to the far side of his bed, shaking his head mutely in wide-eyed shock and still holding the blanket tightly to himself as if it might protect him. The robe of shadows dissolved suddenly, and nothing lay beneath, yet it was definitely approaching him as he cowered in the corner. The dark blue flames came closer, and something tugged insistently at the blanket, drawing it away. He shut his eyes tightly, the image of the brilliant blue fire burning itself onto the inside of his eyelids.

'It's not real. It's not real. It's not real.' He chanted the litany to himself, trying to will himself into waking up. Something touched him fleetingly, and he shuddered involuntarily at the ephemeral brush. 'It's not real. It's not real....'

And indeed, it wasn't. Not that time.

Nor the next time.

Nor the next...

*****

"So, the guardian's guardian has finally arrived...." The mocking voice echoed through the heavy air, attacking him from all sides. After he had unraveled the trap that had ensnared him for much more time than he would have liked, it had not taken him too much longer to plow through the remaining obstacles to finally get to this place, the heart of his enemy's domain. He had been long without rest or real sustenance, in his rush to retrieve his partner from the stray, who was only getting more powerful the longer he fed upon the guardian's brilliant life energy, and Heero was beginning to tire. He'd be damned if he'd let it show, though. He had a Duo to save. He offered no response, his eyes continually sweeping the area for danger, his body ready for action.

The creature materialized before him, similar to before, only now he radiated a level of casual malevolence that their prior confrontation had not revealed. "I'm curious, though. You escaped from my little trap much sooner than I would have thought. What gave the game away?"

::Where is he?:: Heero demanded coldly, ignoring the question.

A low, dark chortle flavored with unholy glee made the air tremble. "Who? Your delicious little friend?" The shadows began to part, revealing their hidden surprise. "He's right here."

His eyes narrowed dangerously, and only a major exertion of will and self-discipline kept him from charging the Shinma immediately, to get past him and to Duo, to where the guardian twitched weakly in his thin cocoon of the feasting darkness, black against a blood red sky. He was suspended upright in a crucified position, but all that held him spread up there were the inky tendrils that curled around him and snaked through him, leaving a faint shuddering of the victim in their wake. The guardian's eyes were closed, but behind the lids they moved in rapid activity, and his lips moved faintly in silent speech as well, their soundless pattern forming a litany Heero could not read from where he stood.

::Release him.:: The icy, flat tones, each word shaped with a mental biting edge, revealed nothing of the burning rage that was consuming him on the inside.

"Come now," he said, chilling amusement evident in its voice. "You can't truly expect me to relinquish so lucrative an energy source. He feeds me so well, and his power never wanes. Soon, I will have power to surpass any who would dare challenge me, perhaps even the elders themselves.... Ah. I understand now."

Heero did not ask, did not even express an unspoken question.

He continued provoking the warrior anyway. "I was wondering how he could have picked up a Shinma servant, but I see now it must be the other way around. You must feed upon the guardian as well. His power does flow so very strongly through your veins. Well, by all means, you're welcome to come try to reclaim --"

Heero didn't bother waiting for the greedy creature to finish his sentence. He attacked. The Shinma met his attack easily, however, blocked and countered. Heero dodged back from the horizontal slash aimed at his belly, trying not to show how close he had come to being eviscerated. They parted, and faced each other warily again.

A number of bloodless exchanges later, Heero knew he had to change tactics. The Shinma had time on his side. Its power was being supplemented by Duo's, while Heero's own flagging energy was failing to match it. He decided to take the risk, and launched what would probably be his last effort in an all or nothing move. In slipping his way past the Shinma's defenses, he would be leaving himself open to attack. But maybe he could at least distract the Shinma enough to loosen his hold on Duo, perhaps allowing him the opportunity to free himself. He would have failed eventually had he continued with his former strategy anyway.

He was rewarded by a growl of surprise from his opponent, the disappearance of its haughty smirk, and the satisfaction of having some of its essence dripping from his blade and onto his hands. The price, of course, was that he was entirely vulnerable now, having expended most of his power on ensuring the success of the move, and then there was the rather distressing amount of his own blood mingling with the Shinma's essence on his hands, dripping from the large wound in his side. Objectively, the wound was fairly superficial, not life threatening if he could be allowed to tend to it properly, but he hardly had the time, nor energy, to heal himself now. In his circumstances, the wound was fatal.

The Shinma knew it. It advanced, the hateful smirk once again plastered on its face.

*****

There was a sharp flash of pain, a lingering sparkle of regret, and his surroundings flickered in a loss of coherence. Where had it come from? It had not come from himself, but close to it. Somehow he could distinguish the pain from his own, even though he was bleeding from a dozen small cuts. Had he imagined it? His eyes alighted upon his attacker. He knew it was not real, knew that he was not really being wounded, not really being attacked, but he could not find his way out of his nightmare reality. He knew it was not real, yet he could not bring himself to counter his assailant's moves. It only wore Heero's face, but he had already seen himself hurt his best and only friend so many times in so many waking dreams that given the choice, he could not bring himself to do so again, no matter how the doppelganger hurt him.

Heero. The pain had been Heero's. Not this Heero standing before him now, nor any of the other Heeros who had stood before him, hurting and being hurt. Was it just another illusion? No, it was his Heero's. It had to be. But even if it wasn't, he would never be able to stand by idly and watch him being hurt.

It pained him, irritated him, even, and he carefully stoked the flames of his ire until it became righteous outrage. The added passion of his emotion made his power grow stronger, but only if he kept it under control. He knew beyond doubt where his Heero was now, and blasted the pale imitation before him without another thought.

The trap had weakened. The Shinma's attention must have been somewhere else. But even as it was, he would not have been able to take advantage of the lapse had he nowhere to go, nor a focus for his power. Most fortuitously, he had both. He latched onto that pain as a drowning man would to a lifeline, for it was that. He wrapped his mental fingers around it and willed himself towards it with all his power to enforce that wish, and hand over metaphysical hand, ignoring all the layers of spell and dream and illusion between, he left it all behind and dragged himself back to him, back to reality.

'I'm coming, Heero.'

*****

There was a tug at the edge of his consciousness, but it wasn't enough to detract his attention from the Shinma about to finish him off. The stray raised his arms to deliver the final, crushing blow, taking a moment to smirk long and hard at his fallen foe and flaunt his victory.

From behind him, the sound of an illusion breaking was enough to distract the creature's attention. Alas, Heero was in no shape to take advantage of it. He could, however, slump in weary relief at seeing his ward free of the Shinma's evil trap, and looking like he was ready to wreak some serious havoc. He smiled weakly behind his mask, and decided to try to hold on at least for the duration of the fight. Duo would never forgive him if he managed to die before witnessing what promised to be a very thorough and satisfying trouncing of a creature that truly deserved it.

Oh wait. What was this? Duo's power certainly was bottomless, wasn't it? Something had been steadily feeding upon it for a while now, and there was still enough there to allow him to break free, return a stray -- no, Duo wouldn't be returning this one, he was pretty sure. Enough for him to destroy a stray, and still have enough overflowing from him and over the bridge between their souls to crash upon his own gates. Well, surely Duo wouldn't mind him borrowing just a bit of the excess? He'd hardly even notice.

He set about healing himself. It wasn't a skill particularly native to those of Shinma ilk, not to the extent to which he was able to do it, but Dr. J had made sure he was a being of many talents. He'd have to remember to thank the crazy old bastard the next time he prayed, which was never, so he was okay. In the meantime, it would hardly do to worry Duo, or bleed all over him. He turned most of his attention to the task at hand, and the rest to the battle.

*****

He broke the surface of the bindings, and without a victim, they shattered. He slipped from their bonds and fell lightly to the ground in a crouch. Peering through his chestnut bangs, he immediately assessed the situation. He saw Heero lying on the ground behind the wretched stray. Gut told him that he was the real thing, but logic reminded him of past experience. A quick analysis indicated that, while weak and injured, he was still functioning, and under no undue stress or panic. He had time to deal with him later.

His focus shifted to the being that had started this whole escapade. It was howling its frustration, and Duo grinned unrepentantly as he stood slowly, lazily stretching the kinks out of his neck, for during his crucifixion his head had lolled lifelessly to one side. At least his enforced dreamstate had allowed him to catch up on some much needed sleep. And at this point, he didn't care if he was really out of the dreamstate or not. Here was the opportunity to maybe defeat his captor. He wasn't about to pass it up, even if it might not be permanent. He had some frustrations to work out.

"Let's dance," he suggested dangerously. His power flared around him, shrouding him in a dark violet glow. It was payback time. Without waiting for reply, he flung an orb of power out to angle around and hit the stray from its side, pushing him deliberately away from the one who may have been his injured friend. The stray attempted to retaliate with its own bit of power, but Duo slapped it contemptuously away. He knew better than to get too cocky, though. This was the being that had managed to kill his parents, after all.

The Shinma collected itself, and gathered together some of its former sneer. "So, the guardian wakes at last. Pity you won't be --"

Duo didn't care. He saw no point in waiting for the creature to finish its thought and did not scruple to hurl another ball of flame at the stray mid-sentence, cutting off its pointless dialogue. It clipped the stray in the shoulder, and the guardian noticed that it seemed to have taken some other damage already, and planned accordingly.

The stray ran. Duo pursued immediately. Even injured, it moved faster than the guardian, since Duo still suffered from being mostly corporeal, and it took advantage of its greater speed to strike him unseen from the side or back, but Duo managed to evade most if not all of the attacks. That wouldn't last forever, however, and Duo applied a little craftiness to the situation and made a few calculations. He set up a shadowy tripwire in their projected course, fine enough to escape the stray's notice, and watched in satisfaction as it stumbled over the trap. He quickly undid the tripwire before running into it himself, and slid to a graceful halt near the fallen stray.

Before it could recover, he bound it to the firmament with his power.

"Shinma Hakuchuumu. I won't be returning you to the Dark."

He winked and smiled nastily before setting the stray aflame. It screeched as its outer form burnt away, briefly revealing a struggling, generally arachnid form before it was consumed completely by the cold fire.

Hn, he thought. I guess I just avenged my parents too.

The idea should have been a little more relevant to him, and indeed it had been, for a while after he had found out that this was the being that had truly orphaned him, but it had, admittedly, eventually become less relevant the more time he had spent as the stray's captive.

He turned and returned relatively slowly to the place the race had started, a little reluctant of what he might find there. With that little bit of introspection, he began to come off the adrenaline high and was starting to crash and question again. Did that victory seem just a little too easy? No, he reprimanded his idle mind. The stray was overconfident, and most of his power came from myself, and therefore it's only logical that it couldn't harm me as much. Besides, I pulled a rather unorthodox trick on him. And he was injured from before.

But was it just him, or did his surroundings look a little blurry around the edges? Well, he rationalized, it could just be because the master of these lands is dead now. There was no will to hold them and now they would revert to looking as the rest of nowhere did.

With these thoughts in mind, and others that had plagued him during his long journey through delusion, it was a rather uncertain and somewhat unstable guardian that eventually approached Heero, who now was shakily standing, the wound in his side being healed well enough for the time being.

::Duo?:: The guardian shuddered at the gentle brush of thought against his own. It was so familiar, and yet it had been polluted by ecollection of other caresses against his mind, ones that at the time he had thought were real. He couldn't tell anymore.

Concerned by the reaction, Heero approached his ward, stopping immediately when Duo backed away with a sharp intake of breath. Not this again, he thought with some generalized irritation that was not directed at his companion. Considering the last time, he reasoned that Duo must be uncertain about something concerning himself again.

::Are you alright?:: he asked, letting his concern tinge his mindvoice. He knew the question to be slightly silly, given the circumstances, but he needed to ask it anyway, to make some initial contact with the hesitant youth.

Well, Duo thought, none of the others have ever displayed this level of concern for my well-being. Well, except for those few that had cared a little too much. He shuddered again at the memories. But this seemed just right. What did he have to lose, after all? If it was real, great. If it wasn't, then he'd probably lose it all horribly, and then wake up again in another reality, in which case he was really no worse off than he had started. He might as well pretend it was real just in case it was. And this Heero was much better than all the rest. So far. Then again, those were the ones that could hurt you the most.

He couldn't help himself. He shook his head mutely in response.

There was hysteria and fear building behind those indigo eyes, and it tore at the warrior's heart. He took another step forward, and when the youth did not recoil, he stumbled smoothly over the remaining distance and took his trembling partner into his arms, carefully, and loosely, in case he wanted to escape.

::Let's go home?:: he whispered gently, hoping that familiar surroundings would reassure him. He felt the guardian nod silently into his shoulder, and he brought them home.

Once the transition was complete, Heero backed away some. He saw that Duo's face was downcast, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, as if he didn't want to see where they had ended up. Setting his mask aside, he lightly placed his fingers beneath Duo's chin to tilt his face towards his own. He had been sure to make his fingers as human as possible, since they were mutable. In combat, he often wore them sharpened as his weapons. His primary feeding ports were in his fingers too, although they could be closed and hidden away at will. Now, all that touched Duo was a very normal, lightly calloused hand.

"Duo?"

Duo's eyes blinked open at the sound of his partner's voice. It was pleasing, as always. As it should be. He lifted his hand to touch the one at his face, taking the unresisting hand and examining it critically.

"Are you... real?" he asked hesitantly.

Heero smiled very softly in response. "Of course I'm real."

He released the hand and ran his own hands lightly over Heero's face, trying to convince himself of its reality. "Well, there appears to be a face beneath that mask... is there a body beneath those robes?"

"Of course there is."

Could he believe it? "Show me," he demanded.

"What?" This was a serious deviation from standard procedure.

"I wanna see." His fingers fell and tangled themselves in the shadowsilk of his robe, growing a little frantic with the need to find their way beneath it.

Heero's hands caught his, and his burning blue eyes captured his as well. "Why?"

"I need to know. I just... if you're real." He grew more panicked with each passing moment. Was there something to hide? "I, I need to... I just...." A gasping breath. "Please?" That last came out almost a whimper.

Heero gently untangled Duo's fingers from his robe, the prussian eyes never leaving violet, and settled Duo onto the edge of the bed. Then he stepped back, and let the robe return to the shadows.

Duo nearly sobbed in relief. Heero was... there. More human than he had really imagined, if he had stopped to think about it. And there was a body, anatomically correct musculature and everything. Even a patch of skin that showed fresh healing, and he felt a brief pang of guilt over not having inquired about his friend's health earlier, but dammit he had had other things on his mind. He still did. Heero had been up and running, that was all that had mattered. He jumped off the bed and his fingers moved of their own accord, determined to run searchingly over every inch of him they could reach and ascertain the truth for themselves.

They stopped, and he collapsed on the bed once more. "You wear pants under that thing?"

"Of course." Heero would not be mentioning the time he had hunted a demon who could break bindings over shadows and return them to their insubstantial state. That was before he had decided that something substantial would be worn beneath the robe.

Duo recovered himself and dragged Heero down to sit on the bed next to him where he could hug him tightly, listening to the delightfully reassuring heart beating in his partner's chest. It had been far too long.

"I don't care if this is a dream," he whispered. "I just want it to stay this way forever.... just you, and me... together...." If Heero's hearing hadn't been as good as it was, he probably would have missed half that confession.

He stroked Duo's back comfortingly. "You should get some sleep, little one. Some real sleep."

"No. I don't want to sleep."

Heero cocked an inquisitive eyebrow at him.

"I don't want to sleep. I don't want to wake up and find out it's all different." He burrowed tighter into Heero's embrace.

Heero had a moment of angry thought for the one who had played with the guardian's mind so, but he quickly calmed himself. "It's okay now, Duo. Everything's going to be alright." The murmured platitudes sounded empty and meaningless to him, but they appeared to be the right thing to say to soothe the distraught guardian.

"You promise? You promise that you'll be here when I wake up this time? And you'll be the same you?"

"I promise. I promise I'll be the same me tomorrow as I was today, just as I am the same me today I was yesterday." Duo showed no signs of releasing him, although the tension appeared to have drained from his shoulders, so Heero got them settled comfortably back amongst the pillows. "I promise. Now get some sleep."

"You get some sleep too, Heero," came the mumbled retort.

TBC...

no, heero's pants are not made of shadowspandex. they're like duo's. nice and baggy and kinda like wufei's i guess but black. if you've been paying attention, then you'll have noted that duo wears pants too. i will not have him traipsing across the countryside without any pants on in a little robe like miyu's. he's a guy. he's bishounen, so he's probably got some damn fine legs, but still. guy's gotta have some decency, ya know?

 

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