Liberation Part 7
"We have to hurry!" Duo yelled, but he was thrown off balance when an exceptionally strong blast hit the building. Groaning, he tried to get up. But when he looked over at Heero, he noticed for the first time just how pale he was becoming and a glance at his wounds just made things seem even bleaker. The blood had not stopped flowing. If any, it was flowing faster and faster.
"Duo... just go. I can't go on..." Heero whispered, his breath catching as though it was painful to speak louder.
"Never. Worst comes to worse, I'll just die here with you. It's better than if I were to go on alone." Duo's tone was solemn and soft, but Heero thought it was the loudest thing he had ever heard.
Another explosion.
"I've been happy... these last few weeks. You were changing, and I... enjoyed those changes. Finally, I thought, you were becoming more of a civilian and less of a soldier. And that made me happy, because... I knew that you'd be able to live in a peaceful era when it comes, even if I'm not around anymore." His voice choked at the end.
"I won't let you go." Heero's voice was firm, even more so than his eyes, despite the softness and the paling of his face.
Another explosion, louder than the one before.
"I don't want to go."
"Then don't. Stay with me."
And then there were no more words, just sounds of explosions. They closed their eyes, holding onto each other as tightly as they could, and prayed for a quick end to their lives.
Then suddenly, the sounds stopped.
'Am I dead already? I mean, the explosion's stopped... But, it doesn't hurt... Am I even bleeding?' Duo mused, then felt something was wrong at that last thought. Immediately, he snapped opened his eyes, and promptly gasped.
Heero had probably felt the same way, and opened his eyes as well. He took in a sharp breath when he took in his surroundings. The angry smoke that was curling around them had stopped in mid-air, and even the particles were hanging up in the air without any sign of falling soon. He glanced at his wounds, and was shocked to see the blood had stopped flowing as well. It was as though time itself... had stopped in its tracks.
"What's... going on?"
"I don't know..." Duo replied slowly. "But I think we should get out of here now."
*****
When they were out of the base, they noticed that even the fighting outside had stopped. The blazing fire Wufei had set on the warehouses had frozen, and so did the explosion caused by Heavyarm's artillery. And when they tried to activate Wing and Deathscythe, none of them moved.
"Be careful, Heero!" Duo yelled, waiting at the foot of Wing for Heero to come down.
Heero dexterously climbed down Wing, and landed on his feet. Once he was on the ground, he reached for Duo almost desperately.
"What is going on here? How can everything just freeze like that?" he asked, taking Duo's hands in his. It was as though Duo's hand was the only thing that connected him to reality.
"I don't understand either, but we can't go anywhere now. Let's just... sit here and wait for time to unfreeze itself. I mean, if it can freeze up suddenly, surely it can unfreeze too," Duo replied with a shrug, and just sat down, leaning against a tree. He knew something was strange about this whole thing, but he just couldn't put his finger on it. Vaguely, he remembered having this feeling before, but it was elusive as hell.
Heero blinked, but shrugged and sat down beside him as well, giving in to Duo's tug on his hand.
They were silent for a moment, the idea of everything freezing up still running a marathon in their minds. And if they were to look at the battlefield just a little way from where they were, an eerie and illusory sensation would befall upon them. It was strange and out of the world, but it had happen right before they own eyes. That made it quite difficult to not believe it, but it did not make it any easier to swallow.
Finally, Duo seemed to have noticed their tightly clasped hands. Almost shyly, he wanted to withdraw his hand. But Heero's thumb was caressing his hand, and it felt so good.
"Heero... what did you mean when you said that you won't ever let me go?" He gasped, not knowing how had that slip out of his mouth.
The Japanese pilot didn't answer for quite a while.
"I mean what I said. I... don't want you to leave me. Ever." He looked up into Duo's eyes that were filled with surprise. Clasping his hands tighter, he added, "Stay with me? Even after the war? For as long as possible?"
Duo could feel the almost passionate vibes Heero was giving him through his eyes, his words. He could hardly believe what Heero was telling him, but he could hear every word, every syllable clearly. He could even hear what Heero was not saying out loud. If the world hadn't stopped around him, it definitely had by now. Nothing was more important than what Heero was telling him. Not even the fact that he had to go soon stopped him.
"Yes, for as long as possible, I'll stay with you," he whispered, and he felt himself gathered into Heero's strong arms. Duo didn't know how long their time was, but at that moment, he didn't care. Wrapping his arms around his newfound love, he snuggled deeper into his warm embrace.
"Duo?"
"What is it?"
Heero pulled away a little, enough to cup Duo's cheeks in his hands. Looking intensely at Duo's expressive violets, he said, "I love you, Duo. It took me a long time to understand what I felt for you, but I think I've always known it. I just... didn't understand why. Didn't understand how I could fall in love. I've been thinking about it all this while, and... I don't care if I can't understand. All I do care about is that I love and want you."
Duo remembered Solo's words, that boys don't cry, but he knew at that moment that it wasn't always true. Because at Heero's confession, he felt tears cascading down his cheeks, gathering at his eyes and blurring his vision.
"I love you too."
Slowly, they leaned in. It was as though fairies had sprinkled the air with the essence of love, and everything felt like a dream. A mist enshrouded their visions, allowing them to see only the other. When their lips touched for the first time, eyes fluttering close, it felt like they had found that last piece of the puzzle, the last piece of themselves that they had lost a long time ago. Lips tasted like honey, ambrosia even, and neither ever wanted it to stop. Perhaps unconsciously, both had imagined how it would be, but neither could ever imagine the intensity, the passion, and the electrifying bolts of pleasure of that first kiss.
Finally, they pulled back, arms still around each other. For a while, Heero could not help but lick his lips in eager anticipation of another. And this time, it would not be just a dry peck.
Duo raised a hand to carefully touch his still tingling lips, a light flush traveling to his cheeks. Shyly, he closed his eyes when he noticed Heero moving in again, his face swimming out of focus.
Their lips touched for a second time, and the kiss grew bolder. When Duo could not help but moan loudly at the careful ministrations of Heero's hands, he felt Heero's tongue sliding in. If their first kiss was divine, he had no words to describe their second.
Suddenly, he felt Heero's lips move away, but it was a second later when he felt them gently nibbling his neck. And then Heero was undoing his collar, fumbling with the buttons clumsily. Duo moaned, an erotic sound to Heero's ears, and he doubled his efforts to leave his mark on Duo's otherwise flawless skin.
In one fluid motion, Heero broke off the elastic band that held Duo's braid together. Quickly, he wove his fingers through the silky locks and unraveled Duo's customary braid. Stopping his kisses, Heero pulled back to look at his handiwork. Duo's hair was shrouding his supple body, almost resembling how Aphrodite must have looked when she first stepped onto the shore after her birth. Duo's violet eyes were glazed over, and his breath came in small, sharp ones.
Heero smirked. Carefully lowering the braided boy onto the ground, he removed Duo's shirt and renewed his attacks on Duo's already swollen lips. Slowly, he reached for Duo's pants.
"Stop it already!"
He jumped. That voice!
"You!?"
"My god... if you didn't stop, this whole thing would have to be censored!"
Heero panted lightly, pulling his still dazed lover close to an upright position. Wrapping an arm around him, Heero asked, "So what is this? Is this... just my dream?" He looked at Duo. "Is he not real?" He was shaken by that thought. "Duo?"
Duo blinked hard, body protesting against the sudden stop of Heero's wonderful kisses. It took him a while to clear the fog in his mind, and when he did, he gasped.
"Vespera?"
True to his word, the girl was standing before them, trying to look away. It was not difficult to tell why she was doing that, for her face was burning up rather nicely.
"Erm... hi?" she laughed nervously, her hands cupping her cheeks in an attempt to hide the redness there.
"What're you doing here?"
"Wait. Duo, you know her?" Heero asked.
"What you mean I know her? Of course I do! Wait. You know her too?" Duo replied, feeling completely confused already.
"Erm..." She raised her hand like a well-behaved child in school for the first time. "I know both of you." And then she batted her eyes like a child who had broken her parent's vase and was trying to get out of punishment.
"What's going on?"
Duo glared at the girl. "So this time freeze thing... you did it." It was a statement, not a question.
"Of course I did. This is a dream! I made it up cause you wanted one more mission with Heero... and I thought that maybe this could... you know, prove something between you two... So I kinda made this dream up and handed it to..." she trailed off, biting her lips nervously and looking down.
"To who?"
"Sonja. In fact, she just left a minute ago."
"What the hell!?" Duo yelled.
"Hey! She seemed like she enjoyed it pretty much... so I'd say you've got a fair chance of winning now," she protested.
Heero glared at both of them. "Can someone tell me what is going on? Vespera, I thought you said you were my invisible friend?"
"What?" Duo exclaimed, looking at his lover as though he were crazy.
"Well... it's the only way I could think of that would make you trust me somewhat... It's not like I could go barging into you dream and tell you, 'Hey, I'm someone sent from up above to help you snag Duo!'"
"And what about the rest? Who's Sonja? And how can you just... make up a dream? Who are you? Why do you look like a splitting image of Duo?"
"Sonja is... it's kinda hard to explain that one. I think we should start from the beginning, and this would only be fair to you if you and Duo really hook up..." she said, and waved her hand. Immediately, the scene around them shifted and they were back in the luxurious living room of the Winner mansion. "I figured you'd be more comfortable here? Because what we're gonna say is going to completely change your world." She threw herself into one the large sofa seats that looked like it was going to swallow her up. Duo sat down opposite of her, and pulled his lover down with him.
Heero kept quiet, unsure of what to say. It felt like the world was going to crumble around him if he were to say something wrong, or that he would wake up suddenly to find that everything was just a screwed up dream and Duo was out of his reach.
Duo pulled away from him, and stared at him solemnly. "I guess I'll start. Heero, I'm going to tell you how I came to become Duo Maxwell. Listen to me. You... have to believe me. I know it's going to be hard to, but..." He sighed.
Heero, understanding the importance and seriousness of the issue, nodded grimly.
Taking a deep breath, Duo started, "Man has always believed in the existence of another world: the world of gods, a race of extraordinary people who ruled over him. Man believes in it, but he has never been able to find the place or even prove its existence. But what if I were to tell you that such a place does exist?" He paused momentarily, waiting for Heero's response.
"Duo...?" Heero frowned at the tone of his lover.
"The place is called Utopia. Man usually gave it a different name, depending on their religion. But it is not what man has always thought it to be. The people there... live like humans do. They love, they hate, they cry, they laugh... The emotions are the same, as are the actions taken. The only difference is that they had special powers, and for that reason, man called them gods and goddesses.
"Then, around a century ago, a pair of twins were born into that world. A boy and a girl. The boy was named Eden, after God's garden, and the girl Vespera, after the evening star."
"Vespera?" Heero echoed.
She nodded. "Right, it's me."
"You're a goddess?"
"If that's what you want to call me. To be more precise, I'm an Utopian." With a thoughtful look at Duo, she continued, "My brother and I... We were always together. Whatever we did or wherever we went, we were almost inseparable. It was like... we were each other's shadow. We loved each other... a lot. Even when time had passed and we had both grew up, our relation remained the same.
"Then... something happened. We had just turned twenty that year, and our parents thought that it was the perfect time for our respective marriages. It wasn't long before they betrothed us both to another pair of siblings. We didn't even know who they knew, or how they looked like. Eden and I... didn't want to be tied down, so soon. We had promised each other, when were younger, that we would travel the world together, and fall in love with someone we'd meet on our travels. We wanted to marry someone we loved, not someone our parents thought was appropriate," she spat, face frowning in disgust. "We fought and argued with our parents for a very long time over that..."
"It was long time before they came to a compromise, and the Utopian council had to step in and settle our dispute because it had snowballed and a lot of people became involved. Those who were victims of unhappy, arranged marriages stood behind us, as well as those who had already been betrothed to someone they didn't know. But the elders sided with our parents, believing that parents had the last word in their children's marriages," Duo explained.
"So Eden and I had to fulfill a task for the council if we wanted to get out of our respective arranged marriages," Vespera added.
Duo nodded. "The task was a difficult one. Eden was to be reincarnated into the human world, and search for his one true love within sixteen years. I know what you're thinking, Heero. Sixteen years is hardly enough, especially when you're too young to fall in love for more than half of that time span. But the council is made up of the older ones, and like I said, they sided with our parents. If it weren't for the fact that there was a lot of support for Eden and Vespera, the council would never even let the compromise happen," he said angrily.
"Anyway, Eden had to find someone he loved deeply and loved him in return in that sixteen years. If he succeeded, both Eden and Vespera would be set free: meaning that they will be able to choose their own life partners and even choose to leave Utopia to go on their travels. But if Eden failed, he would be compelled to return to Utopia and both he and his twin would have to marry whomever their parents wanted them to marry."
Vespera nodded, already sulking at that memory. "So, Eden reincarnated into your world. For the first seven years, he had to get use to a human body. It wasn't easy right from the start. There were so many things he could no longer do with the weak body. And the fact that his powers were stripped away from him made the task even harder. He was so fragile and vulnerable, that there were several occasions where he almost died. In the end, he spent those seven years with me on Earth and learned all the methods of survival. In the meantime, I took care of him as his guardian. We lived in a small cottage in America, in the countryside. However, I was soon forced to leave by the council. They said it wasn't fair, as I had little to do with the deal itself. 'Little to do with the deal' like hell!" she cursed. "It had everything to do with me, and if Eden hadn't insisted that I be left out of it, I would be down here with him right now!"
She blew her bangs. "Before I left, I sent Eden to L2, where I thought would be a good place to start. And during the next few years, I could only watch him from my world and help him in some small things. You know the plague in L2 around eight or nine years ago? I couldn't stop the virus from spreading since the fates had dictated it, but I was able to save Eden.
"And by that time, Eden had acquired a new name: Duo."
By this time, Heero felt his eyes widen. Turning to his lover, he stared. "Duo? You're a god? Too?"
He shook his head. "I was. Not anymore."
Vespera smiled wistfully. "He is Shinigami, the god of death."
"And if Duo is Eden, doesn't that make him..." Heero turned to Vespera.
She nodded. "My brother. Twin brother, in fact," she said with a slight laugh.
"Now, I'll tell you guys what's happened these couple of weeks since I came down to the human world. Actually, as you know, I was sent down to remind you of the deadline, Duo. But I just stayed on and played around a little, which is not against the rules. After all, they never said I couldn't make dreams." She winked playfully. "Like I've mentioned earlier, I've been watching over Duo ever since he first arrived. And throughout the years, I was always on the lookout for the perfect partner for him. Within the span of sixteen years, I found three possible candidates. The first one was a boy called Solo. However, the plague in L2 claimed his life before anything could happen. The other one was Hilde. It was easy to tell that she loved Duo. When Duo was around her, she glowed with happiness and was willing to lay her life down for him. However, the problem lay with Duo this time. He didn't love her as a woman, but instead as a sister. And the last one..." She gazed at the two in front of her with a tiny smile. "...is you, Heero."
"Actually, I thought that Wufei would be a more appropriate choice initially. I mean... you didn't give me a very good first impression, Heero. And I thought that you were far too callous for someone as lighthearted as my brother. But then one day, when I was in his room, just watching over him... you snuck in. But you didn't see me, of course." She smiled wickedly.
Heero blushed, recalling what he had almost done to Duo that night.
"So I started to rethink a lot of things, and I came to the conclusion that Duo wasn't attracted to Wufei, and that he had this... little thing for you instead. I knew that if you two had time, it was quite possible that you'd actually get together by yourself. But well... there was this little stupid, idiotic thing called a deadline, and it was coming up pretty soon, so I decided to interfere. I entered your dreams, Heero, and told you that I was a figment of your imagination. From there, I was able to show you the dreams you didn't want to see."
"Wait," Heero interrupted. "Didn't want to see? But I thought that dreams are a manifestation of your innermost desires."
She shook her head. "There are quite a number of types of dreams, actually. The ones I made you see were fragments of the destroyed future. Life has many routes and possibilities, and every decision one makes will destroy the other future that could have been. In other words, a lot of futures are actually destroyed before they can even exist. As the goddess of dreams, I'm able to make those destroyed future into nightmares."
"So... what I saw... all those images of Duo and Hilde together... cannot happen?"
"Well, when you decided that you wanted Duo for yourself, that future was destroyed and its existence denied. So no... it can't happen anymore," she replied with a smile.
Heero smiled back, and pulled his lover to him tightly, loving the feel of that pale skin against his body.
"And the ones I've been having?" Duo asked.
"Those are real. It's your innermost desires, plus a pinch of your memories."
"And the ones Heero saw are not real."
"I'm quite the opposite from you in this aspect, Duo. I do know what is privacy! So I didn't show Heero your dates with Hilde."
"This is about the diary thing again, isn't it? Man, after all these years, I would have thought you had gotten over it!"
"That's what you think," she said in a singsong manner. "Anyway, through Heero's dreams, I made him understand that he loved and wanted you. On the other hand, I also entered Hilde's dreams."
Duo gasped. "So that means..."
She shook her head. "I didn't tell her to give you up. I just talked to her, and made her reflect on her time with you. I think she knew that you two weren't meant to be. So she was willing to let you go when you told her that. She was... prepared for it.
"But by that time, I thought we had failed in our task, Duo. I mean, there was only so few days left, and Heero was still in the denial stages sometimes... So I wanted to give you one last chance to really be with him."
"The mission?"
"Right. I made it up, and for the sake of realism, I put quite a bit of the danger elements in. So when the base started to explode, I just stopped the whole dream, though I didn't pull you two out of it. But well, when you two thought it was going to explode, your feelings just... came out. And I just decided to ditch everything in. I called the council, and told them that this would be the test of your feelings, your love for one another. Sonja believed me, and came down to take a peek. Well, I didn't think you two would get... so... involved suddenly."
The two blushed.
"But well, Sonja was quite happy with the results. So she's gone back to tell the rest of the council. But the test is not over yet. Unless Sonja can convince them, it won't be over. I'll be going back now, to help Sonja out as much as I can. Technically, you still have one more day in the human world, Duo. So spend it well with Heero," she said, and the scene around them melted away.
TBC...
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