Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Hush ❯ Chapter 1

Hush

By Xero Sky

Pairing: 1x2, maybe others, maybe not

Warnings: (For the whole story) NC-17, AU, lemon, angst, violence, mention of NCS, and OOC with reasons for it. Lots of profanity. Possible humor and/or weirdness. (And please forgive my lack of a beta for this fandom!)

Summary: In an alternate timeline, Treize Kushrenada's New Alliance has won the day: the earth and the colonies enjoy an uneasy peace. And one Duo Maxwell, terrorist, Gundam pilot, and general pain in the ass, is unexpectedly out of prison. Now he only has to confront his future… and his past.

Chapter One

I've been here before.

I came here to kill the man walking beside me. This was his home, and I was going to infiltrate it, pass by his guards and his surveillance, avoid his safeguards and his own skills, and slaughter Zechs Merquise in his sleep. I made it to the door of his bedroom that night, but he wasn't even there. My intel was faulty; he wasn't home to see me caught, beaten bloody, and hauled off to prison.

The pristine hallways of the palace of Sanq had witnessed the final capture of Duo Maxwell, and now they were the background for…what? I wasn't sure why I was here.

Merquise had treated me kindly enough, but I didn't ask him any questions. Prisoners are not allowed to speak during transit, and even if I were just any prisoner, I wouldn't get away with it. I usually got special treatment, though.

Fuck. I didn't want to think about it.

Having your bones broken for breaking the rule of silence was some form of turnkey humor that I couldn't even fucking begin to understand, but it's an effective form of conditioning. Crude, yes, but even I got the idea after awhile.

Prisoner 039443H, Maxwell, D. Terrorist. Threat level: Alpha. Escape Risk: Alpha. Condition: Labor. Regimen: Silence.

No talking. For almost a year, the only time I'd heard my own voice was in response to direct questions from someone who would beat me if I didn't answer. Not to mention beating me if I said more or less than they wanted. Hard time. I've been an example set for anyone else who wants to defy the New Alliance.

One more hit to the spine, and I didn't think anyone, even the quack moron who trained me in the first place, would be able to put me back together again.

I was only 19.

I felt like I've been fighting for a thousand years.

So, no, I didn't ask any questions.

We reached the end of the hallway, and General Merquise halted our little procession. It was me, him, and a double handful of soldiers. I guess I should have been honored that they bothered to fear me so much. I waited for him to give the order to have me dragged off for interrogation or whatever. Not that I knew anything of interest anymore.

Imagine my surprise when he thumbed the locks on my heavy cuffs and they opened. He let them fall, and they hit the floor with an echoing thud. I rubbed my wrists and forearms warily.

The cuffs were several inches wide, and designed to immobilize my wrists and arms by linking together magnetically. Electric shocks and sedatives could also be administered by remote control through them. I should know. I once amused myself for several hours interrogating a set of New Alliance officers that way.

Clever things, really, and quite useful, unless you were the one locked inside them.

I warily raised an eyebrow at Merquise.

"Your benefactor," he said with a polite smile, "does not wish you to be physically restrained any further."

My benefactor? I almost ached to say something, to ask this weirdo with the nice hair what the hell he was talking about. Not to mention why the hell I was there, and what kind of benefactor would spring me from prison and then have me brought to an OZ headquarters.

But I didn't. And it was just as well. The next moment I felt a sharp pain at the back of my neck and I realized, even as I whirled around in shock, that the guard had pulled my tracking chip out from under my skin. I gaped at Merquise as he gently turned me around so that the wound could be cleaned and a dab of pain-killing sealant applied.

They only took the chip out if you were being released. Or executed.

I felt numb, as if the sealant had leached into my bones.

The hall branched off in three directions, and once they were done with my neck, Merquise pressed a warm hand to my back and steered me to the left. The guard detail didn't follow us.

What the hell was going on?

One side of the hallway was all windows, looking out into a garden. The other side was doors and paintings, mostly pictures of the sea and ships. Everything was clean. Everything was wide open and friendly to the eye. Whatever it was now, this place hadn't been made to keep anyone in. It was made to welcome, and to nurture emotions that had nothing to do with fear and hatred.

I might as well have been walking on the moon.

We stopped in front of a door. I don't know how he knew it from any of the others. They had all blurred into one for me. My senses weren't working right. I should have been paying attention, should have known how many paces we were from the intersection, how many windows we'd passed, and the layout of the garden.

I should have been matching current and past knowledge of the place, and figuring a way the hell out of there. It was who I was, and what I did, and every other moment of my life, those calculations were running in the back of my mind all the time.

He opened the door and it was just a bedroom. I don't know if I had any expectations at all, but this cream and gold and blue room with the nice furniture wasn't it.

A wide, long bed stood up against one wall. It was lush with many pillows and a thick comforter, and it made me sick to see it.

A hand on my back gently propelled me forward, and I moved; I could feel the warmth of his hand through my shirt, and I didn't want it. My feet shuffled over thick carpet, and I got the impression that there were other rooms connected to this one. I couldn't quite take my eyes off that damned bed, though. This was far too luxurious a place for him to stash someone like me, unless he planned on enjoying himself here too.

There was a big mirror on the wall opposite the bed. Jesus.

So was this what it was all about? Springing me out of prison to be someone's fucktoy?

I shouldn't have been horrified. I knew how things happened. It's just that, despite all the shit I'd been through, this particular thing had never happened to me before.

Benefactor. Right. Thanks.

"I'll send you someone to help you settle in," Merquise said behind me, and I hated the politeness in his voice. It must be a sign of good breeding to be polite to your toys.

I turned to look at him, meaning to say something, anything that would make me feel less like a victim. I mean, I was known for my mouth, right? Never without a smartass or cutting remark, that was me. But of course I couldn't fucking say a word, not even then. Permission to speak hadn't been granted. Life sucked. I waited for what I was sure was coming, pardon the goddamned pun.

Speaking of which, pick your god: all of them hated me. Shinigami. Huh. If there was a god of shit, maybe that was who I should identify with. That's all I ever ended up with, anyway.

To my shock, Merquise was still standing outside in the hall, his arms at his side, the perfect image of military perfection. Spotless uniform, gleaming boots, shining gold thread in his epaulets. If it wasn't for that long hair down his back, you might think he was any OZ officer with a stick up his ass. Personal eccentricities were permissible in the talented, and there were few bastards quite as talented as Zechs Merquise was.

If he wanted me, there wasn't a thing I could have done about it. Personally, one on one, I might be able to kill him, if I caught him off guard. Maybe. I didn't even know what skills he might have, but I knew I was weak and in poor shape. Flight risks, or escape artists, or whatever you want to call us, weren't fed enough in prison, to reduce the number of attempts. It worked well enough. I wasn't going anywhere.

But he didn't want me. Or if he did, he didn't act like it, and he didn't have any real reason to put on a show for me, did he? There was nothing about him that even hinted at the kind of violence he'd need to get me, or at the desire to use it. He was polite and formal, and not really very threatening, and the tips of his boots hadn't even crossed the line into my room.

He looked, in short, like a guy doing a job, though why I rated a general for escort duty was beyond me.

"Don't trouble yourself trying to escape. The security here has changed a great deal since your last visit," he said simply enough. "Rest. I'll have a meal sent up, and different clothes. There is a bath through that door. At some point your benefactor will want to see you, I imagine, but I'm uninformed as to his schedule."

A thousand questions hovered behind my teeth, but I said nothing. I just ducked my head a little, the way you do when you don't have any choice but to show some respect.

He smiled a little sadly. I know that's a contradiction, but it's what he did. Not an expression I'm really used to, if you must know. I deal in extremes.

"The chip is gone, Duo. The prison is behind you now. Scream, curse, or howl at the moon - whatever you like. No one expects your silence here."

Then he turned away, shutting the door behind him. Of course he'd known I'd have nothing to say to that.

I tried the door after a couple of minutes. It wasn't locked. But I had nowhere to go. I shut it again and just stared at the wood for a long time.

*****

I took a shower as soon as I'd checked everything out. I'm not a fool. A prisoner doesn't refuse a chance at hot water when it's offered.

I investigated the room as thoroughly as I could first, taking in a view of the grounds, the guards on duty outside, the fact that there was no surveillance gear that I could find, and the incredible luxury of the bed, which no longer seemed so sinister. The sheets were so soft I thought I was hallucinating. I hadn't ever touched anything like that before. I fondled the linens for a while, then went into the bathroom.

I've never seen a shower like that before in my life. The spray came at you from all directions, massaging your body and never once hitting your face unless you wanted it to. Glass and tile surrounded the whole thing, and there was a rack of thick towels just outside, all of them warmed by the shelves they were sitting on. It was surreal, and there was no way I was gonna pass up a chance to jump in the middle of it and luxuriate.

I hadn't taken a shower by myself in a year. In prison you're always in a group, and you always have to watch your ass unless you want someone to jump it. There was always someone stupid enough to think I was an easy mark. Maybe it was the hair, or maybe just the fact that I was thin and looked weak, I guess, but there was almost always someone who liked what he saw.

No one ever tried anything more than once, though. I've had to put up with a lot of shit in my life, but I'm not ever going to go down without a fight. Just like Merquise would have gotten.

I didn't kill any of them. I wasn't looking for a longer sentence. But I fight dirty, and I'm goddamned good at it. No one ever groped my ass and came away with all their bones or internal organs intact. As long as I never said anything, the guards didn't mind a free show. They would've stood there and watched me get raped, too, if that had happened.

It never had, but I was still nervous in the shower, even this one. There was no one else there, and no signs of cameras or anything that I could see, but I was so used to being on guard that I really couldn't relax. Not even when it became clear that all that heavenly hot water wasn't going to run out before or even after I got my hair rinsed out.

And speaking of which… I can't even describe how good it felt, how good it smelled, to wash my hair like a normal human being. It was clean and light and soft by the time I was done, and as tense as I was, I couldn't help feeling kind of ecstatic.

I'd started to hate my hair in prison. They used it to identify me in their little propaganda videos. "Here's the feared terrorist - see, you can recognize him, can't you? He's still got his famous braid and eyes too big for his face, so you know it's him, even though we're starving him and he's got makeup on to hide that bruise on his face. Fear us instead of him!"

Asswipes.

I had always just sat there and stared at the camera. That was all they wanted. They always made sure that my braid was in plain view.

Sitting in a bathroom in the palace at Sanq, of all places, I suddenly felt like it was my hair again. Not me, but just myhair, a part of my body, and one I didn't even really need. It could go or stay, like my toenails or something, but it was mine, something I could control. Funny how OZ had managed to take even my hair away from me.

I thought about that a bit while I toweled it out, noting that prison life hadn't been particularly kind to it. It needed cut. Badly. Among other things. I found a hairbrush in one of the drawers and started going through it, wincing at the amount of hair that ended up stuck in the bristles. Shit, I could probably knit a sweater out of it.

I had to admit I was kind of fond of my hair, though, mostly because it was contrary as hell. It was a bad idea for a terrorist to have such a distinguishing feature, especially one that required so much care. It was reckless and arrogant. It was unnecessary, dangerous, generally unsafe, insane, and…

"Completely fucking unreasonable."

I jerked around guiltily, looking for someone who might have heard words come out of my mouth. They seemed so loud in that tiled, neat room with its heated towels and gleaming fixtures.

I waited, with a borrowed hairbrush in one hand and a towel around my waist, for the walls to come crumbling down and guards to come stomping in to shut my mouth for me.

"Fuck," I said clearly.

The world failed to end, painfully or otherwise.

Well.

Live in the moment, I always say. I felt like I was a kid again, telling the other kids at Maxwell Church what words would make Sister Helen hit the roof. "Goddamned motherfucking asshole sonofabitch."

I laughed, and that felt even stranger.

Cursing joyfully, I finished drying off and whipped my still-damp hair back into the eternal braid. Okay, hair clean, body clean, mouth foul… now what? I said that aloud a couple of times, just for the hell of it, but it didn't answer the question.

Clothes would be good. I turned around to face my prison uniform, lurking in a crumpled heap on the floor. I picked it up and scowled at it. It stank of sweat and fear and the antiseptics they sprayed the cells down with once a week.

It had wrinkled in the moist air, I noticed. The wrinkles would have gotten me punished, maybe with an extra shift down in the fucking hellhole they worked me in, or a punch in the ribs. They were very into neatness there. Made you clean your own blood off the walls if you forgot to keep yourself and your cell spick and span.

Huh. I wasn't putting that back on if I could help it. Hadn't Merquise said something about clothes?

I wrapped a big towel around myself and went looking.

The knock on the door nearly made me jump out of my skin.

~tbc~