Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Hush ❯ Chapter 5

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. Duo POV.

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.

Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective copyright holders. No profit is intended from this work of fan fiction.

Archive: http://www.xero-sky.com

http://www.templeofthegoddess.com

and ask!

Chapter 5

I ate dinner alone.

I'd had about enough of the fine dining experience at the Sanq palace for one day, thank you very much. The stuff they served in prison might not be nourishing or edible, but it had come with better company.

Or maybe it was just that no one in the prison mess hall was allowed to talk.

Brutally enforced silence has one advantage: no unpleasant revelations to bother the digestion.

Zechs had actually made Security stand down *to protect me*. Like I was some senile old uncle being humored by the relatives. My traitor brain had no problem making up images of the bunch of them watching me while I threw up in the garden. No doubt they all had a good time laughing over the downfall of Duo Maxwell.

I'm not a big fan of humiliation.

You'd think I would've stopped being sensitive about it by now.

At some point near the end of the lunch from hell, Quat had said he had to work tonight. I really didn't care whether that was true or not. Maybe he was just trying to give me some space. I wasn't mad at him, except in the way a person is always a little ticked off at the bearer of bad news. It wasn't his fault. As far as I knew.

It was just that the morning fiasco had hit me a lot harder than I wanted to admit. Even thinking about it made my stomach flop over.

The final conclusion was that I wasn't going anywhere any time soon. Not unless Heero and the gang wanted me to. This time I'd just gone from one prison to another. The décor was nicer here, but it was basically the same deal as before. It was less violent and noisier, but the fences were still too high.

I could have dealt with it better, I suppose, if I hadn't gotten that little whiff of fresh air earlier. For a few minutes, I'd almost felt like my old self, the one who could pull his own ass out of the fire.

So much for that.

I pushed that thought out of my head and grimly ate another few bites of whatever the chicken and noodle dish was. There was no point in missing a meal. I had to build up my strength for whatever was coming.

That thought, of course, led me right to the other thing I was trying not to think about.

Heero.

Damn.

The whole thing just infuriated me! I did *not* get what I was doing here. Why would Heero, of all people, have arranged to get my chip pulled and my sorry butt dressed up in nice clothes?

It wasn't like we'd had much of a relationship in the past. I mean, I shot the guy about 30 seconds after I laid eyes on him. Despite what bad movies might say, most people don't go on to be your best friend after you shoot them.

It still pisses me off that I was such a lousy shot that night.

After I'd gotten him out of the hospital, he paid me back by making me watch him reset his damned leg, and then there'd been the whole Violation of DeathScythe incident. I swear to God, I still thought of it like that. I mean, how dare he steal 'Scythe's parts?

I let it go then because, honestly, I felt kind of bad for him. He was obviously even freakier than I was, and that was saying something. Besides which, Doc G told me he'd drop a satellite on my head if I tried killing Heero again. That man had no sense of humor, I swear.

After that, I'd roomed with Heero when we were stuck at those snobby schools, and we'd gone on a double handful of missions together, on foot and in mobile suits. That was about it.

So I'd killed people with him. We were never friends. Not really. He was busy saving the universe, and so was I. I'd spent time with him, but never really got to know him. It wasn't what you'd call quality time, unless you define that as mission planning and blowing shit up.

God, I missed blowing shit up. But I hadn't needed Heero for that. He'd been unbelievably good at his job, but so was I. In the meantime... I hate not being able to figure people out. I hate people who distract me. I never hated Heero because it wouldn't have mattered... and because I enjoyed the occasional luxury of ogling his ass.

Yeah, that's right. I'm pretty omnivorous as far as sexual preferences go, and Heero was just about everything I liked.

There just hadn't been any time for that kind of thing.

I'd been curious about him, a tiny bit in lust for him, and as far as I knew, that was a hell of a lot more than he ever thought about me. Heero was a rock. He was always focused. He'd never freaking wavered, and never seemed to doubt.

When he betrayed us, it was like the end of the goddamned world. Everything I'd been training for and fighting for just... ended. I'd been the God of Death, no shit, dealing it out to the poor OZ bastards in my way, and suddenly, everything *stopped*. And there wasn't a thing I could do about it. I'd been important, active, and one-of-a-kind... And then I was back on the street, just another punk-ass terrorist with a lost cause.

All because Heero's head was even more screwed up than mine. Who'd have guessed it? After all, I'd been the one running around dressed up like a freaking priest. Good ol' spandex boy, the one who looked so normal if you could forget he knew a thousand ways to kill you, turned out to be the weak link. I suppose I should've felt sorry for him, but Jesus fuck... Everything fell apart because of him!

Organized religion is big on the whole forgiveness thing, I hear. I somehow didn't get all that while I was at Maxwell Church. I can't even begin to guess what the point behind all that "turning the other cheek" bullshit was. I was a bad student.

I am also a catastrophically poor loser.

So, no, I hadn't forgiven him.

After all, if *Quatre* hadn't forgiven Heero, the chances of me doing it were just way the hell off the bottom of the chart.

Right.

Right?

I slammed down my fork. Fuck, I hated this place!

*****

Around midnight, after several hours of brooding and sulking, the truce I'd come to with my psychotic self was rudely interrupted.

Footsteps outside the door. A knock, and a voice through the intercom.

"Duo?"

"Fuck off."

I was curled up in bed, watching an old and bizarre movie about blind people and the carnivorous plants who very... slowly... chased them down and ate them. I was not in the mood for any version of Quatre R. Winner, Bearer of Bad News, Reminder of Lost Causes, and, lest we forget, God of Guilt.

"Duo?"

"Bite my lily-white ass, Winner!" I managed to yell. I was comfortably bad-tempered and happy to stay that way.

I counted to seven before the door slammed open and then very quietly shut again.

"Get up!" Quatre hissed. He threw the covers off me and had the gall to stand there and glare at me.

"For what? Roll call? Summary execution? Midnight snack?" I waved him off and fumbled for the covers. "I don't think so."

"Heero."

Okay, that got my attention. Damn it.

"What about him?" I asked, trying to sound uninterested. Quatre, of course, wasn't buying it, the bastard.

"I thought you might want a chance to see him before he sees you," Quat said. "He's arriving in a few minutes."

I really didn't want to sit there gaping at him, but my body wouldn't agree to the look of contempt I was going for, and my mind was suddenly busy with other things.

My first thought was about seizing any tactical advantage I could. It would be better if I didn't stare at him when the bastard finally showed up to say hello.

My second thought was pure Shinigami and involved crushing his trachea and laughing while he choked to death.

My third thought was about his ass, and whether it was still the piece of art it had been.

My brain has no freaking pride.

"What's going on?" I asked eventually.

Quatre had been rummaging around on the floor and he stood up, throwing my boots at me as he answered. "He's escorting Lady Kushrenada here. There's a reception tonight for the colonial trade delegates."

I dug the socks out of my boots and started putting everything on. "I thought Relena was pregnant?"

"She is," the blond one said as he began digging through the closet. "She's also an excellent diplomat, and still committed to peace -- even if it's her husband's peace."

A frilly shirt hit me in the face, and I held it up, scowling. "What the fuck is this?"

"Put it on before I hurt you," my friend said, just before pelting me with another, heavier piece of clothing. It turned out to be a long dress coat, in black, with silver embroidery and a flared hem. Very nice, actually.

"What is this for?"

"Plausible deniability. I really doubt you're supposed to be there, but there are no orders either way. So we're going to make sure you don't stand out so much," he said. "If someone does notice you, well... It's not like I shaved you bald to disguise you."

"Quatre."

"Yes?"

"You're scaring me."

"Great. Now get dressed!"

Well, what was I supposed to do?

It took me ten minutes to get dressed and groomed to Quat's satisfaction. I will never be any good at tying those neck cloths with the lace edges that they all seemed so damned fond of, so he had to take that over from me. I re-braided my hair and he tied it off with a discreet little black bow.

The coat came down to my knees and had embroidered buttons. I felt awkward as hell in it at first, but it fit me just fine, of course. The frilly cuffs of the shirt stuck out of the coat sleeves a bit, but the neck cloth was fairly sedate, by these guys' standards. I had to admit I looked pretty damned good. I'd never worn anything nicer, at least not when I wasn't pretending to be someone else.

Quatre approved. We were out the door a minute later.

I never did find out how the monster plants were killed, or if they just ate everybody instead. For the record, I was rooting for the shrubbery.

*****

I'd been to parties like it before. Not as Duo Maxwell, of course. Duo Maxwell didn't get invited to rub elbows with the rich and inebriated. Shinigami had gone, disguised as a waiter, a young OZ lieutenant, and, once, as the giggling boyfriend of a man I was more than happy to kill later.

Despite the shift in roles, it was more of the same tonight. Quatre and I mingled just enough to not draw attention as we made our way along the perimeter of the room to the far corner. There was a pair of doorways there, leading to stairs up to the galleries.

The galleries were one story up in the ballroom, which had a domed ceiling at least four stories above the floor. With an ornate rail and columns, the galleries might have been purely ornamental, had they not provided both an excellent vantage point and a moderately secluded place to talk. Quatre and I were by no means the only ones up there. Uniformed guards were stationed at intervals, and other small groups were sprinkled all along the length of the galleries.

We moved to a place where we could view the main doors without being immediately noticed. I wasn't really happy with the glances we drew, but the idea tonight was to blend in, not to hide. Being caught hiding had all sorts of meanings that being caught, well, just innocently standing there didn't have.

"They should be here any minute," Quatre said, sipping from a glass he'd acquired on the way.

"So why exactly is Relena coming here again?" I asked, trying to look bored with my surroundings.

"Because she's Lady Kushrenada," he said grandly, emphasizing her title.

"You always were impressed with titles," I said, smiling a little to take the sting away.

"And you always were kind of socially retarded," he said, snorting and then flashing me one of those Winner smiles that made everything all better. "She's the princess of Sanq, Zech's only heir, and she's married to Treize. That means she's a symbol of the new peace, with a handful of royal titles to go with it, and some people, especially colonials who should know better, are impressed as hell by that."

"The new peace..." I said softly, trying not to let all my disgust show through.

"Say what you like about it," he said, shrugging. "The killing's stopped."

There didn't turn out to be a whole lot to say to that.

We watched the rich and somewhat famous mill about on the floor below. I tried to resurrect my observational skills by spotting the undercover guards in the crowd.

An officer approached us a couple of minutes later. She handed Quatre a note, then bowed slightly before giving me a glance and walking back the way she came. I guess I wasn't as rusty as I thought, because I read her pretty easily. She didn't like Quat much. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that she was the one pulling messenger duty when she outranked him.

Interesting.

So was Quatre's blush after he read the note. "What's up?" I asked.

In answer, he handed me the note.

**Quatre --

Nice try, but yourself and Mr. Maxwell together in full dress is a sight that could easily corrupt a priest -- and is well on the way towards breaking any number of hearts tonight. Take my private box -- you know the passcode.

Zechs**

Aw, shit.

Well, that explained the looks we'd been getting. I don't know what the hell I looked like, but Quatre really was a sight. Blonde hair, sea-blue eyes, and a build that made that uniform look like the most masculine outfit ever. Even the scar just made him look... Well, "dashing" is the word that came to mind, but since I wasn't actually sure what that meant, I'll have to fall back on "hotter than hell".

If he wasn't Quatre... and if my head wasn't already screwed up enough, I might have fallen in lust right there.

As it was, I just followed him down the gallery to a non-descript door opposite the main entrance. He opened a discrete panel and punched in something on the keypad beneath. The door slid back and open, and we went up a few more stairs to a room that, as far as I knew, shouldn't be there. It didn't really fit into the architecture, and there were wide windows in the front. There hadn't been any windows on the ballroom wall to match them.

I walked up to one and tapped it, and was rewarded when the view shifted, scrolling to the side. A tap near the bottom tilted the whole thing, so that I was looking almost straight down at the guests.

"Nice view-screens," I said.

"No kidding," Quat answered, coming up beside me. "They come with a remote, too. Sit down and watch the show."

It was a really nice room, with a really nice set of couches and a small kitchen-like area in the back. It was a great place to spy on people. People who were supposedly Zechs' friends, allies, and, at a minimum, guests. The whole thing had a sort of casual feel to it, rather than the technical appearance of a serious surveillance center. It was like a hobby room for the well-off voyeur.

"Umm, Quatre?"

"Hmmn?"

"Isn't this whole set-up here kind of creepy?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

Zechs was turning out to be more interesting than I'd thought. I wasn't sure if it was in a good way or not. "Corrupt a priest", huh? Damn.

We really didn't have long to wait. All told, it had probably been 20 minutes or less since Quat had shown up at my door. He fiddled with the remote, dialing in the screens to various views and sound levels, until we noticed a rustling and shifting near the doors that signaled something about to happen. Quatre got the cameras on it, and we watched.

Relena Peacecraft-Kushrenada was not hugely pregnant, but the elegant caftan set she was wearing did nothing to camouflage the fact that she was carrying Treize's child. He had another kid, if I remembered right, but this new one would be the first Peacecraft-Kushrenada heir. Although, wasn't Zechs technically the king or whatever?

Below us, the room surged forward as people crowded towards her, anxious to get a glimpse of the famous Relena in person. Then they stopped.

All *he* had to do was step up beside her and look at them, and they fell back under that flat, blue gaze. He gestured, and a path opened up. He held his arm out and Relena laid a hand on it, and so he escorted her to her husband.

Heero Yuy, in the uniform of OZ, bowed to Treize Kushrenada, and was greeted warmly in return.

"That, right there," I whispered, "is everything that's fucking wrong with the world."

*****

So, it was close to dawn.

So, I hadn't slept.

Had nothing to do with him.

At all.

Right.

I sighed and got up out of bed, giving up on sleep for the third or fourth time. Without too much effort, I broke the seal on the window, circumvented the alarm, and sat on the sill. It wasn't a bad view, actually, and the fresh air was nice.

He'd been wearing one of their uniforms of course. Like everyone else, he looked perfectly natural in it. The asshole kid who'd never worn anything but t-shirts and jeans, if you could even get him out of the spandex, had grown up into a man who looked as sleek and well-groomed as the rest of the bastards. Except for his hair, which was as tousled and out of control as ever. I never understood how he could freaking pilot with those bangs in his face, though I guess I'm not one to criticize where hair is concerned.

Heero Yuy had definitely grown up. He was as tall as Zechs now, and broad in the chest. Of course he had to be in perfect shape. He'd been able to bend steel as a teenager, so I didn't want to imagine the damage he could do now. In those OZ pants, the kind that were practically porn on the right person anyway, it had been easy to see the muscles of his legs flex as he walked. I could imagine the way the fabric would be molded to the curves of his ass...

Which I wasn't thinking about, goddamn it!

I sighed and scrubbed at my face with my hands.

What could I say?

He'd taken my fucking breath away.

He was handsome and confident, capable of scaring off the peasants with a look, and yet I saw the way he was with people, smiling and talking with the ones he considered worthy of it. I'd watched him walk past an ass-kissing diplomat like she didn't exist, and then exchange a few words with a young lieutenant who afterwards looked like she'd just had a conversation with God.

I remembered Treize, and the way he made people feel, like they were the center of his world for a few precious moments, and I wondered if Heero had acquired the same gift. It was so at odds with the younger man I remembered, and yet... I'd stood there and watched it. I'd seen it. I'd heard that husky voice speaking.

This wasn't the Heero I had known.

It didn't change the fact that I was going to have to kill him.

I sat there in the darkness, waiting, but it was a very long time before the sun came up.

~tbc~