Chapter Text
Corn Flakes
by duointherain
Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing.
Notes: This is going to be a rewrite of a story that was in Santa Clarita. Maybe I’m a better writer now. Maybe I just need to revisit stuff that makes me happy. Thank you for nice comments and kudos :) Set after Endless Waltz and subject to my version of what tech ought to be, so it mostly looks nothing like the ‘80’s.
Chapter One
Things are supposed to be historical, meaningful, fucking fancy. People are supposed to be heroic, but that kind of depends on who writes the books. Mostly everything is just corn flakes. It’s fine. It’s better if the milk is cold and it’s not being chewed with broken teeth, but day-to-day stuff is just corn flakes. It’s only later, after someone else wrote it up in a book, that it sounds like it was important. In the moment, it’s just corn flakes. Also, handcuffs make time go by really slow.
“Look at me, son. You do realize this is your sentencing hearing and that you have been found guilty, right?” The judge’s bench was elevated, his face kind and serious all at once. To Duo, it looked like all the faces of all the adults who hadn’t been any fucking help, a few of whom he’d sent to judgment, but the guilt rapidly chewed its way to rage. The white wig with its thick curls gave a stark contrast to the man’s smooth ebony skin. Duo imagined it was made of ashes.
“What else is fucking new?” Duo shrugged, mind already moving on to other thoughts.
“You have been, quite likely, the most difficult case of my entire career,” the judge said.
The courtroom was empty, a hundred empty seats, though they could all hear the media scratching at the doors like rats. Commander Une and Relena’s adoptive mother sat in the front row, on the defense side.
The prosecution was somber. There was a single lawyer, bald with a metal plate making a silver curve. His table had no paper. All his points had been made with projection and while Duo wasn’t really paying attention, a more keen observer might not have been able to tell the difference between prosecution and defense. The outcome of the trial had been determined well before Duo had ever been apprehended. Politics are what they are.
Duo rolled violet eyes, tongue worrying at his teeth, which he was obsessing over not having brushed. Death, fuzzy teeth, all the same. It just didn’t seem right to die with fuzzy teeth.
Defense, an androgynous person with pink hair and nerves that had grown thinner and thinner over the course of the three week trial, cleared their voice and glared at Duo with eyes that would do the execution right then and there if they could. “My client is experiencing heightened stress, which is inhibiting his social skills.”
The smile Duo gave his lawyer started small, but blossomed into full-on insane, until the poor lawyer just sank down in the chair with a squeak. That out of the way, Duo turned to face the judge. He shook the chains that held his wrists at the small of his back, attached to his waist, which went all the way down to matching cuffs at his ankles. “Well, see, you gon do what you want, no matter what I got to say. You go on. I’ll either get out of these chains, or I’ll be dead, it’ll come out one way or the other. I forgot to brush mah teeth though.”
“Son,” the judge said while sighing at the same time. “You are maybe fourteen or fifteen years old. I understand that life has been very difficult for you and while this court can not condone the things you have done to change the world, we are not unaware of the beneficial effects of your actions. We have arranged for your rehabilitation.”
“Can you please speak standard? I don’t understand a fucking shit that you just said,” Duo said, though with more respect than he’d given anyone else during his three-month incarceration.
“Mr. Maxwell, I’m sending you to live with a family. You will attend school. I strongly believe that you can be rehabilitated so that you can live in this world where you helped to bring peace. You deserve to live in the world you helped to create, but you can not steal, murder, or blow things up.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“Well, you see, Mr. Maxwell, learning that - is the point. Your foster father is already here. He’s very capable. I would like you to come visit me in three months and we revisit the terms of your probation.”
Duo’s eyes narrowed and he kicked his lawyer’s chair, leaning closer to them. “What’s probation?”
“They let you go, but watch over you,” they said.
Duo perked right up, shoulders straightening, chin lifting, violet eyes sparkling. His long jet black hair, wrapped in thick restraining padding, the very tip of it started wiggling happily. “Probation is good! Did Heero also get probation?”
Duo’s lawyer hissed in his ear, “Please be quiet!”
Fuzzy teeth completely forgotten, Duo grinned brilliantly. Heero probably had gotten probation too! He imagined his foster father to be someone like Arthur Weasley and super easy to slip free of. He’d find Heero! They’d break the surly bonds of Earth! What a fucking shit hole!
After another long sigh, the judge smacked his gavel down. If the judge had ever watched pre-meditated crimes being plotted, it was behind those violet eyes. “Mr. Maxwell, I look forward to seeing your progress.”
Duo’s smile said he expected to never see any of them again. He wanted off Earth. He wanted his freedom. Fucking hell! This was going to work out great!