Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I am determined to make Duo fall in love with me. I have recently discovered that one can do so to another in only ten seconds, if they wish, and I have not been able to think of anything else since.

It’s summer in the northern crook of Italy, where Slovenia swoops down to cradle and Croatia props up below. The ancient payout of the Silk Road into Europe now funneling electronic components from South Asia and metal from Africa into OZ factories for chain rifles, missile pods, cartridges. I am tasked with strategic destruction of the main depot, sabotage of the port itself, and to pose as a student in the local academy until the mission can be completed successfully. I am usually alone in such tasks; Duo has also been separately tasked with the same. A common mission.

While the reasoning is sound—he is highly-skilled in stealth operations and a uniquely skilled pilot, an asset to the objectives—the teaming up is unusual. I would normally insist on working alone, even despite direct orders. I am more efficient without liabilities. Even liabilities as skilled as another Gundam pilot can compromise getting optimal results.

Duo had settled a week previous and easily hacked a double room for us, listing us under names that clearly amused him. Max Laurel, now sharing 312 Double Suite with Yul Hardy. He didn’t even mask his grin from the back row as I was introduced to the first-period class. I didn’t sit next to him.

When I discover the book, I am not thinking of the mission. This is my first mistake, of so many.

In study period, I separate from the group within the library, who mostly clump together in their various groups at the circular tables, hardly a book in sight. These fellow students, despite being a similar age to us, are too self-absorbed to notice anything. I hear their trivial qualms, gossip, dreams and grudges filling the air at a remove. They are an ideal crowd to disappear into while maintaining invisibility from even them. We are not noticeable enough to factor into their petty, easy and decorated lives. They are still children, whereas Duo and I only appear so.

I sit at a small table nestled within the shelves, and bring three books with me to pass the time. Duo pretends not to know me and sits at another adjacent table, burrowing his head into his arms completely. From his elbow, he mutters, “You won’t blend in with these kids if you’re too bookish, Yul.” And promptly falls asleep. I watch his back gently rise and fall until a minute passes, and then reach for a book.

I had grabbed some at random and push aside the others. A contemporary teen-focused novel, an elementary-level physics book explained with cartoons. This one has an undecorated cover—The Human Face: Mirror for Humanity. Still light fare for me, but something draws me in.

I open it and flip through the first few pages of color plates interspersed with, confronted by the image of a beautiful woman's face in close-up, green eyes gazing up at me with temptation. I find myself flipping the next; an old man with a painted face greets me opposite that.

A young Indian girl bedecked in jewels, eyes rimmed in blue and pink, gazing shyly at the camera. Identical twin girls in innocent straw hats. A dark woman in a white shirt; a pale man in a black one. A black and white horror still, a woman's face contorted in a scream. A young boy begrudgingly crying.

I hardly realize that I have sunk back into the chair, immersed. Not paying attention to surroundings. I read on, about the first creatures to have a pair of eyes, the wide range of pigmentation of skin, the Golden Mean of attractive features, the complex mesh of muscles taken to produce a frown, the basic expressions possessed by every human being—fear, anger, happiness, sadness, disgust, surprise and contempt. These things are facts and knowledge I already contain, part of my training on anatomy, psychology, and subterfuge in service to my mission. But, for a moment, something draws me back in.

Entranced by the color of each different face presented, I sit there in silence. In a rare moment, I am thinking about anything but how I am a soldier simply waiting to execute a mission.

I read on, continuing to a passage about the 'conscious smile'.

I think first of Duo, flashing teeth from the raised seats of the auditorium, as my false name is announced.

'We all have a natural smile, the basic and universally recognized expression of happiness. When happy, we make this expression whether or not anyone else is around. Of course, in everyday life, we also put on a conscious smile. These are smiles that are not natural expressions of happiness, but are for the purpose of communication. They help to smooth the path of social interaction. Sometimes they are used to hide natural expressions, which would give away too much of how we are really feeling.'

That's when I lift my head and look at Duo directly. He seems truly asleep at the table, face buried away in his arms from the overhead lights, motionless except for the rise and fall of his back.

I do not know him. Not in the way any of the children in this library know each other. But he and I know each other as only soldiers can—I know he is not deeply asleep, because he needs to be able to fight and kill at a moment's notice. He and I know each other at the core, but at any other level, we are double-blinds to each other. Interests, memories, dreams. The everyday material of these children’s conversations, shared without care with each other. Do we have any of that to even share with each other? When he smiles at me, I don’t know why, really.

Even as I force my eyes on the text again and continue, I think of him.

I read of the genuine smile of true happiness and enjoyment, the Duchenne smile, in which the joint movement of the zygomaticus major lifts the corner of the mouth and the orbicularis oculi raises the cheeks to convey real ‘joy,’ and think of him. The constricted eyes in tandem with the wide smile prove the genuine nature of the expression. I think of him, replaying the shape of his mouth, and trying to remember just how his eyes looked. I become increasingly curious to know which Duo uses around me—the contrived or the real.

I read on for pages, though, to try and concentrate on something other than him. And I manage this, until I pass a large, fuzzy, black and white photograph of three young children, smiling happily as they huddle close for the camera. On the next page, I begin to read the next segment, entitled 'Eye-to-Eye'.

'In normal conversation, the periods of eye contact are very short…'

I see again Duo glancing toward me as we had exited first period, after my introduction. He had moved through the crowd as if he were made of air, passing through spaces too small for him without disturbance. He glances over to me, we both nod, and he pretends to introduce himself for the first time. “As a new kid to another new kid, let me tell you this professor is quite the gasbag. Literally. Don’t sit too close to the front row!” he jokes, fanning his face with his hand. I agree with a nod, and he keeps walking past me. Disappears into the flock of identical uniforms. His braid of hair—a feature I’ve thought of as a liability, too visually distinct—cuts down the navy blazer, flashing bright brown in the light from the tall, ornate windows.

'We glance up at one another for brief periods of about three seconds, but will hold one another's gaze for only a second or two—any longer makes the speaker and the looker feel nervous…'

I see again Duo's face as he had walked into our shared dorm room earlier, our eyes meeting without the need for pretense. An act, for us, always charged with information. The tilt of his chin, the tension in his shoulder, and his gait can tell me if there is danger; his words contain invisible information. When he enters, he’s casual, but pointed. “Sorry, I haven’t cleaned up in a while. Maybe we can talk later,” he says, going over to the bookshelf and removing a pack of cigarettes from a hollowed-out copy of Moby Dick. What he means is, I haven’t checked for bugs; let’s not talk mission here, yet.

“We’ve got study hall, new kid. Lemme show you the way.” He tucks the cigarettes into his blazer's inner pocket and jerks his head towards the doorway.

We are both fighting the same secret, terrible war. We only look each other in the eye for a purpose, in pursuit of the mission and its outcome. To exchange information, details. Nothing more. We are not really children anymore, like them. If either of us ever truly were.

I keep reading. I keep thinking of him.

'Prolonged eye-to-eye contact of more than ten seconds indicates that one of two things is about to happen—the two people are preparing to fight, or make love!'

I almost see Duo, sitting on the windowsill of our dorm room, smoking. I almost see him, turning to see me, stopping. He smiles, the real one, and walks over to me. This almost-Duo stands in front of me, with his braid laid over his shoulder, and locks eyes with me. I am not aware of how long it is, but he reaches up and holds the side of my face. He has blue-violet eyes, without information in them. He’s really looking back. In this almost vision, I know he is closer to me than we’ve been, like this. I flinch, close the book. The vision breaks apart, like Leo suits do when you slice them with a beam saber at 20,000 degrees.

I'm electrified for the rest of the day.

I put the books onto the re-shelving cart and, when I return to the round tables at the back of the library, Duo is awake, stretching. The bell rings out, and I follow him out, vibrating, silent.

Chapter Text

We sit and eat in the cafeteria. I am still thinking about that book. Where I would be normally turning over and reconsidering mission details in my mind, and carefully watching and observing all around me, I am stuck within. Thinking about that book, and more intensely, what it has instilled in me. This false memory of Duo, which I am trapped within, rewatching. He sees me, stops smoking. He sees me, walks up to me, watches me. Really looks at me. It could be three seconds, it could be three hours. Something happens to me in the memory, or has happened. I am whirling.

The food is bland, I can hear him complaining from outside my preoccupied mind, but I do not look up. Do not look up.

“Wow, these rich kid parents laid down all that money for this?” He spears a piece of cooked meat that seems especially gray against the color of the rich red velvet curtains draped aside the cafeteria windows. The glass, reaching the edge of the ceiling, teases a wide blue sky to fly into. Fly away from this knotting, twisting thought inside me that I both must and cannot look at Duo.

I glance directly at his face, despite myself, and, still holding the fork and unappetizing meat with a suspicious grimace, his eyes flick over and catch mine. As if caught, I look away, instantly drawing the suspicion to myself.

He lets the fork fall with a clink, pushes the plate aside to lean towards me. “You okay?” he stares at the side of my face. I refuse to look up. He almost laughs. “You’ve hardly touched your plate, Yul.”

I am terrified to make eye contact with him, something I avoided even as I returned to the table, even as we filed along with the rest to grab our lunch. I feel now that if I do, something terrible and unpredictable will happen, something that never happened before.

I look down at my plate. It's full. Similarly gray, overcooked meat, clearly freeze-dried potatoes, pale carrots, a sickly red side of previously-canned cranberries. I'm not hungry—I'm completely conscious of where his eyes rest and they rest on my face, the skin radiating heat as if burned. It prevents an ounce of productive work.

I nod, so I don't need to look at him. “I’m not hungry.”

Duo doesn’t seem to buy it, but the playfulness in his voice masks his real reaction. “Don’t blame you, man,” he says. “This shit really reminds me of rations. Like, really reminds me of rations…” He’s careful not to mention anything specific that could flag us as anything but high schoolers - but he’s right. There are a few emergency rations disturbingly similar to this stored in a floor compartment in the cockpit of Wing, with a roll of bandages and sticks of morphine.

“Not to worry,” he pushes on, as if trying to cheer me up. “We’re not paying for this stuff anyway. Still, you should eat up. Growing boys need their energy. We have mischief and shenanigans to commit.”

He pauses and leans ever so slightly forward. I'm surprised that I can hear the slightest shift of his weight above the whirl of my thoughts, all unrelated to the mission and dominating all else. "Yer not sick or anything, are you?"

I push a soft carrot with my fork. A sorry attempt to fool him. "No."

I stab it and put it in my mouth and chew and swallow, mechanically.

He leans forward again. I glance towards him, to try and assuage his suspicion, without veering too close to his eyes. His braid slides down his shoulder the tiniest bit, but does not slide over completely, hanging like a rope. "You know, you do look kind of pale. You sure you're feeling okay, Yul? Need to rest up a while or something?" The concern in his voice causes me pain, as quiet as it is.

"I’m alright," I say, hopefully hiding any uneven emotion behind a carefully measured monotone. I notice his distaste for that automatic tone of voice, when his shoulders droop a little, the corner of his mouth drifting astray in discontent. "I don't get sick. It's just a trick of the light,” I say, trying to be detached enough to throw him off the scent.

Duo taps the table with his fork, tilting his head back and eyeing me from the side. His braid shifts silently back over his shoulder. He surveys the room briefly for anyone watching or listening too closely, and in that moment, I take a glance. He's hidden any disappointment in my lack of response in his casual, contrived smile. One corner is slung back in the usual, devil-may-care smirk. To any outside party, the smug smile typical of any enrolled student here, nothing more.

But even that hint of concern, quickly masked in nonchalance, has taken hold around my neck. I feel difficulty breathing normally.

What I cannot ascertain is why it has this peculiar effect on me and how another's internal sentiment could be so physically palpable. I feel his eyes burn again, his suspicion remaining, on my face. I must, but cannot, look him in the eye. Somewhere, within my confusing swirl of thoughts, I find the composure to behave in ways more consistent with my previous demeanor to convince him there is nothing here to uncover.

“We should be focusing on our schoolwork instead. I do not need any medical attention,” I say coldly. “Despite this meal’s quality or lack thereof.”

Duo snorts. It seems to have worked. With a sigh of resignation, he simply arches his eyebrows and mutters, "Well, as long as you don't toss your cookies during the mission," and returns to begrudgingly eating his own tasteless lunch across from me.

I do not look at him. I look just past his shoulder occasionally, and he is framed against the blue sky, the red curtains, and the windows’ gold grilles, with hair burning russet like a classical painting. I do not know him, or look at him in the eye.

Duo and I are allies, albeit sometimes begrudgingly or with suspicion.

Considering our history—the bullet of his gun into my shoulder, my stealing parts from his Gundam, his jailbreaking me out of confinement, the explicit commands of our higher-ups to avoid trusting anyone completely, even other pilots—it’s an alliance spotted with betrayals and deceptions. But we are not real enemies. In our separate paths convening on a common goal, we have sometimes bristled against one another.

We fight the same enemy, on behalf of the colonies. I wouldn’t fight him, given the choice. I can reasonably ascertain from his behavior that neither would he. So, logically, if there are only two types of intimacy from extended eye contact, violence or love, then there must be only one response if I were to look him in the eye for long enough. If I look him in the eye for more than ten seconds, then he must fall in love.

Or, in rejection of that, he might punch me. But I must test this hypothesis. It is my new objective, and I am determined to find out. If only to dislodge this particularly stubborn thought.

At last period, the bell releases the flood of students into the main halls, the courtyard. Clusters of students gather around the baroque fountain, pour into local cafes, and some gather at the practice fields for games. I am within my own game, still too clouded to even think of the mission, of why we are here in the first place. I am standing on the edge of the fountain for elevation, looking around the courtyard at the open classroom doors from a distance.

Duo comes out of one, finally, in a gaggle of boys and girls, talking casually. His hands are stitched behind his head, elbows out in a jaunty, relaxed pose. A girl even seems to touch his shoulder, then his hair, asking a question. He stops, smiles, and abashedly scratches his head, seeming to explain. She holds her books close to her chest, smiling, nodding. Seemingly admiring, complimenting. He seems receptive, if a little polite. Within a minute, they wave goodbye and separate, with the group headed toward the soccer field and Duo cutting towards the dorm.

My chest is hot. My hands unclench, though I don't notice the motion. I step down from the fountain and follow him. I note the agitation and swallow it down.

Duo knows I’m approaching. I also know he must have known that I was watching, but says nothing. He is strolling alone along the path to the dorm, which is flanked by a carefully planted row of oleander trees on both sides. He doesn’t turn to look at me, just pauses as if looking at the thick bunches of pink flowers, so I can catch up. Then, silently, we walk back to the dorms together.

I sit at the desk on my side of the dorm, decrypting messages. After a sweep of the room, Duo had nodded and confirmed the VPN was active. “Hack away,” he had said with a tired tone, before falling onto the bed on his stomach. “Wake me when the marching orders are ready. I’m beat. I think that food really was just reheated rations.”

I turn my head to look at him. He’s facing away, boot still on, just sighing rather than resting. I’m eager to test my hypothesis; terrified of the results. I do not know what to do if it fails. To be honest, I don’t know what I’ll do if I succeed, either. Maybe I’ll finally be free of the thought.

He flops over onto his back, finally ready to kick off his shoes. He manages to toe them off and kick them over the bed frame, folding his hands over his stomach. “Seriously,” he groans. “It’s like a rock in my gut.”

I feel similar, like I’ve swallowed an anvil—Duo’s not looking my way, but instead gazing dully at the ceiling. But he senses me looking at him, once again, and I sense his in response, turning his head to glance back at me as I quickly look away.

The image of him is burned into my mind as I regroup and rethink my tactic. He watches me for a moment, eyes still burning against the side of my head, then returns to his usual pattern of aimless chatter to fill the air. “I think I ought to hack the school just to get them to order better stuff. Not that these kids know anything…”

The first setback feels like a burning failure. This idea has hijacked my sense of myself. I am levelheaded, rational, and measured, but now I am half of myself - a half that is suddenly irrational, foolish, and swirled into internal chaos. I am afraid, for the first time, I think, of making a fool of myself. Should he glance back and see me, clumsily fighting for eye contact not normally afforded to me, I feel I might never forget the embarrassment, should he give me a strange look and ask, either with his eyes or his mouth, just what do you think you're doing?

What am I doing? With no purpose, I turn back to the encrypted messages, watching green command lines spill downward and downward, doing their automated work. Duo is faster at this work than I am. Hiding and uncovering the hidden is his special talent. What would he think if he knew my ploy? Does he already?

I do not know what to do with nerves. I don’t remember having them. When I was much younger, I know I did. They were trained out of me, so they once existed. Now they seem to have roared back into life, all because of a book. I do not like this feeling. I decide to regroup before making any rash moves. This strange spell that came over me at the slightest glance, just because of words in a book.

I watch the screen intently. The terminal beeps as the lines come to a stop, dissolve, and reformulate into the decrypted message. Hold position, maintain research until further instruction.

I don’t notice that Duo is standing behind me until I hear him sigh quietly, reading the single line. My body ripples with electricity from my toes to my ears, in the opposite motion of the lines of code, spilling upward at a furious speed. "Great,” he says without inflection. “I’m going for a smoke, Mr. Hardy.” His hand claps me on the shoulder, hot through the blazer.

I sit silently, motionless, until I hear the door close behind him.

Chapter Text

The next day looms with its awful opportunities. I, too, have a lump in my gut from yesterday, and not because of the substandard food.

First sight is the muted, orange-gray glow of dawn approaching, not yet broken, painting the plain white ceiling. Usually, I am awake before Duo, if only by a few moments. The sounds of any movement will rouse him, I’ve found, from even his deepest sleep, dotted with noisy snores. He is a proper pilot, after all, no matter how casual and normal and carefree he plays for the other residents of this boarding school, we’ve made our hideout. I see instead the second bed is empty, but not made.

The standard issue dress shoes are tucked under the bed, prim and shined, and uniform hung on a hanger off the back of the closet. His ratty sneakers are missing.

I rise and go to the window. The campus is dusty dark and slowly warming as the sun begins to glow below the horizon. The broader city sprawling across the low, mountainous hills, with its distinguished, if weathered, neo-classical structures, remains sleepy. Shops are dark, roads are quiet this early. Only the harbor and the boats are awake, dinging distantly, with their modern lights marking their positions. Out there, I can see long supply barges quietly making their way into port from the Adriatic. Carrying their payloads, bellies full of bullets for OZ war machines. Bullets that may someday rip into civilians, into colonists. Someday may rip into Gundam pilots, should they finally fly true enough.

I see Duo, another unreal memory visiting me, collapsing as he crawls from Deathscythe with his guts spread red and wet on the cockpit block, looking up at me through his messy hair with a grin. “Flesh wound,” I imagine him saying, voice thready. There’s blood on his teeth, and he smiles genuinely at me. Corners of the mouth and eye pulling to meet in true joy, as Death himself dies.

I grip the window frame. I don’t notice I’ve fractured a section of the wood frame until I draw my hand away, smeared with red, too.

I go to wrap my hand quickly with gauze from the medicine cabinet. Careless. Finally, the mistake seems to clear my writhing mind, and I can push the visions aside. These thoughts have truly clouded my judgment for a full day. I am disturbed by my lack of focus. This minor pain sharpens me into a point, once again arching towards only the objectives of the mission.

I check the encrypted channel for new messages. After the automation finishes—quickly, thanks to Duo’s coding—new orders flash in digital green.

Recognizance, preparation, sabotage, and strategic withdrawal without Gundam battle or detection. No civilian deaths. Tasked with destroying the port’s capabilities to move more ammunition, and to render the current munitions housed there unusable. Only OZ casualties. The region, long pocked by wars, annexation, and broken treaties, is resistant to the idea of military occupation. Without damage to the civilian installations, outside of the port, they are historically likely to side with any opposition or rebel forces.

I can understand now why Duo has been assigned. The mission is to act with tempered force, strike from the shadows only, and withdraw. While I am capable of remaining undetected and providing explosives, Duo has a particular flair that suits the objectives and setting.

With my laptop, I also check the Gundams’ motion sensors which are slated to alarm if human or engine sounds are detected. Both units, 01 and 02, are hidden carefully just a few miles into the protected nature reserve, using a combination of natural cave features and camouflage nets. Duo, arriving before me, had even established a prepared spot for my Gundam next to his, and coded a co-operative alarm system.

I return to the window to wipe the blood. A supply barge has crawled fully into port and stopped, its signal lights flashing as the workers start to unload. Before I close it, I look down again into the campus.

Down in the murky morning light, I can see the blurry figures of early risers on the track below the boys’ dorm building, darting back and forth as they stretch, dash, and exercise. Among them, I think I can recognize the blur of one loping around the track with especially ratty-looking white sneakers flashing in quick rhythm and a long whip of hair behind.

I complete a quick set of exercises on the floor of our cramped double suite, then shower and dress quickly, feeling clearer than the day previous. When I emerge from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, I almost expect to hear Duo complain or playfully call me an inconsiderate roommate, but the room is still dark and quiet. The ratty sneakers have returned, untied and freshly grass-stained, and the dress shoes and uniform are gone. The bed is made, and his running clothes are shoved underneath. Proving again his reputation as a stealthy pilot.

Alone, I walk to our first hour class.

First period, in the lecture hall, with its high, majestic, curved rows evoking classical instruction, is an incredibly dull course. The professor, true to Duo’s word, pontificates at length on the dullest of things, with flourishes and pauses designed to impress his students on “How to behave as a civilized border at this institution!” How to sit, how to make polite conversation, how to properly address a thank-you letter. Tedious.

I appreciate the advice Duo gave to sit far away enough so that the lecture washes over instead as faint, if bothersome, background noise. I sit looking blandly at the notebook before me. This is really the depth of these children’s worries, I note, with the lump in my stomach faintly reforming.

Duo is sitting again with the small gaggle of male and female students I’d seen him with before, one row below me and off to the side. We shouldn’t be seen as too collegial or close to each other, nor perceived as consciously avoiding one another. The distance makes sense. I glance at him sidelong when he’s engaged in chatter under his breath, smiling and fraternizing with the students as easily as he slipped in and out of the dorm room without detection, as easily as he made camouflage nets and lines of military-grade encrypted code. I watch him. I feel my thoughts writhing up into each other, again starting to blot out my single-minded focus on the mission and the objectives.

Duo smiles and leans toward a student to draw something in her notebook, which she quickly looks at and laughs.

The laugh draws looks from other boys around them, and Duo stops, masking his withdrawal with a casual, devil-may-care smirk that doesn’t reach his eyes. In profile, I watch his mouth fall into a flat line after a moment, when all other eyes are off of him. I know he feels me watching. I wish I knew more about what he thought, what he felt when my eyes fell on him.

I wish I didn’t still want to look him in the eye. To see if love bloomed there, instead of violence. But I do, more than I can admit to anyone.

He flicks his gaze towards me without turning his head, and I automatically turn my head away. The lump in my gut is fully formed again, and my chest goes hot.

Maybe the food was off. When the bell goes off for my second-period class, Classical Literature, I stand quickly and pack before Duo can disengage with his friends. Before I go out the door, I glance back in and see him standing, books under his arm, watching me leave. Instinctually, I nod to him, but I can’t stand to look at him, not this close, right now. I slip out into the hallway to go to my next class. Almost like a real student would, with no worries beyond beating the bell.

Our paths are not scheduled to cross until the period before lunch, study hour, in the library.

I sit at the same secluded, rounded tables as yesterday, alone. Even a minute before the bell is about to sound, there is no sign he is coming. At the entrance to the library, the supervisor impassively glances over the assembled students as he conducts his silent head count. The students are similarly self-absorbed in their petty melodramas, books untouched, as he looks towards me, dully notes my presence with a notch on his notepad, then notes the empty chairs around me as well. The bell strikes, tinny, shrill, and piercing, and a few stragglers squeeze in through the arched door, no doubt earning a late mark judging by the supervisor's hardly hidden sneer of contempt. Some of them I recognize as part of the pack Duo has been associating with.

No sign of Max Laurel. I sit at the table, watching the doors. Duo is not coming to this study period, and suddenly the gentle, book-burdened walls of the library feel more like a cage. To avoid drawing suspicion, I cannot go to find him. I begin to copy lines from my Classical Literature assignment—As You Like It—to play my part upon this stage, the quiet, unremarkable student, but my mind is elsewhere.

Duo is a highly capable pilot; I shouldn’t assume something has compromised our mission from something as mundane as a ‘student’ skipping class, especially a boring one.

But, as I watch the doorframe, the lump in my stomach returns.

Chapter Text

I am a soldier. Seas of students part around me and swirl and eddy, critiquing each other’s hair from afar, gossiping around corners, and living in pocket realities, separate even from each other. They don’t know who stalks in their midst. I play the chess game of war, at a remove; they live, blithely stupid, as pawns, in wild abandon. Fodder. Maybe happy fodder, but fodder still. I am a wolf in the pasture.

Why does this one bit of information cause me such trouble? That if I only look long enough at him, and really see him, then…

I thread through the flocks and reach the courtyard. Lunch hour. Blazers and skirts are piling across the courtyard into the large cafeteria hall. The weather has warmed such that this morning the staff have placed bistro-style tables on the green, beneath umbrellas striped green and gold. Still, I do not see him. This new obsession that has fallen upon me feels like another chess game I am playing. It’s stretching me too thin. Making me feel poetic. Vigilance I should pay to the mission—recon on the munition depot, the security, reinforcements in the area—is instead fixated on finding, seeing him. I notice every hair-thin movement of every vaguely familiar color, figure, or hint of resemblance in the crowded room. The moments between the bells have become eons in their own right, small millennia with kings and kingdoms of anxiety rising, falling, and another rising in place of the last.

For all the training within me, billions of scenarios, and terabytes of data within me, I don’t have answers or a response to this among all my knowledge. I am too full of war-making, of weak points and exploits, Lagrange points and objectives to hold more than that. I cannot find why I fear and obsess over the simple gaze of my friend.

Friend? The thought strikes me and I stop. Part of me shivers like the school bell.

“That fucking bell,” Duo might say to poke fun, leaning forward to tuck his chin down, smiling up rakishly through his bangs. The thought is so compelling, I stop to look over my shoulder to be sure he is not there, teasing me in the flesh.

I eat lunch alone today. The only benefit to his absence is that my cover is reinforced. Without Max Laurel, I am again an unremarkable presence. No one notices me, even as I watch the doors and windows carefully.

When the bell rings again, I move back into the crowd and towards our next class. Pre-Colonial History awaits. Another class I am slated to, just coincidentally, share with Max Laurel. Another similarly ornate lecture hall, with students half-heartedly filing in. I pause and look again down the walk, bodies approaching and receding in loose waves. In the strong summer afternoon light, the brown hair of girls and boys alike burns bright, almost red, constantly pulling my eyes.

This mission already feels compromised. I am not one to subscribe to subjective data—hunches, gut feelings—as remotely as reliable as other, hard-edged information. But this is still data, and it points somewhere, compels me. Whether this is the fault of the book, of myself, or because Duo is too quick to smile at me, I cannot tell.

I think I might have been angry with him if it were not my only thought at the moment to discover where he had gone. Safety. The mission, our cover. I wish it were the only reason I was looking so intently.

Duo is capable, beyond any other adjective. And, also, capable of making anyone believe he is capable of any particular feat at any time. My worry is likely useless. Endangering the mission, possibly. But it remains.

And then, my heart is again abruptly crawling into my mouth, and for a moment, I trace Duo's path through the crowd before me without registering it, dazed. My eyes follow him, and my mind floats, distanced, simply absorbing the image. Strange, hot adrenaline shoots through to my fingertips, then I blink, and my mind catches up.

He's weaving silently through the crowd, eyes fixated ahead of him as he moves purposefully between students. Going somewhere. Somewhere, which happens to not be our current class. Braided hair cutting down the back of his dark blazer, tagging him as he cuts into the main courtyard from the west path and walks steadily towards the south garden, which houses the chapel and a slate of medieval statues tucked into the side. Picturesque. Quiet.

He disappears into a space that shouldn’t hide him and I follow. When I pass into the South Garden, under an archway, and scan the area, there are still a few students clustered here. Mostly couples, sidling up close to each other and oblivious to most else.

I smell the cigarette smoke before I hear him. I pass a vestibule crowded with a bleached white statue of a saint, holding a spear and fresh flowers draped around his shoulders. On the far side, Duo leans against the statue, sheltered from sight by this effigy of a murdered man. I stop walking, turn and fix him with a look, despite my better instincts. But he is not looking back. He has his eyes affixed on the wall in front of him, cigarette in his mouth. The variety here has a particularly musty tinge. As if reading my mind, Duo pinches the cigarette butt and pulls it away as it exhales, scrutinizing it. No eye contact.

“You know, this earth-grown tobacco is something else. Almost prefer the dull stuff from home,” he muses. The mention of 'home' sets off a pang in my chest; he pauses and seems to pang the same, momentarily. What is a home, to people like us?

“We’re going to be late for class,” I say without inflection.

I am still standing parallel with him, as the love-struck students also finally file away to scurry away to class. He looks intently at the ground as he grinds the butt into the gravel with his boot.

“Don’t you think being so studious is bad for our cover, Hardy? Have you met these kids? They crack books about as often as pigs fly,” he says. Takes a beat of silence, in his nonchalant pose, still avoiding looking at me. “Wanna play hooky with me?” I recognize this as a request for a secure conversation.

I hold my position; he holds his. Only the bell breaks the moment, sounding overhead from the chapel tower. Duo looks at me, and our eyes lock. I have weathered explosions, bullets, falls from heights, and entered Earth’s atmosphere in a fireball, and this sends my heart into my throat before my training can suppress the reaction. He looks at me, gaze colored with nothing in particular besides violet, and I wonder what he sees.

I see the fresh purple-red circling his right eye, which in profile had been concealed.

Despite myself, I bristle. I say his name under my breath. Duo catches that and he half-winces, half-smiles in response, holding my gaze. I look away, taking it as a chance to scan the surroundings. Nothing but the summer wind in the trees, under the midday sun. “Not here,” I say. There’s more growl in my voice than I can control.

Duo pushes away from the vestibule and walks out of the garden. I am one step behind, not quite beside him. This is for the best. I cannot see the bruise if he walks ahead.

---

Before I follow to the dorm room, I hang back and cut down the hall as Duo walks on. I visit the second-floor elevator bank and the ice-maker housed there. I take a plastic cup and fill it with ice before returning to the dorm room. The halls are eerily quiet during class hours, with only a student monitor half asleep at the head of the stairs. I close the door behind me and find another staunch silence awaiting me. Duo does not stir at my entrance—he remains sitting on his bed, closest to the window, motionless, facing the opposing wall as if it were telling him some great secret. The slightest tilt of his head, and he glances at me over his shoulder. I tilt the cup, and the ice shifts and clinks. An offering.

Again, his eyes find mine. Of course—for all the skills he possesses, how could he see into this? I’m sure he would not think these feelings are possible for me. Honestly, I am not sure they are either, even as his lifeless expression pins my heart against the wall. I am tempted to look back over my shoulder for it, bloody and jumping against the paint, for how real the sensation feels, his look cutting straight through me.

The slight twinge of dissatisfaction in the neutral line of his mouth directed towards me, for whatever reason, hits like an arrow. The swelling around his right eye is moderate, noticeable but not diminishing his sight or abilities. Lips cemented together unhappily, lids drooping and apathetic, tired lines appearing in a young face—this is not a Duo I've seen before.

I suppose, also, that I didn’t think this mute sadness was possible of him, either.

It’s only a few seconds before he turns and watches the wall again, sighing. His shoulders droop on either side, deflated.

Thankful for the task to distract, I pass into the bathroom with the cup of ice and return with a washcloth. I come back to stand at the side of the bed, next to him. He closes his eyes and frowns a moment before something clicks slightly back into place. He almost theatrically winds himself back up and straightens where he sits, turning to pin me with a more typical, insouciant gaze. A corner of his mouth even quirks back, half-smirking. He eyes the red plastic cup in my hand, with its distinctive shape and particular white rim, as I pour the ice into the cloth and ball it up. Offer it up without comment.

“Wonder why they hand these cups out for free to these kids here,” he says slyly.

“Water,” I say flatly. And, because I can’t seem to stop myself from these things lately, I even attempt a joke. “For studying, of course.”

Duo looks up at me, almost shocked. He huffs out a surprised laugh, reaching out for the makeshift cold compress in my hand. The violet of his eyes, without the burden of mission, of war-making, of danger, inspires a wave of heat through my chest. And, even with his black eye, his smile arches dangerously towards his eyes.

Violet. Genuine. Dangerous.

My heart is quickly relocated to my chest, and, thumping, starts clamoring up through my throat, cutting off air. As he removes the loosely packed ice from my hand, still watching me intently, I cannot withstand the gaze. He will notice, if he hasn’t already. I turn and go to the bathroom once more to place the party cup onto the narrow sill of the sink.

“Mr. Hardy, why I never…” Duo muses aloud from the other room. “Didn’t think you’d take the name to heart.” He lets out another small laugh of disbelief.

I look in the mirror at myself. When I finally recognize myself again—and the thumping is quiet enough—I exit, stand against the wall, and fold my arms.

Duo is again looking out the window, now holding the ice to his eye. We mimic our previous configuration again, with him looking out and me looking at him. The room has been swept for bugs, so I can be direct. “What were you doing?” I say, subtracting any intonation. I don’t trust that I won’t reveal something. Or that he won’t catch on.

Not a response at all. Now I am becoming rather dissatisfied with this behavior of his. If only he would give me more than some precursory glance, laced with a small but growing contempt, something I have not earned nor truly deserve. But the silence lingers on. I have not hated the lack of Duo's voice so much—maybe even more than he has hated the steely silence on my part.

“You are a better fighter than these students. You wouldn’t have let them have the jump in the first place.”

He closes his eye, I can see in profile, and sighs. “I didn’t endanger the mission, Heero. Scout’s honor.”

The sound of my name in his voice now strikes me differently. I clench my jaw and muscle down the emotions. He shouldn’t address me as such, even in a no-bug room.

“You cannot always predict what will compromise a mission or objective,” I find myself saying again. There is a coil tightening just below my sternum, an acute sense of irony. Danger might even lurk on a library shelf.

I try another tactic when Duo doesn’t immediately respond. I am nothing if not thorough. “I will need to know for my report at the end of this. Tell me.”

“Weren’t you listening to the first hour Prof? It’s ‘Tell me, pretty please. Cherry on top.’ That’s etiquette befitting a contributing member of society,” Duo says in a distant tone, still avoiding. I don’t take whatever bait he’s hoping I’ll take and back down.

Duo takes out his lighter with his free hand and starts flicking the silver cap open, striking a flame. Flicking it closed with his wrist, opening, repeating. After a long moment of this nervous tick, he snaps it closed one more time, hides it in his palm, and rests it in his lap.

“It’s stupid. Some punk didn’t like my fraternizing with his gal. She offered me a smoke. I took it, obviously,” he says flatly. Almost defeated. “This kid and his little gang try to take me. Couldn’t really let them know what’s what without drawing heat to us, so I took a lick and pretended to have a glass jaw so they’d back off. I think it worked.”

The breeze from the window, cracked open, shifts his hair around his face. He takes a beat and cracks a rueful smile, looking out at the Mediterranean sky. In the way birds must know instinctively, I know he also thinks about flying into that seamless blue expanse. Leaving things behind. I would launch from the branch, if he did.

“All they think about is themselves, you know,” Duo says wistfully. “Not about guns or parts, or orders or missions, or even where they’re gonna get their next meal. I don’t think they ever have.” Then, with a color in his voice I don’t recognize, a small, quiet color that seeps into the air between us, he says, “Even if this was over today, we could never hope to be like that, like them. Do you ever think about that?”

He looks at me, and I at him. The seconds tick by, despite myself. He lowers the makeshift cold compress from his face and the bluing bruise hits me in the gut again. But still, our gazes are locked. I almost can feel him—the pilot of a machine he calls Death, now like Charon himself—peeling my soul out from its hiding place to gaze through it, sensing something to be unearthed and searching for it.

Does he see this?

My gut is winding, tightening, nervous. Violet. Genuine.

Dangerous.

I am the one who withdraws. My head is whirling again; my face is schooled into nothing. At least, I hope it is.

I push away from the wall and turn to the laptop at the desktop, sit down, tap it to life.

“Keep your focus on our tasks at hand,” comes the response from my chest, unprompted. Training.

Hard edges of numbers, maps, command lines, and encryption become the only orientation point I have, as the image of Duo’s face lingers, a vivid after-sight that curls, curls, curls this coil in my chest, de-calibrating, destabilizing all I’ve worked so many years to marshal into form. He remains still on the bed, soundless. I do not look back at him. I’m afraid to, now.

“You should quit that habit. You don’t need something else to try and kill you,” I say to the screen, knowing he will hear, unable to resist it.

Then, I experience something I don’t recognize. Until Duo stands up silently from the bed, stuffs the lighter into his pocket with the slightest of sounds, then says, curtly, “I didn’t endanger the goddamn mission,” and leaves—then, it boils up, unmistakable. He makes a point to close the door to the hallway quietly and disappear again silently. All as I keep my back to him, eyes affixed on the green and black screen, motionless. Regret.

I have to look down at my chest to confirm there is indeed no arrow through my chest, the feeling is so acute, searing through.

Chapter Text

I rarely dream. The Doctor had long ago succeeded in training my mind to blot them out from memory the moment I woke. A screen turning black, as if simply unplugged, and I wake with a clear head. No lingering sights, no trace emotions from the chemical reactions of a sleeping brain to compromise my performance. That night, after coordinating with Duo on our approach, on the personnel present and when night watch changes over, on how to strategically collapse dock structures to maximize the chaos of the moment and destruction, I dream of him.

In the time between exiting the room and returning, he had painted on a mask. That pleasantly non-committal, easy-going skin Max Laurel that he inhabits so seamlessly. The face that others see; no longer the unschooled face he would wear around me, and I had noted the change. With a cold pang in my gut. Feelings.

I had put them back where they’d come, folded up in the irrational spaces between my objectives, and pushed on. He had nodded, confirmed, and set off to his small suite desk to encode the explosive timers, source the camouflage, with a cigarette poking from his breast pocket.

In the hours until departure, under the blanket of night, I lay in my uniform on the other bed, sleeping as lightly as possible to the clack of his keyboard.

I dream, then, of him sitting on his bed, looking out the window. Just as he had before, sighing, bruised eye blue, green, yellow. Then, as dreams do, the setting slowly but insistently melts and coagulates in new forms around him. He sits on a low, brown-brick wall outside of town, on a winding road leading to the high wooded hills above, watching the water and sky competing to out-blue the other. Blood streaks down the front of his favored black collared sweater and jodhpurs; a sickly film of iridescent black-red clinging, shining in the sun. He’s looking at me again. But it’s not just his eye that’s painted blue, green, yellow. It’s his whole face.

In the dream, his face hides in camouflage paint, in blotches of gray, green, tan, yellow. A bruise, subsuming him completely.

Abruptly, he is looking at me from an overhead angle, watching me with alarm. I am plummeting, as if falling through the crust of the earth, dirt and fire arching up around me. Duo is yelling something I can’t hear, reaching desperately for me, as if over a ledge. He holds my gaze until I am too far to see him; it is more than ten seconds. We would be in love, if I weren’t crumpling under the force of gravity, shifting, compressing, growing dense and radiating orange as I transmute into nameless fire, dying—then, waking as he walks through the door and closes it silently behind himself.

The dream dissolves. I sit up and confirm with the clock. 0100, on the dot. Duo doesn’t look directly at me, but I know from how he carries his shoulders he’s itching to go. I dress quickly in the clothes he produces from his duffle - black, light, ready to traverse, and with various tools and ignitions tucked into the pockets. He is even quicker, with his back to me across the room. His slight frame is a flash of skin and bone as he sheds his civilian skin and disappears into his preferred black. As I slip off and on my own clothes, I find myself watching in long glances. He is underweight, while still ropy strong and quick, but his shape is alarming. His spine is clearly protruding, bony from long years of malnutrition. When he slips on his dark coat, the braid falls into the same place, mirroring the rhythm of bony rises with tightly pulled hair.

He is a living history of the starvation of L2, partially induced by the plague rampant there and partly the colonial cruelty laid on the growing resistance by the occupying United Earth Sphere Alliance. Cleansing of political opponents. A loud echo of the British Empire and the blight of Ireland, hundreds of years later and no less cruel. A hellish opportunity exploited, for power and control, and trade.

I know all the details, dates, names, and political ramifications of his people’s history, but not a bit of him. He remains silent throughout dressing, packing explosives. I can smell cigarettes on him, strong again.

0200 is H-Hour, and by 0400 we’ll be back in this small room, ready to play the parts of incidental roommates. Not just incidental, sometimes terse, reluctant teammates.

I finish loading the guns, and tuck one into my waistband as Duo reaches for his. I put it into his hands, and my hand brushes his, normal, casual, in the course of executing a mission. I feel molten rock coiling in my chest, pulling oxygen from me. He keeps silent, and keeps his eye on the prize, looking from the clock to his task, to the window, and the door in tight circles. He tucks his 9MM into his hip pocket, and I hear him latch the holster. I slide a K-knife into my boot holster. We both put in-ear comms on our right ear, and a quiet tone confirms their connection.

Last into Duo’s duffle goes two tins of paint, then he and I both move instinctively to the window, he shouldering the pack. Ready. I stand behind him as he unlatches the window, silently, and scans the outside. I have stood this close to him many times. I’ve been even closer to men I’ve killed, and only now do I feel I am in truly dangerous proximity.

Before we climb the fire escape, skirt along the roof, and jump the campus fence, running off full speed into the night, he pauses and turns to glance at me. The only information I can gleam in his expression, in the dark of our dorm room, is that he’s ready to blow shit up. I nod. My heart is up in my throat as we meet eyes. As light as a black feather, he’s up and through the window, clamoring up the old wrought iron ladder. I follow.

We arrive at the water's edge and approach the boardwalk from the beach, unseen. We climb the old wooden timber piles beneath the old boardwalk on the water in the dark, as fast and secretive as spiders. Even in the height of summer, the ocean water glittering and churning below is hazardously cold and not a pleasant swim, so we take care not to slip. We clamor under the boardwalk from cross-beam to cross-beam to get final reconnaissance on patrol movements at a remove, with the industrially lit shipping port just a few hundred yards north along the shore. Above our heads, starlight peeks through the floorboards. He finds a suitable perch with sufficient cover, hooks the duffel over a jutting piece of wood, and from it produces the night vision binoculars. Hooks his ankles over each other to achieve enough balance to sit on the slimy crossbeam without falling into the sea. I alight on the beam, next to him, as he scans.

“Any deviation?” I ask quietly.

“None. We’re on track. These suckers don’t know what’s coming,” Duo replies, with more than a little relish. “Bye-bye, bullet farm. You want a look?”

He passes the binoculars to me, with the strap still around his neck. I hesitate. Why not lift from around the neck to allow more range of movement? Why this awkward arrangement? He is looking at me, empty of expression, but silently insisting on this arrangement with no further comment. Simply waiting for me. Time is of the essence, and I simply lock my ankles below me in mirror image of him to reach for the binoculars and look across the water to confirm. He leans forward, hands settling on the beam between us, to offer enough slack.

When I have enough information on the movements of the guards—two are yawning, one is barely awake, reading a magazine behind a supervisor’s desk, all awash in bright, lime green—I ready myself to lower them. For a split second, I am scared to do so, see him so up close to me, now face to face at an intimate distance. Afraid of what he sees, what he knows, why he’s doing this to me—

When I do, I am right, and my guts roil like the dark water below. He’s very close, and sliding closer still. The binoculars fall to his chest. He pins me with a pointed look I don’t understand and reaches up towards my face. I don’t know whether it’s luck or the fact that I’ve lost sight of myself, my training, that I don’t instinctively strike at the flash of movement too close to me. He’s got the paint tin open and is reaching up, fingers smeared with opaque black.

“Ready?” he asks.

For a moment, I do not care should the perimeter guard casually glance downwards into the foliage and catch sight of me, not daring to breathe on the black shine of his shoes as he strolls past. The bombs are rigged, and Duo is currently cutting gas lines on trucks and pouring gasoline on unattended computers while I await a signal for detonation and watch the sleepy watchers. He’s taken both hands off his weapon to tiredly rub his face and scratch his scalp as he watches the water, none the wiser.

If he were to look down and see me, even if he were to register the threat appropriately, I would have four to five full seconds at least before properly grabbing his assault rifle, aiming, and firing. Assuming he could hit on the first shot true enough, I would still have time to signal Duo on the comm, hit the detonator, and in 8 out of 10 scenarios kill him with moments to spare. Injury to my person would occur in 1.5 out of 10, ranging from mild to moderate, and less than a single scenario resulting in death.

For a moment, I almost wish he would test the odds. I stare up into the cleaned barrel of his standard-issue rifle as it swings idly at his hip, inches above my head.

I have been so tired, so long, and I keep seeing Duo when I should not, realities on acetate laid over me whenever my focus wavers. Visions of his death, bloody and gory. Visions of his death, quiet and slow, unstoppable. Visions of my death, seen reflected in his expression. Sometimes, his face betrays nothing, and he coldly watches, silent. Worse, though, are those where he reaches for me and I die anyway, curling into spent gray ash like the end of a cigarette.

If I were to die, maybe he would care. It is a new feeling, rising from the muck of all these feelings he and that book have inspired. I am a soldier, ready to die in my fight. Duo is the same. The grand design was always that while we were valuable, we were each expendable—the death of one would never derail the rebellion against the United Earth Sphere Alliance, couldn’t impede the peace and freedom of the colonists. But now, I feel less assured of my convictions to die so freely.

I feel. Even that betrays all I’ve been trained to do.

I hate this.

I am not emotional, but I hate it.

As Duo would say, "fucking hate it."

The comm vibrates three times in my ear; Duo’s signal to let it blow. The device delivers sound through bone conduction, so it is completely silent to all but the wearer. He could choose to speak without alerting anyone on my end, and, if something had not changed between us in the last few days, I’m sure he would have had a sardonic comment, a curl of humor to cut through the tension. A playful jab, to try and pull a sociable interaction out of me. But his choice to remain silent and use the haptic response, while more appropriate to the mission, is another small wound.

I hit the button. I see another vision of Duo, hazily superimposed upon my reality, standing in a green forest grove.

A distant explosion takes rips away from there and throws me back into the current moment. Boiling orange-yellow fire unfurls into the sky in terrifying amounts, bursting forth from the roof of the storehouse in angry punches—one, two, three, more. They scald the icy stars above, the sky itself rippling under the heat and spreading from the force of the detonation. Like the tiniest touches of ink in water, debris whips out black and delicate against the shifting, swirling, hellish color. In reality, they are tremendous, jagged chunks of superheated metal, able to sear skin off with a casual brush. Payloads of bullets, gunpowder, metal, and electronics catch fire and sonic booms ripple along the port.

The guard instinctively cringes away from the eruption of light and the humid, concussive wave that follows moments later. The orange light burns on the edges of his uniform, and he loses his footing out of surprise, gazing out in shock at the explosions as he reaches blindly for his weapon at his side.

It’s time. From my nest on the ground, I lunge up.

He falls a second later, his windpipe crushed, into the foliage where I had just lain. He stops reaching for his gun and claws at his neck, trying desperately for air as his faculties darken. For a moment, I stand there in the orange hell of light and heat and look at the soldier. His beret has fallen loose from the assault, lies in the grass, and reveals his scruffy, young hair. He lies in the soft impression I had just warmed, dying without knowing it. He looks up at me, locking eyes, even as I know he’s losing consciousness and can’t see more than a few feet in the dark. The face paint Duo had applied to both of us obscures anything he might see, anyway.

We hold eye contact throughout, and I watch him die.

Was that ten seconds?

I was lying in what would become his coffin. Now gone, his empty, eerie gaze holds me in my spot.

Is that what Duo thinks about when he talks about being Death? Staring into the eyes of the damned as they reach for you, begging to stay, to live. Watching the light of the eyes, that tiny and undefinable quality, slowly recede, without ever revealing to where. The similarity to my visions of Duo, reaching for me, sends a bolt of cold through my gut.

Does he ever think about me?

If I die, will he look at me like this? Will he just leave me?

I am still staring at the dead guard as the compound starts to melt and collapse. The security is so scattershot that there is little mitigation. Easier than I expected.

After what feels like hours, I lift my head and glance over at the black figure beside me now, registering Duo’s familiar face, watching me cautiously as he pants from exertion, but not truly recognizing him. The black, green, yellow smears of paint obscuring his face are strange, dotted with the glow of sweat, I think, but it is his expression that is truly strange to me. Do you think about me? Do you find me strange?

"Heero." The sound makes me shiver, even with the heat of the burning buildings around us. The collection of sounds that should be my name ring out again, and I am still somewhere else. I don’t remember my real name. It’s as good as any, if he will call me that.

It is the third time when I finally return.

Duo is standing a few feet away and staring at me. Not in an odd way, but in a sad and tired way. "You’ve been here for minutes, Yuy," he tells me, but I'm not sure he's telling me out loud. It could just be his eyes. "We need to get the fuck out.”

Chapter Text

0405 sees our return to the dorm room, easily slipping past the security to climb a tree alongside the building, alighting on the roof and easily climbing down the fire escape back into our room. The incident at the port has drawn all available law enforcement, and the dorms, as monied as the school is, are left in the hands of resident assistants, who sleep as deeply as their wards. We pass the windows of our fellow students as shadows who will later hide in plain sight among them; they are sleeping, some with their windows open, some with childhood trinkets decorating the sills, others loaded with empty bottles of alcohol. Duo eases the window open as I watch our six. The smoke is blowing away from the school, luckily. No sirens yet. The sun is bubbling under the horizon, but the blaze from the burning metal and popping ammunition offers a false dawn, throwing orange light from the south on the opposite side of the building. On the north side, our dorm is dim, the blanket of night still barely tinged pink. Duo has slipped in, and I follow suit quickly.

Duo is already half out of his dark clothes, kicking up the computer with the black jumpsuit pulled down and bunched around his waist. I slide in and ease the window shut, pull the curtain, and start to peel off the smoky layers, too. From the screen, I hear the double-beep of the Gundams’ motion alarm sounding the “All-clear,” and Duo tapping the keyboard to back out into a faux desktop, populated with far more average civilian programs and fake homework files. He closes the lid and slides into the bathroom as I get off my shoes and socks. We are still on mission time; we move fast and quietly, communicating only in glances and walking lightly.

Of all the schools I’ve encountered undercover, this is the most convenient for undercover work. There is an en-suite washing and drying machine within the bathroom, which Duo stuffs with our undercover clothes, with its telltale traces of smoke and grease paint. Dirtied shoes get tucked into the dorm safe in the closet. I hear the hot water in the sink run momentarily, and Duo emerges from the dark bathroom with a small, wet towel in each hand. He hands one to me and immediately turns back, scrubbing the paint from his face. I sit on the edge of my bed, positioned diagonally from his at the opposing corner of the room, and also clean my face. For a minute, with all traces of our work tucked away, clothes on the floor, and sitting in comfortable silence with each other, we might have been mistaken for average young men in an average, messy dorm room in the prime of our completely average lives.

Duo returns, in a gray tank and black gym shorts, to take the soiled towel along with his, the last of the incriminating evidence, and shove it into the washing machine. Meanwhile, I dress in my usual tank and bike shorts.

It’s 0422 when Duo presses start on the washer, and the sirens in the city finally go off. He is standing in the bathroom doorway, and I am on the bed; we both pause and watch the window for a moment. Then, knowing we need to play the part of sleepy boarders who are oblivious to any acts of terrorism, we return to hiding all evidence of our real work. Ready for the rest, I catch his gaze, he nods in assurance, and I lie down. I assume he will do the same.

I don’t remember him leaving the bathroom to lie down across the room. I don’t remember the way the bed swayed and wobbled in my vision, nor my knees giving way to my exhaustion, allowing my body to swing as it would please and put me crookedly on the bed. I don’t remember the sounds of students gathered on the lawn mingling with the sirens drifting in through the window. I don’t remember the coolness of the sheets against my face, nor the uncomfortable throbbing of the soles of my feet, lying on top of the blankets. I don’t remember the sound of soft footsteps as Duo treads quietly back into the bathroom, nor the telltale squeak of the faucet running at low power for a moment.

I don't remember the passage of time between when the washer started and when Duo's thumb touched the front of my top lip and pressed, tracing all the way to the side of my face, just below my ear. The touch obliterates back, and I am awake. In an instant, the adrenaline returns, and I lurch up, my hand around Duo’s wrist, eyes wide. He is sitting on the edge of the bed next to me, between me and the window. His face is unsurprised, mouth set into a firm line, but eyes dark and almost amber in the dim light. In his other hand, he holds another white cloth. Expecting my reaction, he hardly flinches.

His other hand still hovers just above my cheek, the zygomatic arch of bone beneath the orbital socket connecting to the jaw. When he had touched it, a strike of a match against red phosphorus, burning at the slightest encounter.

Damn it, I could have hurt him. His voice cuts the tension. As if seeing the thought passing through my head as transparent as glass, he says, “No, you wouldn’t have,” in a low, quiet tone without any of the usual playful lilt. As he pauses, we hold our gaze, and I hope he can’t hear my heart thumping in my throat in the quiet.

“Now, you missed a spot. Let me get it. The RA will be around soon to peak in.”

Before I can remember to count, he breaks our gaze, and I finally remember to loosen my grip. I sit back, and he raises the clean towel to do his work. We sit in silence, as the dorm halls and the outside warms with the coming dawn and the increasing alarm of the city. I am trying not to betray any of the writhing, confusing feelings in my gut. I suspect Duo knows this, despite all my efforts. I am breathing through my nose. Duo’s knee is touching mine on the edge of the bed. I watch his face as he looks intently at my face, just below the eyes, inspecting for paint.

He keeps his gaze down as he speaks again, staying intent on his task, but he suspects something, too.

“A joke, a mother-hen remark, slipping up, not using cover names, half asleep on your feet on a mission…” he recalls, tilting my chin with his other hand to check for paint around my ear. “Should I be worried about you? You haven’t been exactly the most soldierlike since you came to school. Less the stoic, bone-setting quiet type and more…”

He pulls the towel back, and we are now sitting next to each other. He looks at me. The information in his gaze is confusing, but not alarming.

“More what?” I say.

He dips his chin, still not breaking the look. “You tell me.”

“I’m…” Before I can let anything slip—before the truth can come out, startled by this sudden touch, this sudden incursion of space, this easy, comfortable intimacy of the dark—he tilts his head towards the door, listening sharply. I hear it, too.

The approaching, erratic thud of footsteps, of doors popping open, followed by a smatter of words exchanged, and the door shutting before the loop repeats—growing louder each cycle. A fluorescent seam lights between the door and the carpet, jarringly white in the dark. Duo glances away from the door to pin me with a look, and we arrive at the same ploy simultaneously, realizing the RA will rush in imminently.

I fall back on the bed, still with his hands locked on my wrist and face, and he falls in tandem, with his hair arching up behind and following a moment later. We both collapse onto the meager space of the twin mattress and lie there, nearly nose to nose, for a split second before I see the door to the hallway swing open and throw light across the room. I only see the intruding RA as a dark shape behind Duo, who promptly rises up on his elbows and cranes his neck over. We are both squinting into the sudden light; in this, we hardly have to act. He gestures sharply, just as the shape of the intruding kid startles.

“Oh, I’m—sorry! Sorry!”

I am thankful he is between us; Duo is the actor of the two of us. “Jeez, excuse you, dude! Get out!” He gestures at me with an open palm to shame the kid for not reading the situation. “Don’t be a buzzkill, get out!”

”I know, I know, sorry!” The kid seemingly is put back on his heels a bit. Withdraws a few more steps, drawing the door half closed behind him. “Head count, I gotta do a head count—the sirens went off—”

“Well, we’re both here! Check off your list and leave us alone! What are ya, a perv?” Duo huffs, with an audible roll of the eyes, as he lowers back to the bed and shields me with his bony frame. The RA, frazzled, stammers another sorry and lurches out the door. I look up at Duo, bathed in his shadow, vision momentarily overwhelmed by the edge light glowing around him. The door closes; the safety of darkness returns. When my eyes adjust, he’s looking at me again, elbow bent, resting his head on the palm of his hand. The dark color of his fading bruise, still visible as a shade around his eye, gives me another twinge of knotted-up rage.

“Quick thinking on both our parts,” he says, with a suppressed smile.

“Thanks for doing the talking,” I respond, trying not to sound as breathless as I feel. Feel. There it is again.

Duo smirks at this. I wish he weren’t doing that so close, with his knees touching mine, and the twin mattress pooling us together. “If I relied on you to do the talking, I’d be high and dry, wouldn’t I?” he prods, and the smile breaks through.

“I am the stoic, bone-setting, quiet type, after all,” I shoot back.

I don’t realize I’m doing anything else until Duo’s expression brightens another level, even in the dark. He squeezes my wrist before letting go. I’d forgotten he was still doing so. “Another joke. And a smile? Jeez, I should be worried, huh?”

He lifts himself back onto his elbows and shakes his head with a short laugh. Rolls off the bed in a fluid move that turns into flopping onto his bed at the opposite side of the room.

He promptly rolls onto his stomach, balling his pillow under his head and huffing out a long breath, unwinding like a knot. “Night, Yuy,” he says, from across the dim room. Suddenly, so distant, even as the heat-shape of him remains, imprinted, next to me.

I turn over and decide to push all my thoughts away. “Night,” I respond quietly.

But it does not work. I think. I do not sleep. When the telltale small snores of Duo, unconscious, sound minutes later, I turn back over and put my hand on the bed where he was. The heat mostly gone, I watch his lanky figure from across the room, unable to unknot myself. I listen to the sound of nervous activity in the hallway and sounds of sirens from the streets wafting in through the window for an hour before I can find any rest.

Chapter Text

I dream furiously in the few hours I sleep after dawn, and then they dissolve like gunpowder, burning into a short-lived smoke. This time the contents elude me, but leave an odd mix of dread and calm. I think I dreamt of Duo touching my face. But the more I try to recover the content, the faster it slips away, the more thoroughly it evaporates. The light of mid-morning fills the room. I touch the empty side of my bed.

There are few things I share with these civilian students, but for a moment, I am thankful for the concept of a weekend.

I am alone in the room. The window is shut and the blinds pulled down, encouraging as much darkness as possible, though the intensity of Mediterranean summer is too much. Duo’s bed is made, and, looking inside the bathroom, he’s already stashed the cleaned clothes away, leaving only the standard issue uniforms piled in the dryer. There is no other clue where he’s gone; I can imagine him, somewhere, smoking or chatting with strangers to pass the time.

I dress quietly in the doorway, considering the distant thrum of trucks and a low-level murmur audible from the hallways. Even with the window shut tight, I can still hear a constant string of voices, making exchanges, chattering, asking questions, and conjecturing in response.

After I boot up my laptop in safe mode and tap the internal communications on the email server, I see the frantic strings of emails between admin and faculty, and find no alarming information. Duo and I have succeeded, seemingly. A higher-up mistakenly mentions a conversation with a military relative that there’s no intelligence on who or why the depot and port were struck, which worries them intensely. The thread spirals onward, with concerns parents will pull borders or whether they should evacuate. I can imagine Duo reading these, in the morning, on the messy pile of blankets—I’ve noticed he moves so constantly through the night, kicking and shifting, that the bedclothes in the morning resemble a hurricane cyclone—and grinning, amused by their panic.

I write a report, encrypt it, send it, then close the channel and instead boot the decoy shell.

No response for at least an hour.

Giving me non-essential time. Time to kill.

The RA posted at the end of the hallway gives himself away as our early-morning intruder; his face is tellingly red, all the way to his ears. Shiftily, he waves me down before I can take the stairs down to the green, sitting on a stool near the door. Three empty sports drink bottles are collected around the base, and he’s gripping another electrolyte concoction to his chest. A Friday night party, no doubt, interrupted by terrorism, and a hangover, interrupted by his supervisory duties. He informs me dully, with the cadence of someone who has and will repeat the same words hundreds of times in a day, that all students entering or leaving dorms need to check in. “For safety,” he adds, as if it’s not clear. He clears his throat and looks at me through his eyebrows, trying not to flush further. “Sorry about last night, too. I, uh—I guess I should have knocked… I’m not trying to break up a good time. I had to—”

I have to resist raising my hand to silence his annoying ramble. It wouldn’t read very student-like, a voice chides me from the back of my mind. Suspiciously sounds like Duo; his acting might be rubbing off on me in positive ways. If only he and the words in a simple book hadn’t nearly unraveled me in the process.

Instead, I channel my impatience into a huffing sigh, which is hardly acting. “I don’t want to talk,” I say, betraying my true feelings. “About that,” I add, after a beat. I should try to sound casual, off-hand. “Private, you know.”

“Right,” the RA says, ready to agree to put it behind him. “I don’t mind. Just don’t break up or fight a bunch so that you request other roommates, okay? Makes my job way harder. I don’t like doing that Tetris shit.”

“Did Max already check in with you? To head outside?”

The embarrassed, hung-over RA, hardly one to worry about potential terrorists in his midst and barely awake this Saturday midday, nods and points to a clipboard on his lap to a note. “Yeah, earlier. Like, an hour ago?”

I thank him blandly and try to withdraw from his attention completely after he marks my departure as initials and a time. As I go down the stairs, I hear him take another swig of his neon-green drink and belch out of nausea, barely holding down his party drinks from the night before. I note this; he’ll sleep extra heavily tonight. Easy to slip past to the Gundams when we extract. I’ll fabricate a frantic email from panicked parents for the system, and we’ll be gone before OZ salvage crews even arrive to pick up the debris, let alone get a grip on who breached them.

From a vantage point up on a hill with olive trees, I can see the trails of gray and white smoke spilling slowly out onto the water below. The concentrated fray of OZ military, local salvage responses, and locals either curious or bored enough to stop and watch all look like a flurry of ants swarming a food deposit. A small convoy of covered trucks winds up the city streets, with an old backhoe and claw digger, clad in rust and driven by a local farmer, bringing up the rear. Considering the size and tepid response to a bombing and terrorist attack, two Gundam pilots may have been a bit of overkill. I haven’t even seen an OZ official much higher than a Lieutenant brought into communications, and no black sedans or limousines. I feel slightly suspicious that the Doctors’ intel may have been flawed; have we simply blown up a backwater stockpile instead of destroying an essential port? The security on campus, while considerably stronger than before, is still very hands-off, with private security posted at the doors and beleaguered RAs pulling extra shifts. Otherwise, the students conduct themselves as normal. More of them will stand at the fence and peer down into town and talk, but without real alarm.

In either case, Duo and I will be gone into the night.

The stink of burnt gunpowder, melting plastic, and liquified metal wafts up the hill towards campus. A familiar spice on the wind in my life. Fire, the pungent smells of destruction, and the bite of metal. It is an uncomfortable contrast of the soft, almost jasmine scent of olive trees and grass in the sun. I find myself looking elsewhere around campus, rather than assessing the military response. For a whip of brown hair amongst the student body.

I walk down the hill. Just past the hill of trees, where the sun is in full force, students lie out on blankets and beach towels, sunning themselves in various states of undress. There is a private guard, with a visible earpiece and dark sunglasses, standing at the fence nearby, yawning as he looks about. I walk between the buildings, checking the known spots for smokers to congregate, swapping cigarettes as the others watch for campus staff.

Behind the gymnasium, between the overgrown lilacs, at the side door of the cafeteria, with the workers sitting on crates, and in the basement walkout stairwell of the honors dorm. No luck.

I had noticed his smoking habit before, in the short time I sheltered Wing in the Sweepers’ garage, next to Deathscythe. The night that I’d taken parts from Duo’s machine to facilitate an early launch. Parts he’d easily replace within a day, to my credit. Before he’d retired, and I gone on working into the small hours, in the dark hangar, he’d climbed up onto the catwalk and let his feet dangle. The round, orange tip had glowed, painting his face ever so faintly. I could see the silent, reverent expression as he had gazed down at his Gundam and out the open hangar door. His eyelashes were accented against his skin in the deep orange-red cast, and his face, without expression, was finally open. I had only noted it in the process of assessing if I could take the parts; now, I think back on it, and my gut twists. I’ve grown weak.

I had then continued adjusting the operating systems in my mobile suit, pushing the image away, for work had to be done. I only wonder now what he could have possibly been thinking so quietly about for so long, until the cigarette had nearly burnt down to his lips, my attention was won again only when he cussed loudly from above and quickly spat it out.

I had been gone before sunrise.

I grow tired of looking for Duo and not finding him. He could be watching me.

I wish I understood his motivations for all these testing moments he’s been leaning into, orchestrating—the binoculars, the paint, his knees touching mine, and smiling at my jokes. When he meets my gaze, between us is camaraderie, connection, understanding that is immediate, easy, and responds without fear. A unique exchange borne of our similarities, our common goals. But is there something unplanned, something else within the wires? Does he see this? If he does, does he—

No. Don’t.

I’ve grown so tired, so wound up and unlike myself that I can’t think of it anymore. I can’t replay the events, or even let myself rest. The dreams pick up where my conscious mind leaves off and have no limit on their rumination and cruelty. I’m tired of imagining him, in layers upon reality, walking behind or beside me, and both avoiding and forcing the direct eye contact that first intrigued me.

I give up my search and cut across the grass to the quietest building on campus. Inside the library doors, I’m immediately hit with a wave of thick air conditioning. It’s almost cold.

I walk past the circulation desk and wander into the stacks. My feet halt in front of a very familiar book. I am looking at it, but I am looking through it, as well. I can see the shelves behind it, stocked with books. I can see the distant wall, the gleam of the light on the windows. I can see through that window, and I can see into the dormitory. I can see Duo, standing in the bathroom doorway, face wet, towel around his neck, watching me lie motionless after I finally fall asleep. I can see him, watching me from a rooftop, searching for him in vain. I can see him, touching my face to add paint, in the dark, the pier above, and dark water below.

But I shake my head slightly and rewind. The book is staring back, with smug print and a tempting spine. With a terrible sort of attractive grin and the exotic eye color of a colony-born child, a mild genetic expression of long-term radiation of space colonization. A child with a silent mouth and dissecting gaze. Violet. Dangerous. I shake my head and rewind again.

This time I see just a book.

I pick it up and fall back into a nearby reading chair. As I open the pages, the images of Duo begin to ebb, though the current never dies, and I bury myself in the pages as best I can. I force myself not to think about him, or the experiment I was foolish to believe I could even attempt.

I am so tired. It wouldn't matter how much I slept, with him snoring softly just a few feet away. So close that I could find no peace. I would still feel like this even with perfect rest—this is a much deeper weakness.

When the day is over, we will escape under the cover of night, shedding our fabricated normalcy, and Duo and I will part. Maybe to never cross paths again. I push down the knot in my gut and read. I intend never to feel this way again.

Chapter Text

I put the book down on my lap and look idly out the window. The edges are flush with overgrown ivy, casting a pale green light across the small reading area. There is a plume of white-gray smoke still spilling upwards from the port, but here, in his quiet room, it drifts like an innocent cloud. The circulation desk, across the quiet span of the library, is unmanned. I can hear the traces of tinny treble warbling—the old librarian has ducked into a back room and turned on a terrestrial radio, tuned to a fuzzy AM frequency. News. No students in the library with me. A deep and dusty quiet.

The shelves between the entrance obscure my view of the doors, but I know he’s coming. An intuition. I see him, a moving sliver of black and russet flitting silently through the stacks. He’s searching me out.

Duo catches sight of me in the chair, steps back, and redirects. He’s looking at me over the top of his dark sunglasses, expression blank, but with a tilt in his mouth that I resist. The bruise is yellowing, leaving only a faint, green-sallow ring. Uniform blazer draped over a casual black shirt, with his usual jodhpurs underneath. His normal boots, substituted for the standard-issue brown loafers. A tennis duffle slung over his shoulder. Pinning me with a smirk.

I correct myself; he looks like this at everyone, with a disarming half-smile. It’s a tactic, and one that works well. My guts do their now-usual twist and turn, despite myself. I look away and down at the book sitting closed on my lap. I feel foolish for looking away, like one of the lovestruck teens around campus shying away, but I can’t control the response.

Duo leans against the wall just beside the chair and leans slightly over to peer at me and the book. “Whatcha reading?” he asks, in an almost sing-song, casual tone.

“A book,” I say, taking a glance up at him and lifting the book ever so slightly.

I am still trying to obscure so much from him, the stealth specialist. Death on two legs. A boy, only as old as me, who calls himself the God of Death with a grin. Not just the sociable, brash kid on first impression. I shouldn’t have assumed I could hide this much. I can tell I’ve been sniffed out. As trained and prepared as I am, acting was never my strongest discipline. Duo’s almost mischievous tone and the obvious question were a chance for me to broach it first, a little olive branch. I shied away. I gave away that I had something to hide in the first place, without a doubt.

He lets the duffle slide down to the floor, at his feet, with both hands still gripped around the strap, leaning forward to peer closer at it. “Huh. A book, yeah? What about?”

I don’t want to be evasive, but I don’t want to answer.

He sits on the arm of the chair and leans so that he’s draped over the back, intimately reading over my shoulder. I can feel his arm over my shoulder and his cheek against the side of my head as he peers without permission. “Hmm. A bit more… humanistic reading than I expected,” he says, honestly surprised. I can hear his smirk in his tone. All my senses are on high alert, as if bombarded by enemy combatants in a mobile suit battle, just from the feeling of his hand casually on my arm, his breath near my ear. “But lately you have been surprising me a lot.” He reaches forward with his other hand, having dropped the duffle on the floor, and flips it open while still in my lap. “Is it interesting?”

I swallow all the excess saliva in my mouth before speaking, curtly. “Yes.”

Duo chuckles and tilts his head against mine. “'Yes,' he says, gruffly,” he teases. I am warm, as if overheating. “It’s been a nice surprise, by the way. Not as… stony as you seemed at first. Or as psychotic, pointing a gun at that girl.”

To all passersby, we would look a match for all those other sappy, entangled teenage couples. But the library is still empty, the sky is clear blue, and the librarian is listening to the radio behind the wall. No one can see us. Why is Duo acting for no audience?

He hums, and his mouth is close to my ear. “Let’s check it out, then, huh? We’ve got places to go,” he says, only loud enough for me. But no one is here.

“Duo—” I say, involuntarily, as his breath again touches my ear, and I cannot stop myself, ready to stand and move away.

“Hold up,” he says, and his hand grips my wrist. “Don’t give up the act.” His voice is low, measured. Not bright or mischievous. A glint of sunlight on a knife, not a window. “We need to look like lovebirds who want to sneak off together, if we’re getting out of here.” Duo leans to rest the book on the floor with a soft thud and comes back to lean fully against me, almost curling up in an intimate embrace. “Got a tipoff on the radio. OZ troops coming; six jeeps, with at least three soldiers a pop. 10 minutes out. It seems someone spotted a student-shaped shadow or two on a local security camera and led them here. Suits are on their way.”

Shit. We hadn’t counted on civilians sharing security footage with a military they distrusted this quickly.

A cold wave of calm floods up, batting back the heat and nerves of Duo so close, nearly kissing me on the face as he speaks. “Leos?”

“Three,” he confirms. “En route from Rome. We’ve got 15 minutes before they enter our airspace. 25 until they’re on the ground, ready to fuck our shit up.”

“Why lovebirds?” I ask. Duo smiles; I can feel the muscles of his face on the side of mine curling up. He kisses my cheek for good measure, I assume. A short peck, but my guts are in my throat, threatening to take all my air.

“Because there’s already an OZ patrol posted at the front of the building, detaining all students and staff,” he says. “You and I need to get out of here unnoticed. Also need a reason to be together, privately, that isn’t suspicious.”

“Right,” I say.

Duo chuckles. “You’re breathless. Interesting.” He snorts and squeezes my arm. “Make for the bathroom. Room is clear. Supplies in bag.” He kisses me again, this time on the neck as he speaks. “The vent. We can take it to the stairwell, to the roof, jump to the admin building, then down over the fence.”

He’s right. There’s an old fire escape on the backside of that building, which hangs only 7 feet from the brick fence around the campus. On the other side is an old-growth, European pine forest, thick with enough cover to flee through, even in daylight. The Gundams are two hours on foot through the hills.

“Ours?”

“Safe. No activity on their alarm. We’ll have to book it, but we can make it. Just have to get to them.”

“Right,” I say again. He starts to chuckle again; breathless, interesting. I wrestle down the feeling. Duo and I leave the chair; he has the bag slung over his shoulder and the other arm around my waist. He leans on me as we walk towards the attached bathroom on the far side of the library. All the windows are single pane, no exit without breaking. The library entrance is a long hallway directly to the front doors, with no alternative exits. These buildings were built long before modern fire codes; wealth grandfathered them out of required updates. We will have to find our alternative route out.

I put my arm around his waist in kind, and he squeezes me once, hard.

Chapter Text

I am walking two tightropes; I am two shoes. Which one will drop first?

There is a bank of bathrooms attached to the library, one to the left, male, to the right, female, and one single-occupant stall at the center. The hallway leading to the library is flanked by lockers and offices, with no route out except for the set of three glass-paned doors at the front. There is a pair of soldiers on either side just beyond the glass, scanning the grounds with guns slung at their hips. Another pair operates as a checkpoint, flagging down any who wishes to enter or exit and checking their IDs or confirming with a list on a clipboard and nodding to the other on the opposite side. Duo is pulling me steadily towards the bathrooms. I catch a glance of a soldier on the outside, turning to glance dutifully backwards into the building. With the light, I know he cannot see as far in as I can see out, but it does not bode well.

Instinctively, I pull towards the male bathrooms, and Duo makes a quiet, disapproving sound and pulls me towards the center. Twirls us both in a tangled embrace until his back hits the wall beside the door, as if we were enamored, voracious, unable to avoid contact before gaining any privacy. He grins briefly at me at close range, then peers past my shoulder to get a last, combing look. The playfulness in his gaze sharpens and fades until he wears a face fully dark and unsmiling.

“We’re clear,” he says, then pulls me as I move simultaneously towards the door. His hand trails on my back as we step inside, a million degrees where he touches.

Which dangerous situation I’ve stumbled into will erupt first? I’ve been careless.

We separate inside. I step in first, and he promptly locks the door behind us. The gaudy, sickly green tiles of the room paint everything in an odd light, contrasted by the brassy luxury of the ornate sink, mirror. I see us reflected; Duo turns and catches my eye in the mirror for an electric moment. We both look up and away at the vent in the ceiling.

“Nine feet. We’ll have to go one at a time. I’ll go first and help you up,” I say, shrugging off the blazer. Too tight in the shoulders to move effectively. Duo seemingly catches on and grabs it, stuffs it into the trash can along with his own. The discarded remains of Max Laurel and Yul Hardy on a pile of damp discarded paper towels.

Two pistols are tucked into the sides of his jodhpurs. He looks to me and hands me one of the 9MM. We both automatically make ready and put them away. I tuck it into my pocket as he comes to stand beside me, looking up at the brass metal slats of the ventilation shaft output above our heads. He nods. The plain, direct urgency in his voice as he says quietly, “Let’s get the hell out of here,” and crouches without further comment, with his fingers interlocking together to boost me up, is as unsettling as anything.

I put my boot into his palms, and Duo hoists me. I only need a moment of contact with the grate between my fingers to crumple the metal and pull the deformed grate away. Balancing on Duo’s hands, he proves surprisingly strong, considering his slight frame. I toss the balled-up metal into the open trash can. Duo gives a last hoist high and I lift myself into the narrow passageway we’ve opened up. I shimmy into the dark, narrow space and advance on my elbows as fast as I can. I pull my feet up into the shaft—barely wide enough to breathe and move, though thankfully spacious enough to move quietly—and reverse as quickly as possible.

I shimmy backwards over the open access point and carefully lower my shoulder and extend my hand down to Duo. His upturned face strikes me again, looking young but painted solemn. A moment passes, and he instead nods at me, neutral, before launching up. He claps both hands around my forearm and I grip his bicep hard in response, pulling. He’s so slight that my hand nearly closes around his arm completely, and he’s lighter than expected. I shuffle backwards and brace my shoulders and legs against the walls of the vent shaft for more leverage.

Duo grabs the edge with one hand and I keep pulling until he’s got enough grip to start pulling himself through. I reverse to give him space and he clamors up. In the crowded dark, he glances back at me, and again I nod. He crawls forward with his forearms, which gain more purchase on bare skin, thankfully. I watch the bottom of his boots tilting back and forth as he moves through the vent on our escape route. In the dark, we move silently, careful to make as little noise as possible. No one needs to know there are teenager-sized things in the walls around them.

For a while, I only think of making as little noise as possible, the cold of the metal under my forearms, and following the soles of Duo’s boots. It is oddly peaceful; I can only think of this moment and focus on our exit strategy. Not how comfortable Duo seemed with his arm around me, put his lips on my face, even in jest.

The sound of the school’s PA system rings out dully, announcing in English, then in Italian, “Messrs. Hardy and Laurel, please report to the Administrative Building.” Duo and I both freeze. The normal, dull rhythm of the voice seems to indicate they are not sure if we are the culprit; even in a sleepy port like this, OZ would come in silently with guns drawn if they were sure. Surely they wouldn’t expect Gundam pilots to just meekly walk into the principal’s office to be apprehended.

He lifts his head and cranes backward to look at me. I only nod in response, and we begin the crawl anew, faster, still painstakingly quiet.

We return to this odd, peaceful quiet as we flee for our lives.

But it cannot last; I must have run out of luck.

The L-turn ahead seems to signal we’ve reached the far western side of the building, above the stairwell. Duo and I crawl over an access vent not dissimilar to the one we entered in and the light beaming up from it darkens as Duo passes over it. If anyone were to look up, they might see our dark clothes passing over the grate for a brief moment. Below, I can hear the murmur of men talking in the room below us, but can not yet make out the content of their conversation.

As I pass over the grate, ahead of me, Duo’s foot accidentally gently thumps the side of the wall as he moves.

The conversation below us stops abruptly.

A fire whips to life in my chest as adrenaline runs to my hands and feet. We both freeze and listen. I am just past the grate, thankfully, and I turn and watch the light emitting from it.

“Wait a minute,” a male voice says below. It sounds very close; they must be standing very near, just under us. “Did you hear that?” he asks his companion quietly.

When the second party doesn’t answer, my stomach jumps. Civilians usually keep talking in situations like this. The silence is more concerning.

I look back and Duo is looking at me, too. He’s holding his breath, eyes wide.

I can hear the tiniest sounds of quiet movement, of clothing moving and light clicks, and I know at that moment we’ve made a mistake. No soldier hears things in the walls and simply ignores them. They are looking for us. And they know where we are.

Looking into Duo’s expression, he communicates a real fear, though he’d never speak it out loud. Not without joking about it. He seems to be almost looking through me, shocked by his own lack of stealth. A mistake. I feel in that moment an overwhelming feeling to push him out of danger—all these visions of Duo’s death flashing across my mind, again, freshly red and wet—but he won’t move.

“Go!” I hiss, grip his boot, and push, making more noise against the cool metal walls in the sudden movement.

The voice below sounds one more time. “There!”

I am already pulling my gun when the shots come. Two, three, six cut into the vent, erupting the dark with fresh rays of light. I stick the pistol against the vent in the narrow space and fire back. My elbow is flat against the ceiling, barely enough clearance to put the barrel flat. I shoot a few more times into the hole I create and hear a few wet thuds, a shot ricocheting off an object with a hot zing.

Duo is yelling my name, trying to call me forward. I hope he is far enough ahead that he is not above this room. The exchange of gunfire echoes horribly in the vent, drowning him out. I can’t even tell which name he yelled. My brain suddenly breaks off from my body and my ears are thick with something and unusable. I keep firing; I can’t hear any more indication if I strike true. I can barely see the hole I put the gun through, and the floor below is blurry, white, black, red.

Somehow, Duo has contorted and turned around in this viciously small space. His hands are on my shoulder, gripping as hard as he can and pulling.

Duo shakes me some more, and it hurts like hot plasma cutting open metal. I open my mouth and there is nothing there, not even a puff of air. My jaw closes, and when it opens again, it is lined with hot liquid, which I expel onto the metal in front of me. Fuck, does it hurt. Even in all my training, things still physically hurt, even if my abilities are not negatively affected. Why would Duo grip so hard? And in my stomach? My chest?

Another beam of light appears close to my mouth, and I watch the liquid dimly drip into the hole and down to some hazy destination below I cannot make out.

Duo is clawing his way on top of me; he is so slight that he manages to do so, with his drawn pistol thudding against the wall. I hear him grunt and punch something; a thunk of metal. More gunfire, grouped tightly. Wet thuds. The bombastic echoes of gunfire quiet, even as the vent is still vibrating from the wounds. Wounds, I think distantly, as the adrenaline gives way to pain.

I’m moving then, from my feet to my head. A hand on either of my ankles, pulling. Something loud, but not metallic, sounding next to me, repeatedly.

I’m falling through the vent, and the light of the room, lit in fluorescents, burns my vision to white. I land on someone, who then grips me tightly. I hope it’s Duo.

And that's when I can hear him, no higher than a whisper in the static that's filled my mind. But his voice is so strained, like he's separated by miles instead of shouting in my face. I can see a blur of colors I know to be him. I cannot respond. He is begging me to run, I can tell, his hands on my face and touching my shoulders, shaking. I rise to my feet, hardly receiving any visual input. Blurs. My ears are an untuned radio, with relentless static snow. But I move.

He puts his arm around my waist again and pulls me along.

Chapter Text

Even with my vision nearly white and the pain reaching near my tolerance, I feel the familiar lock of training descend upon me, awakened by the adrenaline. I block as much of the pain as possible and grip Duo’s waist to steady my feet. He opens the door and peers out into the hallway, careful to keep me sheltered behind the doorframe momentarily. He is nothing but blurry black and russet brown in my vision. He glances back at me and I cannot discern the fuzzy architecture of his expression.

“Okay. You ready?” His voice is tight.

I nod breathlessly and hope I’ve convinced him.

“Let’s rock and roll, then,” he says, without an ounce of his usual, playful aggression. I see him raise his other hand in a blur, a faint click.

A thunderous blast sounds from outside; a moment later, the building shakes slightly, so that the windows all rattle, almost annoyed. He’s blown something; I imagine a fireball whipping forth, an angry cloud of gray smoke as the windows blow out and the wall pitches out and down to the lawn below. He’s detonated something in the dorm room. A distraction. Now a desperately needed momentary cover.

I instinctively move with Duo, and he guides me into a run, around the corner, through a doorway. The world is mostly white, blurred, too hot. My feet slip as we move, and Duo shoulders my weight when I do, dragging me along when the power to my legs falters. The front of me is damp, dark when I glance down. I’m molten hot with pain, but for now, I live in it. I have time before I dissolve completely. Duo says nothing, pulls me up relentlessly as I trip up. Stairs. The sound of our feet thudding echoes dully in the stairwell.

A crack of a door hitting the wall splits my head with noise, and Duo shoves me behind him, with the wall there to hold me up. I feel his fingers gripping me so hard that sparks shower over my washed-out vision. “Fuck,” he hisses, and one, two, three gunshots sound. The blasts stop, and he drags me along again. Sound input is dimming, too. I can’t see anything but white and black, in globs that roll and twist into each other. All my strength has withdrawn and even my feet are starting to go numb and heavy.

“I can’t…” I gasp out. “Leave me…”

“Nope,” he growls, angry. I hear a thud of bodies on a door, then smell the summer air around us. A tinge of smoke burns my nose, but even that is fading from me. I have approximately moments before I deplete my reserves and lose consciousness. He shouldn’t compromise himself or endanger the larger mission for which the Gundams were built. An end, to all this blood and misery.

But I have no way to communicate it. I feel him loop my arms around his neck, and the last of my weight shifting onto his back, off the ground, before it all becomes a diffuse, dark dream and the pain falls away like rotten flesh off a bone.

I dream in the dark.

I dream of the child who gave me a flower. I dream of the fire that I caused and her death.

I dream of Duo, sitting on the arm of a chair, draped over my shoulder, like a teenager in love, dozing. I am reading. In this dream, we are not children anymore. In the misty way dreams impress their reality and history upon you, I know we aren’t Gundam pilots. We never have been.

We met years ago, at a school, when the fruit trees were blooming.

For a few more minutes, hours, or days, I am unmoving. In nothing. The pain is subtracted. The world went with it. Perhaps the world and pain are one and the same.

And, as abruptly as the darkness had risen, it recedes, and I rocket up to the surface. Reality, in red and bone white agony, descends to meet me as an enemy.

It is dark. I blink awake slowly, and there’s moisture thick in my lashes. Tears of pain. My vision adjusts in long, slow gulps of light. It is only one of many worries I add to my mental list as I come back: troops, blown cover, incoming mech suits, lack of backup, no exit strategy, debilitating injury. The dread doesn't stop growing, either, when my eyes do finally focus.

Judging by the dim violet of the sky above, night is coming. I am lying on my back, staring up into the colors and shivers of the forest canopy above, and the cold of the ground below. Summer winds, smelling strongly of grass and humidity, streaked with the stink of burning fuels and hot metal. Where I am still connected to my ragged body, I feel grass on exposed skin. On the farthest edge of my vision, I can see a dark green camouflage net staked into the ground. Following the line, I see a hint of reflective metal beneath, extending into the mouth of a low-mouthed cave. The camouflage conceals the enormous metal beasts that brought us here. The machines that brought us both to Earth, to the knife-edge of death, and back again.

We are at our Gundams.

Duo is sitting beside me, as eerily silent as the Death he claims as a pseudonym. His thigh runs parallel with my hip, his back to me. Close, touching. Protective. His body heat is the other sensation I mark. Curiously, there is no pain, but I am misty, hardly connected to my body otherwise. His neck is craned away. He watches the forest and the sky above the shivering trees viciously, hardly breathing, but his body feels rigid, tensed. Some soft noise draws his attention and he turns his head to look, his braided tail of hair curling down his back. The end of it comes to a halt just at eye level where I lay, hovering just a few inches from my hand.

It must be safe. Duo would not stop moving until it was. At least, enough.

But if everything was all right, he would not sit so close to me. So rigidly quiet.

As if emerging from a dark tunnel, the pain comes closer and gains steam as it approaches. I use it to assess where the damage is. A bullet in the muscle between the collarbone and shoulder blade of the right side. A bullet lodged somewhere in the flesh of my gut, close to the organs on my right side, deeper than the others. Wounds are bleeding, even now. Possibly something internal, which is worse. I can feel that. My hands feel wet as I try to grip the ground and test my mobility.

Weakness overtakes me, and the pain returns. I part my lips. Something wretched makes a noise. A moment passes before I can see again. Dark spots in my vision clear, leaving white afterimages across the sky as they fade.

Duo is looking down at me. I can feel exactly the wound in my stomach now, for his hand rests there momentarily, on the red spot of crude bandaging. All he could manage to provide, on the run and no supplies but the emergency kits. The heat of his touch disappears. The bangs move out of my eyes, and his hand comes to rest on my face instead. I follow the line of his arm to his face.

There is a furrow of worry I had not seen before between his brows. The tones of his skin blur together when he moves as the twilight dims around us. The hazy light turns the color of his eyes into something low and dark. He looks at me, and now, as I am too weak to be self-conscious of how long I am looking, he must see so much. But I am too close to death to scrounge for the energy to be afraid of what he may think of me. I’ve made so many mistakes in such a short time. I wonder, as waves of pain come and go and return, if he’s counting all of them as he looks into me.

"Hey." My ears are still thick. He pauses longer than normal and pulls his mouth into a smile. There’s pain there, too. Is he injured?

"You alive, Heero?"

Neither of us moves. The smile wanes.

“Stat… status,” I manage.

"They're gone. Suits passed us twice. Heading back for Trieste now." He reads the thought in my head. I cannot find my strength to speak. He acknowledges it with a grim expression. A moment's silence, then a snorting laugh, but a tired and lukewarm sound. “We’ve finally got ourselves some alone time, lovebird, huh?”

He hasn’t answered fully, but I can’t muster the strength to ask if he’s hurt.

I raise my hand from the dirt, and I can see how red it is, streaks of blood drying into brown. I reach for him. Maybe I can touch him and assess. Duo grabs it instead, and I squeeze his hand in return, as hard as I can.

He looks at me, and I can’t imagine why I was so scared of seeing him before.

The forest is quieting. The sinking colors, the deepening dark seem to draw me away with the sunlight. Gently tugs at me, with chilled fingers, to come with it. And if Duo were not there staring down at me, I would go with it. All I can remember, at this moment, is being exhausted and lovesick, and war-torn. I would go with Death without remorse for the world if he were not looking down at me, worried, pressing his lips tight together. He hasn’t broken our gaze for what feels like hours.

I don’t know if I’ve looked at anyone this long before, in such dire quiet.

For a moment, I wish he would let me die in peace.

"I'm taking you to a hospital," Duo says. "No argument."

I don't say anything. I don't do anything for a moment but think about how beautiful he is. It's better than wondering when I should let go and slip away.

The deep, sad sigh that runs through Duo shifts through his body, and I feel it where his leg touches me, where his hand grips mine. Somewhere, blood is shifting, throbbing, breaking free of important barriers. Molten hot starts crawling down from the pit of my stomach, creeping towards my toes. A wave of cold follows behind it. It's then that I want to push the pain out through my throat and crumple and never scream again.

But I am too weak. I open my mouth and cry out instead.

"I know, I know," Duo says. He repositions so that he’s kneeling next to me, leaning over me to get closer, tightening his lips when he looks down at me from even closer. His voice drops again, and even I can see his shoulders sink, weighed down, through the thickening haze of my approaching death. His braid slips over his shoulder and pools on my chest, getting blood on it.

"I know. It hurts. You're hurt. The last of the morphine is wearing off. Only had the two emergency doses."

Something cold is touching me, and growing bigger. Only Duo is warm, and he touches just below my eyes, rubbing the blood from the corner of my mouth. I sink into it and start to drift away from this bloody puddle in the woods. My eyes fall shut. I wish I hadn’t made these mistakes. I should be here for this war. I should be here, with him, a little longer.

He squeezes my hand, even harder. "I'm taking you. No argument," he repeats.

Duo leans down, even closer, so close that he could kiss me again. His arm snakes underneath my shoulder and knees, moving me. The instant he does, a fresh hell of pain erupts from my abdomen.

"Don't," something distant moans.

It must have been me. Duo stops, and then apologizes in a voice I can barely hear. Again, the inputs start to fade. I feel my body moving, lifted by a pair of warm, shaking hands, and Duo's mouth on my neck and collarbone, mouthing words I cannot hear as he shakes his head and cradles a body I can no longer feel.

Chapter Text

I recognize the glow of surrounding monitors, the familiar smell of leather, metal, and the distinct, earthy, metallic smell of a Gundam cockpit occupied by a bleeding pilot. I think I am in Wing, but the monitor is set up differently; there are system checks for things I don’t recognize. Vague shapes of schematics on the auxiliary screens for strangely shaped weapons confuse me. No bolt rifle, no overhead metal switch for converting to aerial mode. I am not strapped in. My feet are limply resting on the rim of the metal control panel on the side and my head is resting just to the side of the uncomfortable headrest, against the protective bulwarks on either side meant to keep a pilot’s head from bashing back and forth under extreme forces. I’m sitting with someone else in the seat, beneath me; I can see hands on the controls, feel them jostle me as they pilot.

I remember, slowly, that Duo is there, and the sound of his voice confirms it. A garbled murmur, too indistinct for me to decipher. I am still too disoriented, losing touch with my senses. Delirious. I must be approaching the point of no return when it comes to blood loss. The smell is so thick.

He keeps talking to me, despite my inability to understand or respond, or even lift my head to look at him. I suppose, with a fresh wave of regret, that he is used to talking to me without a response. Listening to the murmur of Duo, watching the flashing lights of the screens blur and flash, I drop back into black.

This sleep is dreamless. When I rise out of the dark again and open my eyes to the gray, lime-washed walls of this hospital room, no traces remain and no images linger. I refill my consciousness slowly as monitors beep steadily and the din of distant rooms murmurs below. Three other hospital beds, all vacant and awaiting new patients, with sheets folded on the cot and blue pillows crisp and smooth. Green curtains are pulled back around each, and the window shades are pulled, muffling the summer sun. A clock above the door says 6:45 AM. Fifteen minutes until shift change.

My arms and legs are intact; I’ve been propped up at a 45-degree angle in the bed, and I can see a standard IV for fluids in my left hand and a blood transfusion line into the soft of my right elbow. Both hands have feeling and respond, if a little sleepily, with much less strength. I test the turn of my head and experience sharp stabs of pain, which gradually lessen with continued motion. The true test would come with standing and supporting weight, exerting myself without fainting.

There is no nurse present, no doctor. The door to this shared room is shut, but the blurs of motion through the fluted glass suggest the shift change is imminent.

I lean forward and sit up on my own power successfully. Here comes the most significant pain, as I thought it might. Stabs of pain in my abdomen, especially when I test my mobility and twist my shoulders. I touch my stomach and feel the line of sutures raised under the thin hospital gown. But nothing pain meds won’t dull to an acceptable level. And when I look to the side of my bed, I see a typical tall medical cabinet likely to have plenty of options, with labels inscribed in a Slavic language, as the crossed Ds indicate.

Thankfully, Duo had the sense to cross a country line before dropping me at a hospital. It will buy me time before OZ can manage to canvas all the nearby hospitals for John Does or suspicious patients. Probably an adjacent country. The question is exactly where and how to navigate back to Wing, which is likely still camouflaged in the hills just beyond the port city.

When the nurses make their rounds just after the shift change a few minutes later, I easily fool them by closing my eyes and controlling my pulse and brain waves. A pair of nurses comes to check on my vitals, the status of my IV line, and the blood infusion. Even as one lifts my hand and cleans some errant blood away from the line, I remain stone still. One remarks on something in the strange tones of their Slavic language—I am likely in nearby Croatia or Slovenia. Slovenia, more likely. Perhaps Duo had assessed that I wasn’t going to survive the time needed to cross one more border.

The nurses type and chat casually for another minute, write something on the clipboard and let it fall noisily back into the holder at the foot of the hospital bed before leaving the room.

I wait one minute to ensure they are gone before I survey the room again. Empty. The doors are fully shut, and I am alone again.

When I open my eyes, I almost expect to see Duo on a monitor, finger to his mouth and cap drawn over his eyes as he secretively passes me a message of rescue. But there are only the steady, mountainous lines of heart rate, oxygen, and electric activity on the screen. No indication of how long I’ve been here. I wonder if Duo made it out.

I catch myself before I imagine anything. I cannot think of him now; I must focus on extracting myself, on a safe exit with my machine.

When I dislodge from the heart rate monitor on my fingertip and the nodes attached to the side of my head, I will have a minute or two to bar the door before the sudden lack of vitals on my monitor will sound an alarm, drawing all nearby nurses. I will have only a few more to jab myself with pain meds, get dressed, and descend out the window with reduced strength and endurance. If I want any chance of making it back to my Gundam, I cannot risk any further internal bleeding; I will need to land carefully or risk being too incapacitated to run.

I rise to a sitting position, ready myself to pull the IV and all attached lines, and stop at the sight of the dark duffel bag sitting on a small bedside table. Carefully, I pull the various bags of fluid I’m hooked into to slide off the bed and reach the bag without setting off alarms. When my feet touch the cold floor, my head spins. When the world rights again and I can stand on my own power, albeit with a constant ache in my gut, I grab the bag. There is a piece of paper, a note, pinned on it that hadn’t been present when Duo brought it into the library, slung over his shoulder.

‘please help him,’ it read.

“You fool,” I mutter, despite myself. The worry of potential discovery because of his hand-written note is countered by a deep, hot pang in my chest. The heart monitor spikes, as the increased tempo of blips alerts me. I turn my head and watch the line until I can slow back to the previous, steady rhythm. I turn back to the bag.

Inside the duffle are the bloodied clothes I must have been dropped off in, wrapped in a clear plastic bag. The blood dried to the plastic crinkles loudly as I shift it aside, looking deeper. There are no weapons or other objects that might engender suspicion from the staff. Luckily, there are clean clothes underneath. Jeans, a t-shirt, a black jacket, a light, plain baseball hat. In the pocket, a folded wad of cash. I wonder distantly if Duo stole all this or if they are his. I imagine then, him watching hospital staff grabbing me off the sidewalk, where he deposited me, and flitting off into the dark, just to steal all this and surreptitiously return to the hospital to leave them—then I spot a book, hidden beneath the folded-up jeans.

The cover, clearly in the same language as the writing all around me, signals immediately it is not that book, though for a moment I wonder if Duo remembered. I pick it up and immediately check inside. On the title page, beneath Kako vam drago, in the same handwriting and pen as the attached note is the series of numbers, separated on individual lines, 01+02, 45.668391, 13.987286.

Coordinates.

I zip the jacket tight to hide my bloody bandage and carefully sling the duffel over my shoulder. A stab of pain, which eases once I lower my arms. As I walk, a steady burn of pain that overpowers the painkillers I’d pilfered, but only just. Tolerable enough; no bleeding yet.

I buy a map from the nearest corner shop, careful to casually keep the brim of my hat just low enough. Just outside, I buy a bottle of water and a paper cup of roasted chestnuts from an elderly vendor crouched over a hot, flat iron on the street, who counts the change slowly. I take it and nod to her in thanks. Even in summer, she has a wool shawl pulled tight around her and a winter cap. She withdraws into them, closing her eyes and relaxing her deeply-lined face, as the chestnuts snap and smoke.

The food is enough to fill the hunger beneath the pain; I drink all of the water in nearly one swig, despite myself. I stop in an alley to read the map, off the main road, and, with a line of approach slow and direct ahead, straight up the rolling hills towards the wilderness of the mountains, I walk.

I must be pale with exertion a few hours later; a teenage boy, who must be as young as I or only just older, but with a happy, round face, slows his work truck beside me on the dirt road. He is speaking Slovenian and gesturing to me, then circling his own face with a finger to indicate something about my appearance. “Hej, kako si? Si bolan?”

The truck bed is crowded with goats, chewing and bleating dumbly. The overhead sun is hot; I am out of water. The bandage is red underneath my jacket, and the area with the sutures is blazing hot from too much movement, almost numb but turning red-hot whenever the fabric of my shirt brushes them with every step. I have to keep the jacket, a thicker, waterproof fabric, zipped tight to my torso to hide my injury.

“I’m sorry,” I say, nearly gritting my teeth. I’m trying not to pant. The last place I want any local Samaritan to be tempted to take me is the hospital from which I’ve escaped. OZ will be investigating hospitals further out from the epicenter. “I don’t understand.”

He stops beside me and nods. “You tourist?” he says in thickly-accented but friendly, practiced English.

“Yes,” I say, and point up the road. “I got separated from my friend.”

“Sick?” He again repeats the gesture of circling his own face, remarking on my pallid appearance. A goat from his truck bed bleats loudly, as if annoyed at the delay.

“No, no,” I respond, trying to channel the casual nonchalance of Max Laurel in my acting. “Just… hungover.” I mime drinking, then pretend to hold my stomach in agony.

This pleases him, somehow. He grins. I try not to think of Duo, but I do. The way his genuine smile cracks open across his face like a whip, as bright and disruptive as the glow from an explosion.

The driver slaps the side of his truck gleefully. “Ah. Yes, maček. Need ride?”

“Yes, thank you,” I say quickly, going over to the passenger side. I hope the stink of the goats will cover the stink of sweat and blood on me. He leans over to unlock and push open the door for me. I unfold my map and point to a scenic overlook near enough to the coordinates, tell him my friend insists on meeting there if we were ever separated. He nods enthusiastically, and I thank him once more. As the truck motors along and lurches over the dirt road that winds towards the mountains, I close my eyes and lie back against the seat. I am desperate for the rest, yes; the driver, as charitable as he is, thankfully believes I am hungover and leaves me to doze without further questions. My teeth grit beneath my lips, and I will all my systems to stabilize, to smooth out my breathing to feign sleep, even as the wound remains searing hot and each jolting motion of the vehicle sends a fresh blade into my gut.

On either side of the trucks, I can smell the breeze flooding the smell of olive trees, oleander trees, lemon trees, and chestnut trees blooming and fruiting into the cab.

It is my first summer on Earth. I can taste blood rising in my throat.

Chapter Text

The obliging local drops me off at the base of a trail leading up to the scenic overview I’d described. I thank him with a bow and he waves me off. As soon as he is down the hill and out of sight, I stumble to the side of the paved path and vomit. Thankfully no blood. The muscle movement required is agonizing, pulling on the sutures and painkillers long worn off. But I use the opportunity as a chance to walk off the path without pulling too much notice from locals. I pause and rest against a tree. I hear again, in a language I don’t speak, the familiar tones of someone calling ‘Are you alright?’ come from behind and I wave it off.

“Maček,” I call back.

I hear some murmured debates with a companion, all incomprehensible, but the tone is clear. When the person obliges and continues on the path, I resume my trek deeper into the thick carpet of forest at the base of the low mountains. I watch the arc of the sun overhead, orient northeast, and walk on.

My knees are raw from hitting the ground, my forearms and hands lashed red from catching myself and shoving brush aside, my body white-hot and thundering with blood from losing my balance and having to stop repeatedly on the journey here, but I am finally here. I am running on very little energy and what is left is necessarily routed to my injuries and keeping infection at bay. I have walked all day, and the growing twilight paints everything dimly violet and I can barely see through the low light to see the muddy footprints behind me. I don't have the energy to hide my tracks; I’ll be gone before the sun goes down, if my suit is still here, intact, and functional.

I come over the ridge and through a thicket of white beech trees, with their thin, shivery leaves high above whispering in the breeze. The trunks are spaced wide, with no undergrowth or low branches, so I see him almost immediately. Behind him stretches a camouflaged sheet pulled over the mouth of a low, natural cave, coated with leaves, branches, and moss to blend seamlessly into the land. I am struck, as my knees lock below me and I lurch, losing my balance again, into the nearest tree trunk and grip hard to stay standing, that I’ve seen this.

A vision, of him standing in the dense green grove, hair blowing around his face, just a few meters away. But I did not imagine this expression. He stands and stares, without reacting, for a long moment. The falling dusk paints him gray, violet, but his hair remains almost red against the murk. In his hand, hanging by his side, is a radio still hissing faintly as it hops frequencies, with short blips of speech as it passes. He was listening. Looking for me?

Despite my better judgment—I cannot trust my emotions not to overwhelm me, looking into his face and he, looking back with blank shock—I meet his eyes, panting for breath.

“Duo,” I manage out in one breath, but need to stop to gulp air for the next. My fingers are digging into the tree. “Status up—date.”

A line of sweat breaks free and curls down my face. The soles of my feet throb. Something small buzzes in my ear and nips at my neck, and my joints feel like they're filled with sawdust. The afternoon heat lingers here in the forest, captured by the trees, and makes the air stifling and thick. A wave of dizziness comes over me, but before my overworked legs can give out, Duo crosses the distance and grips my shoulders, holding me up. Reflexively, I grip his shirt to steady myself. I lift my head and he grimaces at me, shaking his head. “You… you’re just too…” The twisted expression becomes a pained smile, and he pulls me into a bone-crushing hug. Selfishly, I press my face against his shoulder and close my eyes, desperate for the rest and comforted by the contact.

In the library, I told myself I would not feel this, anymore—that my training could and should flatten all these responses into small, manageable impulses I could ignore. But—in this purple twilight, with him, alive—it seems a small and foolish goal.

“You’re just too you sometimes,” Duo almost growls, just to keep from crying. He presses his face against my neck.

“I thought you’d stay longer. You know, to get better,” he says, sniffling. “You died, you sonnuvabitch. I watched you code in the room and they took me out. I wasn’t no one to you… when they started asking questions about my relation to you I had to take off. They were still shocking you. I thought I’d gotten you killed.”

My vision again shifts, as I press my face against his shoulder, still winded from effort and still sick from heat. I see Duo instead carrying me across the threshold of the automatic doors on his back, blood in rivulets dripping off of him as it poured out of my gut, aggravated by the movement. An incredibly stupid move. Dangerous to himself, and needlessly endangering not only this mission but the long-term success of the Gundams against OZ. But, besides the calculated risks and sense of danger, I feel a surge of gratitude as feverish hot as the pain boiling under it.

Duo, sitting in the chair beside the bed, holding the open book in a language he couldn’t read and watching me, motionless, in a hospital bed. Duo, knowing a squadron of soldiers could burst in through the door any minute and potentially shoot him on sight, instead watching the green and red lines stitch across the monitor. And Duo, worst of all, looking up at a long, uninterrupted flat line and shouting, rising from his chair and running to the door to call the nurses.

I feel his fingers digging into me, almost too hard. “Then you walk up here half-dead and ask me how I’m doing? You crazy bastard.”

With what energy I have left, I straighten up and pull away enough to look him in the face. I am still panting, hardly able to speak much more than a few words before I need to take in more air, but I have to try. “You should have left me,” I say. “Too dangerous.”

His eyes search my face, though his expression tells me he’s not surprised at how stupid I am for suggesting such a thing. “I’m not letting you die,” he says fiercely. His eyes, though, flicker with an expression of pain that he quickly tries to hide. But I see it. He’s not as perfect at stealth as he thinks. “Though you can try to kill yourself jumping off shit as much as you want. But fuck that. I’m not leaving you behind like that.”

We’re still so close. I am thankful because I am still too tired to motor under my own power. I burnt all my reserves trudging up the side of a mountain with a sewn-up gut. He meets my gaze, unwavering. What I’d wanted, and avoided for so long, Duo freely gives now—ten, then twenty or more seconds of silent looking. His determination seems to waver, as pain below the surface threatens to bubble up and out. Maybe because I am in so much physical pain that I have no barrier to my emotions, but I act on them instead, instinctively, recklessly.

“Duo,” I say. “Before.”

He seems puzzled, but he’s still gripping my shoulders so tight that his fingertips blanch. “What,” he says, without intonation, just waiting.

“You asked... if you should… be worried,” I manage out.

Now, his face contorts into real confusion, almost dazed. “Yeah?” His tone reveals I’ve thrown him for a loop. “You never answered me.”

“I’ve decided,” I say, with bravery that has nothing to do with G-forces, the bullet resistance of alloys, or enemy encryption techniques. Maybe it’s the smell of summer on earth, of all the fruit blossoms and humid stink of dirt with blood and metal, filling me with previously unknown strength of conviction. “I’m going to live… following my emotions.”

I don’t close my eyes even as I put my mouth to his face, but cautiously watch him as I lean forward, softly pressing my lips just below his eye, then at the side of his face, willing away whatever pain I can from his expression. When he doesn’t push me away, I close my eyes and lean closer. I linger there, then press my first to his mouth. He presses back, and a sob breaks forth from him. He breaks the kiss and presses his face into the crook of my neck and shoulder now, forgetting caution and throwing himself against my body, despite my wounds. I am mildly surprised that I am not as flustered as I would have predicted, but my mind is far from myself. I keep seeing him, sitting on the hospital chair, with his knees up to his chin, watching me.

I tighten the hold and Duo's shoulders move again as he sniffles, jerking erratically.

“You are so shit at romance,” he half-cries, half-laughs.

I rest my head on him, breathing in the smell of his hair. “I know,” I say, still breathless. “Setting bones… more my thing.”

Duo laughs again, and gives one more prominent shiver, pressing back the tears.

So I knot my fingers behind his back, willing my body to hold out just a second more to keep holding him, and tell him in a voice only he could hear. “Thank you… for not leaving me,” I say, between gulps of air. “Can we… sit down?”

Chapter Text

Breathing the air in the cave is like gulping down cold water and my head clears somewhat, even before Duo hands me a canteen of actual water and I take a long swig. With my back to Wing’s knee and the cold, rocky ground below, I feel less feverish, less winded. He settles down immediately beside me so that our sides are flush, touching, and he pulls a thin blanket over me. Next to him, along with the canteen and his gun, he has a small electric lantern that he charges by cranking loudly for a minute. When set down, it illuminates the damp cave walls and shines off the various mech parts. He looks mutely into the small, glowing white coil for a long moment and I watch the light on his face. Then he turns back to me, breaking from his reverie as if he suddenly remembered where he was and thinks to look for me, in a panic. I notice the concern in his expression and my heart does its usual flitter.

When he sees me watching, he ducks his chin and reaches up to nervously scratch his head. Then, clearing his throat, he looks down at his hands and starts scratching the dried blood off his fingernails.

“You’re not hurt?” I ask. I am finally strong enough to speak normally, though my voice is strained. When he shakes his head, I frown and say, almost to myself, “You should have left me behind. That would have been the most logical course of action for you, regardless of my condition.”

Duo chuckles. “Now you sound like your old self,” he says, with warmth in his tone. “Still partly super-soldier, after all, huh? After all this, are you gonna be all healed up and back to ignoring me again next time we cross paths on the battlefield?”

I rest my head against the cold of the Gundanium and keep looking at him. Though he remains wrapped up in cleaning my blood off his hands, avoiding my gaze. “Duo.”

“I’m alright,” he says in a distant murmur, still looking down. He seems to hope the direct answer will throw me off of something. I wait; in the silence, he finally turns his face to me. His eyes search me and I feel prickles of electricity wherever they land. I finally understand my visceral reactions, after all the turmoil they have caused, and decide to commit to it, turn into it. I’m reminded of an earlier day, when Duo and I leaped from thirty stories out of the smoking crater in the side of a building—the seconds of free fall side by side and the wild freedom of it. He anticipates and smirks.

“Gonna live by your emotions?” he asks coyly, though at nearly a whisper. “I agree, you should.”

I lean as far towards him as I dare, without toppling over, dizzy, and Duo moves in kind, crossing the remaining distance to kiss back. This time is slower, and gentler, and I feel him sigh pleasantly out of his nose. He presses forward to lengthen the kiss, initiating a second wave of contact. I’m sure I taste like the copper of blood and sour salt of sweat; he does too.

When he draws back, he watches my reaction, remaining nose to nose, shoulder to shoulder, with his leg pressed against mine. The bruise around his eye is finally a yellow shadow, nearly gone. He smiles—the kind he’s never shown me before, something he’s never worn as a mask or as a weapon—quiet, closed mouth, with his eyes moving around my face.

And I, despite myself, despite all my programming, all the years of training poured into me, and my better judgment, I smile back.

He watches, then tucks his chin to hide his pleased expression. We will never inhabit the luxury of normalcy, in a sun-drenched childhood on earth, barely worrying about homework—the Duo who flitted amongst groups of students, chatting and making the inconsequential plans of children, will always be a character he played, and I will always be a soldier, regardless of war or peace. But the moment feels rarefied and sublime in a way they will never know either. There is an iron-clad understanding between us that passes between us in only a glance, here, hiding in the dark cave on the side of a mountain, backs flat to a mech suit.

I come back to myself and realize I’ve been staring. Partially, I am growing drowsy. He seems to have already noticed and says, “I think you need your rest.”

“A few hours. Can we launch under cover of dark?” I ask.

Duo glances up at the suits behind us as he thinks. Deathscythe is nearer to the mouth of the cave and the faded sunset casts the edges violet-blue as the light cools to black. “Even in a few hours, they’ll still be watching the airspace. We’re close enough to town anybody looking at radar will see us immediately,” he says. “You’re not gonna be a hundred percent, so we might need a little more of a plan than just book it and hope.”

“Distraction, then.”

He nods and looks back at me, again nearly nose to nose. He hums an affirmative. “Right. Then we should go at dawn. Let them see me, nice and clear. I’ll draw them away and give you the cover to escape. My jammers can get me out of trouble if I need 'em. Can’t catch something they can’t see,” he says, with a smirk.

“Did you build them yourself?” I ask. I am growing even hazier, and I smile easier.

Duo smirks and lifts his chin high with a proud flourish. “Yep. Using scrap parts and all! Howard taught me. Scramble everything you can throw at ‘em.”

I find it quite endearing. I am close to passing out, as my body settles and the pain flattens into manageable white-noise. Motionless, sitting side-by-side, pressed against Duo’s warm side. “Impressive,” I say.

Duo turns and it becomes another full-on grin. “Complimenting a guy’s mech? Now that’s more like it. That’s the kind of romance I want,” he says. Then, noticing my fading strength, he shakes his head and snakes his arm under mine, and wraps them together tightly. “Come on, no more bedtime stories. You should rest.”

I close my eyes to blink and they refuse to lift for a heavy moment. “I can sleep in the cockpit,” I say, as I have many times.

His voice softens as if I’m already asleep. “No heat in there. Plus, I don’t want you sleeping by yourself in your state. And, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re looking pretty comfy and settled in where you are. Think you could even get up?”

“Yes,” I say, then quickly pressing my mouth into a line to avoid a yawn.

“No, Sleepy-head, you stay right here with me,” he says. “Got a trick from the street for this very situation.”

Then he also wraps his leg around mine and intertwines our fingers together, with enough tension to hold us together and locked well enough that if one falls the other will wake. He leans into me and pulls me so that we lean into each other. His head rests on my shoulder and my cheek rests against his head. I smell his hair and stray strands twitch in the breeze, touching my face. I fight the sudden, heavy fuzz that descends on me, demanding sleep.

“You lived on the street?”

“Yeah. For most of my life,” he answers. “Sometimes you’d find a place with a roof over it to call yours for the night, but you didn’t really want to lay on the shit all over the ground. Or it was too cold. So we’d ‘link up,’ as we called it. Keeps you warm and from laying on trash or needles.”

“We?” But I already know the answer.

“Yeah, lots of us. Lost kids, orphans, the like. Sometimes there were fewer of us, sometimes more, but always lots. Lots of mouths to find grub for. L2 was tough—is tough, still.”

My eyes are fluttering closed without my permission as he asks in return, “What about you? Did you have parents?”

I hum, as my strength to fight sleep wanes, and my eyes close. “I don’t remember. Maybe I did. My earliest memories are just training,” I answer honestly.

I expect Duo to joke further about my being the ‘perfect soldier,’ but he just tenses, as if surprised, clenching his fingers in our clasped hands. “Guess neither of us had much of a chance, huh,” he says. He continues, his tone is almost shy—something I don’t recognize in him—and says, “You know, I enjoyed pretending to be normal with you. The school, the dorm life, classes, lunches… it was, uh, kinda nice. With you in particular.”

He says something else, but I’ve lost my fight against sleep. I am unconscious within seconds of his confession, warm enough under the blanket, pressed against him, and my face pressed to the top of his head, ready to submerge in the comfortable dark of nothingness.

We sleep; the proximity alarm thankfully never sounds in the night. At dawn, I wake slowly. In the few hours of humid summer night that we slept, the blanket over me is beaded with dew, which catches the light from the mouth of the cave. Duo is gone from beside me. I don’t see him as I wake and glance around the cave, but I can hear steady typing from the 02 unit cockpit. I stand, using my hand against Wing’s cold metal, and take stock of my injuries, pain level, and mobility. The hours of rest have improved my response time and pain tolerance, but I will need another day of rest and time to work up my strength. Enough to escape.

It has to be.

I drink a mouthful of water from the canteen and bring it with me. My next test of strength comes as I decide to climb up to the Deathscythe cockpit as it lays flat on the ground, mostly sheltered by the cave. The rest of the suit is shielded under the camouflage tarp, which lets in a filtered, bluish light through the cover of leaves and dried branches. I am not “back to a hundred,” as Duo would say, but the pain is more manageable. I climb up and lean over to look down at him, sitting in the cockpit, absorbed in the monitors and typing away. His braid lays splayed out behind him.

“Hey, Heero,” he says, without looking. He finishes typing something, pushes a monitor out of the way, and beams up at me. “Ya feeling any better?”

I nod. “Enough. I can pilot. How’s it looking?”

“Airspace has been quiet, but I’m sure they’re still watching. But a message came for you on Wing. You’ve got coordinates for a new safe house,” he says, sitting up and crossing his legs to sit more comfortably, perpendicular to the normal orientation and sitting on the back of the chair. I pass him the water and he takes a long swig, with a big, satisfied sigh at the end, before tucking it to the side.

“Good,” I say. “I’ll need it.” Then, as he passes it back to me, with still half remaining, he grins at me. Open and playful, unguarded. Foolishly, my heart jumps up again, and, even more foolishly, I relish the feeling.

“You decrypted my message?” I ask, noting his canary-fed cat smile. He shrugs nonchalantly. Even for a fellow Gundam pilot, it’s impressive work. “Glad we’re on the same side.”

“I won’t be able to follow you. I’ve got to rendezvous with Howard and the crew,” he continues, still pinning me with that beaming look. “And I’ll be drawing the heat off to the west. Your safehouse is due southeast, and it’s a long flight. Come on, daylight’s burning.”

I climb into Wing’s cockpit, and the familiarity of it strengthens me. I direct my energy into readying the machine and preparing my flight path, while Duo is pulling the camouflage down so we can exit freely. Thoughts of pain and all else fade for a few moments, exchanged for the focus on the immediate next unknowables—enemies in flight path, weather conditions, availability for cover at the destination, where to source parts next—until Duo’s head pops into view of the open hatch.

“We’re free and clear. You ready to go?” he asks, his braid falling over his shoulder and down into the cockpit. When I nod, still watching diagnostics run on my side monitors before flight, he continues. “I don’t have any food for ya. Can you manage with just water until you land?” Down into the cockpit, with the shoulder strap dangling just like his hair, he reaches out with the refilled canteen. He looks at me, and I hesitate. Instead, holding his gaze, I slightly shake my head.

“Huh, no?” he asks, a little incredulous. “You okay? Sick? Dizzy?”

I crawl from the seat to stand on the chair, raising me out of the cockpit just enough to reach him. He, on his belly looking down, raises up on his elbows to make space, as if I am launching up to exit. But I place my hands on his shoulders and kiss him. He hums in surprise and presses the canteen against my side reflexively. He has to arch his neck to meet me but does so with enthusiasm. I am hardly practiced at this; Duo is eager to share what he knows. When we break apart, I expect the rakish grin, but he puts his head wordlessly against my sternum and stays there, gripping my back. I keep my hands on his shoulders and put my face gently on the top of his head. We are not supposed to have this moment together, as pilots, as soldiers—but we have it. I will not trade it. This moment at dawn in a damp cave, on the run, belongs to us; smelling of dirt and blood, on empty stomachs, belongs to us—and we may never have another, is the understanding comes from his fingers at my back, gripping tight.

I breathe in the smell of his hair. "I'll see you again,” I say.

He barks out a half-laugh, shaking his nose against my collarbone. His tone is twisted and difficult to speak in. "In this world?"

I nod, which he feels against the top of his head.

"Don't make a prediction you don't believe, Heero," he says. "If you die tomorrow, I’ll be... fuck, just—just don’t."

"I won’t, then,” I say. “I promise.” After a beat, I say, “Who’s the mother-hen, now?”

The sound of his laugh then, against my chest, echoing in the cave, will soon ride with me all the way to the safe house.

When we separate, he gives me one more kiss, fast but emphatic, before pushing the canteen into my hands, turning away and bounding down to the ground. He flicks me a salute over his shoulder as he runs back to Deathscythe, and we both lock into our respective suits. First, he powers up his suit, and with a great whirring and scraping against rock and dirt and the thuds of trees downing, stands his suit up.

He flashes in on the video comm, now buckled into the cockpit and grinning again. “Good luck, Heero.”

“You too, Duo.”

“I’ll give ‘em hell for you,” he says, then the line blinks out.

With a flashy show of force, he uses Deathscythe’s green plasma weapon to slash wide through the trees, felling them with a cloud of dust and leaves. Deathscythe moves from the mouth of the cave a few steps, causing the trees to shake again, before bounding into the sky, launching the thrusters, and arcing away in a streak of black and green. In a few minutes, I see the telltale signs of mobile suits launching from the ground to follow him, small blips on my radar a mile or two off. Leos, which promptly blossom into hot, yellow orbs of destruction, visible from the cameras as well as the sensors. With his distraction as cover, I take Wing out of the cover of the cave and make a sharp turn southwest before launching into the sky and engaging thrusters at max.

I am sitting in a small studio apartment on the northwest corner of Crete; Wing is in a decommissioned boat hangar below. I am redressing the wound next to the open windows, overlooking the flat blue sea, old, red bandages unwound into a pile next to me. I have two days before I’m to intercept a shuttle launch bringing suits to space in Morocco. At the long de-populated end of this hot island, surrounded by empty industrial spaces, there are few signs of life and even fewer vehicles; there’s a dead end where the road meets the water.

The old, straining motor of a truck noisily putters into range, then idles near the window. As the engine runs at a steady rumble, I hear a door slide open, and then the metal latch of my mailbox closing. From my vantage point, I can’t see the vehicle. I pull my shirt down over the bandages and walk to the open window, with its shallow metal patio, once meant to look down at a vibrant seaside town.

I see a bright yellow but rusted truck with a delivery logo puttering away, with an old driver half out of the open driver door as he finishes his single delivery to this address and drives slowly off.

Cautiously, I take the stairs down to the entrance on the ground level. At the bottom of the stairs is a brown-paper package, tied with white string. I give it an appraising look before touching it. When I see the name it is addressed to, I know it’s safe to pick up.

To Y. Hardy, or current occupant, written in surprisingly neat handwriting. In the corner, no return address, but just M. L. in the same hand.

I return to the window, sit down, and open it.

A familiar book lies just under the wrapping. Despite myself, I smile.

My heart twists as I open it and flip through the familiar pages, the innocent passages that set me, unwitting, on a path I hadn’t anticipated. But, still, the conclusions it brought me are valuable. Though the time until I can see him again is unknown, and laced with danger, I am determined. It is the only path, to live according to my emotions.

I am determined to love Duo for however long reunion takes, determined to see him again, to not press down the feeling of him grinning at me across the room, of him crossing the distance to kiss me underground. I realize now that this resolution—this will to live—must have slept in me, just awaiting the catalyst, before I ever set my eyes upon a book in a library.

But I open it up on my lap and read it again just to be reminded of our short days of normalcy and pass the time, until. Until.