06-Oct-2000
Title: Demons
Authors: bonnejeanne (bonnejeanne@yahoo.com) and vonceia (vonceia@yahoo.com)
Archive: GW Addiction and if she chooses, Darkflame
Category: yaoi, angst
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: 1x2, 6x5, various
Warnings: LEMON. Angst. AU - we do not guarantee that our interpretations of characters or events will agree with yours, so a general OOC warning.
Spoilers: Series, EW
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing characters and universe are the property of the copyright owners. Our stuff is ours. No money being made here. As with all our fics so far, while our goal is to stay as in character as possible, any discrepancies are our mistakes.
Feedback: Any and all comments, feedback, critiques welcome, be they short or long.
NOTES: This is part of the Frozen Colony Arc, and takes place following The Hunt. If you are not familiar with the timeline and are curious, you can find the stories on GW Addiction and on DF's site. On GWA on the Bonne&Von page, there are numbers denoting which stories are FC Arc and should be read in what order.
Duo's demons appeared first in Down Time in Hell, and reappeared in Dancin With My Mirror. This is a fic to explore their existence and origins. Liberties are taken with Duo's history and original characters from ESO appear.
Heero brushed his lips against Duo's cheek. Looking down at him, Heero lips wore a little ghost of a smile. When Duo was still and the violet eyes closed, he reminded Heero of something so precious and innocent. The Perfect Soldier had etched this image in his mind countless times and never tired of seeing the picture his demon made. This is mine, he thought possessively.
"Come koi," Heero said softly as his eyes watched the picture shift and reform.
Duo's eyes fluttered open. He shifted and stretched, looking at Heero with a little, almost sheepish smile. "I was resting," he said. "Maybe I dozed off, huh?"
Heero nodded. Bending his head, he kissed Duo softly, allowing the contact to blossom into whatever it would become. A short while later, he reluctantly moved back. "Love you," he said, looking into the violet depths.
Duo gazed back, feeling more than a bit amazed every time he heard those words from Heero's lips. He smiled tenderly, then kissed the tip of Heero's nose and grinned. "No accounting for taste," he said happily. Sitting up, he looked at the ship's readings. His eyebrows pulled together slightly and he nodded. "Uh huh," he said, Then he looked around for his clothes, pulling them on quickly and then starting to dress his lover.
According to the ship's sensors, they were in the middle of nowhere. No ships, no satellites, no colony, no nothing.
Heero watched Duo move and allowed himself to be dressed. Checking the equipment, he looked up at Duo. "We're exactly nowhere," he said. "..but not alone?"
Duo chuckled. "Not as much nowhere as we're supposed to think. I recognize the coordinates. There's a secret Sweeper spacedock here somewhere, but it's cloaked. Given enough time, we could find it between the two of us," he said confidently. "However that shouldn't be necessary."
He keyed a recognition code into the com, scrambled, and sent it.
In a few minutes, a very large space station appeared in the formerly empty area. Duo jumped back into his seat quickly. "Head for the entrance port on the left side," he told Heero.
"Roger that," Heero said, guiding the shuttle as Duo instructed. "We we need weapons? he asked.
Duo shook his head. "No, no." He glanced at Heero and then suddenly looked a little flustered. "This is my family!"
Heero glanced over at Duo. His partner, like him, didn't talk much about origins and family. It had been a complete shock for Heero to find out that he wasn't the motherless orphan he had once thought himself to be. Since Alfa had come into his life, he still had a bit of trouble remembering. Duo had only spoken of Father Maxwell and Sister Helen when he had spoken at all. It hadn't mattered to Heero. He had accepted Duo completely. "Hn," he remarked.
Duo looked down, then up. "Um... I wasn't trying to be secretive," he offered. "I just... didn't think about it. I was... I dunno, around twelve when the Prof and the others caught me trying to steal from em. The Prof has ties to the Sweepers that go back for twenty years. He talked em into taking me in. I learned a lot with these guys, and they always treated me decent. They're not fighters - they salvage war wreckage. But there are always pirates and other folks trying to take stuff from em by force so they know how to defend themselves. Mostly they avoid fighting by staying out of sight."
Heero nodded. "Stealth. Good plan," he said, then brushed his fingers along the top of Duo's hand. "I didn't think you were being secretive."
Duo responded with a relieved nod and a smile.
Once inside the port, Heero saw a very large docking center with enough berths for a fleet of ships. Only about a third of them were occupied, and these were not very uniform craft - every size, shape and configuration, most with various modifications.
The comm came on. "Use Berth 13, Maxwell," a voice said. "It's been a while."
Duo answered. "Yes, it has," he said simply. "I've got a friend with me. So set a couple of extra places, eh, Huey?"
The man on the other end laughed. "Yeah sure. Come on in. I bet you want the Prof, huh?"
"Oh, is he here?" Duo answered innocently. "I suppose I could say hi."
The other man made a derisive noise, and signed off the comm.
"That's 13 over there," Duo indicated.
"Hai," Heero said, steering the shuttle towards the berth.
Once they were secured, Duo disembarked, pulling Heero along with him. He took a quick look around, frowning. "That's weird."
"What?" Heero asked.
"Looks like... well it looks like they're in the middle of some kind of major salvage. More than half the ships are out. That's weird because usually that only happened after a major battle.... and I'm assuming if there had been *any* kind of battle, we would have heard about it. I guess... it's possible things got so slow due to peacetime that they decommissioned a bunch of ships but..." Duo shrugged.
Heero glanced around and then back to Duo. "Maybe your friend could tell us," he said.
Duo nodded. He led Heero around the bay to the duty-master's office. Sticking his head in, he waved at an older man who grinned and beckoned them in.
"Maxwell!" he said. "Who's your friend... wait a minute, that's..."
"Heero Yuy," Duo confirmed. "Heero, this is Huey."
"It's a pleasure, sir," Heero replied.
Huey smiled broadly. "You're awful polite for the most dangerous man in the known universe," he said.
"That used to be *my* title," Duo said mournfully.
Huey grinned and slapped the braided one on the back. "No, that was most obnoxious man in the known universe," he said.
Heero watched this exchange. He had fully intended to contradict the man, but decided to keep quiet. This man obviously had affection for Duo.
"Huh," Duo sniffed in mock offense. Then he spoiled it with a grin. "Well if I can't have one, I settle for the other," he said. "Hey, Huey... what's going on?" He nodded at the bay. "Where is everyone?"
The duty-master looked at the two boys shrewdly. "Goin on?" he said, looking around.
"Oh come on!"
"Nothing, kid... just cleaning up more of you Gundam pilots' messes again," Huey said with a broad wink. "You ever tell your buddies how much we appreciated their work? Especially tearing up all those mobile dolls! Be keeping us busy for a long time."
"What mess in particular, Huey?" Duo asked, with a sudden suspicion.
"Better talk to the Prof about that," the duty-master said. "This one's tighter than Operation Meteor. Of course it being you and all, I'm sure he'll explain everything."
Duo scowled. "You mean, it being me and all, I'll get it out of him whether he wants to tell me or not."
Heero looked up at the man and then back to Duo. He got very still for a moment, then nodded to himself. "And if he doesn't tell you, he'll have to contend with me," he said, quietly.
Huey made a show of wiping sweat from his brow. "Better him than me," he said. "Anyway, I think he's already got quite a bit to contend with, what with that lady showing up and all."
Heero looked up at Duo, sharply, then to Huey. "Kinda short with eyes like mine..." he said, evenly.
Huey looked at Heero. "Yeah... now that you mention it! Quite a stink over that one - seemed to have no trouble finding us. Weird that was. We're gonna have to look into that."
Duo groaned. "Don't bother. There's only one of her."
He looked at Heero and said, "Let's go."
"Hai," Heero replied, moving after Duo.
Duo led Heero through the spacedock, which was put together much like a large space station, with mazelike corridors between wide storage compartments, work areas and bays. The braided boy seemed to have no trouble finding his way, and they shortly entered an area that seemed to be sectioned off from the bulk of the station.
Turning through a hatchway, they found themselves in another huge bay, outfitted for working on ships or mecha. There was a small group working at one end of the area, and two people, easily recognizable, at the other end.
In the middle of the bay, in a wide clear space, was a very large object. Heero recognized it immediately, as he was one of only two humans alive who had seen it intact. It was a chunk, perhaps a fifth of the whole, of the craft piloted by the E.S.O.
Heero moved forward, taking Duo's hand as he did so. "Mom," he called out as they approached. "This a souvenir?"
Alfa looked up and smiled, but her expression didn't completely loose the scowl she'd been aiming at Professor G, who simply glared narrow-eyed from behind his mop of gray hair.
"Hi boys," she said. She looked them over closely. "Good question, son. Gordon?"
The Prof simply continued to glare. "What did you think we were going to do? Leave it out there to float around like so much space junk until the Mars colonists decided to investigate? Or until someone came up with the bright idea of back-engineering it?"
Heero looked at the older man for a moment. "I didn't think about after I blew it up. If you wanna go messing around with space junk, that's your business. If you start getting... affected by it and do something crazy, then I'll have to blow it up again... with you in it." Moving past, the Prof, Heero gave Alfa a kiss on the cheek. "Good to see ya," he said, softly.
Alfa looked like she still wasn't used to the idea of casual affection from her son, but she accepted the kiss.
Professor G answered Heero's threat with a soft snort. "The family resemblance is frightening," he muttered.
Duo watched and listened to the exchange with arms crossed over his chest. "I think someone already came up with the bright idea of back engineering it," he said in a dangerously quiet voice.
"Yeah," Heero commented. "And I'm not too thrilled with him either."
"Fortunately, thrilling the two of you is not on my list of must-do's," the Professor snapped. "It's not a question of when or if, but who and when. Who would you prefer?"
Heero sighed. "Neither... no one. I say, get it all in one place and set a charge to it. I think we remember the last time you guys worked on a project. As I recall, it didn't turn out to swift." He shrugged. "But since it seems like Alfa's in charge, maybe it'll be okay. Otherwise, I'm not retired quite yet."
Alfa shook her head. "I'm not in charge. I just got here. Imagine my surprise!" Heero noticed that she now had a streak of silver running through her wild auburn locks.
"I will put up with your threats because I understand the reason for them," Professor G said. "However, the Sweepers will finish the cleanup... and I will learn what I can from this. Has it occurred to any of you that there might be other instances of such a threat? Or that we might lean a great deal that could be beneficial to mankind from this? That we might learn something about the origins of life in the universe?"
Alfa's eyes narrowed, but she remained silent. The scientist in her was hearing every bit of these arguments. It was at war with another very strong part of her that had spent 20 years preparing to destroy the E.S.O.
"And then what?" Heero said, quietly. "Say we learn all about this thing and everything there is to know. How is that gonna help us learn about the one thing we need more than this... ourselves? How's it going to stop us from killing ourselves before then next one of these comes and does it for us? Maybe you need to take a vacation from all of this, Professor, before you become just like this thing."
Alfa blinked at her son's last words, eyes widening. Professor G was silent, then his eyes left Heero's and moved to something beyond the Japanese pilot.
Alfa followed the Professor's gaze and frowned.
Duo was no longer with the small group. He'd turned at some point and was looking at the object, head tilted, walking slowly towards it.
Heero turned and looked in Duo's direction. "Look, I don't know how, but your toy here is no secret. That's why we're out here. Someone is looking for a piece of it or something and my heart is in the line of fire," he said.
"What are you talking about?" The Professor snapped, watching Duo with a barely-visible sense of unease.
"Someone in the Church either knows or suspects that there was something out here we were fighting and they want proof it exists. You're lucky, in a way, because he chose a Gundam pilot and not someone like Dekim Barton or worse," Heero said. Looking back at the Professor he shook his head. "You guys should learn that you can't do it without Alfa anymore. You need her. She's got the level head."
Professor shot a look at Alfa, who simply stared at her son like she'd never heard anything so silly in her life. "Level head?" she muttered. Then she shrugged. "Sure!" she said finally, shaking her head.
"The *Church*?" she added.
"Duo, stop," Professor G called. His eyes narrowed as he moved to follow the braided pilot.
Duo stopped, gazing at the object from about four meters away. "Did you think I was going to run into the containment field you have around it?" he asked as the Professor walked up.
"What's this about the Church, Duo?" the Professor asked quietly.
"Oh just some power-mad guy who used to be Father Maxwell's bishop," Duo answered without taking his eyes off the object as he studied it.
G's eyes narrowed. "What are you planning, Duo?"
The braided boy laughed. "I'm not going to steal it," he said. "It's too big! But I bet this isn't all you've recovered. This is just the crown jewel of the collection, right?"
"Correct," Professor G said.
"I never saw this," Duo said, almost absently. "We were too busy fighting the thing's weapons. "There's something about it..."
Heero walked over and stood by Duo. "This was where it really was," he said, remembering what it took to destroy it. "Cockpit, maybe," he added, looking around the object himself.
Alfa followed her son.
"The hull is made of a substance a thousand times more dense than gundanium," G said. "We have no weapons that could penetrate it. It was destroyed by an explosion from within. The powersource - whatever it was generated something close to the energy of an exploding star, yet something pulled the force in on itself. There's a spatial anomaly in the asteroid belt now. It's slight, barely detectable with equipment even at close range but it seems to be located in the area where the ship was destroyed, according to what your gundams recorded. We believe we have detected minute variations in the orbit of Mars that may be another result."
Looking at the object, Heero listened to the Professor's words. "It's caused an anomaly in the asteroid belt and possibly shifted the orbit of Mars," he said, then glanced up at the Professor. "You're not going to live long enough to figure this thing out and neither will I. What did you plan on doing with material of the hull, if you could figure it out? Build a better gundam?"
"You aren't listening, 01," The Professor said caustically. "We couldn't destroy it if we wanted to. You can't blow it up, melt it, break it... What survived the explosion will survive anything short of being dumped in a black hole." Then he peered at Duo before turning back to Heero. His next words were less acerbic. "The Sweepers have pledged to collect all the remains and keep them. I'll study it as long as I am able. Do you seriously have a better suggestion?"
Heero looked up at the older man. "Build a big box and pour a lot of plexiglas in it? Big paperweight," he said.
Alfa clamped a hand over her mouth. Then she said, "I kinda go for that idea."
"You would," G said.
Heero looked at Alfa. "You have to be my mom. You're the only one who gets my jokes," he said.
Alfa patted his shoulder. "No one gets mine either," she said.
Duo turned around, almost seeming to tear his eyes away from the object. "Hey Prof, you can put us up for a while, right? Don't worry, I'll find some rooms. Oh, and I wanna see what you have in the way of data, even better if you give it to Mom over there."
Alfa looked at Duo. "Now I'm Mom," she said to no one in particular. "I used to be scary."
Duo gave her a hug, which she definitely didn't expect. She attempted to contain her shock. From the glint in Duo's eyes, he was getting the reaction he'd anticipated. "That's okay," he said, winking at her. "I used to be the God of Death."
Heero sighed. "You're still the God of Death and you are still very scary. I guess I'm still 01," he said, then looked over at the Professor. "I was listening to you. I'm glad you got my point too."
The Professor glared but simply turned back to his work. "And *I'm* still busy," he muttered.
"Come on, I'll find us somewhere to rest," Duo said.
"Cool," Alfa nodded. "You guys go ahead, and find a flop for me also if you don't mind. I'll see what I can pry out of Gordon's nasty little hands in the way of data."
Duo saluted.
"And if he gives you any trouble, do something... girl-like. That stuff always throws me." Heero offered.
Duo smothered a laugh.
Alfa grinned. "Thanks, sonny, but I was prying secrets out of this old geezer before your two halves joined and became a happy embryo. Leave it to me. I have few skills but... and who'd have thought I'd ever use any of them again, eh?"
Heero nodded and gave Alfa a thumbs-up as he followed Duo.
Duo led the way out of the bay, turning another direction from the way they had come initially. He turned down a corridor, scanned it, turned down another. He stayed rather close to the bay. Finally he stopped and looked through a door, back out, into another. Looked into yet another doorway, across the hall and down a bit. He nodded, and came back out. Heero noticed that there were small plates beside each door. Some of them had number and letter combinations on them, others were simply squares of color. Duo slid the plate by one door out of its bracket, and turned it over, showing a blank red square on the back, and slid in back into the bracket with the red facing out.
"Alfa can use that one," he said. Then he backtracked to one of the other rooms, across the hall and down a little, and did the same thing to the plate beside it, showing a plain black square on this one. "This'll be ours," he said and opened the door for Heero to come in.
The room was not large, but it had a small, usable bathing cubby, some shelves, and a couple of bunks, one above the other.
"It's not the Ritz," Duo said, with a slight depreciating shrug.
"It's fine," Heero said, glancing around. "Private?" he asked.
Duo nodded. "Completely. I flipped the tag on the door - that lets people know someone's using this room. They won't bother anything in here or come in, now. It's an important rule."
"Hn," Heero replied, moving closer to Duo. He slid his arms around Duo's waist and looked up at him. "That's good," he said, leaning forward and kissing Duo, deeply. "Too bad about the bunks though...I'll take the top."
Putting his arms around Heero's neck, Duo looked into his lover's cobalt eyes. "Oh you will, huh? You don't think we can both fit on one, huh?" Duo glanced over his shoulder and down along his own body. "It's Zechs' cooking, right? I've put on weight..."
Heero looked into the violet eyes before him. "No, you haven't, at least nowhere I can tell," he said. "And I guess I really have to work on those punchlines and innuendos some more." Taking a deep breath he then asked, "Are you alright?"
Duo tilted his forehead to meet Heero's. His mouth curved. "You don't laugh at my jokes, why should I laugh at yours?" he said, affectionately. He took a deep breath and let it out. "And stop asking me if I'm all right. After all the stuff we've been through... this is easy."
"I do laugh at your jokes... I just laugh very... quietly," Heero responded. "And, yeah, I guess you're right. I'm still trying to work out that business with the ship. I've also been thinking a little about Quatre. I figure he's safe, but I think we might contact him. He's the one who had contact with that thing," he said, pulling Duo tighter against him.
Duo tilted his head frowning. "I hadn't thought of that," he said, his expression troubled. "But it's dead..." Then he shook his head. "On the other hand, maybe you should call him." Duo sighed. "This is already way too complicated. I don't like getting any body else involved, but I don't want to take chances either. Don't you think we should try and find out a little more first?"
"Hn," Heero remarked, with a nod. "We'll give him a call later." Placing his hands around Duo's hips, Heero looked up, placing a small kiss on Duo's forehead. "I like your people here. They've got excellent security. Is this where the Professor built Deathscythe?"
Duo smiled. "It was at another place, a lot like this one." Duo sighed reminiscently. "I almost blew it up."
"In a battle?" Heero asked, leaning forward a little and kissing Duo's neck.
Duo shook his head. "Nope... well I almost did that too, but that was later. I mean when the orders for Operations Meteor came out. I was going to blow up Deathscythe, kill the Prof, then kill myself. Cagey bastard caught onto me. Then he told me I should prove how good I really was - steal Deathscythe, go to Earth, and create my own mission. So I did."
Heero nodded, trailing kisses along Duo's neck. "Good. I liked your Gundam. The pilot didn't turn out too bad, either."
Duo shivered slightly, leaning his head back. "You liked Deathscythe... yeah, for spare parts!" he said, eyes twinkling.
Heero licked the back of Duo's ear, sucking the fleshy earlobe into his mouth and nipping it with his teeth lightly. "I was on a mission," Heero said softly into Duo's ear.
"Yeah..." Duo breathed. "And what about now... what are *you* doing, Heero?" His body was reacting urgently to these intimate touches, disrupting his thought processes, making him forget what they were supposed to be doing.
Heero moved back, pulling Duo towards the bunks. Sitting down, he then pulled the braided pilot down to sit next to him. "Bunk test," he said.
'What, again?' Eligor quipped smugly. 'This guy's as bad as one of us...' The answering snickers were indulgent.
Duo was not paying attention. That low, husky tone in Heero's voice made his pulse race. It hit him again... how *not* in control of this he was. I never thought anyone would ever do this to me, Duo thought. He gave up trying to handle the situation. Heero wanted him. He gave up thoughts of going back to the bay right away and plunging into the surreal activity there. Leaning closer, he kissed Heero's beautiful mouth, tracing his lips, then offering his tongue. His hands crept into the Japanese boy's thick hair. The artifact would wait. Everything would wait.
Watching from the darkness, demons and imps stirred, with a mixture of pleasure, confusion and disbelief. It pushed the bounds of what was possible for the darkchild to tarry so, with his given task uncompleted, yet it appealed to them immensely. They looked to Astaroth, and the ebony demon gave his assent. Together, they could hold the compulsion at bay for a little longer. Perhaps even long enough.
End of Part 15 - TBC
What do you think?
bonnejeanne & vonceia
Please send comments to: bonnejeanne@yahoo.com or vonceia@yahoo.com