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© The various characters beside the few originals that will appear in this story are the copyrighted property of their various owners. The originals are the brain children of the author. That is that. Flames, comments, corrections, all that shinzit send it my way. You know the email by now ^.6
Another note: I HAVE NOT SEEN THE ENDLESS WALTZ!! Therefore in my happy little world it doesn’t exist. Thank you very much.
A final note: I barely know anything at all of Card Captors. I’m NOT
out to piss off any die-hard fans. I’m well on my way to getting there,
but all I know so far is that Li has a Heero complex and Meiling is too
much like Wufei for her own damn good. And thus began the madness. Forgive
my inability at writing decent Sakura fanfic, ‘cause I barely know anything
about it and haven’t found a good spoiler site yet ~.^
Duo Maxwell stared into his mirror. The same boy that had greeted him for the past seventeen years stared back at him. He had to admit that he’d grown up fine. When he looked at the mug shots from fifteen he had grown by leaps and bounds in only two years. Now he was living with Heero and it seemed as if life was finally settling down into something close to normalcy. Well, that was to say just about to close to normal as life could get for the pair of them both. He was a cross dressing singer at a local club and well liked at that, Heero was an assassin for hire and doing just fine in his rather lucrative business.
Duo was in no way ashamed of his trade. He’d tried normal jobs and they were easy enough, but cross dressing along with a little embezzlement from people who really didn’t need the money anyway made life a hell of a lot more interesting. As he stroked his thin fingers through his bangs in the background his radio turned on. It was set to alarm to remind him that he was supposed to be practicing his salsa routine. He’d taken up the Spanish dances just for fun but was getting to a point where he could dance professionally.
He slipped out onto the open floor of their shared room, his bare feet gliding with effortless grace over the wood paneling, keeping perfect time with the beat. His body shone, the sheen of sweat making his form glow. His eyes were always the brightest when he danced, no one would argue the point. It was the same way with Quatre when he was talking with people, Trowa in any case where he could use acrobatics, Wufei in any sort of a fight with a worthy adversary or Heero with a gun. They all had something that they excelled at, and he just happened to be able to dance better than anyone that he had known, knew, or ever would know.
As he thought of different people in their elements his thoughts drifted to his other friends and their recent exploits. As far as he knew, Quatre and Trowa had taken the plunge and gotten engaged and were to be married sometime soon. There was a running bet between he and Wufei over whether Quatre or Trowa would opt to wear a dress. As for their normal life, Trowa still traveled around with his circus and sister to some extent, but was home more often than not. Quatre had become quite the businessman and was prospering far beyond what anyone would have thought him capable of. Wufei himself wasn’t doing badly himself. He’d claimed the title of World’s Martial Arts Champion for the second time this year. He was defending that aspect of his life viscously. Duo refused to spar with him on the pretense that “Wu could break me like a flippin’ leaf!” And Heero was with him. As his Mexican friend down at the club would say, la vida es buena.
As the song moved into a faster beat he lost himself completely to the sultry rhythms of the Spanish guitar. Over everything else he was enthralled with Spanish music, the feel, the sound, and the emotion in it. It was everything that burned in his soul and then some. He didn’t even hear the door open until he caught a glimpse of Heero out of the corner of his eye. With a shrug and a wave over his shoulder Duo smiled.
“Ohayo Heero-chan! How was work?”
Duo watched with disinterest as Heero sat down on their bed and began removing all of the armor that he walked around in. After he had removed it all Duo almost laughed, because he’d lost about three inches in his overall body circumference. Yet he didn’t laugh too loudly. That armor had saved his koi from an untimely demise more times than he could count and he owned that padding a debt which he could honestly never repay. When Heero finally spoke, an outsider would think that it had been an unduly delayed reaction. The truth of the mater was simply that Heero took his time in what he would say and would not.
“Work was the same as always.”
As the last strains of music faded away Duo moved into the final pose of the dance with all of the seriousness and poise that a real dancer would have. And then he molded back into the goofy, bouncy boy that everyone knew.
“Really now? All that boring?”
Heero nodded. “And then some. It was horrid.”
Duo grinned at his ability to make Heero speak. It was a rare and coveted talent that very few possessed. He smiled at Heero and pulled off his shorts, sitting down next to his friend/boyfriend/lover/soon to be fiancée if he could get the balls to ask him…
“Awww, poor Heero. Bored by the mundane killing of regular, booooring people.”
Heero nodded enthusiastically. I grinned at him after planting and intentionally sloppy kiss on his lips.
“I’m making dinner tonight. Get a shower and be ready.”
He nodded, stripping as he went for the shower. He smiled at that sight and sighed his contentment. This was the perfect life for him. After all that he had been through, all that he had seen this was so entirely perfect that he couldn’t ask for anything better than what had been handed to him. He couldn’t ask for anything more than Heero. And the two weeks vacation that he had was always a plus too.
He knew that he ought not think the thought, the sacrilege to a soldier, but everything was perfect in that moment. He wished fondly that nothing at all would change or become different. Everyone was happy now. Could he see but a few hours into the future he would have changed his mind.
Somewhere entirely different a young woman sat in a tree. Her long red tresses trailed over her shoulders in a graceful ponytail. She sighed as she stared in the window of one Mr. Duo Maxwell. She wished that things could turn out different for him. Yet as it stood in that moment it looked like the poor boy was about to receive the cosmic bitch slap as it were. There was nothing that she could do to stop it anyway. She was simply watching, observing as one might through crystal clear glass. When Yuy paused in his shower and stared directly at her out of his window she shuddered inwardly. He was the one. This was going to be so complicated and unpleasant. She didn’t know why she was even bothering to start the cycle.
On a moment’s pause she amended that thought. She knew why she was starting the cycle again. She wanted to save Li from any more pain than he had already been through. And she wanted to save the boy that had eyes so much like her own. When she looked at Duo she saw herself.
“It is annoying being ten though…”
She paused again, a smile gracing her lips as the wind blew through the tree that she sat in, its leaves shade covering her delicate features. Her long, ornately patterned sleeves moved along with the same breeze. She stood, nodded to Yuy and then faded completely, out of sight and out of the very dimension itself.
Duo had made a dinner that was incomparable to any that he had previously cooked, and ever would cook. Upon later years of reflection both boys could sit back and look to that dinner and know that it was Duo’s best work of culinary art ever.
They lay together that night and a sense of uneasiness pervaded over the violet eyed boy’s mind.
“Heero, what do you have planned tomorrow?”
The short haired boy contemplated the ceiling, thinking about the question for a good long while.
“Well, I have to kill a minor dignitary. Other than that I’m free. Want to catch a movie?”
Duo laughed to hide his uneasiness. “Yeah, that sounds good. I say we catch a chick flick and see if it makes me cry. But…..Heero….promise me something kay?”
“nani?”
“Be careful tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“I just got a bad feeling about tomorrow.”
Heero nodded and smiled, leaning over to kiss his little lover and pull him to him. Once they were suitably intertwined with one and another he grinned.
“I promise. Sleep now Duo.”
Duo nodded and ducked his head under Heero’s chin, finding his
usual and most comfortable position as he curled up tightly next to the
man he loved and let his eyelids drop.
Outside the same woman sat, her violet eyes sad as she watched the lovers sleep together for the last time.
Heero was gone before the crack of dawn. When Duo woke up the next morning to find his boyfriend gone a long and sweeping sense of uneasiness washed over him. He felt mildly reassured when he saw that Heero had taken the vest with him that day.
It gave Duo panic attacks every time that Heero didn’t take the vest with him. He was wanted by several factions of the local Mafia and they had a lot more guns than one man would. When he looked on his own mental state he realized that he sounded exactly like a worried mother. That thought made him laugh, very deeply. The afternoon passed fairly quickly actually. The lazy summer heat made Duo close the apartment up and turn on the air conditioner. At the appointed time Heero showed up as promised. He went through the usual ritual of taking off the vest and putting it back on its hangar to wait for its next use.
After he had changed into a comfortable pair of shorts and one of his numerous green cotton tank tops he looked to Duo who was lounging about on the couch.
“So, what’s the movie that we watch this evening ne?”
He named off some film that had caught his eye this morning in the paper. It didn’t look too bad for all that it was reviewed as. With a smile he spoke to Heero.
“Well there’s romance for me and blood for you. It’s a user friendly film.”
Heero nodded, agreeing with his suggestion. Duo’s ego suffered a slight boost at the realization that he might have picked a film that they would both enjoy. As he smiled back at Heero all of his fears melted away and he scolded himself for sounding as paranoid as he had. The way that he had been thinking one would be led to believe that Heero would be murdered walking down the street. The very idea was ludicrous at best.
After a small scramble to get wallets, money and other things ready for departure the boys were off. The theater closest to them was in a walking distance of their apartment and so they decided to spare the air. Duo sauntered along next to the man he so adored, aware of the fact that Heero didn’t like public shows of affection and keeping his hands pretty much to himself. When Heero’s hand caught his own the smile on his face grew in width and diameter. For the rest of the way he walked tall and proud, swinging Heero’s hand with his own slightly and grinning like a moron.
When they got to the theater there was a large group together that arrived just before they did and then there was a redhead standing there looking rather lost. Duo sauntered up to her in line, looking playful and wanting to talk to someone. Heero was being ‘cuddly’ by his standards, but that didn’t mean that he was being talkative.
“Ohayo!”
A large pair of wide violet eyes stared into Duo’s own. He was hit by a flash of something very strange, almost deja vu. He blinked and found his grin. She smiled as well and replied.
“Hello.”
“What are you seeing?”
“That new movie, the one with a whole lot of blood in it.”
Duo smiled at her. She was a nice girl, and one he might go after, were he of a slightly different sexual preference. She stood level with him, her bright violet eyes inquisitively seeing and grasping everything around her, giving her the aspect of a grown-up child. She had red hair pulled into a high ponytail that fell in an almost crimson trial down her back between her shoulders to end at her mid-back. Interwoven into where the ponytail started there were two little charms, a sun and a moon, each on separate strings. She smiled sweetly as the group in front of her cleared up.
“I hope you enjoy the movie.”
They went through the motions of buying tickets and snacks and then got into the theater. The girl sat by herself toward the back. Duo had always loved sitting in front, and dragged Heero up several rows. They got settled and looked around. They were the only ones in the theater beside a sparse sprinkling of people around the theater.
For some reason Duo couldn’t shake the sinking, horrid feeling that had suddenly appeared in the pit of his stomach. He felt trapped.
“Ne Heero-kun..”
“Hn?”
“Do you really want to see this movie?”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to be here right now. I don’t feel well.”
“Probably too much sun. If you feel that bad then we’ll go home.”
Somewhere in the back of Duo’s mind an inarticulate voice whispered to him (You’re too late). Duo stood up, his wide eyes getting wider as he stared at the people set up through out the theater. They all looked quasi familiar, and then he realized. They were the people that had come in just before them. He grabbed Heero’s arm and pulled him up. The feeling inside him wrenched and in the same moment the silent air of the theater was shattered by the sound of bullets.
The only thing that Duo’s mind registered in those first few seconds were his old instincts. He dropped like a stone to the ground. He couldn’t understand why Heero wasn’t falling too. When he looked up and felt blood spray over his pale skin he realized why. Heero was stuck between the seats and was being fired on constantly. The rushing pulse in his ears wasn’t just the sound of his own heart beating, it was the sound of bullets ripping through the air. He stared with openmouthed horror as they just kept shooting him and shooting him and shooting him. They never stopped, it seemed as if it would never stop. Every gruesome detail was etched and burned into his mind, watching Heero’s lithe frame jerk and spasm as more and more lead ripped it’s way into his tender flesh.
His blood flew through the air like a crimson mist, dying the seats around him a darker shade than they had been. When the gunfire finally stopped Duo was in a state of complete shock. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t feel his body, only the wrenching of his heart. Something horrible had just happened to Heero. The vest, he hadn’t been wearing the vest. Dimly he was aware of a stinging sensation on his cheek. When he brought a trembling hand up to touch it, his fingertips came away moist with his own blood. In that moment his thoughts shifted completely from himself to Heero. He dragged his friend out of where he had been stuck and to the floor with him. He cradled the Japanese boy’s head in his lap, knowing that he was too full of holes to do anything for him.
Tears slunk silently down his cheeks and his pretty face was marred with the wrinkling worry of anxiety, stress, fear and grief.
“Don’t die koi-chan, please don’t die! There’s so much I have to tell you yet, and there’s something I need to ask you, you know? I wanted to know if you’d marry me? I have a ring and everything.”
A ragged sob ripped its way free from his throat. “You fucking stupid bastard!!! I told you to be careful today!”
His tears fell and mingled with the crimson wetness already soaking through Heero’s shirt. There was the sound of footsteps behind him. He honestly didn’t care who it was at that moment. He wasn’t even aware that his voice found it’s way out of his throat in a low, growling whisper.
“I swear to God, if you touch this boy then I’ll rip you apart with my bare hands. He’s been shot enough I think. If you’re going to shoot me then get it over with…”
He sunk his head down onto Heero’s shoulder, feeling the failing heart beat in his friend. “Just do it…so I can be with him…”
The world was already surreal and indistinct because of the lighting and shadows of the theater, not to mention the tears that fell freely from his eyes. Yet in a moment everything vanished completely. All that remained of the real world was Heero and himself. He could see a slight luminescent glow surrounding them both and paid it little mind. Somewhere in the back of his mind he seriously doubted that they were en route to heaven. There was too much blood, too much pain, Heero was still dying, and his strained and tortured muscles were tense and ridged. Each breath rattled from the blood collecting in his lungs as he fought to breath instinctually. With a detached feeling in every movement Duo leaned his head over and touched his cheek to Heero’s, whispering in the boy’s ear.
“Let go, just let go. I’ll be with you soon.”
He paused, letting the pain that he knew would come wash over him and then he continued.
“I love you much Heero, but just let go. You’re hurting and by so doing, you’re hurting me.”
He knew that Heero would never hurt him intentionally. By telling him that the situation caused him pain then Heero would do his subconscious best to remedy it, even if it meant dying.
As Duo looked out into the black again he realized that they were completely gone from the theater. There was one person with them in the void they had suddenly fallen into. It was the girl from earlier, only dressed in very odd clothing. Her eyes positively glowed as she stared at him.
/Duo Maxwell./
“What do you want?”
/I assume you’re not happy with what has occurred?/
He looked at her with rage flashing through his entire form. He was ready to kill her.
“Oh hell no I’m not! My boyfriend is dying in my arms after being so packed full of lead…” His voice caught in his throat for a moment and he choked, trying to find the words. “He’s so full of lead that I barely can tell who I’m holding.”
/It was destined to happen to Heero Yuy./
“WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN? NO ONE’S SUPPOSED TO BE THIS WAY!!!”
She nodded calmly, as if she had been expecting my exact reaction. /It was Heero Yuy’s destiny to die that way…however…..I can change it./
Duo stared at her, danger absolutely sparkling in his violet eyes. “What’s the catch?”
/Your lives will be amazingly different then they were./
“What do you mean our?”
/You and all of the Gundam pilots. Your friends were similarly killed in one way or the other today./
If Duo could have sunk down to the floor, or whatever he was sitting on any further he would have. Her story made no sense, but in some tucked away part of his heart he knew her words to be true.
“What’s the difference?”
She smiled sadly. /Instead of fighting with mecha you will be fighting with magic. You’ll grow up knowing nothing but your new lives. I’ll push this lifetime back into the back recesses of your minds, and you won’t know of them until you need to, and will need to choose./
“Choose what?”
/That I cannot tell you right now. However, I can promise you this Duo Maxwell, Heero Yuy Shaolan lives a much longer life than the Heero that resides in your lap. The choice is ultimately yours Maxwell. I’m just a guide./
Duo stared down at the still face of Heero, a single trail of blood flowing down from his semi-parted lips. With a slow and contemplative gesture he nodded, his very solemn eyes meeting the girl’s own.
“Before I say what I need to, I want to know something…what’s your name?”
She smiled gently, a sad and burdened gesture. /My name….my name is Miri. It’s not important though. I wish you good luck. Your final decision please?/
“Take us where you need to Miri. We’re resolved in our purpose.”
He stared down sadly at the limp form in his lap. With a delicate hand he stroked his fingers through Heero’s bloodstained hair.
“Ja ne koibito. I don’t think I’ll be seeing you again as you saw me for a long time.”
He hugged Heero’s still fairly solid shoulders. “It’ll be an adventure.”
Miri watched solemnly as a single tear slid down his cheek. “I’ll miss you Heero…”
A spectral and indescribable light moved over the scene, the red-haired girl standing sentinel to a tragedy, two lovers ripped apart and the abyss. As Duo stared into the light he felt halfway reassured. As the last vestiges of the Duo Maxwell that everyone knew faded from that plane his soft voice could be heard whispering.
“I’ll see you again Heero. I promise.”
<End Prologue>
Ogie Ji Ji, is this one worth a continue? I've got so many ideas that it will anyway, but it'll surely be interesting! I promise that you won't have to know that much about Card Captors to read it 'cause I don't know that much either :)))
Anyhow, early in the morning. time to go sleepy bye now :)))
-Kuri
