Disclaimer: The characters belong to Sotsu, Sunrise, Bandai Entertainment, I neither claim them nor certainly make any money off them!
Pairing: 6x2
Rating: Lemony in places
Time Setting: Post-series, three years later (minus events in Ground Zero, Blind Target, Endless Waltz as when I started this, I hadn't seen or read about these yet)
Summary: A chance meeting leads to the recovery of a wounded heart.
[Sometimes they regulate the temperature on these colonies too well,] Duo Maxwell thought, clutching his leather jacket closed as he maneuvered through the thinning after-work crowd on C-241, the largest colony in the L3 cluster. The regularly scheduled early evening rain, now ended, had seemed far too cold... or was it just that he was so thin and felt temperature changes too easily? Whatever, he was cold... and not looking where he was going.
Abruptly the stack of radio transmitters he was carrying back to his temporary home went flying as he walked smack into someone, and there was a moment of total confusion as he juggled three and tried in vain to recapture the other two. To his surprise, they did not go smashing onto the ground, but were plucked out of the air by his victim who apparently possessed very good reflexes.
But the bigger shock was when he straightened and saw the face of the man he'd walked into. "You!" he exclaimed, the blood draining out of his face. He'd seen the face once, but given who it was, it wasn't one he was likely to forget.
"Forgive me," the man with the long, platinum hair said gravely, barely looking at him as he handed back the transmitters. Long, pale lashes shuttered the ice-blue eyes. "Here you go." He seemed to be immune to being recognized or was used to pretending to be ignorant of his famous identity.
"Zechs," Duo muttered, still staring at him without taking the last two transmitters. "You're Zechs Merquise. I didn't know you were alive. Not that you deserve to be..."
Realization caused the ice-blue eyes to lift and narrow at him. It was peculiar to be recognized by that name. In fact, there was only a handful or two of people who had ever known to associate his full face with that particular name. Given the other man's probable age and considering he was a colonist, there was a high chance that this was a Gundam pilot! Zechs knew there were but three whom he'd never met face to face.
"A Gundam pilot would say something like that," he replied solemnly in his characteristic low, breathy voice. "Now, given that I would recognize Heero Yuy and Trowa Barton, and you don't appear Chinese... I would hazard that you're either Duo Maxwell or Quatre Raberba Winner."
Duo did not respond to that. He took the two radio transmitters back. "What are you doing here in the colonies, anyway?"
One white, elegant eyebrow was raised. "You think I would be welcome anywhere on Earth?"
"I wouldn't think you'd be welcome anywhere, after..." Duo left it hanging; the other man knew what he meant, though that was three years ago. After Zechs as leader of the White Fang colonial rebels attempted to destroy the Earth. "Well, whatever. Excuse me, some of us have lives to lead." He brushed past the blond man, but for some reason turned as he passed him to look back at him. Zechs Merquise... it really was him! Or Commander Milliardo Peacecraft of the White Fang, if anything of that entity was left. And at the moment the man had stilled so that he almost appeared as a statue, his head slightly bowed, eyes lowered. [Geez, it must be hell to be him... perhaps no one remembers him anyway. People are fickle...]
"Yes," Zechs murmured barely above a whisper, then moved finally to continue on his way.
"Wait," Duo said suddenly. "Can I ask you a question?" He looked sidelong at the man who slowly turned back to face him.
"I suppose so... let me guess, you want to know why." Zechs, he now noticed, looked tired and worn.
[How old is this guy anyway? Probably pushing thirty, I guess...] Duo wondered, then responded aloud. "Well, I know the theory - Heero told me, though it didn't make much sense to me at the time. Not sure it does now. Probably it doesn't matter any more."
Zechs looked into his eyes again, curious. [This one... Duo, I'm guessing. Pretty little thing in a hot-shot pilot sort of way, masculine but delicate. His eyes tell me he's lived as much life as I have, suffered and survived somewhat intact. I wonder...] "What did he tell you?" he asked.
Duo shrugged expansively. "Oh, just some shit about you trying to teach humanity to hate war so much it would never start another again. Excuse me, but it's just all idealistic crap like that total pacifism stuff your sister was touting. Humanity will probably never learn to avoid wars unless we evolve as a species in a hundred thousand years or something."
"You're probably right," Zechs admitted. "And I know that now. But at the time, the desperate measures I was taking seemed the only way to stop the insanity. Of course... I created insanity of my own." [Hmm, the young man has a good mind...]
The self-hatred in the man's voice took Duo aback. He'd expected haughty self-righteousness, not this despondent attitude. "Why am I standing here talking to you?" he asked suddenly.
"Was that your question?" Zechs asked flatly, his voice sounding dead.
"No! Hell, no, I was going to ask..." Duo scowled at him and juggled the transmitters some more. "What does a soldier do when there is no more fighting?"
Zechs just looked at the other pilot for a long moment before responding. [This fiery gamin of the streets piloted the Gundam Deathscythe,] he recalled. [I remember too well the example OZ and the colonies made of him when he was captured and his Gundam stripped from him and they tried to destroy it. Of all the Gundam pilots, Duo Maxwell has more reason than any to be wary of anyone he comes near.] Zechs wet his lips and replied slowly, "When there is no more fighting, the soldier must learn to live for reasons that do not involve violence... or else for him the battle will never end. If all his life is a battle, then he will never know peace."
Duo snorted. "More platitudes. Life *is* violence, Zechs! Even you should know that."
Zechs widened his eyes, hearing the bitter self-recrimination in Duo Maxwell's voice. [He, too, lived in hatred of what he's been and fears what he may become, trying to live in peace.] "I know the possibilities of violence. But there is another way of living. Most people never know hatred and never begin to fight. We are on the other side; we must lay down our implements of bloodshed and learn to live all over again."
"Have you?" Duo demanded, and in his voice was a note of desperation. It was the dilemma he himself had been searching to solve, the puzzle of the soldier in peacetime. Strangely, the others did not seem to have the same difficulty as he. [Heero's on the Earth, probably with that girl... Trowa's returned to his circus life... Wufei and Sally Po went to Earth to start a training facility for self-defense... Quatre's too busy being a billionaire, and poor Duo tried to go back to the Sweepers but has been miserable as shit every since... and my last friend, Hilde, finally died two years ago from her injuries from that accursed war. They've all moved on - why can't I?]
"Have I learned to live with peace?" Zechs snorted in derision. "I doubt it, since what I'm doing can barely be called living." He looked up at the high arc of the colony outer shell, the "sky". "I've been here four months, longer than anywhere else in the colonies. Paradoxically I have come to love them and the people all the more though I do not yet seem to fit in. Perhaps I never will. I have no connection here. But I strangely cling to this life, looking for my answers, and mostly existing from day to day."
The melancholy that seemed to roll off the tall man pierced Duo's heart despite his wariness around him. [Well, he's repented, that much is clear... but he seems to be spinning his wheels as much as I am. Hmmm...] He looked up into Zechs's face, noticing for the first time that he was actually quite young, possibly no more than four or five years older than himself. And... [I'd noticed he was good-looking when I first saw him, but seeing Zechs for real... up close... he's just plain gorgeous. Why isn't he with Noin?] Then he thought he knew: [He'd hurt her too much by then...]
"Existing," Duo muttered. "I know what that's like. That's what I've been doing, too."
Zechs met Duo's gaze again. Somehow there was a minute spark of understanding that passed between them. "Duo," he said, naming him for the first time, "if I help you carry those transmitters home, will you let me buy you dinner? No strings attached - It just may help to talk to another."
The meaning was avidly clear - "another" meant another Gundam pilot, another who'd been in the thick of that war as they had. Duo gulped, realizing that Zechs had figured out which one he was. [Talk can't hurt, might even be a nice change,] he thought, measuring up the other man. [And he doesn't seem violent or insane right now, so...] "Sure - if you're paying, sure, why not? I'm not too proud - yet - to turn down a free meal." He chuckled, but not humorously, more like wryly. It had been a while since he'd had a meal of any real substance.
Zechs let his gaze take in the slender form of the young man again. [He probably needs it. I wonder what his life is really like? How is he coping or is he doing what I am doing - existing?] "Very well..." He took another of the transmitters from Duo, then gestured for him to lead the way.
As they walked toward Duo's studio apartment, Duo began chatting on a variety of subjects - what he thought the other pilots were up to, what he thought of the new government on Earth, how the local politics of L3 irritated him, and so on. The chatter was actually welcome. Zechs did not interface with many on a personal level these days.
Duo did not invite him in, but threw the transmitters onto a stuffed chair just inside the door of his apartment, shut it, then began listing the local eateries that were available. Zechs considered which might have healthier offerings and suggested one.
"Bleccch," Duo made a noise. "Green stuff." Then he named a restaurant that leaned toward hefty meat entrees which promised to be a little more pricey, given that beef and pork were at a premium in the colonies.
Zechs found himself smiling. Money was no object to him; after the war Relena had informed him that the Peacecraft assets that the Dorlans had managed all these years were largely in his name, though she had a substantial trust herself off which to live. He himself ate as he always did, more to maintain his physique than for pleasure, though he had been quite the epicurean in his more aristocratic days. It was a soldier's habit he still possessed, keeping himself in shape for battle as best he could, though there had been some permanent nerve damage as a result of that final one. But there were no battles anymore.
"That will be satisfactory," Zechs murmured as Duo looked at him questioningly.
Duo fell silent as they took a cab to the restaurant; he'd have walked, but as they were leaving his apartment, he noticed for the first time that Zechs walked with a slight limp. [He was probably severely injured in that explosion!] he realized, wondering why he hadn't thought of that before.
Zechs, too, was lost for a moment in his thoughts. [I suppose we will have a pleasant discussion of the trials of surviving wars, eat a good dinner, and then part ways forever,] he mused. Yet there was a freshness and a fire in this young pilot that he found appealing. [It would be the height of arrogance to contemplate getting to know Duo better, much less...] He winced. [No, there can be no relationship. Everyone I've allowed near me has been hurt. Besides, he would never... not with me.]
"Zechs?" a voice broke into his reverie. "We're here."