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Cloneness.
last entry:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/askerian/93022.html
Heero had been guiding Duo to the weapons cache for hours now, and the clone didn't look like he wanted to slow down anytime soon. Duo grunted in annoyance. It was hot, he was tired, he was lagging behind, and the gun was starting to dig into his waist. All in one, not a particularly good day.
"Jesus, buddy, don't ya run down?"
The Soldier paused, noticing how far Duo was and mercifully deciding to wait for him. "...Run down?" he asked.
"Yeah... I'm only human, buddy. I don't run off batteries like you."
The clone frowned. "I don't run off batteries. Are you tired already?"
Duo didn't like the disbelieving tone. He was only human after all. "Yeah, well, you've been at this pace since we started an' if I don't take a breather, I'm gonna drop."
Heero blinked. "You're slower than I thought. We aren't going to come back before late in the night at this rate."
Duo glared at him. What a prick. "Well, excuse me for not bein' a cold-blooded Soldier! An' I told my kids I'd be gone. It'll be okay..."
"My blood isn't cold either. It's the same temperature as yours."
He looked confused, and Duo grunted again. He always forgot how literal the guy was. "It's a figure 'o speech, buddy."
"Oh."
Man, it was like he was from another planet sometimes.
Duo was grateful when he saw that the clone was looking around for a place to hide and get some rest.
"Do you need long?" Heero asked over his shoulder as he found a corner out of the way.
"Just a bit of a break. Don't ya ever take one of those?" the scavenger asked, following him, and sat in the shade against some rubble. "Shit... it's so hot..." he complained, wiping his forehead dry of sweat. The shade helped some, but just enough to make Duo fully realize how awful the temperature under the sun really was. They had to be crazy to travel during that time of the day...
A faint clatter of pebbles falling down a wall made him open his eyes again. The clone had taken guard on top of a broken wall. Which would have bee very commendable and not something worth stopping enjoying his dark little corner, except that the stupid clone was right in the sun and didn't seem to care. Duo felt ready to faint just looking at him.
"Don't ya feel that, man?"
"The temperature?" the clone confirmed with a puzzled blink. "I feel it."
"But ain't ya HOT? You're in the fuckin' SUN!" Duo insisted.
"We were engineered not to be hindered by such temperatures. It has to be higher than that to render me unable to function."
Duo snorted. Nowhere in that rehashed little speech was a mention that he actually liked being subjected to the heat. "Those were the war rules, right? You're the guy who told me there weren't no war no more. So sit in the shade, dammit. You're making me sweat just lookin' at ya."
"...If you insist," Heero replied, as if he couldn't figure out why Duo would bother but didn't want to argue. He went to lean against the wall by Duo's side, still watching their surroundings. The longhaired man wondered if he could stay even two minutes without being on alert. Ah well. Not his problem. He slumped against the cool bricks and closed his eyes, enjoying every patch of cold he could rub on.
"I may have forgotten to mention that this cache is on the territory of another gang."
Duo blinked blearily, startled out of his semi-comatose state. "Well, that's not so surprisin'," he commented tiredly. "D'ya know their name?"
The clone shook his head negatively. "I didn't stop to ask," he replied, massaging his shoulder over the barcode tattoo absently. Duo wondered if it actually hurt or if it was just a habit.
"Shit... well, I suppose if we avoid 'em, it won't be so bad... An' I can haul ass when I need to."
"They will probably recognize me if they see me. Even with the hood."
Duo straightened up against the wall, narrowing his eyes. "What? Why?"
"One of them saw my face and the whole gang hunted me for two days before I managed to lose them. I didn't change clothes since then."
Duo grunted, scowling. That complicated things. People would do a lot more to get rid of a military guy than they'd bother to do for a normal guy. And the threat of a live Clone could probably be enough to push rival gangs to ally themselves against it. "Well, that was stupid," he commented.
"Should I remind you where my spare clothes are now?" the clone asked, glancing at him.
Was that a hint of sarcasm? It was promising. Duo didn't comment, though. If it was an embryonic sense of humor, he didn't want to kill it before it could develop a little. Now how could he fix that...
"They'd have to be real close to recognize your face. So they saw mostly your clothes?"
"And my body type," the clone confirmed. "And the way I move. I think that's enough to recognize me."
Duo frowned thoughtfully for a few seconds, then found a possible solution. "... Then let's switch gear. We can trade clothes easy. It'll help throw 'em off. Gangs are usually on drugs half the time anyway," he added under his breath. He doubted they'd all be in a state to properly recognize anything.
The clone considered the offer cautiously. "That works, as long as you give them back later. My clothes are in better condition than yours. I'm not giving them away."
Duo snorted. "Fine, fine. I'm sorry I don't got as nice threads as yours," he replied snidely as he pushed against the wall to get up. Well, hurry up, we ain't got all day."
Heero pulled his shirt over his head as Duo stood and started to strip. When he unzipped his cargo pants and stepped out of them, Duo noticed the other barcodes, one on his hip on the opposite side of the shoulder and one on the thigh, on the opposite side from the hip tattoo. He hadn't known that military types got more than one tattoo... that and even though it represented something he hated with all his being, the placement of these wasn't really ugly. In fact it emphasized-- eek. Don't go there, man.
As they exchanged clothes, Heero caught Duo watching and arched an eyebrow. The scavenger looked away, a bit embarrassed.
"It's my serial number," the clone offered quietly. "On opposite sides of the body in case they only find pieces."
Duo blinked. "... Serial...? Shit, they brand ya like cattle or some shit?" he asked, aghast.
Heero nodded as if that was nothing special. "They have to. We look identical, unless we get scarred in a mission. And we don't scar easily."
"That's... that's fuckin' creepy. They call ya by numbers, too?" He was barely surprised when the Soldier nodded. "Don't expect more from those government whackjobs," the scavenger muttered as he pulled Heero's pants up his hips.
"Yes. My number is 01-49-754. ... But I prefer Heero," the clone added. He had a weird expression on his face, but Duo didn't manage to interpret it before it disappeared.
"Ya choose the name yerself?" he asked. He didn't want the clone to focus on the number and what it represented.
"No. Odin did."
That Odin guy kept coming back in the conversation. The scavenger nodded eve as he sat down again, taking an attentive expression to encourage the clone to share more.
"He called me Ichiro at first, because it means first son and I was number one of my series, but after a while he shortened it into Heero. I... like it. I'm the only one called like this."
Oh god. It should have been forbidden for a killer clone to sound so heartbreakingly unsure. Duo tried to beat down his protective instinct. "Who is this Odin guy ya keep talkin' about? One of the government cronies?"
"A trainer. Captain in the army."
Huh. Weird that an army guy would treat a Soldier like a kid and not a weapon... "Why'd he pick ya out then? He give this talk to all the Soldiers?"
Heero blinked. "No... Just me. I still don't know why. I still don't know why he thought I was anything special," he added, staring at his feet. He looked so lost that, for a second, Duo felt out of balance. Goddammit, he needed to remember that as frail emotionally as he looked now, the man could still break him in half with barely a sweat if ever Duo looked at him the wrong way.
But it sounded like Heero had things to get off his chest. And he really wanted to learn more.
"... How d'you met him?"
"He was responsible for the sniper training. Wilderness survival too. He wouldn't socialize with the other officers, so he spent time in the barracks."
"Why didn't he wanna stay with the others? And he socialized with you lot, then?"
The clone actually snorted, and Duo arched an eyebrow. Now that was definitely sarcasm. "Soldiers don't socialize. He... was angry at the higher-up, I think. So he stayed in the barracks most of the time. He didn't want to train us. He didn't like the clones, though he disliked the higher-ups more. But his skills were too invaluable not to transmit and he had to come."
Duo snorted quietly. "Right. That just means they blackmailed him or put a gun to his head to make him keep trainin' ya."
Heero was looking at his feet as if it was the first time he'd noticed them. "It was orders. He obeyed."
"Yeah, well, here's another thing ya gotta learn about the real world... people don't like orders. Sure, people follow 'em if they gotta, but when push comes to shove, people don't listen if they've got a mind not to. It takes a threat to keep 'em in line."
"...hmm," the clone replied as if taking what Duo told him in to think on it later. "Are you rested now?"
"Yeah, I'm good," the scavenger sighed and got on his feet. "Hey..."
"Yes?"
"Ya said that gang knew how ya moved? Whatcha mean by that exactly?"
"How I walk," the clone replied with a confused blink. "I was told that it's rather distinctive. Odin said it looked military."
"Well... yeah, I can see that, no that ya mention it. Ya don't act like ya come from around here. Actin' different gets ya in trouble."
Heero frowned. "But I don't know any other way to be," he replied, but then seemed to decide that this subject of conversation was pointless. "Let's go now," he decided as he started to walk away.
Duo grabbed Heero's shoulder. "Hey, wait."
The clone tensed under his hand and gave him a quick frown. Duo let go discretely, not wanting to look like he was scared. He had a feeling he'd come close to having his arm broken.
"Ya can be whoever ya damn well want, but... can't ya change the way ya walk? At least right now? Like... uhhh..." He paused to think. "... An infiltration mission. Ya gotta blend in or you'll be exposed."
Heero seemed to understand and nodded. "Ryoukai."
"R- what? Dude, speak English, yo."
"Roger."
Duo made a disgusted face. "That's another thing to learn. How to talk like a real person."
"English isn't the first language I was taught."
The braided man rolled his eyes. "All your military shit will get ya is a bullet through the back of the head. Look, around here, anything that even SMELLS like military is dangerous. It's like paintin' a target on your back, got it?"
Heero sighed quietly, looking vaguely annoyed. "Before you I have never stopped long enough to say more than three sentences to anyone. They never noticed me because of that."
"Okay, well... try to walk like ya ain't military, okay?"
"I will."
Duo moved fluidly, sticking near shadows and cover, alert and looking around, but still trying to present himself as a non-target, someone not worth anyone's time. After a few minutes, he noticed that the clone was copying him, trying to adapt Duo's way of walking so that it didn't feel too unnatural to him. It was uncanny how quick it came to him, and Duo decidedly didn't like to feel like he was trailed by a living shadow. Maybe if he heard his voice it wouldn't seem so freaky.
"So... I been wonderin'... where the hell're ya from? Ya been travelin' all over?"
The clone stayed silent for a while, and the scavenger believed that he didn't want to keep chatting while walking, but finally he relented.
"More or less. If you find a map, I can show you..." he added, slowly, as if testing the words. Duo had a feeling that he was training himself to have an actual conversation.
"Okay, so that's a big fat no," he said with a snort. "I only know this immediate area, and a few places here an' there."
"Oh. you never traveled?"
"Too dangerous to travel alone, an' there ain't no way I'm movin' my kids now that's we've found a decent place. I traveled," he added, "but not much farther than the next city or so. That was before the kids."
The clone looked thoughtful for a few seconds.
"If they were older I would say that taking them in a wild area, out of town, would be less dangerous, but it's different to hunt through trees and bushes. And the animals don't react the same way. In the other hand it's easier to find a place where no one else would find you."
Duo hesitated, reluctant to let the question he wanted to ask actually slip out of his mouth. Just asking was hoping for a favorable answer, something he hadn't allowed himself to count on, and he was scared of the answer.
" ... So there's... no cities left at all?" he asked, fighting to keep a blank, uninterested tone. "No... groups of people?" His heart was beating hard, and he told himself not to hope; he had to be able to deal alone. He couldn't start hoping for help.
"A few, but they're all like this town, sometimes worse."
There, he'd been right to tell himself not to hope. It still hurt to see the frail wish crumble. He sighed quietly and shook his head, telling himself to forget it. "... an' here I hoped I'd find a safe place, someplace better for my kids..."
"I didn't find a place where old laws still held yet. No civilization, only gangs without rules."
Duo sighed again. "Anarchy."
"That's the word I was searching for."
"But no... towns? Anything like a community?"
Heero shook his head. "Not that I found. Maybe a few villages out of the way somewhere... but I think they would be wary of strangers and wouldn't accept a horde of children easily."
The braided man let his shoulders slump, depressed. "I can teach my kids to survive, ya know? But I hoped... maybe there'd be... a place for them... better than this. They don't deserve this."
They kept walking in silence for a long moment. Duo didn't notice, just followed the clone, lost in thought.
Then Heero spoke again.
"I can travel and find a place, and come back to guide you. If... if you'll let me stay...?"
The scavenger stopped walking and stared at his back suspiciously. The clone had stopped too, but apart from a quick glance over his shoulder, he didn't look back at Duo again.
"Why the hell would ya do that? Ain't nothin' in it for ya. I thought my kids made ya feel weird anyway," he added, puzzled. It would be too good to be true if he did, which was why Duo refused to believe that there wasn't a hidden goal in the proposition. He'd learned fast enough not to trust an outsider.
The clone looked like he wanted to talk several times, but he didn't say anything for a few seconds. Duo scowled sternly.
"I. I. Yes, but-- I could get used to it."
The braided man relented, giving him an encouraging look. "Why would ya want to bother getting used to my kids? Explain why."
"I was never alone before. There were the other clones. And the officers. There was Odin. Most of them didn't talk to me -- there wasn't any reason to-- but they were here. And now they're not. I--lack something, I think."
Duo felt a strange smile on his lips. "You're lonely," he explained quietly.
The clone blinked, startled, then seemed to consider the word carefully.
"That's what it is. It's like bein' alone... but not."
"... Yes, I think so," he finally agreed, giving Duo a confused look.
Duo shook his head, vaguely amused, but in a way that wasn't that funny when you thought too long about it. "Shit. They taught ya practically shit nothin'. Ya can kill a guy a hundred different ways, but ya don't know that yer lonely."
Heero frowned a little at him. "Well, I wasn't before. It's... emotions. I didn't feel that before."
Because he couldn't feel that. Right. That was so messed up.
"I want Odin to be here, but he's not. Sometimes there are things I want to ask about. Once, I turned to ask him something, and I didn't remember that he was dead. Then I felt --weird. He had been dead for a while. I don't know why I forgot."
Duo started and gaped at him. "Wait... you told me you're lookin' for this Odin guy, right?"
Heero nodded. "I want to find where he died."
"Waitwaitwait. So you know he's dead, and you wanna go and see him anyway? Fuck... You mean... you're lookin' for the grave of a dead guy an' ya don't know where it is?"
Heero shrugged. "I have nothing else to do now. I know the general area."
"So where is it? Far from here?"
"A hundred miles or so."
Duo whistled. "Farther than I've ever been..."
"I was farther when I began. I've been walking for two years."
The scavenger stopped dead in his tracks and stared at Heero. "T-two YEARS?!"
Heero arched an eyebrow, apparently surprised by his reaction. "... yes. Why?"
Duo frowned back at him. "So you've walked all this way... to find the grave of a dead guy... just for shits? Jesus, buddy, an' people call ME crazy!"
Heero shrugged and looked away. "I don't really plan to on arrive there. I just hoped I'd find something else to do along the way. What else was I supposed to do? Stay where I was and do nothing else but fight off people coming to destroy army property?"
"Well... I guess not."
"How was I going to find anything new if I stayed there?" the clone continued, apparently not even registering Duo's capitulation.
"Okay... ya can kick it with me. IF you're not gonna snap and kill us all in the middle of the night or nothin'," he amended, his tone stern.
Puzzled, the clone faced him. "Kick what?"
Duo rolled his eyes. "Figure of speech."
"...oh."
"It means, ya can stay with me an' the kids. But I still don't trust ya yet," he added, narrowing his eyes.
The Soldier froze, then turned to face Duo slowly, his eyes widening a little. The expression would have been subtle on anyone else, but on him it screamed astonishment. "... but I can stay?"
"Ya take me to this cache ya found, then I'll decide from there," Duo amended. He knew already that barring an explosion of temper, he was going to take that weird overgrown, emotionally stunted ex-killer home.
"I could use some help with those anklebiters anyway," he muttered with a fatalistic shrug.
"They bite your ankles?"
Duo slapped a hand to his forehead. "Figure o' speech! Refers to their height."
He heard a laugh and stared at the other man, startled. As if surprised by the sounds coming from his own throat, the clone suddenly stopped, blinking owlishly. It was as if he'd never laughed before.
"... Huh... I guess yer human somewhere under there after all."
Heero gave him a cold look, his happy expression disappearing. "I am human. Genetically engineered, but human. Just... designed to be some way instead of left to chance."
Duo shrugged. "But ya laughed."
The clone turned away. "Hurry up. You're slow."
"Yeah, but I'm breathin'," Duo quipped back, not knowing what else to say.
There was another long moment of climbing over piles of rubble, and at one moment they even had to slide down in a sewer whose roof --the street-- had been shredded open. The curved walls were like a canyon, penning them in, and made Duo nervous; it would be hard to climb out of here if they were attacked from above. There was some dirty water at the very bottom, and a few blades of grass here and there in the thick, stinky mud. It was hard not to slip, and Duo was glad when they crawled through a secondary tunnel and climbed a ladder to go back to surface level.
"How did you find the children?"
Heero's voice was neutral again, all offense disappeared. Duo hurried a little to walk at his side in the quiet alley.
"Oh, here an' there. Most of 'em were abandoned ya know, or their parents were killed. I started when I was travelin'. I picked up one straggler, an' it just kept happenin. They call me the Pied Piper," he added with a snort.
"The what?"
Amused, the braided man gave Heero a little smile. "It's an old fairy tale. I tell it to my kids."
"Oh. What's a fairy tale?"
"Uhh... it's a story. A real old story from way back before there was the war. Like, with magic an' castles, an' knights and damsels in distress. Stuff like that."
The short-haired man blinked, then snorted in mild contempt. "Magic."
Duo mock-scowled at him. "Hey, don't diss it."
"Magic isn't logical. It doesn't even exist."
"How do ya know? Ya ain't seen everything, have ya?
"It goes against the laws of physics," Heero explained patiently, as if he was willing to put up with Duo's weirdness but still found him utterly illogical and maybe even a little touched in the head.
"Maybe there WAS magic, but it went away when science butted in."
Heero looked dubious.
"An' it makes my kids happy. So I say, let there be magic."
"... Then it's fine, I guess," the Soldier conceded.
"It gives them hope," Duo commented softly. "I'd rather have my kids go to sleep an' dream about castles an' dragons an' princesses, instead o' death an' danger an' what they're gonna eat tomorrow. Maybe magic ain't real, but that's not the point. It's givin' people hope, imagination... somethin' better to believe in." He kicked a rock, his voice turning bitter. "Not that it can get any worse than this."
At his side, the clone lowered his eyes, his face hidden behind his bangs.
"I'll find a place. And things to take there."
"Huh?"
"...if I can stay... I'll find you somewhere to live. Somewhere safe. Do you want that?"
Duo stumbled and straightened up, only to stare at Heero again. He'd said something like that earlier, but it hadn't registered. And now it sounded like he really meant it.
"Y-yeah... yeah, I'd like that. If you'd look, ya can stay. But I don't take no slackers, so ya gotta pull yer weight!" he added gruffly to cover up his sudden, ill-placed hope.
Heero nodded easily. "I don't like being idle anyway."
"Why not?" Damn, if he could get away with lazing about doing nothing, then he would.
"Then I want to think, and I don't understand what I'm thinking about."
Duo started to laugh. "Right. Well, ya can always ask me. It's good practice and I'm used to it 'cuz o' the kids."
It was only when Heero nodded, almost eagerly, that he wondered if what he'd just offered wouldn't end up ruining his patience and sanity.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/askerian/93022.html
Heero had been guiding Duo to the weapons cache for hours now, and the clone didn't look like he wanted to slow down anytime soon. Duo grunted in annoyance. It was hot, he was tired, he was lagging behind, and the gun was starting to dig into his waist. All in one, not a particularly good day.
"Jesus, buddy, don't ya run down?"
The Soldier paused, noticing how far Duo was and mercifully deciding to wait for him. "...Run down?" he asked.
"Yeah... I'm only human, buddy. I don't run off batteries like you."
The clone frowned. "I don't run off batteries. Are you tired already?"
Duo didn't like the disbelieving tone. He was only human after all. "Yeah, well, you've been at this pace since we started an' if I don't take a breather, I'm gonna drop."
Heero blinked. "You're slower than I thought. We aren't going to come back before late in the night at this rate."
Duo glared at him. What a prick. "Well, excuse me for not bein' a cold-blooded Soldier! An' I told my kids I'd be gone. It'll be okay..."
"My blood isn't cold either. It's the same temperature as yours."
He looked confused, and Duo grunted again. He always forgot how literal the guy was. "It's a figure 'o speech, buddy."
"Oh."
Man, it was like he was from another planet sometimes.
Duo was grateful when he saw that the clone was looking around for a place to hide and get some rest.
"Do you need long?" Heero asked over his shoulder as he found a corner out of the way.
"Just a bit of a break. Don't ya ever take one of those?" the scavenger asked, following him, and sat in the shade against some rubble. "Shit... it's so hot..." he complained, wiping his forehead dry of sweat. The shade helped some, but just enough to make Duo fully realize how awful the temperature under the sun really was. They had to be crazy to travel during that time of the day...
A faint clatter of pebbles falling down a wall made him open his eyes again. The clone had taken guard on top of a broken wall. Which would have bee very commendable and not something worth stopping enjoying his dark little corner, except that the stupid clone was right in the sun and didn't seem to care. Duo felt ready to faint just looking at him.
"Don't ya feel that, man?"
"The temperature?" the clone confirmed with a puzzled blink. "I feel it."
"But ain't ya HOT? You're in the fuckin' SUN!" Duo insisted.
"We were engineered not to be hindered by such temperatures. It has to be higher than that to render me unable to function."
Duo snorted. Nowhere in that rehashed little speech was a mention that he actually liked being subjected to the heat. "Those were the war rules, right? You're the guy who told me there weren't no war no more. So sit in the shade, dammit. You're making me sweat just lookin' at ya."
"...If you insist," Heero replied, as if he couldn't figure out why Duo would bother but didn't want to argue. He went to lean against the wall by Duo's side, still watching their surroundings. The longhaired man wondered if he could stay even two minutes without being on alert. Ah well. Not his problem. He slumped against the cool bricks and closed his eyes, enjoying every patch of cold he could rub on.
"I may have forgotten to mention that this cache is on the territory of another gang."
Duo blinked blearily, startled out of his semi-comatose state. "Well, that's not so surprisin'," he commented tiredly. "D'ya know their name?"
The clone shook his head negatively. "I didn't stop to ask," he replied, massaging his shoulder over the barcode tattoo absently. Duo wondered if it actually hurt or if it was just a habit.
"Shit... well, I suppose if we avoid 'em, it won't be so bad... An' I can haul ass when I need to."
"They will probably recognize me if they see me. Even with the hood."
Duo straightened up against the wall, narrowing his eyes. "What? Why?"
"One of them saw my face and the whole gang hunted me for two days before I managed to lose them. I didn't change clothes since then."
Duo grunted, scowling. That complicated things. People would do a lot more to get rid of a military guy than they'd bother to do for a normal guy. And the threat of a live Clone could probably be enough to push rival gangs to ally themselves against it. "Well, that was stupid," he commented.
"Should I remind you where my spare clothes are now?" the clone asked, glancing at him.
Was that a hint of sarcasm? It was promising. Duo didn't comment, though. If it was an embryonic sense of humor, he didn't want to kill it before it could develop a little. Now how could he fix that...
"They'd have to be real close to recognize your face. So they saw mostly your clothes?"
"And my body type," the clone confirmed. "And the way I move. I think that's enough to recognize me."
Duo frowned thoughtfully for a few seconds, then found a possible solution. "... Then let's switch gear. We can trade clothes easy. It'll help throw 'em off. Gangs are usually on drugs half the time anyway," he added under his breath. He doubted they'd all be in a state to properly recognize anything.
The clone considered the offer cautiously. "That works, as long as you give them back later. My clothes are in better condition than yours. I'm not giving them away."
Duo snorted. "Fine, fine. I'm sorry I don't got as nice threads as yours," he replied snidely as he pushed against the wall to get up. Well, hurry up, we ain't got all day."
Heero pulled his shirt over his head as Duo stood and started to strip. When he unzipped his cargo pants and stepped out of them, Duo noticed the other barcodes, one on his hip on the opposite side of the shoulder and one on the thigh, on the opposite side from the hip tattoo. He hadn't known that military types got more than one tattoo... that and even though it represented something he hated with all his being, the placement of these wasn't really ugly. In fact it emphasized-- eek. Don't go there, man.
As they exchanged clothes, Heero caught Duo watching and arched an eyebrow. The scavenger looked away, a bit embarrassed.
"It's my serial number," the clone offered quietly. "On opposite sides of the body in case they only find pieces."
Duo blinked. "... Serial...? Shit, they brand ya like cattle or some shit?" he asked, aghast.
Heero nodded as if that was nothing special. "They have to. We look identical, unless we get scarred in a mission. And we don't scar easily."
"That's... that's fuckin' creepy. They call ya by numbers, too?" He was barely surprised when the Soldier nodded. "Don't expect more from those government whackjobs," the scavenger muttered as he pulled Heero's pants up his hips.
"Yes. My number is 01-49-754. ... But I prefer Heero," the clone added. He had a weird expression on his face, but Duo didn't manage to interpret it before it disappeared.
"Ya choose the name yerself?" he asked. He didn't want the clone to focus on the number and what it represented.
"No. Odin did."
That Odin guy kept coming back in the conversation. The scavenger nodded eve as he sat down again, taking an attentive expression to encourage the clone to share more.
"He called me Ichiro at first, because it means first son and I was number one of my series, but after a while he shortened it into Heero. I... like it. I'm the only one called like this."
Oh god. It should have been forbidden for a killer clone to sound so heartbreakingly unsure. Duo tried to beat down his protective instinct. "Who is this Odin guy ya keep talkin' about? One of the government cronies?"
"A trainer. Captain in the army."
Huh. Weird that an army guy would treat a Soldier like a kid and not a weapon... "Why'd he pick ya out then? He give this talk to all the Soldiers?"
Heero blinked. "No... Just me. I still don't know why. I still don't know why he thought I was anything special," he added, staring at his feet. He looked so lost that, for a second, Duo felt out of balance. Goddammit, he needed to remember that as frail emotionally as he looked now, the man could still break him in half with barely a sweat if ever Duo looked at him the wrong way.
But it sounded like Heero had things to get off his chest. And he really wanted to learn more.
"... How d'you met him?"
"He was responsible for the sniper training. Wilderness survival too. He wouldn't socialize with the other officers, so he spent time in the barracks."
"Why didn't he wanna stay with the others? And he socialized with you lot, then?"
The clone actually snorted, and Duo arched an eyebrow. Now that was definitely sarcasm. "Soldiers don't socialize. He... was angry at the higher-up, I think. So he stayed in the barracks most of the time. He didn't want to train us. He didn't like the clones, though he disliked the higher-ups more. But his skills were too invaluable not to transmit and he had to come."
Duo snorted quietly. "Right. That just means they blackmailed him or put a gun to his head to make him keep trainin' ya."
Heero was looking at his feet as if it was the first time he'd noticed them. "It was orders. He obeyed."
"Yeah, well, here's another thing ya gotta learn about the real world... people don't like orders. Sure, people follow 'em if they gotta, but when push comes to shove, people don't listen if they've got a mind not to. It takes a threat to keep 'em in line."
"...hmm," the clone replied as if taking what Duo told him in to think on it later. "Are you rested now?"
"Yeah, I'm good," the scavenger sighed and got on his feet. "Hey..."
"Yes?"
"Ya said that gang knew how ya moved? Whatcha mean by that exactly?"
"How I walk," the clone replied with a confused blink. "I was told that it's rather distinctive. Odin said it looked military."
"Well... yeah, I can see that, no that ya mention it. Ya don't act like ya come from around here. Actin' different gets ya in trouble."
Heero frowned. "But I don't know any other way to be," he replied, but then seemed to decide that this subject of conversation was pointless. "Let's go now," he decided as he started to walk away.
Duo grabbed Heero's shoulder. "Hey, wait."
The clone tensed under his hand and gave him a quick frown. Duo let go discretely, not wanting to look like he was scared. He had a feeling he'd come close to having his arm broken.
"Ya can be whoever ya damn well want, but... can't ya change the way ya walk? At least right now? Like... uhhh..." He paused to think. "... An infiltration mission. Ya gotta blend in or you'll be exposed."
Heero seemed to understand and nodded. "Ryoukai."
"R- what? Dude, speak English, yo."
"Roger."
Duo made a disgusted face. "That's another thing to learn. How to talk like a real person."
"English isn't the first language I was taught."
The braided man rolled his eyes. "All your military shit will get ya is a bullet through the back of the head. Look, around here, anything that even SMELLS like military is dangerous. It's like paintin' a target on your back, got it?"
Heero sighed quietly, looking vaguely annoyed. "Before you I have never stopped long enough to say more than three sentences to anyone. They never noticed me because of that."
"Okay, well... try to walk like ya ain't military, okay?"
"I will."
Duo moved fluidly, sticking near shadows and cover, alert and looking around, but still trying to present himself as a non-target, someone not worth anyone's time. After a few minutes, he noticed that the clone was copying him, trying to adapt Duo's way of walking so that it didn't feel too unnatural to him. It was uncanny how quick it came to him, and Duo decidedly didn't like to feel like he was trailed by a living shadow. Maybe if he heard his voice it wouldn't seem so freaky.
"So... I been wonderin'... where the hell're ya from? Ya been travelin' all over?"
The clone stayed silent for a while, and the scavenger believed that he didn't want to keep chatting while walking, but finally he relented.
"More or less. If you find a map, I can show you..." he added, slowly, as if testing the words. Duo had a feeling that he was training himself to have an actual conversation.
"Okay, so that's a big fat no," he said with a snort. "I only know this immediate area, and a few places here an' there."
"Oh. you never traveled?"
"Too dangerous to travel alone, an' there ain't no way I'm movin' my kids now that's we've found a decent place. I traveled," he added, "but not much farther than the next city or so. That was before the kids."
The clone looked thoughtful for a few seconds.
"If they were older I would say that taking them in a wild area, out of town, would be less dangerous, but it's different to hunt through trees and bushes. And the animals don't react the same way. In the other hand it's easier to find a place where no one else would find you."
Duo hesitated, reluctant to let the question he wanted to ask actually slip out of his mouth. Just asking was hoping for a favorable answer, something he hadn't allowed himself to count on, and he was scared of the answer.
" ... So there's... no cities left at all?" he asked, fighting to keep a blank, uninterested tone. "No... groups of people?" His heart was beating hard, and he told himself not to hope; he had to be able to deal alone. He couldn't start hoping for help.
"A few, but they're all like this town, sometimes worse."
There, he'd been right to tell himself not to hope. It still hurt to see the frail wish crumble. He sighed quietly and shook his head, telling himself to forget it. "... an' here I hoped I'd find a safe place, someplace better for my kids..."
"I didn't find a place where old laws still held yet. No civilization, only gangs without rules."
Duo sighed again. "Anarchy."
"That's the word I was searching for."
"But no... towns? Anything like a community?"
Heero shook his head. "Not that I found. Maybe a few villages out of the way somewhere... but I think they would be wary of strangers and wouldn't accept a horde of children easily."
The braided man let his shoulders slump, depressed. "I can teach my kids to survive, ya know? But I hoped... maybe there'd be... a place for them... better than this. They don't deserve this."
They kept walking in silence for a long moment. Duo didn't notice, just followed the clone, lost in thought.
Then Heero spoke again.
"I can travel and find a place, and come back to guide you. If... if you'll let me stay...?"
The scavenger stopped walking and stared at his back suspiciously. The clone had stopped too, but apart from a quick glance over his shoulder, he didn't look back at Duo again.
"Why the hell would ya do that? Ain't nothin' in it for ya. I thought my kids made ya feel weird anyway," he added, puzzled. It would be too good to be true if he did, which was why Duo refused to believe that there wasn't a hidden goal in the proposition. He'd learned fast enough not to trust an outsider.
The clone looked like he wanted to talk several times, but he didn't say anything for a few seconds. Duo scowled sternly.
"I. I. Yes, but-- I could get used to it."
The braided man relented, giving him an encouraging look. "Why would ya want to bother getting used to my kids? Explain why."
"I was never alone before. There were the other clones. And the officers. There was Odin. Most of them didn't talk to me -- there wasn't any reason to-- but they were here. And now they're not. I--lack something, I think."
Duo felt a strange smile on his lips. "You're lonely," he explained quietly.
The clone blinked, startled, then seemed to consider the word carefully.
"That's what it is. It's like bein' alone... but not."
"... Yes, I think so," he finally agreed, giving Duo a confused look.
Duo shook his head, vaguely amused, but in a way that wasn't that funny when you thought too long about it. "Shit. They taught ya practically shit nothin'. Ya can kill a guy a hundred different ways, but ya don't know that yer lonely."
Heero frowned a little at him. "Well, I wasn't before. It's... emotions. I didn't feel that before."
Because he couldn't feel that. Right. That was so messed up.
"I want Odin to be here, but he's not. Sometimes there are things I want to ask about. Once, I turned to ask him something, and I didn't remember that he was dead. Then I felt --weird. He had been dead for a while. I don't know why I forgot."
Duo started and gaped at him. "Wait... you told me you're lookin' for this Odin guy, right?"
Heero nodded. "I want to find where he died."
"Waitwaitwait. So you know he's dead, and you wanna go and see him anyway? Fuck... You mean... you're lookin' for the grave of a dead guy an' ya don't know where it is?"
Heero shrugged. "I have nothing else to do now. I know the general area."
"So where is it? Far from here?"
"A hundred miles or so."
Duo whistled. "Farther than I've ever been..."
"I was farther when I began. I've been walking for two years."
The scavenger stopped dead in his tracks and stared at Heero. "T-two YEARS?!"
Heero arched an eyebrow, apparently surprised by his reaction. "... yes. Why?"
Duo frowned back at him. "So you've walked all this way... to find the grave of a dead guy... just for shits? Jesus, buddy, an' people call ME crazy!"
Heero shrugged and looked away. "I don't really plan to on arrive there. I just hoped I'd find something else to do along the way. What else was I supposed to do? Stay where I was and do nothing else but fight off people coming to destroy army property?"
"Well... I guess not."
"How was I going to find anything new if I stayed there?" the clone continued, apparently not even registering Duo's capitulation.
"Okay... ya can kick it with me. IF you're not gonna snap and kill us all in the middle of the night or nothin'," he amended, his tone stern.
Puzzled, the clone faced him. "Kick what?"
Duo rolled his eyes. "Figure of speech."
"...oh."
"It means, ya can stay with me an' the kids. But I still don't trust ya yet," he added, narrowing his eyes.
The Soldier froze, then turned to face Duo slowly, his eyes widening a little. The expression would have been subtle on anyone else, but on him it screamed astonishment. "... but I can stay?"
"Ya take me to this cache ya found, then I'll decide from there," Duo amended. He knew already that barring an explosion of temper, he was going to take that weird overgrown, emotionally stunted ex-killer home.
"I could use some help with those anklebiters anyway," he muttered with a fatalistic shrug.
"They bite your ankles?"
Duo slapped a hand to his forehead. "Figure o' speech! Refers to their height."
He heard a laugh and stared at the other man, startled. As if surprised by the sounds coming from his own throat, the clone suddenly stopped, blinking owlishly. It was as if he'd never laughed before.
"... Huh... I guess yer human somewhere under there after all."
Heero gave him a cold look, his happy expression disappearing. "I am human. Genetically engineered, but human. Just... designed to be some way instead of left to chance."
Duo shrugged. "But ya laughed."
The clone turned away. "Hurry up. You're slow."
"Yeah, but I'm breathin'," Duo quipped back, not knowing what else to say.
There was another long moment of climbing over piles of rubble, and at one moment they even had to slide down in a sewer whose roof --the street-- had been shredded open. The curved walls were like a canyon, penning them in, and made Duo nervous; it would be hard to climb out of here if they were attacked from above. There was some dirty water at the very bottom, and a few blades of grass here and there in the thick, stinky mud. It was hard not to slip, and Duo was glad when they crawled through a secondary tunnel and climbed a ladder to go back to surface level.
"How did you find the children?"
Heero's voice was neutral again, all offense disappeared. Duo hurried a little to walk at his side in the quiet alley.
"Oh, here an' there. Most of 'em were abandoned ya know, or their parents were killed. I started when I was travelin'. I picked up one straggler, an' it just kept happenin. They call me the Pied Piper," he added with a snort.
"The what?"
Amused, the braided man gave Heero a little smile. "It's an old fairy tale. I tell it to my kids."
"Oh. What's a fairy tale?"
"Uhh... it's a story. A real old story from way back before there was the war. Like, with magic an' castles, an' knights and damsels in distress. Stuff like that."
The short-haired man blinked, then snorted in mild contempt. "Magic."
Duo mock-scowled at him. "Hey, don't diss it."
"Magic isn't logical. It doesn't even exist."
"How do ya know? Ya ain't seen everything, have ya?
"It goes against the laws of physics," Heero explained patiently, as if he was willing to put up with Duo's weirdness but still found him utterly illogical and maybe even a little touched in the head.
"Maybe there WAS magic, but it went away when science butted in."
Heero looked dubious.
"An' it makes my kids happy. So I say, let there be magic."
"... Then it's fine, I guess," the Soldier conceded.
"It gives them hope," Duo commented softly. "I'd rather have my kids go to sleep an' dream about castles an' dragons an' princesses, instead o' death an' danger an' what they're gonna eat tomorrow. Maybe magic ain't real, but that's not the point. It's givin' people hope, imagination... somethin' better to believe in." He kicked a rock, his voice turning bitter. "Not that it can get any worse than this."
At his side, the clone lowered his eyes, his face hidden behind his bangs.
"I'll find a place. And things to take there."
"Huh?"
"...if I can stay... I'll find you somewhere to live. Somewhere safe. Do you want that?"
Duo stumbled and straightened up, only to stare at Heero again. He'd said something like that earlier, but it hadn't registered. And now it sounded like he really meant it.
"Y-yeah... yeah, I'd like that. If you'd look, ya can stay. But I don't take no slackers, so ya gotta pull yer weight!" he added gruffly to cover up his sudden, ill-placed hope.
Heero nodded easily. "I don't like being idle anyway."
"Why not?" Damn, if he could get away with lazing about doing nothing, then he would.
"Then I want to think, and I don't understand what I'm thinking about."
Duo started to laugh. "Right. Well, ya can always ask me. It's good practice and I'm used to it 'cuz o' the kids."
It was only when Heero nodded, almost eagerly, that he wondered if what he'd just offered wouldn't end up ruining his patience and sanity.
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Yay, more cloneness! I love how Heero is slowly becoming more open and stuff. And the really good stuff is coming soon!
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J'adore toujours autant, vraiment, c'est l'une de mes fics préférées. En fait, c'est l'une des très rares seules dont j'attends avec impatience la suite (cad actuelleemnt j'en compte 2, dont celle-là XD)
*chibi eyes* est-ce que par hasard tu aurais le tout sur un (ou plusieurs) fichiers ? J'ai la flemme d'aller remonter de lien en lien pour tout regrouper et vu que d'ici une semaine j'aurai accès au net que quand je financerai le cyber café, j'aimerai bien avoir au moins la possibilité de relire quand je veux le tout. dis ? dis ? teu plait ?
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envoyé sur m772x1-212, ca marche?
et comment ça t'auras plus le net? O_O;;; du tout? ou juste en attendant de trouver un provider?
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De toute façon, vu les pb que j'ai eu avec Noos, je l'aurai pas repris.
Donc, il me reste le cyber café, et éventuellement ma fac (faudra que je me renseigne).
Autant dire que je vais pas me connecter souvent !
(Et que lorsque ça arrivera, je vais encore plus aimer ma clé USB qu'avant ! XD)
... Je vais jamais survivre sans le net, c'est pas possible ! T_T Comment je vais faiiiiiire ?
(Ah ! J'ai enfin gommé le 4x5, plus qu'à le scanner et je te l'envoie pour colo ^_^)
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maybe too fluffy. i'll have to change that. U_U;;;
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sinon euh comme d'hab, bien ecrit et tout et tout ^^
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*bows humbly*
(Your most humble servant humbly requests an update to Heero's Week at her illustrious mistress' earliest convenience.)