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Cloneness! (GW, AU, 2x1)
previous bit: http://www.livejournal.com/users/askerian/100683.html#cutid1
Still not betaed -- heck, i haven't even started cutting it up in chapters and some of it will need a heavy rewrite. Right now i'm sticking kind of closely to the dialogue of the RP this is based on, but eventually when i rewrite i'll look for repetition, check the characterisation and well, just tweak things around. This is still very much in progress. If you spot anything weird, grammar, spelling, repetitions, i'll love you forever for telling me.
The clone didn't answer. He wasn't sure what he could say to calm him down. Luckily, Duo seemed to bring himself under control on his own. Apart from knocking him out, he wouldn't have known what to do, and he had a feeling Duo would object to that.
"Sorry, man... I shouldn't o' snapped at ya."
Heero gave the man a cautious look. Duo was running his hand through his bangs in a gesture that still seemed tense to him, so he just kept on checking the cans in silence.
"Just... now I'm convinced I gotta find a better place for my kids."
Heero nodded slowly, still wary. He didn't talk ; he didn't want to anger Duo again.
They started sorting out the good from the bad cans once again.
"...I was thinking..." the clone finally risked as he stared at the few cans that didn't pass the inspection. "Those cans may not be safe for the children, but... as rat bait, maybe...? We can always see if they get ill. If not..." he added with a shrug.
Duo blinked at Heero, and then smiled, surprising him. "Rat bait, huh?"
"Well, I figure they have a hard time finding food too."
"That sounds like a great idea... rats around here are as vicious as the gangs, but not as ugly. I wouldn't o' thought of that myself."
Heero blinked, surprised by the praise. It made him feel... weird. But a good weird.
Duo looked at the cans and at Heero again, still smiling. "But let's separate the good an' the bad anyway, so it don't get mixed up."
Heero started to tear the paper off. "The unmarked cans are the bad ones. Does it work?"
"Yup," Duo replied, lifting up a can and ripping the label off. "An' the cans mean the rats won't get to it before we feed it to 'em," he added. He sounded happier. It made Heero feel good; he'd helped. It was still a novelty to take initiative, and receiving compliments over them was ... was... encouraging. Or something.
He put the cans back in the packs, arranging them so that they would take up less space, and stuffed the bad cans in the t-shirt. "... So that I just have to let it go if we have to run," he felt compelled to explain. "It doesn't close like a pack would, so the cans will roll out. They should stop to take them."
Duo grinned at him. "Maybe we could make any gang member eat some of this, huh? I like the way ya think. But hopefully we won't have to resort to that, as long as we play it safe."
"We should go now. I know it's still too hot outside to be comfortable, but the gang members would think the same."
"Yeah... an' maybe we can get back to the kids by late tonight... " He closed up the bag and checked his shotgun again before propping it up against his shoulder. "Right. Well, let's get a move on, buddy boy. We got some kids to make happy."
Heero shouldered his own pack and picked up the t-shirt. "Ryoukai."
Duo rolled his eyes at him as he started walking. "Again with your weird words."
"It's not weird. It's Japanese," Heero replied patiently. Duo was like his kids; he needed information repeated several times before he stopped noticing them.
Duo snorted. "I ain't the foreigner in this country, buddy."
Heero considered the reply. "I'm a foreigner everywhere."
That surprised a little chuckle out of the braided man. "I think everyone's a foreigner everywhere. The point is havin' a place that ain't foreign to ya," he added with a grin.
"...But I can't find it."
"Ya mean a place that ain't strange?"
"...somewhere I belong."
"Ah, now that's the hard part. I'm not sure where I belong neither, but the little monsters have decided it's with them. I can't break their hearts, now can I?"
...'sometimes,' Heero thought, 'sometimes I wish I would find other clones, but then I realize that the surviving ones probably went crazy from drugs withdrawal. And they didn't meet Odin, or the little girl. They wouldn't be --me.' He imagined someone -- someone else -- like he'd been before, meeting Duo and his children, and shuddered. No. Just-- no.
"You shouldn't," he agreed quietly.
"I shouldn't what?"
"Break their hearts. You could. But you shouldn't."
"Nope, an' I won't. I care about the little monsters too much. Though I might get burned at the end."
Heero gave the man a confused look. Duo caught it and raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"Why would they burn you?"
"Figure o' speech again, buddy," the braided man replied with a chuckle. "It just means... well... They're gonna grow up, ya know?"
"Oh." He was still not really understanding, but didn't particularly want to admit it out loud.
"Shit... this is hard to explain. They're gonna grow up, have minds of their own. Got it? They're not gonna need ME anymore, they might not even want me around."
Heero considered the explanation thoughtfully. "Probably not as much, but with the world in the state it's in, it would be stupid for them to go their own way and abandon the others."
"Yeah, you'd think that."
Duo's voice had been weird. Sort of -- mocking, but as if it wasn't amusing at all. There was a word for that, like a taste. Sour? No... bitter. Heero didn't precisely like it.
"Look... the kids, they ain't the only ones I've taken in, okay? There used to be older ones, some my age. They... left."
"That's stupid."
"Yeah?"
"It's safer with other people." And not as lonely, he wanted to add, but he still wasn't comfortable with using that word too liberally.
"They DID go to other people. Specifically, the gangs."
Heero frowned. That was treason -- no, right, they weren't military. But Duo didn't seem to like being abandoned so it didn't mean that it was less wrong. Just less easily punished. Soldiers didn't betray their commanding officers, but during the war he'd executed several men who'd given information to the enemy. Maybe it was easier for some normal humans to be tempted by what the enemy had to offer. Maybe removing the temptation would be wiser. "We'll take the kids someplace where there aren't gangs," he decided.
Duo didn't seem convinced. In fact, he sighed, rather heavily. "Ain't ya the one who told me that every place is like this?"
He had, but maybe he'd generalized too much. "The cities are like this. The small towns and village, maybe not... and there are always other places."
"Maybe."
The braided man was saying one thing, but his tone clearly meant no. And not only that; it said that Heero was quite naive if he really believed so. Heero was reasonably sure that he was right, but he couldn't have convinced Duo even if he'd known what exactly his objections were.
"Not like I can leave the kids alone that long anyway..."
"I told you I'd search for you."
Duo stopped and stared at Heero. "No shit?"
He still looked discouraged. Heero didn't like that. "It doesn't bother me. ...As long as I can come with you. "
"Guess I could always use an extra hand," Duo accepted, a half-smile on his lips. "And Lena seems to like ya well enough."
The clone couldn't keep from shuddering.
"What, ya don't like her?" Duo protested, looking mildly offended. "She ain't that annoyin'. Kinda cute actually. But I'll tell her to leave ya alone if ya want."
"... I don't know. I guess I have to get used to children."
"You better, I got over a dozen of 'em."
Heero nodded in agreement; not that he really wanted the child close but there wasn't any way out of it. "Then let her do what she wishes to do. I'll deal."
The scavenger sighed and shook his head. "It's not about dealin'... it's about actually likin' the kids."
"I guess. But this will have to come later. I need to be able to stop remembering first. And I haven't figured it out yet."
They kept walking in silence. Heero half-expected a reply from Duo, and a few times the man did look like he was going to talk, but in the end he didn't.
And now that they had stopped talking, there was nothing to distract him from his new but quickly worsening headache. Maybe it was the heat, maybe the difficult concepts he'd been juggling with all day. In any case, as strong and quick and superior as he was, he would be a liability if they kept on walking without letting Duo know his status.
"We have to stop soon."
Duo glanced at Heero, then looked at the sun. "But it's not even afternoon... Is there somethin' dangerous ahead?"
Heero shook his head, just barely to keep from rattling his brains against his skull. "Headache."
"You have a headache?" Duo repeated, surprised.
"Yes." He didn't nod this time because it made it worse, and soon enough every little degree of pain would count. It was a quickly rising one. "I give it ten minutes before my reaction time drops enough that I will be a liability in a gunfight, and twenty before I can barely see in front of me. In a half-hour, I'll be unconscious."
Frowning, Duo left the little street they were walking through and found a secluded and easily protected corner inside the ravaged shop. "You mean like the thing that happened when I met ya?" he asked, and muttered a curse. "Well, settle down then."
Heero dropped his packs behind a twist of metal that he identified as having been a chair and sat down in a corner, very slowly, very carefully. It wasn't the moment to lose his balance and knock his head against the wall. He saw Duo move from the corner of his eye; the man sat down beside a heavy chest of drawers, in the shade. He kept his eyes trained on Heero, rubbing one hand over the barrel of the shotgun. Heero wondered if he was considering terminating him; he knew that his trainers would have.
"How often does this happen?"
"It varies. I can never know when they're coming. Sometimes every day, twice a day, sometimes not for two weeks. Overall," he added -- Duo wouldn't terminate him if he wasn't hopeless, "it's getting better. The first year, I was getting a headache a day at least."
He closed his eyes and tilted his head back carefully. Duo was still watching him, he could feel the weight of his stare, but he wasn't in any state to do anything about it.
"... 'cuz of the drugs?" the braided man asked finally, his voice a low whisper.
"Yes."
It was weird; sounds usually hurt during a migraine, but Duo's voice was low and soft, and sort of soothing. Heero just hoped he wouldn't stop keeping it down.
"I think it's the heat and the stress of meeting you and the children that triggered this one so soon after the other. Usually I get at least three or four days of respite these days."
"...'m gonna have to warn my kids... Can't have ya fallin' down all over the place."
"Yes, that would be wise," he replied, trying to stop shivering.
"D'ya know how long you'll be out? I mean, last time it was a couple o' hours."
Heero lifted two fingers, then added another. There were flowers of light blooming under his eyelids.
"Okay... guess we'll be takin' our break early. Good thing it's so close to the hottest part of the day."
Heero frowned a little, dissatisfied with himself. "It would have been wiser to use that time to walk."
"What an' have ya pass out in the middle of nowhere wit' me to lug your carcass around? Forget that. I don't mind a bit of a break."
Heero's lips quirked up on their own.
"See? Of course I'm right." There was a smile in Duo's voice. He made a noise to show that he was listening.
"Hey, lay down before ya keel over. You're not lookin' too good. Didn't ya say you were gonna pass out or somethin'? It's better to lay down than fall down."
Heero reclined against the wall slowly, carefully. Duo's voice sounded weird, ringing almost. His soft laughter resonated, inflated like a weird, fuzzy balloon-shaped sound.
"You act like you've never laid down to sleep before."
"Not since I left base."
"Eh?"
That was... surprise. Confusion. He had to explain. "Can't. Too vulnerable."
"You mean... ya sleep sittin' up?"
"... yes."
"Wow... things've been bad, but the only time I ever slept sittin' up was when I was on the run, before my kids. Well, don't worry, me an' th'gun will make sure nothin' happens." There was a sound like flesh on metal.
"... been ...on the run... sort of..." he whispered. His arm curled under his head, and he patted blindly at his side for his weapon. Huh. Nothing. He couldn't sleep unguarded...
Opening an eye, he glanced at Duo, wincing at the light. "You will... stand guard?"
"Yup," Duo replied with a patient nod. "So lay down an' go to sleep for Chrissakes, you're givin' me a headache just lookin' at ya."
Obediently, Heero curled up on his side.
Duo made a sound of approval. "... good, for a second there, I thought I'd have to threaten ya with a spankin'."
"Does spanking hurt a lot?" he asked drowsily.
Duo laughed, still softly. "I don't whack my kids hard, I don't want 'em to hate me. It's more of enforcement that they did somethin' wrong an' I'm not happy."
"... oh..." Heero managed to answer; then it changed into a yawn.
He saw Duo turn his gaze away to the distance, eyes watching for threats. He was safe enough. He closed his eyes, trying to rest.
Still not betaed -- heck, i haven't even started cutting it up in chapters and some of it will need a heavy rewrite. Right now i'm sticking kind of closely to the dialogue of the RP this is based on, but eventually when i rewrite i'll look for repetition, check the characterisation and well, just tweak things around. This is still very much in progress. If you spot anything weird, grammar, spelling, repetitions, i'll love you forever for telling me.
The clone didn't answer. He wasn't sure what he could say to calm him down. Luckily, Duo seemed to bring himself under control on his own. Apart from knocking him out, he wouldn't have known what to do, and he had a feeling Duo would object to that.
"Sorry, man... I shouldn't o' snapped at ya."
Heero gave the man a cautious look. Duo was running his hand through his bangs in a gesture that still seemed tense to him, so he just kept on checking the cans in silence.
"Just... now I'm convinced I gotta find a better place for my kids."
Heero nodded slowly, still wary. He didn't talk ; he didn't want to anger Duo again.
They started sorting out the good from the bad cans once again.
"...I was thinking..." the clone finally risked as he stared at the few cans that didn't pass the inspection. "Those cans may not be safe for the children, but... as rat bait, maybe...? We can always see if they get ill. If not..." he added with a shrug.
Duo blinked at Heero, and then smiled, surprising him. "Rat bait, huh?"
"Well, I figure they have a hard time finding food too."
"That sounds like a great idea... rats around here are as vicious as the gangs, but not as ugly. I wouldn't o' thought of that myself."
Heero blinked, surprised by the praise. It made him feel... weird. But a good weird.
Duo looked at the cans and at Heero again, still smiling. "But let's separate the good an' the bad anyway, so it don't get mixed up."
Heero started to tear the paper off. "The unmarked cans are the bad ones. Does it work?"
"Yup," Duo replied, lifting up a can and ripping the label off. "An' the cans mean the rats won't get to it before we feed it to 'em," he added. He sounded happier. It made Heero feel good; he'd helped. It was still a novelty to take initiative, and receiving compliments over them was ... was... encouraging. Or something.
He put the cans back in the packs, arranging them so that they would take up less space, and stuffed the bad cans in the t-shirt. "... So that I just have to let it go if we have to run," he felt compelled to explain. "It doesn't close like a pack would, so the cans will roll out. They should stop to take them."
Duo grinned at him. "Maybe we could make any gang member eat some of this, huh? I like the way ya think. But hopefully we won't have to resort to that, as long as we play it safe."
"We should go now. I know it's still too hot outside to be comfortable, but the gang members would think the same."
"Yeah... an' maybe we can get back to the kids by late tonight... " He closed up the bag and checked his shotgun again before propping it up against his shoulder. "Right. Well, let's get a move on, buddy boy. We got some kids to make happy."
Heero shouldered his own pack and picked up the t-shirt. "Ryoukai."
Duo rolled his eyes at him as he started walking. "Again with your weird words."
"It's not weird. It's Japanese," Heero replied patiently. Duo was like his kids; he needed information repeated several times before he stopped noticing them.
Duo snorted. "I ain't the foreigner in this country, buddy."
Heero considered the reply. "I'm a foreigner everywhere."
That surprised a little chuckle out of the braided man. "I think everyone's a foreigner everywhere. The point is havin' a place that ain't foreign to ya," he added with a grin.
"...But I can't find it."
"Ya mean a place that ain't strange?"
"...somewhere I belong."
"Ah, now that's the hard part. I'm not sure where I belong neither, but the little monsters have decided it's with them. I can't break their hearts, now can I?"
...'sometimes,' Heero thought, 'sometimes I wish I would find other clones, but then I realize that the surviving ones probably went crazy from drugs withdrawal. And they didn't meet Odin, or the little girl. They wouldn't be --me.' He imagined someone -- someone else -- like he'd been before, meeting Duo and his children, and shuddered. No. Just-- no.
"You shouldn't," he agreed quietly.
"I shouldn't what?"
"Break their hearts. You could. But you shouldn't."
"Nope, an' I won't. I care about the little monsters too much. Though I might get burned at the end."
Heero gave the man a confused look. Duo caught it and raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"Why would they burn you?"
"Figure o' speech again, buddy," the braided man replied with a chuckle. "It just means... well... They're gonna grow up, ya know?"
"Oh." He was still not really understanding, but didn't particularly want to admit it out loud.
"Shit... this is hard to explain. They're gonna grow up, have minds of their own. Got it? They're not gonna need ME anymore, they might not even want me around."
Heero considered the explanation thoughtfully. "Probably not as much, but with the world in the state it's in, it would be stupid for them to go their own way and abandon the others."
"Yeah, you'd think that."
Duo's voice had been weird. Sort of -- mocking, but as if it wasn't amusing at all. There was a word for that, like a taste. Sour? No... bitter. Heero didn't precisely like it.
"Look... the kids, they ain't the only ones I've taken in, okay? There used to be older ones, some my age. They... left."
"That's stupid."
"Yeah?"
"It's safer with other people." And not as lonely, he wanted to add, but he still wasn't comfortable with using that word too liberally.
"They DID go to other people. Specifically, the gangs."
Heero frowned. That was treason -- no, right, they weren't military. But Duo didn't seem to like being abandoned so it didn't mean that it was less wrong. Just less easily punished. Soldiers didn't betray their commanding officers, but during the war he'd executed several men who'd given information to the enemy. Maybe it was easier for some normal humans to be tempted by what the enemy had to offer. Maybe removing the temptation would be wiser. "We'll take the kids someplace where there aren't gangs," he decided.
Duo didn't seem convinced. In fact, he sighed, rather heavily. "Ain't ya the one who told me that every place is like this?"
He had, but maybe he'd generalized too much. "The cities are like this. The small towns and village, maybe not... and there are always other places."
"Maybe."
The braided man was saying one thing, but his tone clearly meant no. And not only that; it said that Heero was quite naive if he really believed so. Heero was reasonably sure that he was right, but he couldn't have convinced Duo even if he'd known what exactly his objections were.
"Not like I can leave the kids alone that long anyway..."
"I told you I'd search for you."
Duo stopped and stared at Heero. "No shit?"
He still looked discouraged. Heero didn't like that. "It doesn't bother me. ...As long as I can come with you. "
"Guess I could always use an extra hand," Duo accepted, a half-smile on his lips. "And Lena seems to like ya well enough."
The clone couldn't keep from shuddering.
"What, ya don't like her?" Duo protested, looking mildly offended. "She ain't that annoyin'. Kinda cute actually. But I'll tell her to leave ya alone if ya want."
"... I don't know. I guess I have to get used to children."
"You better, I got over a dozen of 'em."
Heero nodded in agreement; not that he really wanted the child close but there wasn't any way out of it. "Then let her do what she wishes to do. I'll deal."
The scavenger sighed and shook his head. "It's not about dealin'... it's about actually likin' the kids."
"I guess. But this will have to come later. I need to be able to stop remembering first. And I haven't figured it out yet."
They kept walking in silence. Heero half-expected a reply from Duo, and a few times the man did look like he was going to talk, but in the end he didn't.
And now that they had stopped talking, there was nothing to distract him from his new but quickly worsening headache. Maybe it was the heat, maybe the difficult concepts he'd been juggling with all day. In any case, as strong and quick and superior as he was, he would be a liability if they kept on walking without letting Duo know his status.
"We have to stop soon."
Duo glanced at Heero, then looked at the sun. "But it's not even afternoon... Is there somethin' dangerous ahead?"
Heero shook his head, just barely to keep from rattling his brains against his skull. "Headache."
"You have a headache?" Duo repeated, surprised.
"Yes." He didn't nod this time because it made it worse, and soon enough every little degree of pain would count. It was a quickly rising one. "I give it ten minutes before my reaction time drops enough that I will be a liability in a gunfight, and twenty before I can barely see in front of me. In a half-hour, I'll be unconscious."
Frowning, Duo left the little street they were walking through and found a secluded and easily protected corner inside the ravaged shop. "You mean like the thing that happened when I met ya?" he asked, and muttered a curse. "Well, settle down then."
Heero dropped his packs behind a twist of metal that he identified as having been a chair and sat down in a corner, very slowly, very carefully. It wasn't the moment to lose his balance and knock his head against the wall. He saw Duo move from the corner of his eye; the man sat down beside a heavy chest of drawers, in the shade. He kept his eyes trained on Heero, rubbing one hand over the barrel of the shotgun. Heero wondered if he was considering terminating him; he knew that his trainers would have.
"How often does this happen?"
"It varies. I can never know when they're coming. Sometimes every day, twice a day, sometimes not for two weeks. Overall," he added -- Duo wouldn't terminate him if he wasn't hopeless, "it's getting better. The first year, I was getting a headache a day at least."
He closed his eyes and tilted his head back carefully. Duo was still watching him, he could feel the weight of his stare, but he wasn't in any state to do anything about it.
"... 'cuz of the drugs?" the braided man asked finally, his voice a low whisper.
"Yes."
It was weird; sounds usually hurt during a migraine, but Duo's voice was low and soft, and sort of soothing. Heero just hoped he wouldn't stop keeping it down.
"I think it's the heat and the stress of meeting you and the children that triggered this one so soon after the other. Usually I get at least three or four days of respite these days."
"...'m gonna have to warn my kids... Can't have ya fallin' down all over the place."
"Yes, that would be wise," he replied, trying to stop shivering.
"D'ya know how long you'll be out? I mean, last time it was a couple o' hours."
Heero lifted two fingers, then added another. There were flowers of light blooming under his eyelids.
"Okay... guess we'll be takin' our break early. Good thing it's so close to the hottest part of the day."
Heero frowned a little, dissatisfied with himself. "It would have been wiser to use that time to walk."
"What an' have ya pass out in the middle of nowhere wit' me to lug your carcass around? Forget that. I don't mind a bit of a break."
Heero's lips quirked up on their own.
"See? Of course I'm right." There was a smile in Duo's voice. He made a noise to show that he was listening.
"Hey, lay down before ya keel over. You're not lookin' too good. Didn't ya say you were gonna pass out or somethin'? It's better to lay down than fall down."
Heero reclined against the wall slowly, carefully. Duo's voice sounded weird, ringing almost. His soft laughter resonated, inflated like a weird, fuzzy balloon-shaped sound.
"You act like you've never laid down to sleep before."
"Not since I left base."
"Eh?"
That was... surprise. Confusion. He had to explain. "Can't. Too vulnerable."
"You mean... ya sleep sittin' up?"
"... yes."
"Wow... things've been bad, but the only time I ever slept sittin' up was when I was on the run, before my kids. Well, don't worry, me an' th'gun will make sure nothin' happens." There was a sound like flesh on metal.
"... been ...on the run... sort of..." he whispered. His arm curled under his head, and he patted blindly at his side for his weapon. Huh. Nothing. He couldn't sleep unguarded...
Opening an eye, he glanced at Duo, wincing at the light. "You will... stand guard?"
"Yup," Duo replied with a patient nod. "So lay down an' go to sleep for Chrissakes, you're givin' me a headache just lookin' at ya."
Obediently, Heero curled up on his side.
Duo made a sound of approval. "... good, for a second there, I thought I'd have to threaten ya with a spankin'."
"Does spanking hurt a lot?" he asked drowsily.
Duo laughed, still softly. "I don't whack my kids hard, I don't want 'em to hate me. It's more of enforcement that they did somethin' wrong an' I'm not happy."
"... oh..." Heero managed to answer; then it changed into a yawn.
He saw Duo turn his gaze away to the distance, eyes watching for threats. He was safe enough. He closed his eyes, trying to rest.
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*types* T_T