Kracken
Disclaimer:I don't own them and I don't make any money off of them.
Warning:Male/male sex, graphic, violence, language, attempted NCS
Shinigami's Lover Four
Sequel to Flash
Flood Land
Heero sat with his back up against a tree trunk, a tree root digging uncomfortably into his spine. He wouldn't have moved for the world, though, as Duo draped himself over his chest and allowed Heero to hold him loosely. They had cried and talked, both of them slaying old demons and finding peace inside and out. It seemed like magic, but it was a delicate spell, as delicate as the tension over a pool of water; a tension that could break at a touch and shove them back into the world without warning. So, they stayed in each other's warmth, afraid to move, and simply lived in the moment, forgetting everything but each other.
The rain sprinkling down on them forced them to stir at last. Duo eyed the rain sourly. "I thought that it wasn't supposed to rain."
"It wasn't," Heero replied, just as disappointed, and reluctantly let Duo go as his lover stood up and wiped at his tear stained face. He stood as well and rubbed at the small of his back.
Duo frowned, noticing. "Why didn't you say you were uncomfortable?"
Heero gave him a small, warm smile, " Having you in my arms is well worth the discomfort."
Duo smiled back. "It was nice," and then more seriously, "Isn't it stupid that we had to come all of this way to talk to each other? We have to not do that. We can't bottle things up and pretend we're okay." He eyed Heero. "Anything else you want to confess to before we go back?"
Heero shook his head, "No, that was it. You?"
Duo looked hesitant and then he confessed, "It was me who ate the whole pie that Mr. Hulitt gave us, not the dog."
Heero shrugged. "I knew that."
Duo snorted and laughed. Heero smirked at him. "You know me so well," Duo chuckled.
"I'm beginning to," Heero replied softly and Duo blushed.
Soda lowered his tail and moved about nervously. Duo patted him on the head. "What's the matter?"
Heero tensed and began looking around them. "Maybe we should go back to camp?"
Duo tried to divine why his dog was lowering ears and raising hackles. He looked around as well, not liking the trees all around them that could hide anything and any one. "Maybe he doesn't like the rain," he said without believing it.
"Let's go," Heero urged.
Duo said, irritably, "We're in the middle of no where, Heero. It's probably deer or something that has him spooked. It's not like he's ever seen them before."
Heero nodded, accepting that explanation as logical, but he was still too much of a soldier to let his guard down. He made Duo take point and he followed behind, looking around them constantly. If he had hackles like Soda, they would have been raised, Duo thought.
"Some day," Duo said, "We're going to be able to have a peaceful time without something ruining it."
Heero was quiet for a moment and then he replied earnestly, "It wasn't ruined, Duo. Nothing could ruin a moment as meaningful as the one we just shared."
Duo smiled in pleasure. "You always have a way of... knowing how to make something perfect with just a few words, Heero. I appreciate that."
Heero grunted, embarrassed, but he didn't stop his intense scrutiny of the forest around them. His nervousness visibly grew as Soda growled and seemed to want them to go faster. The dog's tail was down and his ears twitched as if he heard something up ahead.
When Chase suddenly appeared like a ghost, Duo wasn't surprised to hear Heero's gun being drawn violently from a hidden holster. Soda nuzzled the younger dog and Duo remembered that Soda considered the puppies to be his. It would make sense that he would feel nervous if he heard Chase doing something unexpected, like coming after them alone. Wu Fei was no where in sight.
"Something's wrong!" Duo snapped and began to run. Heero nodded and followed close on his heels, his gun still drawn.
They had walked far. Duo was wheezing by the time they burst into camp, but Heero always did have iron lungs and looked hardly winded as they both took in the scene of devastation. There had been a flash flood. The camp was gone and a good part of the bank, scraped clean by what must have been a wall of water.
"Fei!" Duo shouted in a panic.
"Here!" Wu Fei shouted and they saw him balanced precariously on a lip of dirt at the bottom of what had been a gentle slope of bank, but was now an unscalable cliff of loose dirt and mud. He was muddy himself and soaking wet, his hair a tangle in his face. Chase barked and whined, pacing the edges of the swollen , raging river, wanting desperately to reach Wu Fei.
"Leave me!" Wu Fei shouted over the sound of rushing water. "I'm in no danger! The others were swept downstream!"
Heero was in motion, hurriedly taking out a signal beacon from his pack, slapping it onto a stable place on the ground, and setting it off. He then checked his GPS unit and pulled out a cell phone. He called rescue services on speed dial even as he was moving down the bank with Duo and Soda in tow. Finishing the call, he shoved the phone back into his pack and began scrutinizing the water and the banks for signs of their companions.
Duo said in an aside, as he scanned their surroundings as well, "Heero, you are so prepared it's damned scary sometimes."
Heero smirked in reply, though his serious frown didn't lighten.
"Grange! Reach for me, damn you!" Kit was screaming.
"Save yourself!" Grange was shouting back. "That's an order!"
"We aren't at work, you bastard! Reach for me!" Kit snarled.
They rounded a curve in the bank and then saw Grange hanging onto the end branches of a tree that had fallen into the freezing water. The rushing current was threatening to drag him away. Kit was perched on a sturdier branch and was leaning down, hand outstretched as far as she could towards the man.
"Shit!" Without hesitation, Duo launched himself at top speed over the space between the bank and one of the overhanging tree branches from the fallen tree. As neat as any acrobat, he caught it, swung and latched onto another. He grabbed for Kit just as her tree branch gave with an audible crack. They hung there, Duo hanging by his knees and Kit suspended by both his hands.
"Save Grange!" Kit was shouting frantically as she snagged a branch and tried to pull herself to a safe perch.
Heero was uncoiling a thin rope he had taken from his pack. He eyed the distance and then expertly tossed the rope towards Grange. Grange reached out to catch the end, but his tree branch took that moment to snap. He went under almost instantly, the current dragging him.
"Dan!" Kit shrieked.
Heero rushed to the bank, preparing to jump in after the man, even as Duo shouted, "No, Heero, the current's too strong!"
Like a white flash, Chase was flying past Soda, who was racing up and down the bank anxiously looking after Duo. Without hesitation, the dog leaped into the water and his strength landed him right next to the flailing hands of Grange. The dog clamped onto one of them and then made a valiant effort to save the man.
Kit managed to pull herself to a safer place and Duo was up and clambering to the bank with her on his heels shortly after that. Heero was coiling his rope again and following Chase and Grange down river. Soda was frantic and only Duo's shouted commands kept the dog from running into the river to reach him on the opposite bank.
"Dan!" Kit shouted uselessly as they scrambled, slipped, and stumbled dangerously along the treacherous bank.
Heero waited his moment as he tied a loop on the end of his rope and trotted as best he could on his side of the river, Soda racing at his side.
"Heero!" Duo shouted. "To me!"
Heero hesitated, considering, but another look at a floundering white dog and Grange, who rose to gasp for breath and then sank below the water again, made up his mind for him. He threw the end of his line to Duo. The wind caught at it and almost made it miss it's mark, by Duo clutched frantically and managed to snag the end. He gripped it tight and then dove after Grange.
Heero braced the line, wrapping it about his powerful arms, and leaned back to take the strain as the rope snapped taught. Over the straining, thrumming line, Heero watched as Duo grabbed Grange and went under the water with him.
"Damn it, Duo!" Heero shouted, unable to help himself, simply needing to let out his fear somehow.
Duo didn't stay under long though. Chase was suddenly shoved loose and the dog was swept away by the current as Duo surfaced with Grange in his arms, rope secured to Grange's body. Duo was spluttering and gasping water and air along with Grange, but he was also signaling Heero to pull them out.
That's when it happened, at the worst of times. Heero was using a tree trunk as a makeshift pulley and bringing his lover and Grange in one length of rope at a time. Grange was floundering, disoriented, and he made a very large mistake. Whether it was fear that made him clutch onto Duo, or maybe some sense that the line was tied to him and that Duo was in danger of being swept away by the current, Heero wasn't sure, but Duo's reaction was panicked and instant. He began fighting Grange. Duo was deadly. Grange knew that. He didn't manage to fend off the first blow to his head and he didn't wait for a second one to kill him. He let go of Duo and Duo, panicked and unreasoning, let go of Grange. Strong, but slight, he managed to stay above the water for less than several heartbeats, and then he was under and gone from sight.
"Duo!" Heero bellowed and heard an echoing anguished cry from Kit across the bank. It was a temptation to tie off Grange and save his lover. Heero fought it and finished his duty, though he didn't wait longer than it took to get Grange to the bank, where he could crawl out himself, before he was ripping the rope from Grange and racing down the bank after Duo.
Soda was already in pursuit. When they found Duo and Chase caught in an eddy and being slammed against a shelf of rocks in what amounted to a whipping whirlpool of water. If Duo was going to drown, Heero thought, then he would drown with him. He only took long enough to tie off his rope to a tree trunk, and shout at Soda to stay, before he was jumping into the eddy.
The water was freezing. It had probably been blocked up tight in the higher ranges of the mountains before breaking free and making a deadly wall of water down the slopes. Mid day, Kit and the others had probably been fishing or wandering about the banks of the river enjoying the day, unaware of their danger. Now, the water was numbing and it slammed him up against the rocks near Duo, trying it's best to send him into the whirlpool and scrape him raw against the stone at the same time. Duo looked as if he had been almost stunned, blood trailing down his face, eyes wild, but one hand locked in Chase's fur, keeping the dog's head above water as he struggled to keep his own there as well. The dog was limp and unconscious.
One blessing, Heero thought as he called to Duo even as his numb hands fumbled to take hold of his lover, "Little baka! Let me save you!"
If Grange had put him back into old memories, Duo wasn't there now. He nodded firmly even as he gasped and spluttered, blue with cold and hair plastered in his face.
Heero took hold Of Duo around the waist, pulling him close enough. "Take hold!" he commanded and Duo did so, one hand on Chase and one hand gripped iron tight on Heero's arm. It was then a contest of sheer strength and trusting the rope to hold as Heero pulled them, hand over hand, back to the bank.
Climbing out, freezing and shaking, they were able to crawl to a safe distance before collapsing.
"Sh-sh-shit!" Duo stuttered at last. "Ever-ev-everything h-hurts!"
Heero rolled onto his side and reached out a shaking hand to Duo. "S-Status?" was all he was able to get out.
Chase coughed hackingly and then half rose to his feet before sinking down again. Soda nuzzled Duo and then stretched out beside him, offering his warmth and his worry.
"Noth-N-Nothing permanent," Duo managed at last and then groaned as he forced himself to sit up. "Gr-Grange ok-okay?"
Heero nodded.
"Y-You?" Duo wondered.
"Ready," Heero replied.
"Th-That's not an answer," Duo growled.
Heero sat up as well. He was bleeding from scraped flesh and parts of his clothing had been ripped by the rocks. He checked himself and then grunted. "All right."
"B-Better," Duo replied and then looked around them as he patted Soda. "H-How far?"
"Far," Heero told him.. "Can-Can you w-walk?"
Duo nodded, but then said, "J-Just gimme me-a-a minute."
"Guys!" Kit was shouting from the other bank, her voice almost drowned out.
"G-Go back f-for Wu Fei!" Heero shouted at her. "He's c-caught below th-the bank on y-your side!"
Kit was gone then, Preventer trained and knowing that she had to help where she could.
A helicopter sounded close by.
Duo managed a shaky smile. "C-Calvary is h-here a b-bit late."
"Good," Heero grunted. "Th-This camping t-trip is over."
"S-spoil s-sport!" Duo snorted.
Heero glared and then his expression softened and he touched Duo's freezing cheek with an equally freezing hand. His heart and fear for Duo were in his eyes. Duo reached out for him as well and they simply clung, reaffirming that they were both safe while the helicopter delicately landed on a rise of ground not far away.
Duo said, "D-did you k-know th-that was h-here when we m-made camp?" When Heero nodded, Duo snorted. "I'm n-never going to c-complain about y-your soldier anal retent-tiveness a-again!"
Read more of Kracken's fiction and fanfiction at http://kracken.bonpublishing.com
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Kracken has a yaoi book published, The Angel Within, at amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0974416002/qid%3D1066434868/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/102-2967152-0308168
and at her publishing website at http://www.bonpublishing.com. Thank you to
everyone who already bought the book. *hugs*