Who: Duo and Yuuko What: Cutting ties. :\ Where: Yuuko's room Why: Because Duo insisted it be written down for prosperity. D| Warnings: Munsterbation. 8|
This had been such a long time coming, but he'd put it off with a desperate determination he'd never felt on the battlefield. It had been one excuse after another -- they hadn't been sleeping together at first so it didn't matter, then had come the war and fuck if that was any time to start up something intimate (not to mention the fact that Heero had gone MIA), and then he'd just been busy trying to finish Wing in time for Christmas. Excuses on top of excuses on top of excuses. And it just wasn't right. Having to keep his shirt on whenever he was with Heero, hoping he'd never notice, never ask, never catch a glimpse of the scar, a morbid momento from his relationship with Yagami Light. There was someone that could help him get rid of the scars, though, he knew that -- knew that Light had gone to her quite a few times and had nearly gone to her on his behalf once -- and now . . . now he'd run out of excuses.
Yuuko, draped on her chaise lounge surrounded by a swirling cloud of smoke, didn't bother looking up at the sound of a knock on her door; merely called a simple, "Come in~" and finished off the tobacco in her pipe, tapping it gently into her wastebasket as the young braided man stepped hesitantly into her salon.
"Good evening, Maxwell-kun~"
Something about the woman reminded Duo simultaneously of Wufei and Lady Une. It was probably one of the most unnerving thoughts he'd ever had, but he still flashed her a grin and sat in the chair across from her when she gestured to it.
"Call me Duo."
She smiled. In a way that somehow to say that she'd known he was going to say that before he'd even walked in. It kind of gave him the willies. He also kind of wished that she'd open a window, but he'd already noticed the lack of them in this particular room.
She introduced herself as Ichihara Yuuko, insisted he call her Yuuko, and offered him some tea from a steaming pot that had already been placed with a complete tea setting on the coffee table between them.
As if she'd been expecting company.
Duo respectfully declined. He'd rather just get down to business. Yuuko simply nodded, allowing him to say his piece as she lazily refilled her pipe.
"Ya prob'ly remember Yagami Light, right? He was kinda a regular customer."
"Of course~"
"An' ya prob'ly knew that he had an alterego named Kira that was a serial killer."
No answer that time, but the look in her eyes told him that she knew what he was talking about.
Duo took a breath. It was now or never and "never" just wasn't an acceptable option. He slowly unbuttoned his shirt as he began to speak again, "A while back, don't remember if ya were here or not, there was some jackass that wanted t'fuck with us- . . . 'scuse my French." Yuuko simply nodded and gestured for him to continue. He didn't even know if she really needed to hear the whole story, if just seeing the thing would be good enough. But doctors always had to know what had happened to screw you up so badly, so this was probably the same. Even though the witch probably knew the story already.
Nevertheless, he continued, pulling aside his shirt to reveal the ugly remnants of an old wound that had never healed properly. The pale, reddish scar tissue stood out in contrast on his chest, spelling out a single name: KIRA.
"Left this as a souvenir."
Yuuko stood, for the first time, and Duo would have sworn that when she crossed to him she wasn't actually walking but floating in those robes that somehow draped off of her in the most elegant fashion he'd ever seen clothes practically falling off of a person. She stopped right in front of him and leaned over, apparently uncaring that her ample bosom was hardly being contained by the poor slipping fabric.
"A scar," she said, nearly purred, tracing the smoking end of her pipe along the lines of the scar, "doesn't stop at the surface~ No matter how shallow or deep into the flesh the wound reaches, it always leaves its mark on more than just the skin~" She touched the pipe to his chest over his heart and to his forehead before straightening up smiling almost kindly down at him. Almost.
"You know that I can't do this for free~"
"No one ever does!" But, of course, that was the part that worried Duo. There was so much that Yuuko could take from him that he just wasn't sure he could give up, even for Heero's peace of mind. He loved the emotionally stunted jerk, god help him, but the Deathscythe and his scrap yard were the only things he'd ever really owned; the scrap yard wasn't there, and he doubted Yuuko had space in that smoky little room of hers for the Deathscythe, so that left memories. Mementos. Things he'd carried with him to remember the people he'd cared for and lost. Things like the KIRA scar.
The woman's smile. It was amazing how many things it could convey just from the most subtle change. Duo had never seen anything like it, but he was pretty sure that it had shifted at some point to understanding. At least he hoped so. Some of them were also pretty vague, bordering on something a lot more disturbing.
"A scar for a scar, Duo-kun~"
The pilot blinked at her, hoping that she wasn't about to pull out a knife on him. She merely turned and floated back over to the chaise, taking a decorative wooden box from the tray on the table and spooning some loose leaves into the strainer of the still-steaming teapot. She gave it only a matter of seconds to sit but when she poured Duo a cup (without asking), it was perfectly steeped. The pilot took a few sips without even thinking.
"I will give you your peace of mind for your lover now~," Yuuko said, watching the pilot intently as he drank. "And in exchange I will take your peace of mind for your lover then~"
Duo stared at her wondering what in the hell she meant by that, but she seemed satisfied with . . . something and that seemed to be the end of their conversation. So he finished his tea, thanked Yuuko for her time, and got up and left, not really sure what had just happened. Had he been helped? Or had she decided he didn't want it bad enough or something? He had no idea.
But when he went to sleep that night, he dreamt of killer notebooks; of countrywide bloodshed; of innocents manipulated by the mind of a devil hidden behind the face of an angel; of death; of Light, gunned down, swimming in a pool of his own blood, and eventually done in by his own tool of destruction.
When he woke up from that vision of his ex-lover's future -- the young man he'd fought so hard for to convince everyone of his repentance -- the KIRA scar was gone. But if Duo looked too closely, he would find a spattering of bullet wound scars over his chest, on his hip, on his hand . . . that hadn't been there before.