Twin Saga Fanfic Series

1) Heero's Second Chance
2) Shinigami's Sorrow
3) A Perfect Soldier's Heart
4) Shinigami Shintsu

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1. Heero's Second Chance
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"Does my braid look okay?" Duo asked for the nth time.

Heero nodded. "Yeah, yeah. It looks fine." he grumbled.

"Hey, why so sad?" 

Duo's happiness permeated every inch of the room and Heero could feel it in the heart he'd always denied.

"It's my wedding day." Duo laughed. "Nobody is allowed to be sad on Shinigami's wedding day!" 

Duo stood up and left the room, leaving a dejected Heero standing there, realizing the mistake he'd made in pushing the braided baka away.

//But I'm the one who should've married you.// he thought, sadly.

He had decided not to attend the wedding, much to Duo's and Quatre's regret, though they both had expected this. He could spend the time the others were reveling on more productive things.

He opened his laptop and, out of sheer boredom, hacked into some files on the Winner family. Looking into their medical files, he knew what he was looking for now.

//I'm using my military expertise to find baby pictures of my fellow pilot.// he almost chuckled.

He found a video archive of the birth, and wondered why it had been saved for so long.

//Not saved. Forgotten. It wasn't deleted because they forgot it was there.//

He watched it, and was grateful that he'd been spared the majority of the woman's labor.

She looked like she was screaming, there was no sound in the movie, and then a blond-haired, blue-eyed infant was drawn from within her.

He was about to turn it off when he noticed a second head crowning.

//Quatre has a twin!?//

The doctors tried to save the woman, but the strain of labor had been too great for her fragile heart, and she died, even as the tiny chestnut-haired, violet-eyed second twin emerged from her womb.

Fraternal twins then.

Wait a minute!

There was a commotion in the on-screen room as one of the men, Quatre's father presumably, tried to smother the second child. Presumably he'd gone mad with grief and believed the child had killed its own mother. That was not strictly untrue, but it was hardly the baby's fault. After what looked like a heated argument, the other man picked up the chestnut-haired baby and departed, leaving the grieving man to cradle his remaining son in his arms.


Heero blinked, then gasped in realization. He backed up the video and saved a hard copy picture that clearly showed both twins. A moment later, he was racing to the church. He arrived just as the preacher was asking if anyone had any reasons the couple shouldn't marry.

"DUO NO BAKA!" he called out. "QUATRE NO BAKA!"

Duo and Quatre turned. "Hold on." Duo told the preacher, smiling in hopes that this would mean Heeroo wanted to attend. He went over to Heero. "Does this mean you're attending after all?"

"Duo, you can't marry Quatre." Heero said.

"Heero, did you think I was just going to stand around and be melodramatic like "Oh, I'll never love again! Heero has left me!"

"I was a fool." Heero told him. "But that's not the reason I'm stopping the wedding." He reached into his shirt and pulled out the picture.

"What's this?" Duo asked, opening it. His eyes went wide. "I'm..." he looked over at Quatre, "he's... We're...."

Heero nodded.

Quatre looked over at Duo and realized the braided boy was about to faint. He raced over to him as fast as he could, and caught his intended in his arms...

"Quatre watashi no futago..." Duo whispered as he passed out.

Quatre blinked, took a moment to translate, then fainted on top of Duo.

"Sheesh, Heero." Trowa said as he helped the Perfect Soldier and the preacher drag Duo and Quatre in the back room and set them on a pair of sofas. "What did you show Duo?"

Heero showed him.

"Oh my... Looks like you found out just in time."

The preacher looked at the image over Trowa's shoulder. "At least it got found out before the wedding this time around."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," the preacher admitted, "with families separated during wartime and children taken to separate orphanages, it's not surprising for two siblings to marry, totally unaware of their relationship. Of course once such a relationship is found out, annulment is the only legal course of action."

Quatre sat up, blinking, and went over to the sofa where Duo slept.

"Oniisan?" he whispered.

"Ototo." Heero corrected him.

Quatre blinked.

"Oniisan means 'older' brother." Heero explained. "But you were born first. Duo is your Ototo." He looked fondly at the still-sleeping Duo.

"You still love him." Quatre realized.

Heero nodded. 

"As his older sibling, I give you permission to court him." Quatre told Heero. "But if you break his heart again, I'll hunt you down to the ends of the Earth and... and... well, I'm sure I'll think of something nasty to do to you by the time I hunt you down." he told the Perfect Soldier.

"I wouldn't have it any other way." Heero agreed.

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2. Shinigami's Sorrow
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"Duo," Quatre called up the stairs, "are you almost ready?"

"Just a minute." Duo called back down as he came into view. He was dressed in an outfit Quatre had picked out for him. "I feel funny wearing this, you know. Not my style." It was an outfit similar to Quatre's but with a black vest and red shirt rather than grey and pink, respectively.

"I know." Quatre agreed. "But dad's gonna freak out when he learns who you really are." he hadn't told his family about the aborted wedding, since they were strictly against same-sex marriages. He wondered how they'd take this little shock. 


The Winner limo arrived at the terminal to pick up Quatre. Inside, Quatre's father sat reading a business magazine. He looked up briefly as Quatre and Duo got in, then resumed reading. A moment later, he did a double-take, then grabbed his gun and aimed it at Duo.

"NO!" Quatre yelped. "Dad! D..."

Before anyone could blink, Duo had the gun out of the elder Winner's hand and separated into its component parts.

"And he beats his record by five seconds!" Duo cheered himself as he sat back, and grinned. "Nice gun, by the way."

Quatre was so relieved he couldn't help joining in Duo's laughter.

"Filthy murderer." the man growled at Duo.

Duo's laughter was silenced. This wasn't how he'd envisioned things. He'd thought there'd be a loving father there who'd embrace him and say how wrong he'd been for discarding him. Instead, the man was discarding him again. He didn't feel like laughing anymore and as his dream of a happy reunion shattered around him, he was sure he'd never laugh again.

"I kill people, too, dad." Quatre pointed out.

"That's different." the man pointed out. "That's in wartime. You don't have a choice?"

"And Duo did?" Quatre blinked. 

"He killed his mother."

"I was his accomplice, then." Quatre pointed out. "I was the one who wore her down. Why didn't you get rid of me, too?"

"I needed an heir." the man looked at Duo. "It seems I also need better servants. I told them to drown you."

Quatre began to cry. "I wanted this to be nice for everyone, and I've made such a mess of things. Duo, I'm sorry. I thought ... I mean..."

Duo put a comforting arm around Quatre. "It's okay, Quatre." he told the other boy. "He loved our mother so much that her death still hurts him. I understand what it's like to lose someone precious to me."

"Bullshit." the man swore. "You understand nothing. Have you ever had a person you loved more than anything suddenly ripped away from you?!"

"Yes." Duo replied. "Father Maxwell and Sister Helen."

Quatre's father blinked in surprise. "You were at the Maxwell Church, then?"

Duo nodded, glumly. "Death follows me wherever I go, it seems. I can't love anyone without... without..." he began to weep, softly.

Something about the tears in those violet eyes broke through the hard wall the elder Winner had erected around his heart and he pulled Duo into his arms, whispering an apology over and over.

"I've been a bitter fool for too long." he told Duo. "Can you ever forgive me?"

Duo nodded, then pulled back, smiling

The limo pulled up at the Winner Mansion and the driver let all three passengers out. He brought their luggage into the main house, then excused himself and headed to the servants' area.

Duo entered the main hall of the Winner Mansion, gave it a casual looking over, then nodded, quietly.

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3. A Perfect Soldier's Heart
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-Part 1-

Heero watched as Quatre's and Duo's flight came into the airport. It seemed wrong, somehow, the angle off, too steep.

"No..." he whispered to himself. 

Then it crashed!

Heero's world became a sudden whirlwind of activity, sirens, wreckage and flames.

He and the other people who were waiting for friends and relatives on that fight were bustled off to the hospital via ground shuttle to wait for news of their loved ones.

As the death toll rose, Heero became more and more sure that Duo's and Quatre's names would be announced as deceased.

"Duo Maxwell and Quatre Raberba Winner..."

//Here it comes....// Heero thought, in heartbroken anticipation.

"... alive." the announcer moved onto the next set of names, but Heero didn't notice.

"Alive." he laughed, in tearful relief "They're alive!"

-Part 2-

Heero gazed down at Duo as the braided baka lie, unconscious, upon the hospital bed. It had been nearly two days since the crash and since then, Duo had been in a coma. He took Duo's hand and held it between his own hands.

"Duo," he said, "my beloved Duo." he leaned over and kissed the other boy's forehead.

*Ahem*

Heero looked up at the door to see Quatre and Duo's father standing there.

"We need to talk." the man scowled.


//Oh no...// Heero groaned.

He went into the hall, "Sir..."

"You're in love with my son."

Heero nodded. "Yes, sir." he admitted.

"I want you to leave him." the older man said, firmly. "I want you to break off this unhealthy relationship with him."

//Relena, I've found you a husband.// Heero thought. Out loud he simply said.. "No."

"Then you leave me no choice. I'm removing both of them from your so-called organization and placing a restraining order upon you and your friends to prevent you from seeing them."

"If you do this, you'll kill Duo." Heero warned. "You'll break his heart and it will kill him. Or maybe that's what you want. You did try to kill him when he was a baby."

"How DARE you?" the older man raged as he slapped Heero across the face, or almost did.

Heero grabbed the man's wrist just prior to contact and glared at him. "Quatre has already given me permission to court Duo and that is exactly what I intend to do. I will kidnap him from you if that's what it takes, and I'm sure he'll have no objection." he warned, darkly.

-Part 3-

"SECURITY!"

Two orderlies walked in. "Yes, sir."

Mr. Winner pointed at Heero. "This man has been fondling my son. I wish to have him arrested."

"Yes, sir." the orderlies advanced upon Heero. 

"You lying son of a ..." Heero reached for his gun, but then Quatre walked in. He couldn't shoot the man in front of his own son! Not in front of Quatre!

Quatre stared as Heero was lead away in handcuffs.

"Dad... what did you tell them?"

"The truth." Mr. Winner replied. It wasn't a lie, after all, was it? If Heero was Duo's lover, then he probably had been fondling him. He'd simply bent it a little.

"Dad!" Quatre protested.

"And just who do you think you are, Quatre? Duo's pimp? Going around giving other men permission to fuck him?!"

"It wasn't like that!" Quatre was turning bright red from anger and embarrassment and the color did not go well with his hair or his clothes. 

Duo blinked. "Heero?" he asked, softly, receiving a slap across the face from his and Quatre's father in reply. "OWW!"

"Do not mention that unclean person's name again." the older man warned. "I've had him arrested and you will never see him again. And if you persist in your obscene pursuit of other young men, Duo, I will have you locked away, permanently, in a mental hospital."

Duo's heart shattered into glittering fragments. His father was condemning him to a life of solitude, a life without emotional or physical love or contact. 

This was just too much for the boy's older twin. Quatre now looked the offspring of Satan and a Blond Beach Bunny.

"I wish you had died instead of mom." Quatre screamed at his father as he backhanded the man hard enough to knock him to the floor.

Both Duo and their father stared at Quatre in amazement. The little Arab had never been that violent before. 

"I hate you." Quatre whispered to his father. 

-Part 4-

"I have no quarrel with you, son." the elder Winner told Quatre. "This is between me and your sick little brother."

"I'm not sick, yet." Duo pointed out. "But all your bigoted talk is getting me there."

"You need help, Duo, my son." the older man said, gently. "You need help to get over your sickness."

"I'm not sick," Duo insisted, "and I wish to God I were an orphan."

"If he keeps it up, we'll both be orphans." Quatre snarled. "Shut up, dad, before I take that foot you're putting in your mouth and choke you with it."

"That is no way to speak to your father."

Quatre closed his eyes, and steeled himself. The he turned away from the older man.

"I have no father." he said, quietly. "Me and my brother Duo are orphans."

"As you wish. But my fight wasn't with..."

"I'm gay, too." Quatre told him.

"What?!"

"In fact, Duo and I almost got married." Quatre latched onto Duo and ruffled his hair. 

"You and...?!" the older man struck Duo hard enough to chip one of his teeth. "I wanted sons and I got weak, pathetic girlie-men."

Duo glared in pain then flung himself at the older man, along with Quatre. The two of them pinned the older man down and glared at him.

"Listen, *dad*," Duo snarled in his face, "I am *Shinigami*. Got that. I ain't weak or pathetic, just cause I love guys.

"Very true." Quatre nodded. "In fact, way I see it, if you can bear that much pain, and when it gets really wild like it does sometimes, it can get seriously painful, even with lubrication, then that's a true test of manhood."

"You two didn't...?" their father asked, looking a bit startled

"No." Quatre shook his head. "Not with each other. It was me and Trowa and him and Heero. I think it'll be that way again."

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4. Shinigami Shintsu
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-Part 1-

"Duo, Heero will be here any minute." Quatre told his brother.

"Shouldn't you get ready?"

Duo looked up at the clock. "EEP!" he exclaimed as he dropped the pint of ice cream he'd been working on and raced into the bedroom to change clothes. "Oh god, oh god, oh god, I'm gonna be late!" he wailed.

Quatre picked up the pint of ice cream after Duo was out of the room. He had, unbeknownst to the Shinigami Pilot, set the clock ahead so he could get some of the ice cream. Thing was, he'd forgotten to set the clock in the next room, and so Duo had realized the trick as soon as he left.

That's why Duo was standing over Quatre when the blond pilot started to stand up.

"EEP!" Quatre echoed Duo's earlier sentiment.

"You can have it." Duo smiled. "I do need to get ready. I just had to see the look on your face."

"Do you ever think about it... the wedding I mean?"

Duo nodded. "Yeah. That was a close one. It was a good thing Heero found that information when he did."

The doorbell rang.

"EEP!" Duo exclaimed, again. He ran to the door and threw it open.

"Hee-kun!" He exclaimed. "Come on in. I'm just finishing up getting ready."

"Actually, I came early to let you know I have to cancel our date. I have a mission I have to undertake this evening. I'm sorry, Duo, I really am."

"It's her, isn't it?" Duo sank into his chair.

"If you mean Relena, yes it is." Heero sighed. "She asked that I be her bodyguard and I have no choice, since it was passed down to me as an order."

"She's just doing this to manipulate you into a date." Duo pointed out.

"I know." Heero agreed. "But I promise, I'll make it up to you."

"This is the third time you've had to cancel a date with me because of her." Duo said. "She finds out, Heero. She finds out about our dates somehow and..." he turned to Quatre. "You haven't been telling her, have you?"

Quatre shook his head. "I'd never betray you that way, Duo-chan!" He looked hurt that Duo would've suggested such a thing.

"I'm sorry, Quatre." Duo said, seeing the look in Quatre's eyes.

"Please, forgive me?"

Quatre's face lit up with happiness and forgiveness and he hugged Duo, warmly.

Heero turned to Duo once Quatre had released his braided twin, and took the boy's face in his hands. "I'll make it up to you, I swear. After I get back from this mission, why don't we get married?"

"You.. you mean it?" Duo asked. "You really mean it?"

"I really mean it." Heero replied. "Will you marry me, Duo?"

"Yes." Duo accepted.

Heero kissed Duo, tenderly.

Quatre smiled at this. He approved rather highly of the relationship and thought they were good for each other.

The two newly engaged lovers broke their kiss as Heero's driver honked the horn on the transport Heero was travelling in.

"Please be careful, Heero." Duo said as Heero made his way down the path leading back to the transport he'd arrived in. "If anything happened to you... Please, remember you've got someone waiting for you at home."

Heero waved and called back. "I'll see you in a couple of days, Duo-chan."

Then he stepped into the transport, and closed the door.

Just as the vehicle rounded the corner, it exploded in a huge fireball!

"NO!!!!!" Duo screamed in horror. He ran toward the fire and might have flung himself into it, if Quatre hadn't stopped him.

-Part 2-

Duo clung to Quatre, sobbing against his brother's chest as the fire burned away the remnants of Heero's body.

"Why?" Duo sobbed. "Why must everyone I love die? What did I do to deserve such pain? Is it my fate to be alone forever? To never wed? No." he turned to the wreckage, tears streaming down his face. "I won't let you have him, God. Not this one! Not this time! I challenge you! Either you give him back or I'll come and take him from you!"

"Duo..." Quatre began.

"Unless you're going to tell me you know a way I can carry out that challenge I just issued, I suggest you shut up." Duo was not in a good mood.

"I do know a way." Quatre replied. "But I don't want to tell you. I just found out I have a twin brother and I don't want to lose him."

"You will lose me if I can't go after him, Quatre." Duo sighed. "I can't live without Heero."

"In that case, I'm coming with you." Quatre told Duo. "I'm more experienced in psychic matters than you. You're going to need my help."

"Just point the way and stand back." Duo had no intention of putting Quatre in danger. "I am Shinigami after all."

"If you were, Heero wouldn't be dead. Duo, if you're going, then you've got to go in accepting yourself for who you really are. You go strutting around the afterlife claiming to be Shinigami and you're gonna find yourself having to fight for that title, and not with some two-bit OZ pilot either."

Duo nodded.

"Remember, when you're there, you're Duo Maxwell. Nothing more and nothing less. You go in believing you're better than you are or not as good as you are and either way you'll be in for a nasty surprise."

"Pride and falls and all that." Duo mused.

"Exactly." Quatre replied. The fire trucks and ambulance arrived on the scene, but he ignored them, leading Duo back to the house. He lead Duo into the study and closed the doors.

"Draw the curtains." Quatre told Duo as he drew one. "We need darkness for this."

"So, what exactly do we do?" Duo started drawing some of the other curtains.

"We have to put ourselves at the brink of death." Quatre replied. "We have to be at that point just between life and death. The journey back will be hard, there will be a good deal of temptation to stay there. But to do so would mean our deaths. We'll have ten hours to find him and bring him back. And it won't be as easy as it sounds."

"I understand."

"You can still back out of this." Quatre urged.

Duo paused and gazed out of the last open window for a moment, then drew the curtain and turned. "No, I can't." he replied. "Heero means too much to me."

Quatre took a deep breath.

"Then, let's begin."

-Part 3-

Duo closed his eyes, sitting in the dark room, listening only to Quatre's gentle voice.

"You feel your heart getting slower and slower," Quatre said, softly, "your pulse is getting weaker and weaker. You feel yourself pulling away from your body. Do not fight it. Let go.

Duo found himself standing in a void that was neither in this world nor the next. He looked around, but saw no sign of Death or Heero.

Quatre was standing beside him. To Duo's dismay, he saw Quatre's soul was vibrant, and seemed almost solid, while Duo's was dull and transparent.

"Your soul is incomplete without Heero." Quatre explained. "When you and he are reunited, it will heal."

-Part 4-

Duo stepped forward, noticing that as soon as he stepped away from the place where his body lay dormant, everything changed and he could no longer see where he lay.

//Well,// he thought, //either I'll be able to get back or I won't. Either way, I'll be with Heero.//

He continued walking forward, Quatre walking alongside him. As he walked, he noticed that they were beginning to sink into the ground. "Keep going." Quatre told him. "No matter what, we must keep going if we want Heero back."

Duo nodded and continued, ignoring the obstacles, keeping his mind on one thing, bringing Heero home. He paused for a moment, trying to get his bearings.

In this place, where the soul was as physical as the body is in the world of the living, something took the opportunity to nudged a squirming tentacle against Duo's backside and started to slide it in.

Duo tried to move away, but another tentacle grabbed his right leg. Then one grabbed his waist and the other grabbed his left leg

//Please no... please don't let this happen.// Duo struggled to pull free, trying to uncoil the tentacles, to pull free of the one that was writhing within him, sliding deeper and deeper.

A series of energy blasts struck the offending appendages causing them to fall away from Duo. The creature withdrew the remaining tentacle from inside of Duo and vanished, thinking it wise to do so before it lost more tentacles.

Duo turned, stunned to see Quatre blowing, Old-West-Style, on his fingertip.

"My Uchu-no-Kokoro." he smiled. "I can do some pretty strange things with it in this place."

"You've been here before?" Duo realized

"I tried to bring my mom back once." Quatre explained. "I failed. But she'd already been dead for years.

-----TBC-----