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Kyuuketsuki Duo
Segue 4:6
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	"This sucks, you know," Duo complained.  "I'd swear this isn't a 
part of my job description."  He stabbed at the corner of the room with 
his broom, only succeeding in scattering the pine needles even further.  
"I don't know why we have to clean up after the strays."

	Heero, looking very much out of place with robes, mask, and 
dustpan, gave him one of his looks.  ::You know very well why we have to 
clean up after them.::

	"Yeah, yeah."  Duo stopped his stabbing and started sweeping 
again.  The last stray had used the fallen foliage in his attack, but at 
least the room was now pine-scented fresh.  "Can't have people getting 
all suspicious-like of messes that weren't there the day before.  I'm 
beginning to appreciate having confrontations in the slums and back 
alleys, you know?  What kind of Shinma would choose to fight in a house 
on the auction block?"

	::Just be glad it didn't scuff the floors,:: Heero thought back 
to Duo while walking out the door to toss his load of dirt and leaves.

	"Yeah, no kidding.  Hey!  Look out!"

	Heero stopped immediately and surveyed his surroundings in an 
instant.  He didn't see anything threatening, but sometimes Duo could 
sense things that he couldn't.  ::What is it?::

	"That coffee table," he pointed out.  "You were about to trip 
over it."  Duo was referring to the low mahogany table he saw right 
behind Heero, in the middle of his interrupted path.  The legs were 
thick and curved, and there was decorative carving along the edges, with 
a layer of glass topping it.

	Heero looked behind him, and saw nothing.  ::You know, I was 
wondering why you kept walking around the center of the room,:: he 
stated, as if something had just been explained.

	Duo gave him a funny look, was about to say something, then 
stopped and rolled his eyes.  "Wait.  Don't tell me.  This is a vacant 
house.  On the auction block.  Unfurnished.  So why would there be a 
coffee table sitting in the middle of one of the rooms?"  All this was 
stated rather dryly.  He smacked himself on the forehead.  "Because it's 
not there, right?"

	Heero sent his confirmation.  ::Nothing there at all,:: he 
responded, just a shade too cheerily for Duo.

	"You know, you'd think I'd catch on, by now."  Heero refrained 
from answering, just finished dumping the dustpan out the door, walking 
straight through the phantom table on his way out.  "What do you think 
it was this time?  Belonged to the old occupants of the house?  Probably 
a family heirloom or something.  Wedding gift, maybe."  Now that he had 
identified the table as merely an echo from the past, he could dismiss 
the image from his mind's eye.

	Duo sighed and leaned moodily on his broomstick.  "You think 
it's just me who keeps seeing things that aren't there?"  Just another 
manifestation of his heritage that kept catching him off-guard, he often 
had waking visions of different times and different places.  What had 
just happened was the most common -- he saw things or heard things from 
the past that were emotionally or powerfully charged and had made some 
lingering impression on the otherplanes.  Other times, his mind was 
pulled to a different place and time altogether, and he had visions of 
the present or the future, usually having to do with the strays it was 
his duty to deal with.  "Or do you figure all the guardians had this ... 
gift?" he concluded, wincing a little with the irony of his 'gift'.

	::It would be a logical extension of the guardian's power,:: 
Heero conjectured.  ::To be drawn somehow to the Shinma who have 
strayed.::

	"Yeah, I guess.  Of course, it also makes it damned hard to 
think straight, sometimes."  He chuckled ruefully.  "In that case, I 
wonder if all the other guardians were as ... let us say, out of touch 
with reality as I am."

	Heero picked up his own broom once more and continued to clean 
sedately.  Duo stared for a moment, before muttering to himself, "That 
is so weird."  He shook his head to clear it of the surreal picture, but 
unfortunately, this one was actually there, and it didn't disappear.

	"My parents must have been insane to have given birth to such a 
crazy creature as myself.  Yeah, that's it.  It's all inherited.  
Entirely their fault."  He grinned merrily, having exonerated himself 
from all guilt, and continued his sweeping.

	::They seemed like rather stable people to me.::

	"You think?  Maybe it was all just lurking under the surface, 
waiting to --" Duo stopped his sweeping again and stared at his partner.  
"Wait a minute.  You've seen my parents?" he demanded.

	Affirmation.

	"You've seen them before, and you never told me?"  Duo's voice 
grew flatter by the word.

	Heero shrugged.  ::It never came up.::

	"Never came up.  Of course."  Duo decided that getting angry 
would be futile, so he gave up and shrugged philosophically.  "So when 
would you have met my parents?"

	::I never met them.  I just observed them.  When I was sent out 
to find you, the first logical place to start was with them.  I thought 
they might know something, so I watched them for a while.::

	"So what can you tell me about them?" Duo asked eagerly.

	Heero thought about it.  He didn't think that he had seen 
anything interesting, but Duo was known to find very different things 
interesting than he did.  As Duo's expression became more and more 
disconsolate, he lighted upon something Duo would probably want to know.

	::They thought about you.::

	"Huh?  Really?  How so?"

	::Your mother kept a small lock of your hair in the bottom of 
her dresser drawer.  Foolish of her, really.  Gave me my first hint that 
you actually existed.::  He would also have pointed out that it had 
given him a very faint 'feel' for Duo -- not enough to trace, but enough 
to recognize -- only he remembered that he was disrespecting his 
partner's deceased mother, and stopped himself.

	Duo had a somewhat dreamy look on his face from that tidbit of 
information.  It was more than he had ever hoped for, to know that they 
still thought about him after they abandoned him.  "No wonder I always 
had a vague feeling that my hair was important.... So, did she take it 
out and look at it everyone once in a while or something?"

	Heero shrugged.  ::It felt that way, but I never saw her touch 
it.::

	Duo favored him with a sharp look.  "Then how did you find out 
it was there?" he asked suspiciously.

	::I looked through her things.::

	"You broke into my parents' house?!" the guardian burst out.  
"How could you?"

	His shadow-shrouded friend gave him a tolerant glare.  ::And 
just how many houses have you broken into, hmm?  This one included.::

	"But it was my parents'!"

	::Duo,:: he warned.  ::Don't make me remind you that you barely 
remember your parents, or your house.::

	Duo deflated for just a moment, but then he brightened.  "But 
you could show me, right?"

	:: ? ::

	"You could show me their house, where they lived.  Where I 
lived, right?"

	Heero considered.  Surely there was no harm.  And it wasn't like 
Duo would ever give him peace if he didn't.  He nodded.  ::But only 
after we finish up here.::

	Duo immediately perked up at the suggestion.  "Can you?  Can you 
really?  Oh, that would be wonderful!"  He started at the floor with 
renewed enthusiasm.

                              ************

	The house had been untenanted for many a year, and it showed.  
In fact, when they slipped inside -- breaking and entering again, but 
since the home was technically his own, Duo forgave himself -- and 
observed the home still furnished, with a thick layer of dust overlying 
everything, Heero noted that everything seemed the same as when he had 
last seen it.  Duo looked at him incredulously, but Heero pointed out 
that it was quite possible.

	During his observation, he hadn't noted that the then guardians 
had had any friends, so no one would necessarily have noticed that they 
were gone until much, much later.  They didn't know the precise details 
of how Duo's parents had died, but it had involved Shinma, and likely 
there would have been no bodies left behind.  There would have been no 
listed next of kin.  A sudden disappearance like that, plus the certain 
air of mystery they must have surrounded themselves with as the 
guardians, could very easily lead to the house remaining untouched after 
its last occupants went missing.  People could very well have considered 
the estate cursed.

	Duo eagerly explored every little corner of the two-story home, 
but without really disturbing much of it, anxious, somehow, to preserve 
the sanctity and memory of the place.  It was just a bit too big for two 
people, but would have been comfortable for a couple with a rambunctious 
little one.  The house was personable, but not particularly filled with 
many mementos of the people who had lived there.  But then again, Duo 
thought that if their lives had had even a fraction of what he had had 
to deal with, it was no wonder they didn't have time for hobbies and 
vacations and the like.

	As he went through the rooms, a bit of the cleaning bug seemed 
to have followed him from their last adventure, because he began 
unconsciously cleaning the house as he went, fastidiously transporting 
all the perishables in the kitchen outside, with his sleeve held 
protectively before his nose, idly burning away the cobwebs in the 
corners, and absently rubbing away the layers of dust on the glass 
surfaces.  Heero did not comment as he silently trailed along behind the 
storm of Duo activity, listening to, but not entirely paying attention 
to, the excited prattle that fell from the guardian's lips.

	And finally, the braided one ran out of crevices to peer into, 
and, lacking a clean surface to sit upon, found himself leaning on the 
solid wall that was Heero.

	"Hey...."

	"Hmm?"  When Duo used that tone of voice, it meant he was 
thinking up something that was probably 'inspired', to use the 
guardian's own choice of words.

	"You think it's that time of life again?"

	"Care to specify?"

	"When I take a little time and settle down?"  Duo did that once 
in a while.  He found a little place that was not entirely mainstream, 
but still plugged in to popular trends, and lived out in the 'real 
world' for a little bit.  He insisted it was a way for him to stay up to 
date with what was happening in the world, for how could he be an 
effective hunter if he knew not the world in which he hunted?  Heero had 
to agree.  He was, after all, the one who had first mentioned that idea.  
Duo typically got a small job, or registered himself in a local school 
as a cover, staying as long as he felt like it, which usually wasn't 
that long, for he was ever aware that he could not stay long enough for 
anyone to notice that he didn't age.

	"And you want to live here?" Heero stated, more than asked.  It 
was fairly evident in his companion's unconscious actions, as if he was 
already preparing the house for its new tenant.

	"Well, sure, why not?"  He pulled Heero's arms around him and 
sagged a little further.  "I can check out the locals a bit, but if 
people think the place is cursed or something, then no one will bother 
us.  It's far enough away from town, too, that you wouldn't have to hide 
out in the shadows all day.  You could actually live here with me.  And 
if we keep the windows shuttered like they already are, and are careful 
with our lights and stuff, which we don't really need at all since we 
can pretty much see in the dark, well...."

	Heero smiled ruefully.  It was clearly the case that Duo wanted 
this very, very much, and if Duo wanted it that badly, then Heero 
wouldn't object.  "Well, sure," he acquiesced quietly into the 
guardian's ear.  "Why not?"

_________________________________________
This piece of fiction is the intellectual 
property of the little turnip that could.  
The basis for this fic, i.e. Gundam Wing, 
Kyuuketsuki Miyu, et al., is the property 
of someone else.  The author can be con-
tacted at jchew@myrealbox.com.  This has 
been an entirely automated message.
http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~jchew/misc/gw.html

last modified : 1/26/2001 01:56:00 PST