--------------- Kyuuketsuki Duo Episode 16 Bad Religion Chapter 10 --------------- Heero watched the back of his quiet partner as the youth slid open the glass door at the rear of their home. The boy was so tense he was near quivering with the effort of holding himself together. Heero could see the guardian's energies thrumming strongly around him, and he tsked to himself. Duo was riding on the power, using its cold strength as comfort and buffer against the events of the night, but his control over it was tenuous, at best, and soon enough, the power would extract its price. Duo moved in eerie silence as he made his way through the house, with only the soft swish of shadowsilk trailing in his wake as he shed his work clothes. Heero, too, traded in his voluminous robe for something more casual, staying inconspicuously close by his partner, yet far enough away to allow the boy some space. He knew better than to try to approach Duo right now. His balance was too precarious, too unstable, and a premature move could tip him in any direction, whether flamingly violent or chillingly distant. No, it was only a matter of time.... Duo made it as far as the bottom of the stairs before he faltered, having to reach out suddenly with one hand and steady himself against the banister as his knees buckled and he couldn't hold on to the thin veneer of calm any longer. A moment later, and his legs failed him altogether, and Heero was there, catching him behind his back as he fell and pulling him into a loose embrace on the floor. Duo was limp in his arms, a boneless rag doll as he stared numbly at the old wooden floorboards beneath them, and then it came. It started with a light tremor, then a choking hiccup, and finally a convulsive sob that ripped through his light frame and tore away any pretensions of self-control. The power had abandoned him, and left him mercilessly to crash. Heero turned his love in his arms, and Duo immediately buried his face in the crook of Heero's neck, his hands clutching tightly at the thin material of his partner's shirt. Heero gathered him up gently and carefully carried him up the stairs and into the bedroom, a faint frown on his face as he listened to every heartrending gasp and whimper. Disturbingly, he felt the slow trickle of a few hot tears burning against the skin of his neck. The last time he remembered Duo really crying was when he had first been changed and unbalanced, the pain and frustration of the difficult transition period manifesting themselves very clearly in the droplets that had managed occasionally to squeeze their way past his tight emotional defenses. That had been very, very many years ago. He managed to get them settled onto the bed without dislodging his lover's tight grasp. By then, the boy had managed to reestablish a tentative balance within himself, one based upon his own will, rather than the power's. Most of the physical reactions had subsided, leaving only a mind in turmoil. Slowly, as he provided Duo's body with a comfortable haven, he thinned the barrier between their two souls and offered refuge. Duo took advantage of the tacit invitation to crawl inside his partner's head and collapse there wearily, Heero spreading his own reassuring presence over him like a warm, fuzzy blanket on a cold, winter's night, and setting himself up as the pillow. After some time spent cradled in his partner's love, Duo's thoughts dragged themselves back into some semblance of order, and reminded him to feel miserable. ::Is it too much to ask?:: he thought in a small mindvoice. ::All I want is a few lousy hours each day for maybe a year or two to call my own. That's all. Something the guardian thing can't touch. And I had it for a while. And now it's gone.:: ::Shhh...,:: Heero murmured soothingly, forestalling the building tempest with a few skillfully applied strokes of comfort to Duo's prickly mindsurface. Rather than pushing them back down, he drew them out in a controlled fashion, and patiently wore away at them until they smoothed themselves out. ::It's nothing you didn't know was going to happen, love.:: ::Yes, but not like this! Sure, I knew I was going to leave this behind eventually, but not....:: A pause for a moment to get around the lump in his mental throat. ::Not like this.:: ::Like what?:: Heero prompted gently, encouraging the boy to give his emotions form with conscious thought and realization. Only then could they work their way through them and bring resolution. ::...Well, he didn't have to go and drag my friends into this,:: Duo pouted angrily. ::That was sheer coincidence, Duo. Bad luck. He didn't seek them out for the express purpose of using them against you.:: ::Well, that's fine, then. They didn't mean anything to me, anyway.:: A sharp bitterness tinged his tone. ::Just humans to pass the time with. Would have been food under any other circumstances. Hell, Trowa already was!:: ::You don't mean that, Duo.:: The ugly bubble of denial popped beneath Heero's pointed refutation. Duo sighed. ::No, I don't suppose so.... Maybe I was just a fool to begin with. Maybe I just deluded myself into thinking it. I don't know why I ever thought they could be my friends.:: ::Don't wander down that path, Duo. You know where it will lead.:: 'How could they ever be friends with a person like me?' was the automatic, unbidden completion of the thought, but Heero read it off of him as clearly as if he had thought it aloud. ::Don't, Duo. Don't do this to yourself.:: Duo lapsed back into a long silence. ::Talk to me, love,:: Heero requested softly, not liking the advent of an empty numbness of the mind that Duo was not resisting. Trying to ignore the main issue here was not going to make it go away. He needed to figure out for himself what was real and what wasn't, and get rid of all of the peripheral excess that was clouding his mind. Jarred into thinking again by his partner's quiet words, Duo sighed deeply, and partially withdrew himself from Heero's mind, enough so that he was back in his own head and aware of his surroundings again. He found that he was sitting with his legs draped across his partner's lap, his head nestled comfortably upon his chest. As much as he enjoyed being so closely linked to his partner, it was just too easy to hide behind the shelter and safety that Heero represented. No, Heero was right. He needed to take a good, long breath and dive to the bottom of it all. Heero would light the way. Unwilling to completely forsake his partner's protection, he maneuvered his body a little more snugly against Heero's before settling down to ponder his mental state carefully. ::I think I don't like being accused of something I'm not, especially when I could be, so easily, and especially when I spend so many of my waking minutes ensuring that I'm not.:: Heero's light amusement swept through his mindscape like a crisp, fresh breeze. ::What's so funny?:: Duo demanded curiously. ::This is an improvement. A definite improvement.:: A tiny chuckle tickled the edge of his perceptions, one that encouraged him, rather ironically, to lighten up for a moment. ::There was a time when I constantly had to convince you that you weren't. I'm glad you believe it, now. Now we can stop wasting time covering the same ground over and over again.:: Duo's lips curved upwards slightly, but the smile was short-lived. ::I may believe it, but.... I feel like I'm holding on by my toenails, sometimes. Like I'm straddling a very high fence -- with barbed wire on top, maybe -- and which way I lean on any given day depends on the vagaries of the wind, and I might fall a very, very long way down. And maybe sometimes to hang on, I have to take a hold of that barbed wire, and it digs into me and hurts, and just sitting on it hurts, and maybe this is just a silly analogy and I should stop now, but.... This wouldn't be happening if I were just one or the other,:: he lamented in conclusion. ::Who am I?:: Heero asked abruptly. ::Huh?:: ::Am I Shinma?:: ::No.:: ::Am I human?:: ::...Not quite.:: ::Then who am I?:: Mental blink. ::You're... I don't know.:: Helpless mental shrug. ::You're ... Heero.:: ::And you are you, Duo. You must find your own niche. You're not just Shinma, you're not just human, you're not just the guardian, and you most certainly are not at all the arch-nemesis of mankind. You're just you, Duo.:: The mental smile warmed him from the inside out, and unconsciously he turned into the touch of the light fingers caressing his face. ::And that's all you have to be. Just Duo, whose present has been uniquely determined by the circumstances of his own past, and no one else's.:: ::Just ... me.:: Duo tested the concept inside his head, and found it pleasing. ::But... they were just being them, too,:: he realized aloud, referring to the four teens that had unexpectedly shown up that night. ::How so?:: The hand attached to the arm currently curved around Duo's back idly removed the tie from the tail end of Duo's hair and began unraveling the braid, extracting the deep red ribbon there as he went. ::It'd be so easy to blame them. To get angry with them. But when I stop to think about it, I feel like, if anyone was betraying anyone here, it was me. I was the one who was hiding things, I was the one like the wolf among the sheep, misrepresenting myself. Sure, I'm ... unhappy that things turned out the way they did, but could I expect any different? We all know how Wufei feels about everything he's clumped together under the demon heading. Obviously, that includes me. And I can hardly fault him for that. He's got good reason. And Meiran was probably there following Wufei's lead. Maybe she got a little influenced by the messages the stray was throwing out. And Trowa... I'm sure he'd be angry with me for doing what I did to him, but I kinda took the ability to be angry away from him, so never mind that. And Quatre....:: ::He defended you,:: Heero reminded him. ::Yeah.... He's a good kid. Got a big heart. But he flinched, Heero. Even if he didn't mean to, even if he didn't want to, he couldn't meet my eyes without flinching. I mean, come on, he's a spiritualist, after all. His kind and ours just don't mix.:: ::You don't know that. You're your own kind, and Quatre definitely seems different.:: ::Yeah, well we'll never know that. The gig is up, Heero. It's over. My cover's been blown, and I can't stay here any longer.:: He sighed again, his hand absentmindedly fidgeting with the material of Heero's shirt. ::...Maybe it wouldn't hurt so much if this weren't home, you know? I didn't really grow up here, but this place, this house.... It's *home*. And now some two-bit little Shinma with a bit of luck manages to drive me out. And...:: ::And...?:: ::...and I don't want to leave,:: Duo finished softly. ::If it's just the house,:: Heero started, knowing that it wasn't just the house, ::we can always come back. Give it a few years for things to settle down.:: His fingers worked at burying themselves in Duo's hair, starting at the base of his scalp and wriggling upward. ::Yeah, maybe,:: Duo answered, his tone clearly implying that it just wouldn't be the same anymore. ::Just a little something the Shinma can't touch....:: That was all he asked. ::We don't have to leave right now, do we, Heero?:: he asked hesitantly, a tiny pleading undercurrent running beneath the thought. ::No. Of course not,:: Heero answered, laying his free hand lightly upon the one plucking at the shirt over his flat belly. The hand stopped its restless motion, and tangled itself instead with the newcomer. ::No one knows we're here. We can stay as long as we need to.:: Duo accepted the assurance and stopped thinking about it, stopped thinking at all, really, just sank into a pleasant blankness of mind and let everything have an opportunity to sink in. Heero didn't stop him this time, not for quite a while, when he finally interrupted the peace with a sudden question of his own. ::Would you like to go for a walk, Duo?:: His eyes blinked open. ::Huh?:: he asked intelligently. ::A walk, Duo.:: Bright blue eyes peered down at him from beneath the eternally mussed mop of dark hair. There was something oddly peaceful, something strangely relaxed about his countenance. ::Would you like to go for a walk?:: Duo blinked again, his mind still not caught up with the present circumstances. ::Now?:: was the best response he could think up. ::Now. Before....:: Before they had to leave. The thought was left uncompleted. ::Now.:: ::Now...? Out?:: ::Out. Now.:: The prussian orbs were laughing at him, although the expression didn't twitch at all. ::But...:: With a bit of difficulty, he shook off the mild bewilderment and sat up so he could look Heero more fully in the eyes. The hand slid smoothly out of his long, silky tresses and came to rest upon the small of his back. ::No. No, Heero, don't. Don't... don't do this just to cheer me up. Don't do this because you think this will make me happy--:: ::I do no such thing.:: Heero answered the allegations with just a dash of calm indignity. ::I do so because I wish to.:: ::But... Heero, why? Why now? Why...?:: ::Because I see now how much it means to you.:: His lover's presence brushed against his mind as a finger would over his lips, forestalling protest. ::And I do it not for you, though I would love to see you happy. It means so much to you, and how could I not feel honored by such a request? And in such a way, it becomes important to me. I begin to see the appeal of such trivialities. I, too, find I wish to spend this time with you, this time I have been missing, for you show me that the trivialities add up, to something so much greater than a sum of its parts, that they are no longer quite so trivial.:: He tried to respond, but words, thoughts themselves, did not do his mind justice, and yet Duo had an irrepressible feeling that Heero knew just what he was feeling anyway. He smiled, and it was a beaming, shining, somehow shy and wondrous thing. ::I don't remember showing you any of that, but, hey, if you insist....:: The hand entwined with his rose, and took his own with it, up to a pair of somewhat thin, ascetic lips, for something resembling a reverent homage paid to their knuckles. ::And as for now...? Now seems as good a time as any.:: A tiny, Heeroesque shrug, the one that dismissed the matter as irrelevant. ::So. Would you like to go for a walk?:: Duo reclaimed control over his hand, and nudged the pair of them to the side, to make room on those lips for his own. ::Sure. Wish I'd been the one to think of it first.:: ************ "You shouldn't be out here by yourself at night." Quatre blinked, somehow not startled by the quiet words that seemed to have come from nowhere. "I was waiting for you," he replied calmly, before turning in his seat to meet deep violet eyes. This time, he did not flinch, although he had to wince internally at the vision before him. Duo was wearing black again, only his clothes were of a different cut. They seemed much looser, more casual, less ominous and suited solely for the darkness. His long braid was missing the crimson ribbon, that splash of color that had leapt out at the eye in vivid contrast. But it was the expression Duo's face that got to him. It seemed tired. Sad. Resigned. "I would think that, by now, you should know what things may lurk in the dark. What would you have done had I not happened by?" He and Heero had been strolling through the park, just now, with Duo determined to think nothing but happy thoughts for a pleasant while. He had chosen just to absorb the moment, and enjoy the peace as it was, without the dark cloud of the recent past, or the grim mists of the near future, to sully the event. So they had walked in companionable silence, hand in hand, and kissed under the trees, and visited the ducks for one last time. Out of habit more than anything else, they had done a light routine sweep of the area, but if they had found anything, they probably wouldn't have done anything about it. Not tonight. Instead of a stray, however, they had found Quatre. "I knew you would." "Then now I have arrived to tell you to go home, Quatre." Those eyes, the ones that had burned with a frightening, otherworldly power only hours earlier, seemed to have lost their usual sparkle. Now, they simply looked old, too wise and too jaded for that youthful face. "Go home." "No," he refused firmly, stopping Duo with his voice before the youth turned to follow his own advice. He moved to stand to speak with Duo eye-to-eye, but the monstrous headache that had been plaguing him since he had been released by the stray rose up and made him sway on his feet. Duo was suddenly beside him, pushing him back down onto the park bench before he fell. As the hands released him, the fingers brushed up to rest briefly upon his temples, and a warm, cleansing power flowed through his mind like a soothing balm over his abused mental channels, and eased the pounding. "Thank you," he murmured as the youth stepped away from him once more. "But I'm not going home. Not until we've had a chance to talk." Duo parted his lips to speak, but it was a moment before words emerged. "We have nothing to talk about, I think," he said softly, breaking the eye contact and turning his gaze into the distance. From his place within the shadows, his partner urged him to give the boy a chance. "We do. Look." Quatre dug something out of his pocket, and held it out for the other to look at. Reluctantly, Duo's eyes were drawn back to the blonde in front of him. His expression tightened at the sight of the object. "A ward against evil?" he asked dully, not even finding it within himself to be offended. "It's not reacting to you," Quatre was quick to explain himself. "It was reacting like mad when we encountered that ... real demon. But it's not reacting at all to you." Duo closed his weary eyes for a moment and chose to make a token defense of himself. "I'm not evil, Quatre." Quatre's hand closed over the charm and he slipped it back inside his pocket. "I know that, Duo. And I don't need any charm to tell me that." He spent some time listening to a cricket in a bush somewhere before Duo opened his eyes with a sigh. "Look, Quatre.... What do you want from me?" "I don't want anything," the boy protested, then changed his mind and shook his head. "Well, I do want something, sort of. I just...." The words froze in his throat as Duo leveled an expectant, almost disappointed, look at him. He forced himself to finish. "I just want to know what happens now." "What happens now? Ha!" The short bark of laughter was the most energy he had shown so far, if a tad on the sharp, bitter side. "What happens now is I go away, and you all just forget about me. Forget tonight. I go back to living my life, and you go back to living your life, and it's happily ever after. Alright?" He didn't pause long for a response. "I think we're done here now." "No," Quatre said again, divining the single, relevant fact from the short speech and using it as a launching point for what he had to say. "Don't go." "Well, unless you've got something else you want from me, I think we've just about exhausted all the possible conversational topics." He wanted to be nice to the boy, really, he did, but he knew how this chapter of his life was going to end. He held no rancor towards the boy, but the sooner this business was concluded, the better for everyone. "That's not what I meant." Quatre shook his head again. "It is. I mean-- Duo." "What?" The terse question wasn't quite a snap -- it lacked the necessary sharpness -- but it did demand a satisfactory answer. It was like the tone of someone whose little brother kept pestering him and wouldn't go away. He exhaled, frustrated. This wasn't going at all the way he had hoped it would. "You can't leave. Not now. Not for good." "Why not?" The words were formed with a slow, clean precision, the syllables thrown out into the air between them like a dignified challenge. Quatre took a deep breath and calmed himself. "Look. This isn't coming out right. I came here with the intention of apologizing, and now I'm just messing everything up." Duo blinked. "Apologizing?" His foul temper evaporated. The smaller boy winced almost imperceptibly. Was it so inconceivable? Was redemption for the betrayal of their friend beyond apology? The words fell from his lips in a rush. "I'm sorry we doubted you, Duo. I'm sorry we ever went to that stupid meeting. I'm sorry I attacked you. I'm sorry Wufei thought you were a demon and fell for that thing's tricks. It's just that he's had a rough time with demons before and you have to understand, he didn't --" "Wait just a second here, Quatre," Duo interrupted. "First of all, don't go apologizing for other people. Second of all, you were being controlled. That wasn't your fault. And third of all... I do understand. I do understand why you all reacted the way you did and...." He shrugged casually, as if trying to say the matter was of no great import. "...and that's that. Don't worry about it." He wasn't going to apologize in turn. He didn't regret hiding who and what he was from them. There had never been a choice in that. "It's too bad you guys all got sucked into this, that's all." There was a silence that followed, one which Duo considered to be well-earned. He felt that all the important matters had been resolved, the air between them cleared as much as possible. "Good-bye, Quatre," he spoke softly, and turned to go. "No." Duo paused, getting thoroughly sick of that word. Here, he had been ready to close up the book and move on, and now Quatre was trying to add an epilogue. He cast a raised eyebrow over his shoulder at the boy. "Why do you have to go?" Duo blinked again, and turned back to face the other fully. "You know," he pointed out, as if that one little phrase should make everything self-evident. "We won't tell anyone, if that's what you're afraid of. Well, I can vouch for myself, certainly, and I'm sure the others wouldn't...." Quatre wasn't quite sure what he was trying to accomplish here. He still considered Duo a friend, despite everything that had happened, and he didn't want to see the boy leave, not because he was forced to. And there were other reasons, besides. "There are still so many questions. What really happened tonight? Who are you? And what happened to me? Why do I... why do I have this power?" Duo looked into the pleading eyes, saw honesty and compassion and all sorts of good things within, and folded. ::What do you think?:: he silently queried his partner. ::You want to stay?:: ::Well.... would there be any harm in my staying? They'd know either way, after all. I wasn't planning on erasing their memories when I left. I'm sure I can trust them not to make trouble for me. And Quatre's going to need to know about his powers now that they're out. And I guess I should sit down and have a good heart-to-heart with Wufei about what he's really getting himself into. Since he knows already and all. He could get killed with his ignorance.:: ::You've already decided to stay.:: ::Well, if you don't think it's a good idea, and then maybe not...?:: He wasn't subordinating himself to his partner, but he realized that he was perhaps too close to the issue to make a good decision. ::... I don't think it's a terrible idea,:: Heero offered cautiously. ::Gee, thanks.:: ::If this is what you want, Duo, then we'll make it work. What more is there to discuss?:: Quatre's foot scuffed at the dirt while he waited nervously for Duo to arrive at an answer. He certainly wouldn't have blamed Duo if he had wanted to leave them all behind, but that was only if he had felt that they had betrayed him. If the only reason for his departure was because he felt that he had to leave, then that was entirely unacceptable. Besides, it wasn't as if anything was ever going to be the same for them again, not after what each of them had seen tonight. Him leaving them would only make them confused, not forgetful. Duo nodded resolutely, as if he had come to some sort of conclusion with himself. "I'll answer your questions." Quatre beamed sunnily at him. "I'm glad you're staying, Duo." He may have hoped for something a little more solid than that, but he was willing to take it. The answers sounded like a convenient pretense, but he understood that Duo might be reluctant to commit immediately to anything more long-term. Perhaps this would serve as a sort of testing period. He was sure it would take them all a while to settle back down into a comfortable relationship with each other, anyway. When Quatre sent a blinding smile in his direction, Duo felt reasonably confident that he had made the right decision, and his lips quirked upwards in response. "So... where did you want to start?" "How about tomorrow?" Duo blinked. "That's not a where, Quatre." Quatre grinned sheepishly. "Well, it is nearly tomorrow right now, after all." He stifled a yawn that sprang up as soon as he was reminded of how late it was. "And there's so much to discuss. And we can all be there tomorrow, Trowa, Wufei, Meiran.... Duo?" He trailed off when Duo's small smile faltered around the edges, but it reaffirmed itself a scant moment later. "Hm?" Duo blinked innocently at the other boy. He had suddenly realized how difficult that heart-to-heart with Wufei was going to be. "Ummm, nothing, I guess. Anyway, there's so much you can tell us. I guess maybe Wufei might already know some of it, but the rest of us-- What?" Duo was shaking his head, the smile on his face developing a definitely wry edge to it. "No, Quatre, right now, you're wiser in the way of these things than Wufei. You know better where not to tread." "But... I don't even know what I am," he protested weakly. "You will," Duo promised, but somehow it failed to reassure him. "What time?" "Huh? Tomorrow? Umm, say, two o'clock, my place?" Duo chuckled softly. "Guess I'll leave the math books at home, this time, eh? Sure, you got it. Can I walk you home?" Quatre's mind whirled from the long night and the sudden shifts in topic. "Uh, yeah, sure." He had barely enough time to register Duo's grin before the landscape flashed scarlet and midnight for the second time that night, and he abruptly found himself in front of his own home. "Good night, Quatre," the wind whispered into his ear, but when he turned around, no one was there. He blinked, shook his head, and went inside to get some well-earned sleep. _________________________________________ 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 : 9/27/2001 13:52:30 PST