Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ 10 Seconds ❯ a whisper in the static ( Chapter 9 )

Chapter 9 a whisper in the static

It is not in our best interests to walk into traps. That’s why I suggest we avoid simply walking out of the library and risking the threat of being seen by anyone with knowledge of our activity or orders to accost us. Duo automatically shows signs of dislike. He knows my plan for escape will not be simply climbing out the window, and he is right, but not pleased. I read this emotion from his body language, for I cannot drift near the bone structure of his face without setting off a thick and inherent panic in me. So I avoid it. I close my mind on anything that is not means to the ends of the mission, though the door enclosing it is weakened and splintered in the middle.

I reach for the gun and take it. It is gone the next second, as if I never held it at all, small enough to hide in my pocket. Duo’s body turns away from me ever so slightly, as if to casually peruse the titles of books, and he does the same. His eyes scrape across the room, then turn back on me.

For a moment, I feel nothing go into my lungs and the lack of oxygen makes my vision teeter. There is something about them that kills me a little more and more. "We’re clear." A corner sinks in his mouth. "So, I take it you’ve got an idea."

"Yes."

Duo’s eyes glint down towards the chair where I had been sitting before. Violet. "Are you going to leave that there?"

Blue, but not entirely. Only those born of several generations of colonists could display such a color.

"Heero."

I start at the sound of my name. And then I curse internally, reaching down for the book that I left on the chair, and stuffing it back into the shelf self-consciously. I was getting lost again, and in a moment of danger, no less. I’m gettting worse. "Let’s go," I say, purposely clipping my voice as to hide any sign of nerves.

"Ventilation shaft?" Duo asks.

I nod. I’m not sure now if he really did say my name, or if I heard it in place of that hollow code name.

I can see him want to sigh, but he grits it between his teeth instead and follows silently.

I stop at the door of the small bathroom on the far end of the library and step inside. The light inside glows on a tiny white room with a toilet and sink. The floor tiles are a hideous green, but my eye travels from them up the wall and rests on the ceiling instead. Duo comes in only a few moments later. His head is low, eyes tightly controlled, and comes to rest next to me, raising his gaze to the ceiling as well. I notice the frown is gone.

"Let’s just the hell get out of here," he says. He never talks like that during missions, and again I startle into motion.

How many times have I hesitated just because I heard his voice, just because he is so physically close and tortuously silent? Too many. He is noticing. My weakness is becoming far too powerful.

I make up for my lost time and step up on the closed toilet, clench my fingers around the cold metal slats, and rip a hole in the ceiling.

Duo takes the vent cover from my hand and sets it on the sink behind him, his eyes never leaving the exposed black square overhead. I anchor myself with a deep, steady breath before pushing off the lip of the toilet and hoisting myself into the narrow airway. Adrenaline, hot and uncomfortable, pours out through me from the effort of lifting my body weight without knocking my shoes carelessly against the metal. I notice it more now than I ever have. It is not the same chemical that bolts through my body when Duo looks my way when I am not looking at him.

He is only moments behind me as I settle down to the tedious process of pulling myself through the ventilation shaft without buckling the noisy metal with my movements and letting all within earshot know that there are two, teenager-sized things in the walls. My shoulders barely fit within the cramped space, which was definitely not built with a terrorist’s interest in mind, and the smell is cold and metallic and not completely pleasant. My body is taut with the effort.

Duo must agree, for he muffles a grunt of discomfort and growls it out instead. Without another word, we both begin a long trek using nothing more than the soft muscles of our forearms to drag ourselves.

For a while, I don’t think of him.

But it cannot last.

The P.A. permeates even this miserable place. "Odin Hito to the principal’s office," it calls, echoing dully in the metal around us. Duo does not hesitate for a moment, but I do, and he brings it to my attention by putting his hand on the sole of my shoe. I can instantly feel it in my throat. I can feel it in my face. I can feel the mattress shifting around me. I can feel his thumb under my eye.

"Hey."

I feel sick to my stomach all of a sudden. Every sick feeling administrated by Duo’s eyes in the last few days seems to resurrect simultaneously into a terrible that the walls are the linings of some beast’s stomach. And the feeling is worse than I expected.

"Stop it," comes the strangled noise from my throat. Immediately, I can feel my face flare with embarrassment at the rough and uncontrolled sound. Duo’s hand leaves my foot, but I cannot read how he is reacting from this position.

"Wait a minute. Did you hear that?"

Duo and I freeze. Neither of us has spoken.

The muffled voice is soon followed by another, grunting an agreement. "A voice. There."

Three feet away, a square, icy white panel of light rises into the dark shaft from another cover, looking down into an inhabited room. I can hear the tiniest sounds of quiet movement, and I know at that moment I’ve made a mistake. No civilian hears things talking in the walls and simply ignores it. They are looking for us. And they know where we are because of me.

Duo grabs my ankle, exposes the skin and presses his mouth against it. "Just go!" he mouths silently on my skin and I read it with a hot coil twisting in my stomach. My brain suddenly breaks off from my body and my ears are thick with something and unusable.

I feel sick. I cannot move.

I won’t. My body has stopped listening.

Duo’s hand clenches tightly into my leg, jarring me as strong as he can. I don’t move but to try and suck some air into my lungs. His nails dig into my skin, then draw blood, and he shakes me furiously. I am not there to hear him anymore, but I am a few inches away from myself, desperately trying to heed his orders. It’s too dark to see anything but the square of light and the tiny beams emanating around it. There is one, then two, then five more.

Duo shakes me some more and it hurts viciously. I open my mouth and there is nothing there, not even a puff of air. My jaw closes and when it opens again, it is lined with hot liquid, which I expel onto the metal in front of me. Oh, God, but does it hurt. Why would Duo grip so hard? And in my stomach? My chest?

Another beam of light appears close to my mouth and I watch the liquid dimly drip into the hole and down to some hazy destination below I cannot make out.

Duo is clawing his way on top of me and pressing his body on top of my back. There is no more space between him and the ceiling than there is between him and me. And that’s when I can hear him, no higher than a whisper in the static that’s filled my mind. But his voice is so strained, like he’s separated by miles instead of pressing my gun into my spine with his heaving chest. I cannot respond. I won’t. I only feel him draw his own weapon and put it to the metal next to me and let off a shot through the ventilation shaft into the space below.

One, two, buckle my shoe.

Three, four, shut the door.

Five, six, pick up sticks.

I don’t hear the screaming anymore and I let go.