Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ A Vicious Cycle ❯ Part Two ( Chapter 2 )

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A Vicious Cycle

 

By SaiyanBlack

 

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Heero looked up from his laptop when someone knocked at the front door. He cast a glance into the living room where Duo and Hilde were still sleeping and stood from his position at the kitchen table. He opened the door, slightly surprised to find Relena standing on the front porch. The limo driver - also a Preventers agent - stood against the side of the car and Heero nodded to him as he let Relena inside the house. The older man returned the nod and climbed back into the limo.

 

“How are they?” Relena asked quietly as he closed the door behind them. She was looking into the living room where the two in question were sleeping soundly.

 

“She's alright, just tired from staying up with Duo last night,” he told her and she nodded, taking in the information. “He's fine physically, most of the alcohol seems to be out of his system, but he hasn't woken up yet.”

 

A small frown crossed her face, an expression he had come to know as worry. He placed a hand on the small of her back, leading her into the kitchen and away from their friends. He glanced at the imposing grandfather clock in the entry way to note the time. It was late, but not quite the time when the false light in the colony would dim.

 

“How was the conference?” he asked Relena, hoping to divert her attention from the pair in the other room. She sent him a look that told him she knew what he was doing, but allowed the change in topic.

 

“Very well, I think. The council members asked a lot of the questions I'd hoped they would ask and now they're considering my proposal. I should know by the end of tomorrow's conference whether or not I succeeded.”

 

He nodded and prepared to answer her, but a small thump from the other room stopped him and he stood to investigate. Standing in the archway into the living room, he observed silently as Duo began to stir, lifting his fallen hand off the wooden floor - the source of the noise when it slipped off the couch. Heero retreated back into the kitchen for a glass of water before moving to the waking man's side.

 

Duo blinked as he opened his eyes, attempting to focus on Heero's face. The other offered the glass of water to him and helped the braided man drink most of the glass before allowing him to lie back down, this time on his stomach.

 

“Heero?” he asked, looking up at him with a puzzled expression, “What are you doing here? Better yet,” he paused and looked around the living room, “what am I doing on the couch?”

 

“You don't remember?” Heero asked, offering the glass again. Duo took it and downed the rest of the water before shaking his head. The crouching man took the cup away and placed it on the coffee table. “What do you remember from last night?” he asked, hoping to jog the other's memory.

 

“'Last night?'” Duo repeated, puzzled. “Didn't Luke and I go downtown last night? Well, that would explain why my shirt smells like smoke,” he said, moving his head from where it rested on his arm and consequently on his black shirt sleeve. “Man do I stink!”

 

Chuckling off to the side drew their attention and they both looked over at the doorway to find Relena standing there, a warm smile on her face. Duo struggled to sit up on the couch without assistance and Heero noticed him clutch his forehead before sending the woman in the doorway a half-grin.

 

“Hey, Princess!” he greeted, using his nickname for her. “Sorry about the mess. I didn't know we had company.”

 

“It's fine, Duo.”

 

“Did you want something to eat?” Heero asked, drawing his friend's attention back to him.

 

Duo gave him a withering look and shook his head, “With this hangover, the last thing on my mind is food.” He seemed to remember something and looked around the room. His eyes rested on Hilde's small form in the lazy-boy chair, made smaller by the way she was curled up under the off-white afghan.

 

“How long have I been out?” he asked Heero, though his eyes were still trained on his housemate.

 

“You had been out cold for several hours when I arrived at 12:37 PM. It's now,” Heero turned to look at the grandfather clock over his shoulder, “5:14. I can only assume that you've been sleeping for at least fourteen hours.”

 

Duo looked shocked and he scratched the back of his head absently. “Fourteen hours? Wow.” He seemed to catch another whiff of the myriad of scents that clung to his clothes, skin and hair, causing him to wrinkle his nose in disgust. “I think I'm going to take a shower. Watch Hilde for me, will ya?”

 

He struggled to stand and Heero caught his arm as he nearly toppled back onto the couch. Once the braided man got his bearings, he shrugged off his friend's help and started for the stairs. He stopped at the bottom, holding on tightly to the wooden railing.

 

“Help yourselves to anything you need,” he said with a tired grin, scratching the stubble on his chin, “I should be back down in a bit.”

 

Heero watched him ascend the staircase before letting a small smile cross his face. Relena caught it and tilted her head in silent question as he walked them back into the kitchen.

 

“What's that smile about?” she asked, watching him as he opened the fridge to raid it. He was silent for a moment and she waited, sitting back at the table.

 

“Hilde said the same thing to me earlier,” he told her, closing the fridge with a pair of apples in his hands. He then started to search for a sharp knife in the knife block on the counter, “They worry about each other too much.”

 

Relena smiled playfully as he sat down across from her and began slicing the first apple with practiced movements. “This coming from the man who nearly tore apart my house trying to find me because I hadn't woken up at my normal time?” she replied, taking the apple slice he offered her and ignoring the glare he sent her.

 

“I'm your bodyguard, Relena,” he said tensely, “It's my job to be concerned for your welfare.”

 

She laughed lightly and didn't comment on the excuse, “I think they have every right to worry about each other. They are all the other has, really, and it's only natural that they would be viciously protective of each other.”

 

“Hn,” was the only thing Heero said in reply and offered the young politician another slice of apple. She did have a point, not that he would tell her that at the moment, but the smile she gave him from across the kitchen table seemed to tell him that she already knew what he was thinking. After all these years, he still wondered how she did that.

 

They sat in comfortable silence for a while as he continued to cut the apples for the two of them. She seemed content to watch him and he said nothing to start a conversation. The long moment ended with the sound of footsteps on the stairs as Duo returned from his shower. He had changed into a worn pair of jeans and a t-shirt, his long wet hair unbraided in a low, temporary ponytail. Off the creaky stairs, his bare feet made no sound on the wood floor as he padded over to the chair Hilde slept in. The two guests watched as he gently arranged her in his arms and lifted her - blanket and all - out of the oversized chair.

 

“Let me put her in bed,” he whispered to them over her head as he turned back to the stairs. Heero saw the young woman lean into the ex-pilot unconsciously before the pair vanished up onto the second story. He turned back, only to meet a knowing smile from Relena that made him pause, a dark brow raised. She only smiled at him and returned to munching on the slice of apple in her hand. He hated when she did that.

 

Duo returned a moment later and dropped into an empty seat at the small kitchen table with a sigh. It looked truly odd to see him without his trademark braid, especially as he reached behind his head to pull his hair out of the low ponytail. The ends of the lengthy tresses trailed on the linoleum floor behind his chair.

 

Relena laughed. “Wow, Duo. I never realized your hair was so long!”

 

He gave her a grin as he started arranging in between his fingers and began to efficiently braid his own hair. His moves were practiced and measured from years of practice.

 

“It's grown a lot over the past couple of years. But I still haven't gotten the courage to trim it,” he pulled his hair around in front of him and continued braiding tightly.

 

“When was the last time you cut it?” Relena asked, more than ready to have a conversation with him. Heero remembered that it had been nearly a year since his charge and friend had seen each other last and he stayed silent, allowing them to catch up. Her question seemed to make him think for a moment and his fingers paused their weaving.

 

“You know what?” he asked, laughing lightly, and started braiding again. “I can't remember. I've worn it long since I was a kid. I might have gotten it cut on accident a couple of times, but I can't remember ever doing it purposely.”

 

Heero let out an amused snort when he mentioned “accident” and Relena laughed along with Duo. The moment itself was very light and friendly, but something irked the back of Heero's mind as he observed the animated ex-pilot chatting and laughing with the Vice Foreign Minister. He stowed the feeling away for later.

 

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Hilde awoke to the distant sound of people talking and laughing, and it took her several moments to register it as unusual. Why were people downstairs, while she was in her bedroom sleeping? It's amazing how a sleep-fogged mind takes so long to remember the events before falling into unconsciousness, so long in fact, that Hilde found herself listening to the voices coming up through the floor. The words were muffled, but it was easy to tell male from female by the pitch. And then she remembered.

 

She threw herself out of bed, into the hall and down the stairs, making enough noise for a troop of fully loaded soldiers. Downstairs, the only lights on were those in the kitchen and she made a beeline for the archway, sliding on the wood flooring as she came to a stop. Inside, both pilots were standing while Relena stayed in her seat at the table - but she honestly didn't notice the other two after that initial observation. Instead, she flung her body into her housemate's, knocking him back a step as he caught her.

 

He was safe, he was awake and… he was laughing. The vibrations in his chest rumbled through her head and torso as she attached herself to him like Velcro. She was so happy that she hardly noticed that tears had started falling until he said something.

 

“Oh come on, Hil! Don't cry,” he begged, chuckling as he held her tighter. Like always though, it made her cry harder and it was several moments before she pulled back a step, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Are you okay -“ he started to ask, but it ended in a whoosh of air as her fist met with his stomach and she re-fastened her arms around his waist.

 

“Stupid,” she mumbled into his shirt as he coughed dryly a couple of times, trying to get his diaphragm to work correctly after her blow. Still sitting at the table, Heero and Relena shared an amused look and he passed her another slice of apple, raising a dark brow as she gave him a dazzling smile.

 

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“Duo, just look at them! I need your approval before I can give Scott the money,” Hilde told him from behind him on the couch, brushing his long hair as he sat on the wooden floor in front of her.

 

“I'll look at them later,” was the mumbled answer. She put the brush down beside her and began to split his hair into sections so she could begin braiding.

 

“I need them in the morning, so you better not put it off and make me remind you at breakfast.”

 

He sighed loudly and leaned forward to grab the small stack of papers off of the coffee table. She lost locks of his hair when he moved and as he settled back into the couch, she ran her fingers through the couple of inches that had come apart before starting all over again. They sat like that for several moments in comfortable silence, the light from the forgotten television illuminating the room in bright flashes of light as the scenes changed. The volume was low and she could hear the laugh-tracks as the half-hour sitcom continued without their attention. Every minute or so Duo would turn a page, breaking the lull that seemed to drape over the room.

 

She had finished tying off his hair several minutes before he leaned towards the coffee table again to deposit the file back onto its worn wooden surface. He sighed as he sat back into her hands.

 

“Okay,” he told her, dropping his head against her legs to look up at her face, “I'll go for it. We've been meaning to update stuff for a while and right now we have the money for it. As far as I can tell, there's no reason why we can't.”

 

She smiled at him as he closed his eyes and she brushed his still-damp bangs from his face so she could place a kiss on his forehead. He sighed deeply again, sounding like he was ready to drop off into sleep right there on the floor.

 

“You should go to bed, Duo. Or you'll be stuck down here on this couch all night.”

 

His brows knit together under her fingers. “What is it that you have against that couch? I think it's perfectly fine to sleep on.”

 

“Good,” she giggled, “then I'll let you sleep on it if you like it so much.”

 

“Never said I liked it,” he said, yawning. “It's just good for a nap-ette.”

 

“'A nap-ette?' Now I really know you're tired. You're starting to make up words,” she told him as she nudged him to stand. He did so, mechanically, and she stood to follow him as he walked to the stairs like a drunk man. Flipping the TV off as she passed by, the whole downstairs was plunged into darkness and she heard Duo catch his foot on the bottom step as he tried to climb them without letting his eyes adjust.

 

“I'm not making up words,” he told her, and she followed his voice up the stairs, “There's a nap and there's a nap-ette. Kind of like a dude and a dudette. One's smaller than the other.”

 

“Not all dudes are bigger than dudettes.”

 

“Hey, it's my word,” he defended as he stepped into his bedroom, “there doesn't have to be any logic in it.”

 

She laughed, “I thought you said you weren't making up words.”

 

He looked at her as she passed him to use the bathroom. “And you believed me…why?” he asked, as one brow rose up into his bangs. She was about to close the door to the bathroom, when he stepped back out into the hallway, stopping it by leaning into the doorway. She blinked at him in the yellow light as he gave her a mischievous grin.

 

“Goodnight Hil,” he told her and leaned down to playfully kiss the tip of her nose, making her scrunch it up in surprise. He laughed and almost swaggered back into his bedroom, the door closing quietly behind him. Feeling odd, she rubbed her nose absently.

 

He was so weird sometimes.

 

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She hated when it rained.

 

The colony was gray and hazy, making the already dreary warehouse district even more depressing. It was, of course, fake rain. Man-made clouds poured overly refined water onto the streets and homes in a specific order by district, only to be recycled after it drained into the pipes under the civilian part of the colony.

 

It wasn't so much the rain that made her dislike the weather - it was the smell of the air. Instead of the clean scent that followed a rain storm on Earth, the colony was filled with this salty, metallic smell that you could even taste if it rained hard enough.

 

That's what she hated.

 

Because the scheduled rain made the junkyard a deathtrap of slippery mud and metal, they'd decided that there was no point in asking the crew to work today and the yard was devoid of any life. Duo, though, had decided that the day off was the perfect time to work on some projects that needed to be finished in the garage. He had the big roll-up door open half way to let in what light filtered through the rain so he didn't have to put the fluorescents on. If there was one thing that Duo hated, it was lights on in the daytime. He said it was a waste of energy and bad for your eyes.

 

When she stepped into the garage around noon, he was leaning head-first into the engine of one of the big trucks they used for hauling. Balanced on the front bumper and bent at the waist, his head was barely visible over the grill. It was the door closing behind her that warned him of another presence and he leaned up for a moment to see who it was, smiling when he saw her.

 

“Do you need anything?” she asked, coming up to stand beside the truck.

 

“Nope,” came the muffled voice from under the hood, “Thanks though.”

 

She looked out at the yard, feeling idle as he worked. There was little she could do with the rain and there was no shipment going out until the next week, leaving her a little more than bored. She was expecting a dealer to come sometime in the early afternoon, but until then, there was nothing she could do in the house or the office.

 

“Hey Hil?” Duo called and she looked up at him. He had a small, knowing smile on his face that she didn't recognize but he spoke before she could say anything, “Could you get me a soda from the fridge?”

 

“Yeah, sure.” She had a feeling, as she walked back into the house, that he was giving her something to do because she was restless and bored. `And probably bothering him in the garage,' she thought as she opened the fridge in the kitchen to pull out one of the cans of carbonated sugar that sat on the bottom shelf in the door. As she came back through the door, she heard the phone ring in the office and after handing Duo his drink, she trotted to the back of the garage to answer the shrill device.

 

“Hello?” she asked as she picked up the receiver from the cradle on the desk.

 

“Hilde, there's a man at the gates that says he's here to pick up one of the cars,” Scott told her over the line with the security office at the front entrance of the junk yard. She rummaged through the papers on the desk to look for the scheduling book that had all the appointments with dealers in its thin pages. Once found, she opened it to the correct date.

 

“A man from the used car lot on the other side of the colony?” she asked and received the confirmative. “Go ahead and lead him in. The car he wants is in this garage.”

 

“Alright. I'll send him over with Luke.”

 

The line went dead as the older man hung up his end and she replaced the phone back into the cradle before stepping out of the office and back into the garage. Duo looked up from his work with a questioning look.

 

“The car dealer is here for that old cruiser,” she told him and he nodded, returning back to his work.

 

“Call me if you need any help,” he called as she walked out into the slow drizzle to meet the dealer and Luke as they drove over in the dealer's truck. The big carrier rumbled through the dirt road that wound between towering piles of scrap metal that the sweepers had collected in space. Most of it was from the war; huge pieces of mobile suits and military ships that had been destroyed only a couple years ago when Earth waged war with the Colonies and the many factions of Oz and the Alliance. These hunks of metal were the last remnants of the decades of struggle and the one year that changed everything.

 

Luke waved as he jumped out of the truck and began to walk toward her. The dealer followed; a grisly, hard looking man who's waist size seemed more than his height, although he still stood above Hilde several inches. He looked a little angry, but he stuck her as one of those people that was generally put-off by others.

 

“Mr. Gorrassi, this is Hilde Schubeicher,” Luke introduced with a strained looking smile. Hilde cast him a questioning look but turned back to the older man with her hand outstretched. He ignored it with a distasteful look.

 

“I want to see the car before I buy it,” he told her and she took a deep breath to calm herself.

 

“Of course,” she consented turning to lead him toward the garage, “it's just in here.”

 

And to her shock, the man stomped past her and into the garage as if he owned the place. Hilde traded a glance with Luke, who shrugged and grimaced as if to apologize for the dealer's attitude. She reached out and gave his shoulder a pat before following the rude man. Duo gave her a wide-eyed questioning look as she passed and she shrugged in answer while trying to catch up to the surprisingly fast car dealer.

 

“This is it,” she told him when they stopped at the old and dated cruiser that sat in the back of the garage for the better part of three years. “My partner got it for free to work on as a hobby, but never got around to it. It's in fairly good condition for an early AC car, but it could use quite a few new parts and a bit of upgrading. The system that runs it is out of date by about forty years.”

 

“I'm not surprised,” he man sneered cryptically. Hilde turned to look over her shoulder and she could see Duo watching them from around the side of the truck with wary blue eyes. The garage was silent as both Hilde and Duo waited for the portly man to make a decision.

 

“Fine,” he said, sighing as if he was being pressured to concede, “I'll take it.”

 

“When would you like it delivered?” Hilde asked, putting her back to the watchful Duo again.

 

“I don't trust delivery,” he told her, “I'll take it myself once the paperwork is finished.”

 

This guy made her nervous, but she nodded anyway and directed him to the office on the opposite side of the garage where she could pull up the papers on the cruiser. Duo watched them as they passed and she cast him a reassuring smile. Twenty minutes and one very frustrating deal later, she followed the ornery dealer out of the office with a sigh. Duo wasn't in the garage, but Hilde assumed that he was back in the house cleaning up.

 

“Here are the keys, Mr. Gorrassi,” she told him, handing him the keys from the locked box next to the office door. He took them without a `thank you' and walked back to the cruiser to start it. She watched him rev the engine before sliding it out of the garage and to his truck to load it. He had paid a fair amount for the classic, but she still didn't like him. Something felt off about the day, and it was more than just the drizzle that still fell onto the ground.

 

The dealer's truck thundered to life before disappearing down the muddy pathways between the hills of scrap metal and she breathed a sigh of relief. That man had been insufferable and arrogant, totally assured of his self-importance. She'd never met a more narcissistic man and he didn't seem to have any reason to be.

 

“He must have been French royalty in a past life,” she muttered to herself, just as the phone on the wall of the garage rang for the second time that day. When she answered it, Scott was on the line from the security office.

 

“This loony is rantin' about somethin' missing,” he said, sounding aggravated, “I've no idea what, but he won't leave until he talks to ya.”

 

“Alright,” she told him, “I'm coming. I can't think of any thing that I missed, though.”

 

“Okay, I'll try and hold him until you get here. But hurry. This wacko is getting on my last nerve.”

 

Hilde replaced the phone on the cradle and grabbed her copy of the paperwork from the office before she pulled herself up into Duo's black truck. With no salvage machines to worry about running into, she sped around the corners of junk piles to the front gate. The car dealer's truck was sitting in the driveway next to the security building, blocking the way into the junkyard from the street. Scott was standing next to the truck with Mr. Gorrassi, trying to speak calmly with the red-faced man.

 

She jumped out of the truck and walked up to the two men, placing one hand on Scott's arm to tell him that she was there. Hilde opened her mouth to speak, but the dealer beat her to it, lashing out verbally.

 

“You little bitch!” he yelled into her face, “You scammed me!”

 

“What are you talking about, sir,” she asked calmly, trying not to let the fact that he had reverted to name calling bother her.

 

“You scammed me! That car isn't a real Neo Thunderbird! The papers say it's a Toyota-mock up!”

 

“Sir,” she stared, hands up as if to pacify him, “I'm positive that it is actually a Neo T-bird…”

 

She broke off as his hand rose high into the air over his head and his body tilted as if to strike her. Wide-eyed, she watched the hand begin to fall in slow motion and reflexively tried to block the blow with her arm. Then something struck the dealer from the side, knocking him over and the attack never came. She watched, shocked, as Duo punched the Gorrassi in the face a few feet away from where she stood, a look of rage on her partner's face. Scott grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the two brawling men, just as Luke came running into the fray.

 

Duo was far more powerful than the dealer and the older man was soon on the muddy ground, looking up at the braided young man with a look that bordered on terrified. Hilde was horrified when Duo continued to attack the portly man even after he was prone, throwing powerful punches into the man's face without restraint. It was overkill.

 

“Duo!” she screamed, trying to pull away from Scott's hold on her arm. She knew that he was trying to keep her out of harm's way, but it was important that Duo was stopped before he killed the car dealer. “Duo, stop it!”

 

Luke went in to grab the ex-pilot by the shoulders, attempting to pull him off the unconscious man on the ground. But Duo was too far into his rage-induced nightmares and he reflexively attacked the man that was trying to stop him. He sent a punch into Luke's face as he spun, then stopped as he realized who he struck. His eyes went wide and he dropped to his knees, staring up at Luke who was covering his nose and then at his limp hands in his lap. She could see the thoughts and emotions cross his face and knew what he must have been thinking.

 

“Duo?” Hilde asked, pulling away from Scott. “Duo, are you okay?”

 

The braided man stilled and turned wide violet-blue eyes on her. He looked frightened and lost, an expression that broke her heart and made her reach out to him to tell him that it was okay. But before she could even touch him, he jumped to his feet like a startled animal before turning and taking off into the street, away from the junkyard.

 

“Duo!” she called, jogging after him through the gate, but by the time she stepped out into the street, she could no longer see him. She looked back at Luke and Scott, the father and son trying to stop the blood flow from the younger man's nose. Knowing that Duo would come back when he calmed down, she went to see if the security manager was alright, but stopped to look out at the street again. A hand was placed on her shoulder and she looked behind her to find Luke, holding a handkerchief over his nose.

 

“He'll be back,” he reassured her, his voice muffled by the cloth and injury. She nodded before looking down the street again, imagining that she could still see Duo's dark form running across the pavement.

 

“I hope so.”

 

 

^*^

 

AN: I've changed the number of chapters to three instead of two. This chapter is gaining on twelve pages and I'm still not anywhere close to finishing it. I know that chapter three will be the last, though, so just one more to go.

 

 

If anyone would like to learn more about PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and the many different effects it has on both men and women, please visit the National Center for PTSD website at http://www.ncptsd.org