Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Abode of Demons ❯ Abode of Demons - Chapter One ( Chapter 1 )

Authors Notes: Ah, here we go, after a long wait, chapter one. See, I waited until I finished chapter two to post this chapter. That took me a while. So I'll wait until I finish chapter three to post two and so on and so forth. Ahem… thankies to Marika Webster: I MISS YOU!!! COME HOME!! NOW!! Trenchcoat Man: Where have all the muses gone? Fuuzaki-chan: It's a small world after all… why am I singing this? I have no idea! And all you other peoples too!

Disclaimer: They aren't mine, okay?? Geez! You people!

Abode of Demons - Chapter One

Later, with the colony's artificial moonlight filtering through his living room window, Duo sat down at his vidphone and took a deep breath. The past hour had passed fitfully; not even Dorothy's comforting embrace could make him settle. The thought of Hiiro Yui lying somewhere in a coma or worse unnerved him on several levels. The idea of calling Sanch and getting a report of his best friend dead or dying caused his stomach to churn like a nervous sea. He swallowed, steeled himself, and then pressed the correct button on the vidphone.

Hiiro's face popped onto the screen before the first ring had completed. He had a bandage over his nose and bags under his eyes.

"Relena?" Then he saw Duo. "Oh. Duo." Hiiro's expressionless face fell in a manner only those closest to him would recognize.

"What happened?" Duo asked in his straight-forward way.

"We were attacked. Assassination attempt. More than one person." A fierce scowl crossed his face. Duo understood that anger. If anyone ever attacked Dorothy . . . "They tried to rape her, but I stopped them. The last I saw of her she had gotten away, but then I was outnumbered and knocked out. I've been waiting for her to call all day. Wondering if . . . she didn't make it."

Duo decided to put the boy out of his misery.

"She's banged up a bit, and traumatized, but other than that she seems to be fine." He grinned as Hiiro's Prussian eyes lighted up.

"She's there?!?"

"Yup. Alive. Not necessarily well, but alive." Duo leaned closer, trying to get a better look at his friend through the slightly fuzzy screen. He thought he could see a slight hand-shaped bruise on the man's right cheek, but it might have been only a shadow. "She wouldn't speak, except to ask for help. After that we couldn't get her to say a word."

"Thank you for taking her in."

"No problem. Not like I could have turned her away." Duo watched Hiiro squirm uncomfortably from the thanks. "Can't keep her here forever, though. Gotta keep my love nest a two-seater, ya know?"

"I'm on my way to pick her up. I'll be there sometime tomorrow afternoon." The stoic one paused for a moment. "Don't tell her I'm coming."

"What? But she's probably as worried about you as you've been about her. It would be cruel not to tell her."

"Just think about how happy she'll be when I'm there. It will be a great surprise."

"Surprise," Duo echoed uncertainly. He couldn't imagine Hiiro wanting to surprise Relena like this. His last surprise had been the uncomfortable Christmas episode with the bow. He'd never explained in detail what had happened after Duo left, but Duo assumed the two had an interesting time. However, that sort of surprise rang of a totally different air than this sort. Still, Hiiro was his best friend. "Alright, I won't mention it to her. But she'd better be damn well overjoyed."

"She will be. And thanks again."

The screen went blank.

Duo sat back and frowned. A flicker of uneasy doubt sparked within his chest. Hiiro seemed himself, yet somehow not at the same time. Why hadn't he asked Duo to let Relena know he'd escaped the attackers in tact? Or that she shouldn't worry, he's on his way? Asking for his wife to be left in the dark just didn't seem to be the reaction Duo would expect from anyone's husband, not even Relena's stoic love. It simply didn't sit right.

"So, what did he say?" Dorothy asked as she slid her arms around his neck from behind. He stared silently at the screen for a moment before answering.

"He's on his way. But he doesn't want us to tell her."

"What?" He could see her reflection in the screen, and the confused expression on her delicate face. "Why?"

"He says he wants her to be surprised."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"I know." Duo turned around in the chair, forcing her to let go of him. He looked up at her with hard eyes. "What do you think?" He watched her as she stared back down at him. He saw the slight curving of her bottom lip inwards and knew that this must be a hard decision for her. She only chewed her lip when something truly disturbed her. "Dorothy, you know her better than I do. If you think we shouldn't tell her, then we won't." He took her hand in his and squeezed it slightly to reassure her. The hand twitched before she pulled away.

"We should tell her. Something isn't right about this. I think she's the key. We need to see how she'll react."

"Right. My thoughts as well." He rose and looked at her. "Should I tell her?"

"No, I'll do it."

Their trek to the bedroom fell in time with their silence. Duo felt a shadow following them and knew that she felt it as well. The shadow had hung in the atmosphere since Relena's arrival and seemed to laugh at them. Duo knew shadows, had lived in them most of his life, but this thing carved out a place in his heart to haunt and made him shudder. Being used to causing fear, he didn't like feeling it for himself.

Dorothy slowed as they neared the silent room. He peered over her shoulder at the lump of listless person lying in his bed. Relena wasn't asleep, he could see that from where he stood. Even in the darkness of the room her bright blue eyes glistened with tears. Perhaps imagination made him think of them as tears formed of bitter betrayal. However, perhaps it was intuition.

"Relena," Dorothy spoke as though not to shatter the room with her voice, "we've got something to tell you." No movement from the woman on the bed, save for the barely noticeable rise and fall of her chest. "Hiiro . . ." Dorothy paused as Relena flinched considerably. Her dark eyes found Duo's and he nodded for her to continue. "We've called Hiiro." Again that flinch. "He's very relived to hear that you're alive after the attack." Something dark, something cold. "He's on his way here to pick you up."

"NO!" Relena flew from the bed in a flurry of blankets and panic. Her eyes shone with the plain terror of someone hunted and knowing their hunter came close. A thick, heavy ball of dread settled in Duo's stomach as he watched her flitter about the room gathering her things. Hiiro came this way and she seemed determined to be gone before he could find, or catch, her.

"Oh God," Dorothy murmured at his side. "It was him. It was Hiiro. He did this to her."

The dread in his stomach burst into flames of hot fury. An image came to his mind of his best friend, the stoic and honorable Hiiro Yui, grabbing this small woman by the hair and pulling until the strands ripped out one by one. He saw the Prussian-eyed one backhand her hard enough to split her lip. In his mind's eye Duo glimpsed the pain she must have felt when Hiiro blackened her eye. Now he knew the faint mark on Hiiro's face had been no shadow, but the remains of Relena's fight against her attacker.

"Dammit." He growled, stepped forward and gripped Relena by the shoulders. She gave a tiny cry of fright before looking into his eyes. She must have seen through the haze of her fear into his indigo, not Prussian, orbs. The princess sagged gratefully into his arms. "We can't let him find her. I wish now I'd waited to talk to her or something before calling him. Damn." She couldn't stay in this apartment anymore, he knew that much. Relena had to leave. "Dorothy, take her away from here and hide her. I'll stay and deal with Hiiro."

"No." His lovely platinum-haired lover glided over the carpet to him. "You're an idiot if you think that you can deal with this. Obviously something's happened to Hiiro to make him snap. You couldn't have beaten him before, and you know it. Now that he doesn't have any qualms about beating his own wife, what do you think he'll do to you?"

As much as the realization chipped at his masculine pride, Duo knew she spoke truth. He couldn't stand up to Hiiro on his own, not then and not now. He sighed and looked down at the woman who always seemed to cause a world of trouble though she never meant to.

"So what do we do?"

"We run," Dorothy replied harshly enough so he wouldn't argue, "all of us."

~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~

Hiiro watched the stars. Though he knew the shuttle flew through them at an alarming pace, the sparks of white hot gas seemed as still as any corpse. They burned intensely enough to live in the depths of airless space, yet remained remote and cold. Under that description he could be considered a star. Intense yet cold. Yes, definitely he could be a star.

Reflected in his plastic window came a vision of himself as he appeared in a dream. It must have been a dream. A nightmare. Relena had been attacked by assassins. They had barged in, taking even the Perfect Soldier by surprise, and tried to rape and kill his wife. Assassins. She fought back with amazing strength for her size, but was only able to wrench away when he tackled the one over her. The assassin. Then he watched her run as they closed in on him. The assassins, that is. The whole group of them. Ten, at least, maybe even fifteen. Assassins.

Assassins.

It had to have been assassins. Had to. The other possibility, the other image that tried to capture his mind simply couldn't be the truth. It sickened his steel stomach to even consider the idea.

So he took the easier, less troubling idea and bored it into his skull until he convinced himself that there had never even been any other option. The people who had attacked Relena would pay dearly for their mistake.

Hiiro Yui closed his gaze and waited to arrive on L2 to retrieve his wife. He hoped she remained safe with Duo. He couldn't bear to see her hurt again.

~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~

"Why can't we just go to the damn shuttleport?"

"Think about it, Dorothy," Duo growled as he gripped Relena's hand tight and sent a glance down each end of the street. They hadn't wanted to wait until morning to move, but their flight could be easily seen late at night with no crowds to cover them. "We'd have to charge the flight 'cause we don't have enough cash to pay for it. The second Hiiro realizes what we've done, he'll try to find us. Tracing the credit record of our flight would be a piece of cake for him."

"Point made."

"The problem is now how to get the money." The three of them sprinted across the dark street. Duo pulled Relena quickly into the shadows, and Dorothy followed in similar fashion. She crouched behind him, pressing herself to his back to remain hidden. He continued to whisper to her. "The only way we can safely pay for a shuttle flight is with cash. Quatre would be more than happy to give us the money, but it's too dangerous to call him. Hiiro could trace that easily too."

"So what then?" She didn't want to say that it seemed a little hopeless. She believed in Duo and his uncanny knack at getting out of hopeless situations. He didn't answer her immediately. The thoughtful turn of the gears in his head was almost audible in the midnight silence. When he finally spoke again she heard a strange inflection in his tone that she didn't like.

"I can get the money. You keep Relena here. I'll be back soon." He shoved the princess towards her and took off without giving Dorothy time to object. She watched his braid bounce behind him as he ran off and a lump lodged itself in her throat.

Dorothy sat in the alley where Duo dumped her with Relena. Not like she minded taking care of the princess. Relena had done so much for the Earthsphere and for Dorothy herself. The platinum woman possessed a hard stone of respect in her heart for Relena Darlian/Peacecraft, one that the most persistent hammer couldn't break. So she held the other woman close, stroked her hair, and murmured reassuring words to her as a mother would do for a child frightened by thunder.

That thought made her think of Duo's clumsy proposal and her answer, or lack of one. Could she marry him? Could she be a wife and perhaps, one day, a mother? Despite herself, Dorothy felt a smile crack her cold face open. She thought the answer to those questions might be yes, and it made her warm inside.

Duo remained gone for well over two hours. Relena kept her silence. When at last the braided one did return he pulled a thick roll of bills from his pocket.

"Enough for three tickets to L4 and anything else we might need." A vein of something unidentifiable laced his voice, something that made Dorothy's heart sink into her stomach. She searched out his eyes in the darkness and found blackness even more consuming than the night. His hand shook beneath hers when she tried to grip it to comfort him. He pulled away quickly, and wouldn't look at her. She imagined his skin pale in the night with some secret hurt. It pained her to think something had happened to him and he wouldn't speak of it. "C'mon," he snapped sharply, dragging her from her thoughts. "We've got to get going. The shuttleport closes between three am and six for cleaning. We've only got twenty minutes."

He must have some reason for being so short, she thought. Duo didn't become angry easily or without cause. Usually he managed to keep what anger he felt directed at the proper source. She could only assume that the proper source was not available. But she said nothing, did not try to glean the information from him. He would come to her when his heart was ready. She merely picked up Relena and followed him.

~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~

At precisely 4:15 PM on the afternoon of the morning Duo and Dorothy fled L2 with Relena, Hiiro Yui stepped off the shuttle from Earth and blinked under the harsh colony lights. He carried one small bag with him, so small he'd been allowed it as a carry on. He didn't plan to stay long, one night at most should Relena need the rest. Then he would take her back to Sanch and begin repairing the damage those damned assassins created.

Assassins.

Hiiro nodded to himself sharply and walked through the shuttle doors, flashing his badge at the guards as he went. As the husband of Vice Foreign Minister Darlian, he was granted political immunity on Earth as well as all the colonies. This immunity included the waiving of normal shuttleport search procedures. He could pass anywhere and carry anything he chose.

Instead of calling a cab, Hiiro decided to walk the distance to Duo and Dorothy's apartment. Pent up energy called for release, and with the former Perfect Soldier any other sort of release could end up in violence.

No. He wasn't like that anymore. He couldn't be like that anymore. He'd promised himself.

"Hiiro! Stop! Oh God, please . . . HIIRO!"

He shook his head and the offending memory from it. Relena's voice tumbled through his brain and stuck there, however, repeating that plea again and again. Hiiro's hand gripped the bag's strap tighter as he tried to ignore the terror in her voice's memory, the tears saturating her cry. When had she said that? He couldn't remember. She'd never said it. Why would she? He would never, could never, have done anything to cause Relena to sob like that. He remembered the feel of her arms around him after Mariemaia's defeat and the odd thought that occurred to him then: I'd die right now if it meant staying here forever . . .

Hurt Relena? No. Never. Inconceivable.

Twenty minutes after his arrival, Hiiro stepped off the last stair to the fourth floor where Duo lived. The building wasn't the best on L2, but neither was it a complete dump. He turned to the right and three doors down came to the door nailed with three rusted letters: 404. A sharp tapping filled the hallway as he asked entrance in the traditional manner and waited for the traditional reply. He waited for several seconds, much too long. Normally Duo yelled without two seconds of a knock, if not sooner. Still, Hiiro knocked a second time in case Duo and Dorothy were . . . erm . . . otherwise engaged and needed to be dragged away. Still there came no reply and Hiiro resorted to the last thing he would ever normally do. He set his hand on the knob and twisted, letting himself in without permission.

Things were dark inside. He flipped on the light switch. Clothing lay strewn about the living room, but such a mess was not uncommon in any place where Duo had been. However, the utter silence that saturated the apartment and thickened the air made Hiiro nervous. Somehow the haphazard way in which the clothes were thrown suggested more than simple bad housekeeping. It suggested quick flight. Panic gripped his throat and cut off his breath. Hiiro flew through the rooms, searching for his best friend, Dorothy, or his wife. A low scream of rage began unbidden in his throat as he returned to the living room unaccompanied. The bulb of a lamp across the room burst.

They took her . . . they took her away from me . . .

Did they? How do you know she didn't tell them lies? What if she told them that you beat her and that you're dangerous . . .

Hiiro ground his teeth together and closed his eyes against this second voice. The voice that had been trying to convince him for weeks of Relena's infidelity, of her lies and manipulations, things he could never believe in. Never. Until arriving here and finding her gone.

She told them about you, about what you did-

But I didn't do anything!

How certain of that are you?

He paused, swallowing back the unpleasant and uncalled for images. A swirl of hands and fists, angry expressions and fear. Relena on her knees, shoulders shaking, tears on a morbid trek down her face. His own face, somehow, twisted into a mask he hardly recognized. Distorted he looked, grotesque.

NO!

The two mirrors hanging in the room cracked and exploded, sending shards flying into the floor and walls.

Hiiro lifted his hands to either side of his head, as though that could silence the invading voice. But it persisted, coddling him with accusing words and slowly oozing malice into his mind. Slowly, so slowly, he turned and grabbed up his bag. Proceeding out of the apartment and down the stairs, Hiiro Yui stared straight ahead with wide Prussian eyes that saw nothing of what lay before him. They saw only the dark labyrinths within.

Relena is a heartless bitch, you know that. She doesn't care about you. That slow, dripping voice continued the assault as he exited the building and walked down the street. You were the dangerous one, the silent type, the kind of boy all the girls wanted . . . but you're not like that anymore, are you? You've become a tame kitten, and she wants a wild man. A man . . . like Duo. Did you stop to wonder why she chose to come here? Why Duo? Why not Wufei, or Quatre? Or even one of those ditzy women in her fan club. Duo is still the kind of man you used to be, and knowing Dorothy, she probably isn't too opposed to sharing. Think about it, Yui and you know what I'm getting at.

Duo's been fucking your woman.

White hot flame erupted around the building behind him, burning away Duo's apartment and the unlucky residents of the other rooms. Hiiro's face remained blank.

End Chapter One.