Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Designed Memories ❯ Dead End ( Chapter 19 )

Ch: 19 Dead End

 

I shot up; eyes wide open, sucking in a gasped breath, my system shocked from the sudden thought breaking through. The phone. If I could get the phone I could get him. I could get him to put it all back. If he could break it then he could put it all back together. I needed to be back together.

 

My head dropped as I stared down at the concrete between my extended legs. My head felt like a TV Jaster had control of, every five seconds the channel changing to something completely different, nothing on long enough to understand. A swirling confusion bent on madness. Everything of who I was traveling in there, so diluted, each piece yearning to destroy the last and the next. One thing stood clear, clear against the rest, separate and free from attack. All of it, all of this, was my choice.

 

“The phone.” I grunted to myself as I got to my feet, I needed to focus on something, anything else. It didn't work, by the time I was on my feet I already forgot what I was doing.

 

The oddity I'd become caught a couple glances by the people around, more interesting then the building that had so recently been reduced to nothing. Probably because I got up started in one direction, then another, unable to keep my head straight, mumbling incoherently to myself easily forgetting where I was, what I was doing, and why I was doing it.

 

I paused staring down at my hands, my eyes lost focus. It wouldn't stop, all the things, all these extra things, I couldn't make them stop. Needless to say, I effortlessly became the center of attention as the frustration, confusion and anger tore from my throat. The cold rain pounding over me. How many times had I asked myself why it was raining, losing the present, losing my place in time?

 

My jaw was shaking making me grit my teeth to keep it still. It worked, but that fine shake travelled all the way down to the soles of my feet. So close, I was so close to falling. I had survived a lot of things in my life, more then I ever knew it seemed, yet I wasn't sure I was going to make it this time. I'd stood on the edge a million times, slipped half way down, one time I did hit the ground, but I was always able to climb back up. Course the other times I was holding on with a steel grip, this time I couldn't even remember how to work my hands.

 

“Pitbull!” My dazed eyes rose to the exclamation. The voice didn't match what I saw running towards me. I blinked heavily enough it righted the picture. Solo would never call me Pitbull or did he? I wasn't sure.

 

The hands gripped my arms. “Are you okay? Did anything happen?” One moved to my face. My eyes closed for a different reason, the hand so warm where it brushed my cheek. “You don't look good.”

 

My right eye was ticking. It sounded so different, different than anything that ever came from me. Real concern, real emotions, were any of mine like that? I parted my eyes looking into the deep hazel that stared back at me. I couldn't remember his name.

 

“The phone!” I pushed him away from me in a surge of clarity. It all rushed back. Jaster, Charlie, the phone. It was by the building across the street. I need to get there before everything shifted again.

 

“Duo wait!” Charlie yelled from behind me.

 

“Pitbull, see yer good as eve…” Adams words trailed as I bumped by him, running, being sure to give him a snarling glare as I passed. I only had a short window of time, though that could be a lie. I wasn't actually sure what I had; maybe the prior was my big break. Hell I didn't know, I wasn't complete sure what, exactly, I was dealing with at the moment and really had no fucking clue what to base it off of. I think I'd be hard pressed to find any documentation of a similar incident in any book.

 

“Jinks! What the fuck man?! Yer suppose to stop him!” Charlie yelled still behind me.

 

“Well shit, how was I supposed to know?” Adam must have taken up chasing me with Charlie.

 

“Second line of defense, what he hell do you think that means? Weren't you a god damn marine?”

 

“Not really the time to talk about this Sandman.” Adam grunted back.

 

“Oh like it fuckin matters!”

 

I was almost clear of the park, the street much easier to cross with all traffic stopped, people out of their cars gawking at the destruction blocks away. My pace changed suddenly from a run to a sliding stop in the middle of the road. I had a feeling I knew what a deer felt like when it tried crossing a road during the night at the wrong time.

 

I went still. I knew he saw me, but my instincts were telling me if I ceased all function I might be able to escape his radar. Those cobalt's didn't move from me, not even when Charlie and Adam came to either side of me. I couldn't hear them overtaken by too much past. The moment we shared when we were kids shifting through my head, I could see so clearly him as that homicidal child, not that I was any less homicidal, just better at hiding it.

 

Every excuse I came up with, every reason I devised to make it a lie was full of gaps and missing places. It fit too well. Solo was a great hacker, no doubt, but he wasn't a great creator. No way could he make such an elaborate story, even with help. He could never get the details right, Solo wasn't good enough to make it flow so smoothly.

 

My head was a wreck, but I suddenly realized it wasn't the Dogs or Solo I needed to clear it, to fill it with purpose. It was Heero.

 

Despite everything, all the things weighing down that scale between the two images of who I had been, who I was, I could still deny it. The Dogs would be just as lost as I was on the subject. There were only two people in the universe who could destroy my denial, one of which was standing across from me body tense. He had to know what was coming.

 

The determination set in his eyes. “Grab him.” No sooner did he say it than my boots turned and dug into pavement. Even if Charlie or Adam knew what he meant, they didn't have a chance. I was off in seconds and straight into a full on sprint.

 

I did have to say, it had been awhile since I literally ran away from anything, but necessity called and it was saying `run like a motherfucker' so I went with it. The good thing was I had a pretty decent chance of getting away. The Preventer's were all distracted with the blast, plus I had a lot of cover with the stopped traffic. On the opposite end were all the damn gaping idiots in my way.

 

Heero was behind me, I knew that, so I couldn't slow down when some jackass decided it was a good idea to get out of their car, door wide open right in my way. At least I had time to come up with something, though I was kind of screwed since I was running in the middle of the street and a semi was taking up the space beyond that door, also parked and gazing.

 

It was going to slow me down, but I figured I could make a few jumps and get to the sidewalk. Either way, I was beyond the point of no return. My feet left the ground. My boot took the bumper pushing the other to the trunk of the car, all the muscles in my legs tight and ready for the abuse. The top of the car dented, my left foot hitting it slowing me a bit as I descended to the hood.

 

“Fuck!” My mental curse was on the outside at all the damn people crowding the sidewalks. It was quickly ended by a sound comparable to what I just made, on the same car, coming behind me. He was close.

 

Fuck it, I was going to go for it. I sped up, staying on the cars pounding from one to the next; half wondering what kind of fine I was getting for it. My ears caught a resounding thump behind me. Curiosity sucks for curious people, and sadly, I was curious. I slowed looking behind me seeing Yuy face plated on a car, the owner of said vehicle standing next to it arms crossed looking pleasantly satisfied.

 

“Ha!” I yelled loud enough sure he would hear it. I guess he forgot L2 was my colony and they really didn't care for Yuy and crew. My victory was short lived, as most were, when I turned to see the back of a semitrailer way too close. I planted both feet on the roof of the car I was on just behind the mechanism trying to inflict doom upon me and jumped with all I had. It wasn't pretty and it wasn't graceful as my face smacked into the back of the trailer, but it did get he job done, my hands some how able to hold the edge. I had never been so thankful I worked in construction able to pull myself easily atop the trailer.

 

Two things happened when I turned around to see how my tail was doing, I didn't want to overexert myself if I didn't have to. Gasps and a few screams caught my ears as I saw people cowering and on top of that hood Heero was back on his feet gun pulled pointed with deadly accuracy at none other than me. We shared a meeting of eyes over that cold metal.

 

“Stop running Maxwell.” His finger on the trigger.

 

It could all end right here; the rain pounding on the trailer hiding the sweat pouring from me, my panting breath making a small puff of steam from the difference in temperature. I looked away first, so much shit filling my head I couldn't help but laugh. Head thrown back mouth wide, the sound crashing like the rain into everything around me.

 

I heard it, heard everything, remembered everything. Those missing days rushing back. The moment in my apartment, Heero's words, my actions, the way I ran, the bar I stumbled into. I was never able to see anything, strapped down and tied up, but the voice always there was Solo's. Telling me not to worry as they pumped me full of god knew what. Prick after prick in my arm my head constantly spinning, he always at my side when I came too, when I screamed from my head aching, when I seized from my mind breaking.

 

I wasn't laughing anymore as my knees hit the trailer my hands coming to either side of my head. It hurt, everything hurt. I dropped my hands, my left holding me up as my right pounded the trailer, trying to break through the metal, break through my fractured mind, the wordless cry leaving me. The trailer caved to my twisted rage, the grated edge tearing delicate tissue. I didn't even notice the pain, just the color as it dripped to that harsh gray mingling with the dirty water dripping in the cavernous hole my fist created.

 

I leaned away turning my palm upward watching as red filled my hand. A deep cut at a slight diagonal across it, north of my wrist. The steps came closer, my eyes focused on my overflowing hand. The other stopped just in front of me. I rose to my feet bringing my other hand up and rubbing the two together coating both with that thick crimson, his person the backdrop to my neurosis. When I was satisfied, I parted the two hands holding them up looking at my pursuer.

 

“This is the way they should look isn't it?” I went back to looking at my hands, he saying and doing nothing, just watching me closely, the rain already washing the mess away until they were nearly clean. “It's almost sad how easily it comes off, like it never really happened, like you can forget it all. Heh, if it were only so easy to forget all the things we've done.”

 

The two of us were silent. I couldn't say what he was thinking, too busy trying to figure out what I was thinking or should be thinking. I dropped my hands to my sides our eyes meeting again. Neither of us moved, sharing something and nothing in an icy clam moment.

 

“Maxwell, you need to tell me what's happening.” Yuy commanded, his hand reaching to the pocket on his belt. I didn't have to look to know he was getting handcuffs out.

 

“I don't even know what's happening.” I said taking a step back being completely honest. I wasn't sure what was going on anymore.

 

“I won't let you run Maxwell.” Yuy's voice threatened, he matching my step.

 

“You remember when we were kids?” What the hell was I saying? Why was I saying it? I didn't want to know this. “I had you beat then. Dr. J and Professor G knew that. You think anything's changed now?” No, no, no, no, no! That's not what I wanted to say.

 

Yuy wasn't moving, eyes slightly wide, the cuffs he was grabbing forgotten as he stared unblinkingly at me. Fuck! What did I do? What was I doing?

 

The shock slipped from Yuy's face like the rain dripping down it returning the stone cold mask. His hand was again going to the cuffs, pulling them out this time. “Why are you brining that up now Maxwell?” He asked coldly, clicking one of the devices open.

 

My eyes burned, my bottom lip shaking, the oppression suffocating me, the weight of truth, my trampled denial choking on its last breath. It was all moving too fast, my head a vortex of doubts, lies, truth, and death. There was nothing else to do, all my denial slaughtered by a simple question from Yuy.

 

His hand no sooner brushed mine then I was off again. I couldn't take it, take the truth that I was the lie. I was the fucking lie. Everything I was, everything I'd done, everything I wanted was a lie. The only honest thing about me was that I always ran away. The one fucking thing I was good at, the only consistency in me, was running like a god damn coward. Needless to say, it wasn't a good day to be me.

 

“Fuck!” I screamed as I jumped from the car back to the street picking up speed, the world passing like the thoughts in my mind, blindingly fast. My legs burned my lungs searing with each breath. I had to wonder if Yuy was keeping up because I was done playing. I was running like I was being chased by a pack of rapid dogs hungry for my throat.

 

“Maxwell! Stop running!” Yep, he was still behind me.

 

“Stop fuckin chasing me!” Came my reply, though I wasn't even sure why or where I had pulled it out of, just a conditioned response maybe.

 

“Stop running!” He yelled back as we shifted roads, me taking a right sliding across the hood of a car, vaulting over a motor bike.

 

“Stop chasing me!” It really sucked being chased by a guy as athletic as I was because it meant he was going to be a pain in the ass to lose.

 

“Stop running!” A real pain in the ass to lose.

 

“Shut the fuck up!” It would go on forever if I didn't end the argument. I decided to up the ante and shifted to the sidewalk happy as fuck I was a Gundam pilot and used to way too many things going on at once, easily dodging and running through the flocks of people.

 

I could hear the static of his radio as he started talking. Shit, bad idea to move the sidewalk, I was the one slowing down trying not to hit people while he was getting the open path I left and gaining on me. I moved back to the street.

 

“You can't fuckin call for back up!” That was cheating.

 

“Stop.” He grunted behind me and I felt the warmth of his fingers graze my bicep. I couldn't even say where it came from, but I found a burst of speed distancing the two of us. No way in hell was he going to catch me.

 

We kept running, we because he wasn't going to give up until he caught me. Yuy wasn't the type to lose, ever, and I didn't know how to stop running. I was sure the only way it was going to end was by one of our bodies finally giving out. I'd finally made it to a steady rhythm of feet pounding the wet concrete and even breathing. Yuy better have done the same or our race was going to be mine.

 

Streets passed, my mind placing random moments, recalling what they used to be. All of it was gone, replaced by buildings, society taking over. I wanted that to make it mean less. It was a past gone, there was nothing left of the truth, no one would know the difference. Such a well crafted lie, why couldn't I keep living in it?

 

I took a right onto a new street seeing it was a short one coming to a `T' at the very next block. It was an area I shouldn't be familiar with, we hadn't gotten this far yet. My rhythm hit a snag, my feet almost losing ground as I came to a sliding stop before the decrepit building that stood by determination alone it seemed. Walls were caved, windows shattered, the boards blocking them looking as unstable as the whole frame. Still it stood as if defying physics, as if defying me.

 

It was more than familiar, the last place Solo and I had lived together. I could pick out where every room was, every place I had been, the places Solo and I shared. I stood slack jawed and dumbstruck staring at the faltering structure making me falter just the same.

 

I heard him behind me, but couldn't do a thing. Everything else was gone. Professor G's house torn down, replaced by a parking lot for a strip mall. The alley way where I slaughtered Solo's gang replaced by a book store or it had been before he made it into that bar Pi. The place where I had left Solo to die in the park turned into a lake from heavy damage taken from a mobile suit battle on the colony. All those places gone, the memories still there, but so easy to deny, so easy to forget. Yet before me one of the most potent stood, against time, against all odds. This was it; this was all that was left of that life.

 

The rain stopped. It was the only thought I had. My body may be done, but my mind still ran for its life.

 

The weight took me from behind. No longer could I see that haunting building, just the ground rushing towards me. I hit the cold wet pavement, my arms being yanked violently behind me. Yuy's panting breath mixing with my own. The metal tightened around my wrists. His radio came to life, he letting everyone know I'd been secured and to send a car.

 

It came over me much like the rain had the instant the new Preventer's building blew. A crashing wave of scalding emotions. Everyway I turned was a dead end, my mind had no where to go, no place to hide as truth dug into me.

 

I struggled slightly in Yuy's grip. Not here, I didn't want lose it now. Yuy put a strong hand on my head, pinning it to the ground, easily ending my feeble attempt.

 

“Let it go Maxwell. You can't escape me.” Such a simple statement. He probably thought nothing of it as he said it. If he only knew the complexity of those words. I really couldn't get away from him. He and Solo should from a club of douche bags I can't get rid of and they'd probably get along famously, to add insult to injury.

 

Yuy let go of my head since I was no longer trying to get away. He scooted next to me letting me roll to my side, his back resting against mine, his left hand just before my face holding him up.

 

“You're still fast. Why did you stop?” He knew just like I did, he had no chance of catching me. Probably wouldn't have if I didn't stop. Why did I stop? It was a good question, a question that I kept repeating in my head. Why did I stop? So many reasons. I squeezed my eyes closed. I wasn't going to do this.

 

“Shit.” The small grunt left me as I fought the things surging inside me. There was no rain to hide the tears. I didn't want to cry in front of him again. I didn't want to cry at all. What was crying going to do? Would it make it any less true? Was it going to change anything?

 

I kicked my legs out uselessly behind me as Yuy's hand came from the ground holding me tightly to him denying me any escape I might have had. I was so pathetic, wanting to cry over something I couldn't change, something I couldn't hide from.

 

“Maxwell.” Yuy's voice soft, just above me.

 

“Don't fuckin look at me.” I snapped back trying to turn my head into the pavement, not at all comfortable, but better than having Yuy watch me fight myself.

 

His arm no longer held me to him, the hand gripping my chin turning my face upward. Not a chance to protest before the warmth rested against my lips. My anger was just a flash, burning like a thimble full of gun powder fizzling out in seconds. It felt good. It was not some lust filled slopping of lips. It was something warm, soothing, meant to convey things I already knew. I was eager for that warmth though, to feel something, anything, outside myself.

 

Yuy's tongue requested access that I gave. It was a kiss full of complex emotions, deep and comforting. It wasn't passionless, but that wasn't the focus. The meeting of two people that shared an understanding, a kiss Hilde and I never had. Even what Solo and I shared was nothing like this, though that was probably just for shock value, as if

Solo really needed to do anymore.

 

Yuy broke the kiss, his cheek brushing along mine until his lips reached my ear. Even that close I was hard pressed to hear the words, the utterance of his deepest weakness, an admission I never needed to hear. “I love you Duo.”

 

My eyes opened, staring down the long empty street. I didn't have anything to say back. If he would have just left it at the kiss everything might have been fine, but he just had to drive it home.

 

He pulled back from me seeming in the mood to chatter on. “We went through the same things, but you came out so different. All this time I thought you forgot about that meeting when we were children. I never could. I didn't know it then, Dr. J did. He engrained it in me to stay away from you, to hate you. It took me a long time to realize why. Before we meet I never reacted. Nothing could get to me, but even as a child you could make me feel things. You were always good at meddling where shouldn't.”

 

I couldn't say a word as I listened to him. Ever utterance of his voice gnawing at the beaten carcass of my denial, pushing me closer and closer to that inescapable edge. My eyes watching the empty street, steam rising from the warm roads coated in the cool water.

 

“I did hate you when we first met as Gundam pilots and it wasn't because you shot me or my training. It was because you didn't remember me when I could never forget you. I did everything I could to be what Dr. J wanted thirsty to escape and find you. I knew I was never a normal kid, but just the thought of you could entice an array of childhood fantasies in me and you didn't even know who I was.”

 

The breath eased from my parted lips, making me question taking in another.

 

“All these feelings I couldn't have, I was trained never to have, and just the sight of you made them burn inside me, made me make stupid mistakes. Your smile, those expressive eyes, I thought maybe it was jealousy. Jealous that you could feel and express all these things I had to keep locked away. I've watched you for a long time Duo and have come to see that even you have your own battles to fight within yourself. If it were simple jealousy I could let you go because I know even you can't express the things you feel.”

 

I pulled in the breath, my eyes dry, my mind clicking, ticking, running out of space. The edge just before me, so easy to jump, to let myself fall, but I always hated heights and it was a long way down.

 

“It's…”

 

“Shut the fuck up!” I turned to glare up at him, he looking down on me. “I don't wanna hear this bullshit. You don't have a fuckin clue what yer talkin about. You love me? Ha! You don't even know…what that means.” The anger left with the last changing to a stunned disbelief. Oh the irony. I turned away from Yuy letting my cheek settle on the pavement as the laugh tore from me, cruel and brash. It wasn't funny, not in the least, but if I didn't laugh, if I didn't keep laughing, I wasn't sure what was going to happen.

 

Yuy tried to quiet me, but I wouldn't stop pumping that sound from my throat. I kept my eyes wide open pelting out laugh after laugh. I had overextended my limit long ago, pure madness fueling me, keeping me from completely and utterly breaking.

 

Yuy pulled my deranged form from the pavement as the car arrived. I wasn't sure who came unable to hear from the obnoxious sounds leaving my mouth.

 

The laugh suddenly couldn't get past my tightened throat that keen green smiling at me. The hand up, wrist tilting slightly, giving me a wave. Had he been there the whole time? Had he watched it all? Did he know I would come here?

 

Yuy almost lost me as I thrashed. His arms coming around my waist as the tightness released and I used my words. “I'll fuckin kill you!” My legs lost ground, Yuy having to take all my weight as I kicked and fought against him. “Put if fuckin back! You sick piece of shit! Put it back!”

 

My eyes never left him as he laughed silently behind the broken window on the second floor, the wood torn away, giving me a perfect view of him. That room, it was the room we shared so often with the most comfortable bed in the place. So many nights he held me in his arms, the only nights I ever had such peaceful sleep.

 

“God damn you.” I couldn't yell overtaken by that familiar pain, the pain that seemed to always come with thoughts of Solo. I screamed in Heero's arm toppling over like I'd just taking a shot to the stomach, part of me wishing I had, I knew how to fix that.

 

Heero didn't have the energy to hold all of me, letting me slip from his grip back to the worn road. I should have stayed there and broke like I needed to, but when did I ever do what I needed to.

 

I raised my eyes to that building; the heat spilling to my cheeks, staring at the window Solo was no longer in. I didn't know what I was going to do, but anything was better than feeling, than thinking, than being this.

 

I got my feet under me, Heero's hand immediately gripped me, but even the perfect soldier felt fatigue. He couldn't hold me, no one could, nor did I give them the chance as I charged to the entrance of the building.