Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Digital Bath ❯ Chapter 4
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Vinyl-Koneko 
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Sci-fi / Fantasy / Cyberpunk / Adventure / Action | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 10.27.2002 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.1K | Visits: 323 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Sci-fi / Fantasy / Cyberpunk / Adventure / Action | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 10.27.2002 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.1K | Visits: 323 | Status: Completed
+Title: Digital Bath - Part 5
+Author: Vinyl Koneko (Emily), roguegirl@att.net
+Rating: R
+Pairings: 1x2, 3x4, 5xM, 13x11, 6x9, R+1, H+2
+Warnings: AU, yaoi, cyberpunk, possible lime in a later part
+Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing because if I did I'd get rich auctioning it off on eBay... LOL, just kidding. I'd keep them for myself to make videos and become the real Sabintha. ^_~
+Notes: //Thought//, *emphasis*. Some ideas may seem similar to "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson, "The Matrix", and "Digimon", but I swear that isn't what I'm going for. "Digital Bath" is a song by The Deftones.
*~**~*
"You're sure you're not feeling queasy or anything?" Duo was still concerned that my prolonged exposure to the effects of gravity was what was overwhelming me. If he knew the truth he probably would leave me alone, and if there was anything I didn't want, it was for Duo to leave. The boy was making me curious, and so far I haven't gotten any information out of him.
"You're a hacker?" I asked, trying to start a conversation.
Duo smiled slightly. "Yeah, something like that."
"Then you must know the irony of your name."
He nodded. "Two is quite the popular number among hackers; 256 even more so because it's 2^8, and that eight is still 2^3." Duo plopped down on one of my chairs. "It was intentional, though. I had an older, ah, brother, and his name was Solo; he died and then I came along, so I became Duo."
"How'd he die?"
"Program malfunction," Duo answered simply. He didn't seem to want to go into any further detail. He stood up swiftly. "I should probably go. You need to rest and I need to go help the doctors with a triple-retrieval. If they are willing to come, at least, there will be three of them. You might be interested; they're your friends, after all."
My friends? "Why would they need to come in?"
Duo shrugged. "I just follow orders. I guess they just developed an interest in your friends, that's all. I don't get the major details, just who to get, what their avatars are going to look like, and where to find them."
At least I wasn't going to be the only one stumbling around on Earth. I couldn't help but grin at the thought of Wufei when he realized he's only a teenager. I noticed Duo fidgeting out of the corner of my eye. "What is it?"
"I've already met your friends once, and I don't think they feel too highly of me. They probably think you're dead. Can you just say or do something so they know we're on friendly terms? Then I can relay it through my memories like I did with you."
I didn't know what my brain had decided to do to demonstrate friendly terms because my body overrode any attempts I otherwise would have made. I leaned forward, catching Duo's mouth with mine in a kiss, nipping at his lips gently in an attempt to get a response of any kind. He seemed ambivalent for a few seconds, but soon his arms were wrapped around my neck, returning the gesture with so much enthusiasm that I had to lower myself to sit in a chair. I couldn't tell if this made the situation easier or worse because now Duo was straddling my lap. Like all good things, though, it ended too soon, and a mutual need for oxygen broke us apart. I looked Duo in the eye, catching a flash of shock, joy, and something that might have been fear.
"You think that'll work?" I breathed, voice sounding deeper than I had intended it to.
Duo just nodded wordlessly, leaning forward to place a chaste kiss on my cheekbone before getting off my lap and leaving for his retrieval mission.
*~**~*
"Heero! Wait up! Please? Heero!"
It was after class, which is boring as all hell, let me tell you. I was thinking of checking out the library that Duo loves so much to see if he's in there, but with Relena on my tail at the moment, that didn't seem like it was going to be happening. I stopped suddenly, bracing myself as she plowed into my back.
"What?"
She titled her head to the side. "Oh, you want to carry my books and escort me to my room? Okay!" I couldn't imagine we were leaving the fate of Earth partly in this girl's hands. I soon found myself armed with a stack of study discs and Relena latched onto my arm. "So do you like it here so far?"
I thought over my answer before actually responding. "The Earth is very pretty."
She beamed, batting her eyelashes so hard I could've sworn I felt a breeze. "Really? What else do you think is pretty?"
Sunsets. The smell of citrus in Duo's hair. The way the shade of Duo's eyes reflect exactly how he feels. Anything except what you want me to say. "Lots of things."
"Such as...?"
I offered a half-shrug in response, hoping it would be enough to get Relena off my case. I've only been conscious for two days and already I don't like her. It's not that I hate her; she's just so persistent and relatively clueless that she doesn't understand that I don't like her in any sexual way. Her part in the cause to repopulate Earth is noble and all, but I don't want to contribute to the populace with *her*.
"Heero, I need to talk to you." I looked up. It was Doctor J.
"Sure," I replied, trying to figure out what he would need to talk to me about. Maybe I'd finally learn where I fit in around here.
J started to lead me to another room, shutting the door behind us. "Make yourself comfortable, if you must." I sat at one of the desks, not knowing how long the talk would take. J started when he figured I was paying attention. "My associates and I have had something brought to our notice recently. We can read Duo like a book, and I warn you now not to get involved with the boy."
When this guy decided he could control every decision I made, I have no idea. And technically Duo and I aren't involved. I mentioned my latter point, at which he laughed. At least I think he was laughing; it sounded more like a wheeze.
"Don't underestimate me. I can tell that you will be if you aren't already. We made Duo too charming of a boy for things to work out any other way. You can take my advice or you can ignore it, but listening to me would be safer for the both of you. You must have noticed he doesn't talk about himself; there's a reason for that."
"I know about Solo," I interjected, although I knew it was a moot point.
J seemed to stiffen at the mention of the name, though, and it made me want to research into the Maxwells later on. "What did he tell you about Solo?"
"That he was his older brother and died in a program malfunction; they happen in the system still. It isn't unheard of entirely. They're just extremely rare." I hesitated, wondering if the doctor was going to fill in any information that I didn't know, but he just ended the topic.
"Just stay away from Duo or you'll be getting into more than you bargained for." The old man stood up, his prosthetics creaking loudly, and shuffled out of the room, leaving me by myself to mull over what he just said.
*~**~*
Doctor J's warnings didn't affect me in the least. They set me on edge for a little while, but once Duo came back from the retrieval we pretty much fell back to the way we were. He greeted me with a kiss that left me standing breathless, and he did it right in front of the doctors, too, so there couldn't have been any harm. Duo didn't feel like he needed to worry about it, but it made me wonder that if Doctor J's warning had anything to do with the flash of fear I caught in Duo's indigo gaze after we first kissed.
I felt a little bad that my friends that to go through the same therapy that I did, but it was necessary and nothing else could be done. They looked so young and frail, but witnessing their therapy actually let me see the change instead of just passing out from the feel of it. It took a few days before they were all on their feet again, but once they were awake, the first thing I did was let them know I was all right.
"Yuy, I don't know what the hell you got us into or why we agreed to be here, but you have some explaining to do!" Anyone who didn't know Wufei would've thought he was angry, but I could tell otherwise.
Trowa smiled slightly. "Leave it to Heero to get involved with the God of Death."
I felt my face burn. "We're not involved."
Quatre smirked at me from where he was on the bottom bunk of the bed, pressed up against Trowa. "That's not what it looked like to me." He reached up, brushing bangs out of aquamarine eyes. "Do you like him?"
"Yes," I admitted. It felt nice for someone to know beside myself.
Wufei waved his hand in my direction, yawning obviously. "Well then go get involved. We're still tired and I don't plan on waking up until I'm twenty-one again."
I understood. They hadn't gotten as much rest as I had, and I could tell they needed it. "All right. I'll come back when you're rested." I made sure to turn off the light for them, shutting the door behind me. It was a strange turn of events. We seemed more like teenagers at a boarding school, now, instead of powerful programmers from the system who knew the truth about the world.
I hadn't known that Duo was standing just outside in the corridor sipping occasionally from a glass of chocolate milk. Doctor J be damned. I was getting involved.
"Everyone okay in there?" he asked, finishing off the last of the drink before placing the empty glass on top of a garbage can at the end of the hall for someone else to clean up later.
"They're still tired, but they seemed fine, other than that."
"That's good." We were walking in an uneasy silence. I knew I was feeling a little tense at being in Duo's vicinity, but why he felt uneasy, I wasn't sure. Maybe he knew about J's little confrontation. "It's not going to be an easy time getting the Earth back to where she was before."
"Then why is the project being carried out?"
"The LSOS can't run forever; it was only supposed to be temporary. And the Earth is healed, now, so why waste the space? The balance is all off with out mankind to fuck it all up again." We stopped in front of what I recognized as Duo's room. "I have some pizza in here if you wanna come in." I nodded, allowing him to get back on-topic without any further interruptions. "It's the retrieval that's a pain in the ass. We have to find who we want and who we can take, and then me and Dorothy go in and try to convince them to come back with us. It's not an easy job, but somebody's got to do it."
I followed him into the room, watching as Duo kicked off his shoes and pulled a box of pizza out of the mini-fridge he probably managed to bribe off the doctors a little while back. "You could get more people to help."
Duo shook his head. "Only me and Dorothy can return to the system without any complications. The rest of you could confuse the LSOS, possibly damaging the system and killing everyone. We can't risk that."
"How hard would it be to make for me the program that lets you two in? If they don't have the time, I can do it."
Duo looked apologetic. "I know you want to help, but only we can do it. Trust me on that one."
"I just want to be able to help."
"I know. You're a kind person, Heero. People haven't always seen that from you."
I lowered my voice to a murmur, moving to stand as close as I possibly could. "You see it."
"I want to," Duo breathed back, looking into my eyes. I could feel myself falling into those blue-violet pools, and I knew that I was lost. The kiss became much more heated than the prior ones as Duo lowered himself onto the bed, pulling me down afterwards.
*~**~*
End Part 5
+Author: Vinyl Koneko (Emily), roguegirl@att.net
+Rating: R
+Pairings: 1x2, 3x4, 5xM, 13x11, 6x9, R+1, H+2
+Warnings: AU, yaoi, cyberpunk, possible lime in a later part
+Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing because if I did I'd get rich auctioning it off on eBay... LOL, just kidding. I'd keep them for myself to make videos and become the real Sabintha. ^_~
+Notes: //Thought//, *emphasis*. Some ideas may seem similar to "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson, "The Matrix", and "Digimon", but I swear that isn't what I'm going for. "Digital Bath" is a song by The Deftones.
*~**~*
"You're sure you're not feeling queasy or anything?" Duo was still concerned that my prolonged exposure to the effects of gravity was what was overwhelming me. If he knew the truth he probably would leave me alone, and if there was anything I didn't want, it was for Duo to leave. The boy was making me curious, and so far I haven't gotten any information out of him.
"You're a hacker?" I asked, trying to start a conversation.
Duo smiled slightly. "Yeah, something like that."
"Then you must know the irony of your name."
He nodded. "Two is quite the popular number among hackers; 256 even more so because it's 2^8, and that eight is still 2^3." Duo plopped down on one of my chairs. "It was intentional, though. I had an older, ah, brother, and his name was Solo; he died and then I came along, so I became Duo."
"How'd he die?"
"Program malfunction," Duo answered simply. He didn't seem to want to go into any further detail. He stood up swiftly. "I should probably go. You need to rest and I need to go help the doctors with a triple-retrieval. If they are willing to come, at least, there will be three of them. You might be interested; they're your friends, after all."
My friends? "Why would they need to come in?"
Duo shrugged. "I just follow orders. I guess they just developed an interest in your friends, that's all. I don't get the major details, just who to get, what their avatars are going to look like, and where to find them."
At least I wasn't going to be the only one stumbling around on Earth. I couldn't help but grin at the thought of Wufei when he realized he's only a teenager. I noticed Duo fidgeting out of the corner of my eye. "What is it?"
"I've already met your friends once, and I don't think they feel too highly of me. They probably think you're dead. Can you just say or do something so they know we're on friendly terms? Then I can relay it through my memories like I did with you."
I didn't know what my brain had decided to do to demonstrate friendly terms because my body overrode any attempts I otherwise would have made. I leaned forward, catching Duo's mouth with mine in a kiss, nipping at his lips gently in an attempt to get a response of any kind. He seemed ambivalent for a few seconds, but soon his arms were wrapped around my neck, returning the gesture with so much enthusiasm that I had to lower myself to sit in a chair. I couldn't tell if this made the situation easier or worse because now Duo was straddling my lap. Like all good things, though, it ended too soon, and a mutual need for oxygen broke us apart. I looked Duo in the eye, catching a flash of shock, joy, and something that might have been fear.
"You think that'll work?" I breathed, voice sounding deeper than I had intended it to.
Duo just nodded wordlessly, leaning forward to place a chaste kiss on my cheekbone before getting off my lap and leaving for his retrieval mission.
*~**~*
"Heero! Wait up! Please? Heero!"
It was after class, which is boring as all hell, let me tell you. I was thinking of checking out the library that Duo loves so much to see if he's in there, but with Relena on my tail at the moment, that didn't seem like it was going to be happening. I stopped suddenly, bracing myself as she plowed into my back.
"What?"
She titled her head to the side. "Oh, you want to carry my books and escort me to my room? Okay!" I couldn't imagine we were leaving the fate of Earth partly in this girl's hands. I soon found myself armed with a stack of study discs and Relena latched onto my arm. "So do you like it here so far?"
I thought over my answer before actually responding. "The Earth is very pretty."
She beamed, batting her eyelashes so hard I could've sworn I felt a breeze. "Really? What else do you think is pretty?"
Sunsets. The smell of citrus in Duo's hair. The way the shade of Duo's eyes reflect exactly how he feels. Anything except what you want me to say. "Lots of things."
"Such as...?"
I offered a half-shrug in response, hoping it would be enough to get Relena off my case. I've only been conscious for two days and already I don't like her. It's not that I hate her; she's just so persistent and relatively clueless that she doesn't understand that I don't like her in any sexual way. Her part in the cause to repopulate Earth is noble and all, but I don't want to contribute to the populace with *her*.
"Heero, I need to talk to you." I looked up. It was Doctor J.
"Sure," I replied, trying to figure out what he would need to talk to me about. Maybe I'd finally learn where I fit in around here.
J started to lead me to another room, shutting the door behind us. "Make yourself comfortable, if you must." I sat at one of the desks, not knowing how long the talk would take. J started when he figured I was paying attention. "My associates and I have had something brought to our notice recently. We can read Duo like a book, and I warn you now not to get involved with the boy."
When this guy decided he could control every decision I made, I have no idea. And technically Duo and I aren't involved. I mentioned my latter point, at which he laughed. At least I think he was laughing; it sounded more like a wheeze.
"Don't underestimate me. I can tell that you will be if you aren't already. We made Duo too charming of a boy for things to work out any other way. You can take my advice or you can ignore it, but listening to me would be safer for the both of you. You must have noticed he doesn't talk about himself; there's a reason for that."
"I know about Solo," I interjected, although I knew it was a moot point.
J seemed to stiffen at the mention of the name, though, and it made me want to research into the Maxwells later on. "What did he tell you about Solo?"
"That he was his older brother and died in a program malfunction; they happen in the system still. It isn't unheard of entirely. They're just extremely rare." I hesitated, wondering if the doctor was going to fill in any information that I didn't know, but he just ended the topic.
"Just stay away from Duo or you'll be getting into more than you bargained for." The old man stood up, his prosthetics creaking loudly, and shuffled out of the room, leaving me by myself to mull over what he just said.
*~**~*
Doctor J's warnings didn't affect me in the least. They set me on edge for a little while, but once Duo came back from the retrieval we pretty much fell back to the way we were. He greeted me with a kiss that left me standing breathless, and he did it right in front of the doctors, too, so there couldn't have been any harm. Duo didn't feel like he needed to worry about it, but it made me wonder that if Doctor J's warning had anything to do with the flash of fear I caught in Duo's indigo gaze after we first kissed.
I felt a little bad that my friends that to go through the same therapy that I did, but it was necessary and nothing else could be done. They looked so young and frail, but witnessing their therapy actually let me see the change instead of just passing out from the feel of it. It took a few days before they were all on their feet again, but once they were awake, the first thing I did was let them know I was all right.
"Yuy, I don't know what the hell you got us into or why we agreed to be here, but you have some explaining to do!" Anyone who didn't know Wufei would've thought he was angry, but I could tell otherwise.
Trowa smiled slightly. "Leave it to Heero to get involved with the God of Death."
I felt my face burn. "We're not involved."
Quatre smirked at me from where he was on the bottom bunk of the bed, pressed up against Trowa. "That's not what it looked like to me." He reached up, brushing bangs out of aquamarine eyes. "Do you like him?"
"Yes," I admitted. It felt nice for someone to know beside myself.
Wufei waved his hand in my direction, yawning obviously. "Well then go get involved. We're still tired and I don't plan on waking up until I'm twenty-one again."
I understood. They hadn't gotten as much rest as I had, and I could tell they needed it. "All right. I'll come back when you're rested." I made sure to turn off the light for them, shutting the door behind me. It was a strange turn of events. We seemed more like teenagers at a boarding school, now, instead of powerful programmers from the system who knew the truth about the world.
I hadn't known that Duo was standing just outside in the corridor sipping occasionally from a glass of chocolate milk. Doctor J be damned. I was getting involved.
"Everyone okay in there?" he asked, finishing off the last of the drink before placing the empty glass on top of a garbage can at the end of the hall for someone else to clean up later.
"They're still tired, but they seemed fine, other than that."
"That's good." We were walking in an uneasy silence. I knew I was feeling a little tense at being in Duo's vicinity, but why he felt uneasy, I wasn't sure. Maybe he knew about J's little confrontation. "It's not going to be an easy time getting the Earth back to where she was before."
"Then why is the project being carried out?"
"The LSOS can't run forever; it was only supposed to be temporary. And the Earth is healed, now, so why waste the space? The balance is all off with out mankind to fuck it all up again." We stopped in front of what I recognized as Duo's room. "I have some pizza in here if you wanna come in." I nodded, allowing him to get back on-topic without any further interruptions. "It's the retrieval that's a pain in the ass. We have to find who we want and who we can take, and then me and Dorothy go in and try to convince them to come back with us. It's not an easy job, but somebody's got to do it."
I followed him into the room, watching as Duo kicked off his shoes and pulled a box of pizza out of the mini-fridge he probably managed to bribe off the doctors a little while back. "You could get more people to help."
Duo shook his head. "Only me and Dorothy can return to the system without any complications. The rest of you could confuse the LSOS, possibly damaging the system and killing everyone. We can't risk that."
"How hard would it be to make for me the program that lets you two in? If they don't have the time, I can do it."
Duo looked apologetic. "I know you want to help, but only we can do it. Trust me on that one."
"I just want to be able to help."
"I know. You're a kind person, Heero. People haven't always seen that from you."
I lowered my voice to a murmur, moving to stand as close as I possibly could. "You see it."
"I want to," Duo breathed back, looking into my eyes. I could feel myself falling into those blue-violet pools, and I knew that I was lost. The kiss became much more heated than the prior ones as Duo lowered himself onto the bed, pulling me down afterwards.
*~**~*
End Part 5