Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Goodbye Yellow Brick Road ❯ Part Nine ( Chapter 9 )

Part Nine

Duo was quite upset the next day, that was safe to say. He refused to talk to anyone.

He didn't want their jeers.

He didn't need it right then.

"Duo," Heero spoke that night as he gazed out the single, triple-barred, tiny window. If he looked hard enough, he could almost see outside....

"Shut up and leave me alone," Duo spat angrily, pulling the thin sheets tighter around his shoulders.

"The door was locked, wasn't it? It wasn't that you were wrong; it was that the door was locked. Right?"

"Yes," Duo muttered weakly. "But you're the only person who believe me. Why? I don't know.... I don't even believe myself any more...."

Heero walked over, picked Duo up out of his bed with his immense strength, and smacked him hard across the face.

"Come on, Duo. Don't be a baby," he growled, and with a look of disgust, dropped him back on the bed. "It's no wonder no one believes you. It's hard for people to believe someone who is unsure of themselves."

Duo thought about Heero's words and realized he was right.

But it was so hard.... So hard to believe he was right when he was the only one....

"Heero.... Will you.... Will you...maybe...sleep...with me?" Duo begged softly, trying to cling on to the one thing he knew was true, and hoped was more than just friendship. Tried to grasp onto something that was stronger than him. He had to have something. He couldn't let his whole world slip out from beneath his feet.

He needed Heero more than anyone would ever know.

Heero snorted. "No. You disgrace me. Find out what you believe and then I might be into spending time with you."

Heero knew it was wrong...using his need and desire for friendship and a helping hand as almost a form of blackmail, but he also knew that freedom pivoted on Duo.

What Duo didn't know was that he too was an Incarnate.

Long ago he had a Vision....

~~~

Duo stood in the foolish field with its absurd clouds and ludicrous sun and ridiculous music box and wanted to scream.

"What in the fuck do you want from me?!"

Of course, there was no answer and so he cut directly to the chase.

He didn't want to be there and he knew what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to go to the door, walk through one, and see what it showed him.

Well, he was sick of it. Sick of it all. Of not knowing what he was seeing, of being laughed at, of watching his friends be hurt when they were little.... He didn't want any more.

So he would do just as it wanted and grin and bear it.

But for the life of him, he could not find the four doors.

'No.... You must want it....' the celestial voice scolded him softly.

"Fuck it all," he muttered. "Who in the hell wants to be going insane?!"

As soon as he spoke the words, fear jumped into him, even if it was just his dream-self.

Was he...was he going insane? Was that...it? Would he be locked away...? Would he be one of the people he had feared all his life...?

'No.... You must believe.... You must want to learn....'

"But I do!" Duo cried, falling to his knees, clutching at his hair and screaming up to the sky as tears streamed down his face unbidden. "I want to know what's wrong with me! I want to have my life back, no matter how pitiful! I want to know what's going on!"

'Then you must believe.... You will be guided, but you must believe....'

The voice returned unhelpfully, but as Duo wiped the tears from his eyes, he realized that the four doors had appeared before him as if by magic.

Duo looked at them suspiciously, but he had no option but to go through another if he ever wanted out.

So he chose the green door.

Water.

At first he didn't understand what he was seeing, or more specifically, *why* he was seeing it.

It wasn't like the others where he was a little kid. No. He was watching a man in a whorehouse doing what one normally does in such a place.

He realized that the man he was watching was a Student.

He also realized the woman would be pregnant.

A few years later he was a little boy. The little boy of the mistake. The little boy whose mother was a whore.

He was a fairly happy little boy, Trowa was. His mother kept him fed and clothed and even though she wasn't always around, she protected him and kept him safe.

He would walk around and look at all the little shops and just generally be a happy little boy living in the bliss of childhood.

He knew however that he had a little magic and he was afraid to show anyone because the Academy loomed in the distance of everywhere in this town in it's outskirts.

Towns encompassed the Academy all around, so Duo had no idea which of them he was in.

So Trowa was a scared boy. He didn't want to be sent there. He heard bad rumors in the streets and was told that any boy sent there might as well be going to hell.

But that was all they deserved anyway. Anyone with Art was a making of the Dark Lord Himself.

However Trowa thought that he could tell his mother. She never much cared about anything, would it be so bad to tell her?

One night he did and she immediately made plans to send him to the Academy.

She was a young girl, only maybe fifteen or sixteen when she had given birth, and she was scared. She thought her child was poisoned, but more importantly, she thought she was poisoned by that man who had bedded her five years ago.

Inside she cursed herself and screamed. She knew she shouldn't have done it, he was less than devil's hearten, but he had so much money....

So Trowa was placed in the Academy, and might as well have been from birth.

He tried to forget how his mother had done this to him, but it would always pain him and he would never trust women.

Women were not a chief source of comfort for him. Usually they were spreading rumors and making him feel bad about himself and then the only woman he could truly 'trust' dumped him off here.

Men were something he wasn't experienced with. The men here told him he was beautiful and gave him sex. His mother always told him that sex was the highest compliment and she was always accepting when someone asked, and he felt loved. He felt like he meant something.

He eventually got tired of it, though, so when he met Quatre.... He was immediately drawn to how sweet he was. He was almost like a woman, but he didn't spread rumors and he didn't make him feel bad about himself. He was kind of screwed up too, unwanted, and so he felt that he could find a sanctuary inside of him.

Duo landed on the other side of the doorway and stood, looking at the other side of the door.

Sure enough the music box was still ticking away its jaunty little tune.

But the other side of the door looked nothing like the meadow of before.

When he entered the doors previously, he had awoke before he could see the other side.

But now....

It was a completely barren landscape, almost like a desert. Green lightening screamed from the skies, but there was no rain.

In the mists of it, Trowa stood, holding the book open in his hands.

"Trowa!" Duo screamed, running toward him. "Trowa! Can you hear me?!"

Trowa had said nothing and just stood there as slowly he closed the book and two tears streamed down his cheeks.

"You have to help us, Duo," he spoke softly, his voice sounded warped and echoing through the landscape which previously seemed unable to support an echo.

"Trowa! I don't know how! What's in the book? It has the answer!" he cried, running and running. But no matter how fast or how long he ran, Trowa was always ahead of him.

"The book doesn't have the answer," he returned, dropping it among the sand, which immediately sucked the book into its depths. "The answer is within you. It's within all of us and you have to find it."

"Why me?!" Duo screamed, tears now dripping down his own face as he stopped, his hands tightened into fists, his body feeling weak, and his lungs working over time for running so long.

And Trowa was so far away....

"Because you have the ability to control people.... People will listen to you, if you believe in yourself.... You have to lead people.... You have to show them.... You have to conquer...."

"Conquer what, Trowa?! I don't want to be any of this! I don't believe myself! This is just a stupid dream and what Heero said is influencing it! Why won't you leave me alone?"

"The secret lies within you.... You must find it.... You must lead us...."

"Trowa! Don't go!" Duo shrieked, running after him once more as he turned and disappeared in a flash of brilliant light and Duo stopped and stood there.

It began to pour.

~Til Then~