Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Goodbye Yellow Brick Road ❯ Part Fourteen ( Chapter 14 )

Part Fourteen

Duo sighed as he wandered down the halls pointlessly. Heero had a hard session and was recuperating in the room. He was busted up pretty bad. Duo winced when he had to change the bandages.

"Poor Heero...." he whispered.

Me please....

Duo stopped dead and tensed up.

Was that...Quatre?

I'm so tired Duo.... I pray you hear me, somehow.... I've been screaming for hours, but I need you to hear me.... My body aches, I'm dying in here.... Trowa....

Duo felt tears spring to his eyes. He could hear the pain in Quatre's thoughts and the hopelessness. Like his mind had crawled up into a corner and was screaming and crying like a little child in a thunderstorm.

They're hurting us.... They wove Fire and Spirit into a wall.... If you try to pass, you get struck by it and you can't go any further.... Oh Divine, the pain.... I can't move my body.... The pain is so intense, I'm in shock.... Trowa.... Oh, Trowa, Trowa, Trowa....

He began to weep in his mind, which was truly the saddest thing that Duo had ever felt in all his time on Earth. Whoever could cry in their mind had to be in illegal amounts of pain.

Duo.... Please hear me.... They wove Fire and Spirit and you can't get past.... They threw a jolt of it at me.... I hurt so bad.... I don't think I'm going to live this time.... My body.... My breath.... DUO! Trowa, my Trowa.... He'll protect me.... Trowa, Trowa, Trowa.... Trowa.... DUO! Hear me! They've woven Fire and Spirit! Help! It hurts! Trowa! Help me! I can't--! Please! Help me! I'm dying! My breathing.... Slower now.... It's soothing to breath slowly.... It doesn't hurt so bad when you're breathing slowly.... Duo! Are you there? They wove Fire and Spirit into a wall that shocks you when you go past! Trowa's on the other side.... Trowa, Trowa, my Trowa, Trowa.... Protect me.... Trowa, Trowa, Trowa.... DUO! HELP! Hear me.... Please....

Duo began to run.

Where was Quatre?!

Where was he?!

He wanted to scream it, get an answer. Why couldn't he talk telepathically?!

That question was answered easy enough, but he didn't like the answer.

"Where the fuck is he?!" Duo screamed down at Heero.

Heero rolled over on the bed, moaning slightly and blinked up at him.

"What?" he asked groggily from sleep.

"Oh my gosh.... I'm sorry if I woke you up," Duo apologized immediately, not even realizing he had entered his room at all or was even in the right hall.

"Now I want to know what you're talking about."

Duo sat down and let his head fall into his hands and squeezed his eyes shut against tears.

"Quatre.... I heard him.... I don't know where he is.... He said something about so much pain he couldn't move his body.... A wall woven of Fire and Spirit that shocks you.... Said Trowa was on the other side.

"He was crying in his mind, Heero. He was sobbing in fear, in his thoughts. He was in pain in his thoughts. They sounded hurt."

Heero stared at the other boy and tried to figure out what he was talking about.

Quatre had spoken to Duo telepathically since Quatre had discovered the trick. Usually thought-speech was a little tinged with pain or happiness, but never in overwhelming amounts. Just enough so that it wasn't monotonous. Never in the history of his being had he ever felt so much emotion in a thought.

It scared the hell out of him that someone could be that pained.

"I'm scared, Heero...."

Heero once more took emotional pity on the boy, but there was nothing physical he could do about it. He was in pain too and he didn't really feel like sitting up right then.

"I have no idea where he is."

"Aren't you at least a little concerned?!" Duo cried, angry that Heero had taken such a cold stance to the situation.

"Look, Duo, I'm in my own pain right now, okay? Besides, don't you know *any* thing? They wove a blanket of Spirit and Fire. Quatre's Art is Spirit. It would be more helpful if he had an emotionally understanding Fire Artist, but he should be able to unbind the blanket with not too much heart ache, if he thought about it hard enough. It's probably just a stupid test. They're not going to kill him, right? And everyone has to be able to take a little pain to survive. Remember saying that? Didn't think so," Heero growled, closing his eyes and turning his head to the side.

Duo felt bad when he realized that he was completely ignoring Heero's feelings about the situation and that he was also in pain too.

"I don't mean to argue," he started softly, "but Quatre isn't a very strong man and I've been afraid for a long time now that they would work him too hard and kill him. I'm sorry I forgot about your circumstances. I should know better. I know you wouldn't completely ignore my friend's well being."

Carefully Duo lay down next to his friend, being tender with his wounds and wrapping his arm around him, cuddling up to his neck.

"I'm sorry.... Quatre might not be very strong, but he's smart. I know he'll figure it out. I'm sorry Heero.... Forgive me?"

Heero sighed and growled a yes, his body sending waves of pain washing over him.

"Thank you...." Duo whispered as a few tears rolled down his cheeks for Quatre.

~~~

Wufei's breathing came heavy and he tried to slow it down. He heard the door open and shut his eyes tight.

The bed was comfortable, at least. If he had no choice about his bed, he could at least pray it would be a comfortable one, and this one was.

It was adorned with silk and the mattress stuffed almost to packing hardness with goose down and the pillows were down, too, and covered in the softest sheep's silk. It was warm underneath the blankets, the silk heated and a thick blanket of Angora over all of that.

But the warmth could never take away the pain.

He hoped that if he pretended he was asleep, then maybe they'd believe it and give him a little time to recuperate.

The sex was normal, he knew that beyond a doubt, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt.

Two voices began to talk softly amongst themselves and Wufei tried not to moan in horror. Two people were not a good thing.

"That garden sprouting up over night? You're calling that feasible?" a voice asked.

"Well, do you have any other explanation. Maybe the Divine--" a different voice spoke up and was cut off.

"Oh, shut it. There is no 'Divine'. That's just something people made up that didn't accept the Lord as our Ruler," the first voice reprimanded harshly.

"Well, do you have a better explanation?" the second growled.

"Is he asleep?"

"Most likely. Besides, even if he isn't, he says anything and we'll kill him. We always need extra human sacrifice for the Lord, now.... He gets so particular...with the resurrection and all...." the second spoke nonchalantly, as if speaking of the weather, and it had taken a lot in Wufei not to flinch and panic when he talked about killing him as if it were normal.

As if they knew he was awake.

"True, true.... Well, here's what I think," the first started up, his voice growing softer out of habit. "I think that they know how to take the Bands off and I think they know they mean nothing."

"Oh, you shut it! That's completely folly! They know the Bands mean nothing?"

"It's possible!"

"And take them off?"

"It's possible!"

"Oh, yes, possible.... I believe the Divine existing is more possible than *that*. Ryunin, we've taught them since they were babies that they'd die without the Bands. The one thing the human soul fears the most is dying," the second explained.

"Which shows how little faith there is in their Divine," the first broke in.

"Very true. They know nothing beyond what we have taught them. And as for taking the Bands off.... That's utterly ridiculous. No one can take the Bands off. The only way that's remotely possible is for the person to have faith in our Lord. None of these sniveling boys takes faith in our Lord. They all prance around believing the Divine is going to save them and you know what. Take them off...." the second sighed with frustration. "And if they could, don't you think the lot of them would gang up on us? Sometimes, Ryunin, you make absolutely no sense."

Both were silent for a while and Wufei tried to keep his sanity.

His whole entire world just came crashing down around him.

The Bands meant...nothing? He wouldn't die with them off? They had lied all this time?!

These men, who had nurtured him and helped him in his time of need? Taught him everything he needed to know about the world? Took him in even though he was virtually useless with no memory of anything that had ever happened to him?

They gave him his past and his name.... Was it all lies? Everything he ever believed...his whole entire world...composed of...lies?!

"What should we do about him, Bruoo?" the one named Ryunin asked softly as he watched the 'sleeping' Wufei.

Bruoo sighed. "Let him sleep a while longer."

"Are you growing soft?" Ryunin laughed at his friend.

Bruoo growled. "Soft? Me? No."

"Oh? Then what is your explanation for letting him sleep? It used to be that you'd fuck everyone once over and go back for more. Now you let him sleep?"

"Do you know who this one is?"

"Of course not," Ryunin scoffed. "I don't care about my toys."

"He is the one we named Wufei. We gave him his memory too, remember? The elaborate lie we made up and perfected together while he slept?"

Ryunin chuckled softly. "The little prince...."

"Aye. The little prince...."

"So? He is ours now. Our toy. He doesn't know he's anything other than a simple boy who fell out of a tree and hit his head and lost his memory."

"Yes, but he is also most pure of blood. He is first choice for our Lord when He has risen. We must not give Him un-presentable gifts. We have to be a little more gentle with this one."

"True, Bruoo, true.... Yes. We will let him sleep a little longer. For our Lord."

Wufei heard the clinking of glasses before he fainted.

~Til Then~