Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ How to Be Dead ❯ Good News for People Who Love Bad News ( Chapter 10 )

Part 10 "Good News For People Who Love Bad News"

The next thing that registered with Heero’s rattled brain was the stream of icy water hissing as it hit his face. He vaguely heard himself let out a breath—it was incredibly cold to the touch compared to the hot, blood-filled hands at his hips holding him steady and vertical in a small area. His cloudy mind was confused and still spinning mildly, and above the hiss of the horribly cold water, he heard a familiar rhythm of words washing over him as well, coaxing him hazily from a distance to do something. The hot, comforting fingers on his side steadied his every waver and sway.

But do what? He was occupied at the moment spitting water out of his mouth and gasping for air to nourish his dizzy mind.

Slowly, the foggy, gentle voice grew clearer, and it was Duo’s. It was his hand that flew to the small of his back, soaked, when he staggered. "Come on, now, wake up."

Finally, he began coughing, bowing his head in the cold stream of water, and his entire body seemed to ache again, more acutely, though the pang of hunger had been dulled. Heero’s awareness still swum slightly in a hazy cloud just below full consciousness, and he moaned tiredly. The hands on him were just so indescribably warm, so alive and pulsing that they pained him, they burned through his waterlogged clothing into his skin. Unfortunately, that pain didn’t come with equilibrium, and he felt his weight swaying dumbly forward, with the intention to topple him forward.

"Heero?" Duo’s hand shot out and pressed against his chest, preventing what would have been a very nasty spill into the front of the shower and the metal faucets protruding there.

Another hand moved from its position at the small of his back to his face, brushing the soaking bangs from his face as he slumped against the wall, weakly cracking his eyes open into the assaulting bright light. He tiredly spat out another mouth full of lukewarm shower-water and rasped, "Why am I wet?"

The chestnut-brown and peach blur that was the living man hovered close to him and laughed softly. "Don’t worry, you’re safe. You’re in my shower."

Heero coughed again, squinting his eyes close. When it had passed, he leaned his head against the water-beaded wall. "That explains everything," he mumbled.

"You’ve got a concussion," Duo told him. "Well, I think. I told you before I wasn’t a doctor, but at any rate you took a pretty nasty bump to the head. And I don’t want you falling asleep on me."

As the stream of water poured down his body, drenching the clothes he wore, and more dripped from his wet, bedraggled hair, very slowly his eyes were adjusting to the light. He saw the morgue worker standing just outside the shower, holding him steady, smiling crookedly, just as he had so warmly before.

"And this was the only way."

"Afraid so," he said gently, shrugging with another smile. "You sleep like the dead."

Heero found the energy to snort at that, but not much else. He felt his shivering, empty body slump against Duo’s arm and the next moment of awareness had brought him to the toilet seat again, securely wrapped up in a towel. He felt a weight lifted—the soaking clothes were absent, and he was naked beneath the bloodless fabric. The chilled shiver had disappeared—more apparent to him now was the living body standing over him, thoroughly drying his hair with a towel.

He squinted as Duo’s hands ruffled his thick hair with a red towel, silent through it all. It was rather enjoyable, he had to admit, and it only got better when he pulled the damp towel away and finished the job by raking his fingertips through his stringy, wet hair, brushing his scalp in a way that was no less than divine.

"There," Duo said with satisfaction. "Much better than dripping all over yourself, am I right?"

"Aa," Heero agreed.

Filled with a sense of peace he’d never experienced before, Heero glanced up at Duo standing before him, who was carefully appraising him to see if he was all right, and found that peace eradicated as soon as he saw the fine bruising along his lips. They were still smiling warmly down at him. The five fierce bruises in a hand-sized ring around his neck had barely faded. He quickly averted his eyes and let his tired head hang.

He’s humoring you, the cruel part of him told him. He doesn’t want to offend you, so he’s being nice. After all, now he knows you’re a monster, why would he want to make you angry, after what you did to him? You could have so easily gotten out of control and killed him…

"Something wrong?" Duo asked, in a quieter tone than he’d heard him take all night.

"I really should be going," Heero forced himself to mutter, though it was the last thing he wanted at the moment, to force himself onto the unforgiving world outside. Here it was nice. Here no one was trying to kill him, though Duo came close to it unintentionally and not strictly in a physical way. He still felt voracious pangs in the bottom of his stomach around him, but they were being quieted very gradually.

He grit his teeth once, as another jolt of hunger passed. "I’m sorry," he ground out. The view of his pale toes didn’t give him any further confidence in leaving. "I’ve got to go. You’ve been very generous, but I can’t stay any longer."

"Oh. I see," Duo said, voice unreadable.

He glanced up, his vision adjusted to the bright light, to see the soggy red shirt and jeans balled up on the bathroom floor.

"I’m sorry. That’s the second set of clothes I’ve ruined," he mumbled.

"Well, I was going to give them too you, but what use would they be if you catch pneumonia in them? I’ll get you some new ones—some dry ones—for you. Keep ‘em, don’t worry about returning ‘em."

"Thank you," Heero said in a voice barely loud enough to be heard, his head still bowed.

When he tried to stand up, the towel wrapped around him tightly to keep what little warmth was remaining in him, another hot hand was placed carefully on his shoulder, easing him back down. Surprised, he stared into Duo’s face, pale and almost dreading, as the morgue worker kneeled down to his level to stare evenly back at him.

"Heero." It made him shiver again to hear his voice come off his bruised lips like that and he was defenseless but to listen. "When was the last time you fed?"

Told you, his internal voice mocked in vicious singsong.

"When you brought me—"

"No," Duo interrupted, his other hand laid on his other shoulder, equally hot. It was only now that he noticed the exact shade of his eyes, an indistinct violet that hovered been blue and indigo, as he arched an eyebrow at him pointedly. "When did you last feed?"

Heero felt his entire body sink despite himself. "So you know."

"Yeah, I do."

"How long?"

Duo smiled gently at him, and only he could make a grin so wide so seem so kind.

"It became kind of obvious after you started licking up my nosebleed like I was a water fountain and all." The sound of his chuckle echoed off the walls closely, not making him feel entirely uncomfortable. "Trowa would be insanely jealous to know I met a real life vampire before he did, you know. He’s a head-over-heels horror junkie."

Heero’s blue eyes softened, becoming less guarded. He even tried to smile ruefully. "We’re overrated," he said.

Duo laughed honestly at his weak attempt at humor and Heero’s chin lifted a fraction higher.

"I bet you are," he smiled, lifting his hand from the dead body’s shoulder to tentatively touch his mouth. "Can I see?" he asked, and Heero was so intoxicated by the sensation that he numbly granted permission. Duo gently touched his fingertips to the fangs hidden behind his often pursed or scowling lips, needlelike at the point. Heero watched Duo’s expression shift from curiosity to wonderment, his mouth curling into its own awed expression.

"Wow," he whispered, his face brightened. "This is so surreal, I can’t even tell you. I can’t believe this—they’re so sharp."

Heero snorted. The teeth of a living corpse sitting in your bathroom were more surreal than the living corpse himself?

Duo pulled away, willing himself to suppress his endless curiosity for a moment. "They’re not what I expected, though, I have to say."

"Let me guess. Not like Dracula, right?"

"No, not at all—and I’ve seen enough horror movies to last a lifetime. They’re so much more normal than I would have ever thought. I didn’t even notice them until I knew what you were, you know," he said, marveling.

"That’s how it works," Heero told him quietly. Explaining it seemed so awkward, under the bright lighting, naked except for a bath towel, but as soon his eyes fell on Duo’s warm expression that disconcerting feeling was obsolete. What was more important was those moments when his eyes brightened as he looked directly at him. "People can’t recognize us simply by our teeth anymore, not until we’ve already bitten them or we reveal it to them. It’s a voluntary thing. We’ve gotten better over the years at hiding ourselves from the world."

"So, like mind control? Does that mean you could roll me under, you know, with your eyes?"

"Yes, I could," Heero admitted, his gaze lowering slightly, hesitant. "But I wouldn’t do that to you."

Duo hesitated where he knelt, running his eyes over the vampire’s face again, taking in the pale tint of his skin, and how wearied he looked when he averted his electrifying blue eyes. His hand moved from Heero’s shoulder, now that he was sure he wouldn’t be attempting to run away, and he carefully took him by the wrist. He tensed, but relaxed immediately as Duo put his other hand in his palm and turned his forearm to the light, displaying the unique tattoo hidden there.

7 7

"Okay, I get that, but what the hell does this mean?"

He ran his fingertips cautiously over this mysterious feature as well, surprised as well as pleased that he was allowed to touch him at all, after how defensive he’d been. Heero had to inwardly bite his lip to resist another shiver.

"That’s my label. It’s what marks me for what I am," he answered quietly.

"Tattoos cause vampirism?" Duo looked almost horrified.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "It was given to me when I was born, marking me as an undead child, as a monster."

Duo’s violet eyes were watching him raptly, silently, as Heero touched the mark, written in tilted writing and deep blue ink.

"There’s more than one way to become a vampire, rather than just drinking the blood of one. My father was born the seventh son, and I, the seventh of his. So, you could say, it’s for no more than simple bad luck that I’ve joined the living dead." There was an almost resentful tilt of his lips as he said this. "The seventh son of the seventh son."

Duo didn’t say anything, allowing Heero to chuckle bitterly to himself, rubbing his forearm and his eyes momentarily gazing off in another world. "You know, you feel like the odd one out when you’re the only child out of ten who drinks blood and has to sleep in the dirt. Needless to say, I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up."

Finally, the morgue worker opened his mouth. "Did you have any?" he asked.

"No." Duo was beginning to hate the self-loathing little laugh, that little tug at the corner of his mouth as he detailed his life to him. "Would you allow your child near something like me?"

"Well, fuck ‘em. They were idiots. All of them," came the immediate response from Duo’s darkening face. "And don’t call yourself ‘something’, you’re not a monster."

"No, but I’m not normal either," Heero said quietly. "I can’t bleed like you. I bleed the blood that I have steal from the living. A thief. A parasite, even."

"That doesn’t mean shit, and that’s not true. You know that."

The color in the vampire’s eyes dimmed. "Well, I’m glad that’s how you feel, but you’re the only one." Again, his head dipped wearily.

Duo hated that fact, hated that every word spilling past his lips was tense, tired, and steeped in enough self-depreciation to make his ears burn, and he’d seen enough privately miserable expressions from him in one night to haunt for a lifetime. He took Heero’s slightly chilled hand in his, and felt his entire body startle at the movement.

"Fuck everybody else, then," he said, in a low tone. "You can’t expect everybody to understand, and even less than that to give a damn about you. I know it sounds grim like that, but it’s better than worrying yourself over what others think. And trust me, I know what it feels like to be looked at like you’re a worthless freak."

He squeezed the bony fingers he held, simultaneously sending shivers of heat up through his arm and reminding Heero, in stark contrast, what set him so far apart from humanity. He had no warmth. He was not alive, and he wasn’t dead—yet.

At the moment, he would have given anything to remain there forever, to never set foot outside Duo’s apartment, simply lay awake in the night with him, watching the valid world sleep oblivious to them. But the ache in his bones once again told him it was an impossible dream—the morgue worker may be a creature of the night, like him, but he was still living, at the end of that night, and he was still of the undead.

"How did you get hurt?" was the next thing Heero heard, snapping him from his reverie. Duo was firmly planted before him on bended knee, his body radiating so much warmth keeping close, as if he knew how much it secretly nourished him. He seemed to be in no hurry of evicting him from his home, his sanctuary. Heero blinked at him for a moment, not sure what he meant, but Duo quickly clarified it by running a fingertip over the towel where the scar circled his thigh.

"Oh," he breathed, trying to mask the sharp intake of air he suddenly found necessary. "That."

Duo now had folded his arms over Heero’s knees and rested his chin on them, gazing up at him with a burning expression of concentration. He silently, devotedly waited for him to speak. The vampire had a feeling that he would not, either, until he had gotten a sufficient answer. It was strange—someone who actually cared about what he had to say, even waited on it.

Heero took in a breath, and sighed once, closing his eyes. "I was attacked." He tried to make it sound as mundane as was possible. It was not something he wished to discuss, but somehow he knew that wasn’t going to be tolerated.

"Who?" Duo responded immediately. No, that answer wasn’t going to be good enough.

"A hunter."

"A vampire hunter," he echoed, the word nightmarish in light of what was sitting before him, cold, pale and cheerless. "Wait—That guy in the car?"

"He was my roommate for three years," Heero confided, feeling his exhaustion slowly creeping back as he began recounting the previous night’s incident. "We… Not once, did I ever suspect that he knew about the world of the undead, nor that he ever suspected me of anything. We were oblivious to each other. Unlike you, we were both content to pay rent, have a roof over our heads, and associate as little as possible with each other. After all, he was always out hunting, and I was always out hunting, as well."

"But you don’t drink from humans," Duo murmured up at him. When he received a mild expression of surprise, he continued with a smirk. "It’s so obvious, ‘Ro. You apologized in advance for just a tiny taste of me. And you’ve looked guilty as hell every since."

"I also hit you."

"Aw, I’ve been hit harder."

The vampire tightened his stare. "Are you saying that I’m weak? I feel more than well enough to demonstrate my strength, if need be," he said, curling up one corner of his mouth.

Duo’s palms lifted in surrender. "Hey, hey," he drawled, raising both brows over a grin, "I’m just saying that you’re polite enough to pull a few punches, all right? And I don’t see how anyone could have attacked you. You’re stronger than us, the living. And I know how you put up on a fight, because I’ve been on the receiving end. Now, I want to hear what happened to you."

Heero seemed a little more willing when he continued his tale, though not completely pleased to be doing so. "I was sleeping."

Duo’s lip curled back in disgust. "What a coward," he sneered unhappily. "Oh, and did he have to restrain you while he was at it, too?"

Heero felt it appropriate for a mild smirk. "Not exactly. He knocked me unconscious."

"Well, that’s a little easier to do than you think," Duo said with a tilt of a smile, recalling how Heero had looked, sprawled and knocked out on his floor, legs over the toppled coffee table.

"Shot me with a silver bullet first." He sighed. "It doesn’t kill a vampire, but being shot isn’t enjoyable to anyone. Hurts like hell. He had a crucifix with him, and I was so tired—I couldn’t do anything to defend himself. He planned on dismembering, decapitating and incinerating me, to secure that I was completely and utterly destroyed, but I woke up sooner than he expected."

"Just as he was cutting into your leg," Duo finished for him, shaking his head in disgust. "That’s fucking low. Is that how he kills every one of you? Just how many has he killed?"

"One for every week of the year, so he brags," he answered with clear distaste. "He kills rather indiscriminately, or so I’ve heard. You would think I would know, though. We ate at the same table, sat on the same couch, slept under the same roof."

"What a guy. Must have had a hell of a day planner. Thursday, pick up dry-cleaning—Friday, scheduled murder. So, you never once had suspicion that he was a hunter?"

"I had my own horrible secrets to concern myself with. I didn’t think much about what secrets he may have had. It was only after he attacked me did I realize he was anything but a late night cashier." He smirked bitterly.

"Then, how did you end up on my doorstep?"

"There was this girl," he answered, his voice weakening. "Relena. She lived down the hall from us. We talked once in a while, and I had collapsed in front of her car, in the street. She thought I was dead, I remember, and put me in her backseat. Covered me up, tried to give me a decent funeral… said a prayer for me…"

He smiled ruefully. The tone of voice he took finally began to reveal his exhaustion, and Heero felt his head warming up for another hearty, dizzy spin. He let his eyes fall close as another horrible pain arose in his bones, keening out for nourishment, louder, more desperate. But it did not tell him to reach out for Duo’s warm body this time, it did not scream at him to feed off of him. It only keened out helplessly now.

He felt like shit, basically, and if it weren’t for Duo’s presence, the sound of his voice, and his warmth so close, he would find no good reason not to succumb to it and pass out, only to relieve himself temporarily of the pain. Speaking of which, he was beginning to feel unnatural levels of it swelling up inside him, pressing out on his bones, and it was not an ache from his hunger. It abruptly stabbed into him, and Heero hissed and bent forward, gritting his teeth.

"Heero?" Duo’s voice immediately leapt up, as well as his hands, in concern. He tried to help him straighten up, but he keened out in pain and doubled over. "What’s wrong?"

He forced himself to straighten back up, even though it felt like his body was icing over internally and slowly fissuring into a billion of tiny, painful fractures. "Nothing," he forced out.

Duo looked him up and down once, giving him a pointed look. "Bullshit, Heero."

"No, really," Heero rasped out again, trying to raise his hand to stop him as Duo stood up.

"Is it your wound? C’mon, let me see it."

"It’s all right, Duo," he pleaded, finding the sound of his name in his mouth somehow comforting while his bones burned in pain. "I’m fine."

"And again, I politely say, ‘Bullshit,’ " he growled back, planting his feet. He ignored the subtle flashes of color in Heero’s eyes as he looked up at him, tenderly squinting in the bright light. "Let me see it."

"No," he croaked out. "You don’t have to, I’ll be all right in a second. Really."

Duo’s eyes flashed in return. "You’ll have to forgive me for this, but fuck you and all this martyr stuff you try on me. I’m not going to put up with it. You never seem to want anybody’s help when you need it most, and I’m sick of hearing it. You’re not fine."

That was when his hands were abruptly gripped around the towel, and Heero felt another horrible sensation running through him—a horrible, horrible anxiety.

Duo was suddenly the last person who could undress him without invoking certain responses, and Heero was burnt up with self-consciousness. He’d confided some of his most painful things to this man not a minute ago, whom he’d met in a morgue hours ago, and he was just not the least prepared for making himself anymore vulnerable. He clamped his hands over Duo’s tightly, feeling flushed, and even more embarrassed that the blood rushing to his face was probably Duo’s.

"Let me see," he growled at him, as Heero shot up off the seat, trying to free himself, clutching the towel around him protectively.

"No, Duo—"

"Just let me see it! If you’d just quit squirming, it’d be over in a second, ‘Ro!"

Another voice butted in just as abruptly. "Hey, Duo, rent is tomorrow, so we’re fucked—Oh."

Both turned their heads very quickly to see Duo’s roommate standing, mildly surprised, in the doorway, the single eye visible beneath his uni-bang rimmed with thick black eyeliner and his Misfits T-shirt looking rather scuffed up and threadbare. He seemed rather calm, despite watching his roommate crawling over a naked stranger in their bathroom, clawing at the towel between them.

All parties froze for a moment, and eventually Trowa said nonchalantly, "Not my turn? I see," shrugged, and turned and shut the door.