Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ III. Nocturnal State ❯ Dusk of Illusion ( Chapter 3 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Dusk of Illusion

I listened intently as the wind brushed through the trees, swallowing slightly. The flooding was going to come any day now, and I knew enough about that to know the only warning sign was a few inches of water…and that was about thirty seconds before the rest of the water.

Why had Duo run? We had to find him or we all might die…and Heero was insisting that we keep looking.

“Wufei?” I muttered.

The Chinese man didn’t answer.

“Wufei?” I pressed, then slipped and fell, crying out as my wrist exploded with pain.

I’d fallen earlier. I needed to stop falling on the damn thing before I broke it for real.

I rolled onto my back, wrapping my free hand around the joint as I stared up at the dark buildings and the rain splattered all over my face. That man had told me to head to…what street? I hadn’t heard all of his directions. I was cold, too…I needed to get back. They would all be worried about me now, but…

I blinked to my left, noting Irania watching me again. “What?” I muttered.

“I have to go,” she muttered, starting away backwards. “I have to go now…but…Quatre, please…”

“What?” I demanded, sitting up as she hesitated in the door. There was a relentless wailing from the main of the building.

“Please,” she repeated.

“Please what?” I persisted, crawling to my feet.

“Just…Quatre…please…”

I turned and ran as a car’s lights blinded me, jumping for an escape ladder…but my wrist couldn’t support me. I used my right hand to yank myself bodily up the ladder, because there was no way I was getting caught like this…not in some damned alley. It was all I could do to climb the rest of the steps as people shouted at me to wait, that they were friends…ridiculous. What’d Oz think, I was stupid? Or maybe it was White Fang…who gave a shit. It wasn’t one of the four other people I knew I could trust, so I wasn’t going to bother opening myself up to that kind of…let down.

“Mr. Winner!” one of them shouted. “Please, come down!”

I focused on him in horror.

If he knew my name, he knew my family.

“Please!” he protested, moving closer. “Just listen…we’re here because of…”

“You touch my family and I’ll kill you slowly,” I informed him.

He stared at me in disbelief.

I climbed up the next ladder, noting that I couldn’t hop to the other building. It was a bit further, and I didn’t have both hands. That meant up the top of the one I was on, and a prayer that there was something on top that’d do me good.

“Did he just…say that?” the guy asked below me.

“War flash-backs,” the other person hissed. “He thinks we’re…shit.”

Flash-backs?

I shook my head and darted onto the roof as lightning flashed and thunder rolled.

The storm had finally reached us…and I had no where left to hide.

It was time for me to run.

x x x

“They found him in an alley a few blocks off Minuet,” Trowa muttered to his companions, running a hand down his face. “The guy got him to talk.”

“That sounds dubious,” Wufei noted, studying the other pilot as Heero studied the street.

“Quatre told him that if he touched his family…Quatre’s family…that Quatre’d kill him slowly.”

Wufei stared at the other pilot before running a hand down his face…and reaching for his cigarettes. He glanced up at the lighting dancing across the sky, and lit his cigarette as the thunder rolled.

“We need to head to Minuet,” Heero muttered.

“And what are we doing? Strolling and enjoying the weather?” Wufei extended his free hand to catch the droplets as he exhaled.

Heero gave him a hurt look.

“Knock it off,” Trowa snapped, hitting Wufei upside the head. He could tell Heero was having a hard time without Wufei’s help.

Wufei hit him in the stomach without so much as blinking, shoving the taller pilot off when he doubled over. “Don’t fucking hit me,” Wufei snarled.

“Wufei, come on,” Heero muttered, moving forward to separate the pair, but stopping before touching the Chinese man himself. He could tell that Wufei was about to start swinging, and was in no state to fight the man…he didn’t feel all that capable at the moment.

Lightning flashed across the sky again, and they all frowned up at the storm as the thunder shook the glass in the surrounding store-front windows.

“Let’s just go,” Wufei spat at them both as Heero focused on Trowa with concern.

“I’m fine,” Trowa muttered, rubbing at the place of impact and taking a few deep breaths before starting to straighten. “We don’t have time for this shit.”

That had to be the stupidest and most obvious statement Trowa had ever made, and Wufei exhaled the smoke in his mouth in the man’s face.

“God damn it, Wufei!” Trowa snapped, trying to wave the air away.

Wufei grinned slightly, feeling somewhat better as he turned to start walking.

“You’re an asshole,” Trowa muttered irritably.

“And you’re a cock-sucker,” Wufei agreed. “What’s your point?”

“Don’t,” Heero cut Trowa off firmly before he could rise to the bait.

Trowa gave the other pilot an irritated look before wiping the water off his face and glaring up at the clouds. “Why London?”

x x x

I gasped out in pain as I climbed carefully down the tree. My wrist was getting worse, and now had visible swelling. It probably didn’t help that I’d taken a jump when I knew I shouldn’t have, and I’d had to use both hands to keep myself from falling. That fall would have only been one story, but I hadn’t realized it until my wrist had taken most of my weight.

Cities suck when you’re caught and have to run. I much preferred a good forest with all sorts of trees and bushes and rocks to utilize. It’d seem like cars, trees, mailboxes, trashcans, and the like would be good hiding places, but more often then not, there was a reflective surface nearby to give away the position, or some way that your hiding spot was made obvious.

That car was getting closer again. I wasn’t all that far away, after all.

I turned and ran again, wishing the lightning would stop flashing as I spotted another alley entrance. I took that, hearing some dog somewhere barking his warning to me. It didn’t matter, even if the dumb creature were loose.

I disappeared into the black labyrinth.

x x x

Duo allowed Nassaiya to wipe carefully at a gash on his cheek, staring out at the storm. The boys were both in bed, and his wife hadn’t said too much to him since he’d gotten home. He wasn’t sure if this treatment would last or not, though. He knew she’d been raised in a more…feudal…system prior to their supposed marriage. He didn’t know enough about her culture to know if it was one of the ones where women just submitted to their husbands or not, and that bothered him.

“Nas?”

“Yeah?” she asked, turning to gather up some salve.

“Should I apologize?”

“You already have.”

“Are you mad at me?”

She turned to study his face a long moment, then sighed and shook her head. “No, Duo. I’m not…I’m upset, but not mad.”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” he muttered, studying her eyes earnestly. “And we can stop hiding now.”

“What will we tell the boys?” she snapped, gesturing toward the hall. “I had to tell them you were coming home late, and tomorrow they’ll see all these cuts and things…what will we tell them?”

“I got into a fight,” he muttered darkly, avoiding her eyes. “No lies.”

“So they can start throwing punches…so Vasu can start fighting in school?”

“Who said we’d make it that easy?” Duo demanded levelly. “I was in the hospital.”

She tossed the salve container onto the counter and started to wipe it onto the wound.

“Why are you even bothering to do this if you’re pissed?” Duo snapped, catching her wrist to meet her eyes.

“Because I want to,” she retorted, yanking away slightly. “Don’t be an ass.”

“You don’t have to do this,” he snapped, annoyed again at his lack of knowledge. He’d never got into the marriage action and reactions in her village.

“You want me to stop?” she snapped, pulling away.

“You don’t have to submit to me,” he snapped.

“And I wouldn’t,” she retorted, smacking his hands away. “You’re hurt, and I want to help you get better…we weren’t like that, Duo. Actually, since the women made the food, the men would submit to them, so stop trying dancing around it like that.”

He grinned slightly.

“You’re such a boy,” she added irritably, turning to wash her hands. “You know that, don’t you?”

“I’m your boy,” he retorted.

“Sometimes I wonder why I’m so blessed,” she noted wryly.

He grinned at that, then sighed as another flash of lightning came.

“What?” she muttered.

“Quatre…disappeared,” he explained. “Before Heero left the hotel, Quatre was going to join them…and then when Trowa came out of Heero’s room, he was noting that Quatre was gone.”

“So?”

Duo looked to the ground a moment, then sighed. “He’s not mentally stable.”

“And that gives him excuse to kick you while you’re down?” she demanded.

He met her eyes again with a frown. “I just…Nas…”

“You’re going to go looking for him anyway,” she snapped. “Why try to convince me that it’s the right thing to do?”

“I didn’t say it was the right thing to do,” he grumbled, taking the band-aid from her and leaning toward the mirror. “I’d just have a guilty conscious about it.”

“And what if they’ve found him?” she snapped.

Duo hesitated, then met her eyes in the mirror.

Nassaiya groaned in irritation, rolling her eyes. “I’ll go get the phone.”

x x x

“Duo?” Trowa demanded in utter disbelief. “Or should I say Dugan?”

Wufei looked to the guy sharply.

“Clever clever man,” Duo retorted. “If I didn’t know for a fact that Wufei’s phone was in pieces I wouldn’t even be bothering to talk to you.”

“I’m not the one who beat you,” Trowa retorted.

Heero flinched slightly, looking away.

“Tell Wufei to put his phone together,” Duo ordered dryly.

“What do you mean, put together?”

Wufei blinked, digging into his jacket pocket quickly.

“I mean…tell him to put it together,” Duo retorted. “You’re slow, aren’t you, Trowa?”

“I think I might start beating you,” Trowa noted dryly.

Heero slowed slightly, frowning at the guy.

“Take a look at Heero and tell me if it’d be worth it,” Duo growled.

“What? You think I wouldn’t enjoy it?”

“Until you blacked out you’d probably love every moment of it,” Duo agreed lightly. “Where are you?”

“In London.”

“Wow, really?” Duo asked in feigned shock. “Guess what? So am I! I’ve been here for two years! How long have you been?”

“You were really here that entire time?” Trowa asked in disbelief.

“I wasn’t going to the U.S.,” Duo noted dryly. “And I happen to have a couple old friends in the U.K…and it’s so easy to get out of London.”

“Then why were you here long enough for us to find you?” Trowa asked blankly.

“I have these two sons,” Duo explained irritably. “That kinda makes moving at random a bit more…traumatizing.”

“Sons?” Trowa asked.

“Sons?” Heero repeated.

“Is Wufei’s phone together yet?”

Trowa glanced at Wufei, who was holding the phone in one hand and watching the screen. “It was never not together,” he noted.

Duo guffawed…and hung up.

“Sons?” Heero persisted, looking to Wufei. “What about sons?”

“He’s got two,” Wufei explained dismissively.

Heero stopped.

“Oh, yeah,” Wufei agreed, focusing on him. “He gets to explain to two little boys why daddy’s all beat tomorrow…I imagine they’re the reason he finally found his backbone again.”

The Japanese man looked to Trowa, not sure how to respond to that.

Wufei’s cell started ringing, and he walked off as he answered.