Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ IV Dark Sight ❯ Bombastic Minutia ( Chapter 3 )

Bombastic Minutia

Quatre watched the man who was reporting about finding Trowa with interest. The man had gotten his ass kicked. He was spouting nonsense about a look on Trowa’s face, something about war flashbacks.

The blond knew very well that Trowa did not suffer from extensive post traumatic stress. Trowa was an asshole. The look on his face wasn’t actually a look, or more correctly, it wasn’t an altered look. The expression the man was referring to was the patented disbelief expression that Trowa directed at anyone who thought they knew better than he.

It was kind of funny to hear the man bemoan the attack, though.

He focused quickly back on his weeding before anyone realized he was listening. He wasn’t getting himself involved in Trowa’s shit. Trowa was as good as gone. They’d lost him and he’d only come back on his own agenda. He wasn’t going to get roped into the search anymore than he’d checked Trowa’s room and seen the laptop still sitting there. The chip inside the machine that was linked to the Winner-family satellite was nigh-onto priceless. If someone else found that satellite was still active, they could make a fortune on it, or bring down heavy fines on the Winner family. The family could afford it, of course, but it was a black-mark that wouldn’t be happy and would probably cause extensive examination of all the family satellites. That was time consuming, and would make a public issue of a private matter. Before the workers at the Center could completely realize the machine was there, Quatre had reclaimed “his” laptop. He’d given it to Trowa before. He had the thing in his own bedroom, out of sight.

Actually, that hurt Quatre’s feeling slightly. The laptops had been so they could always find each other, and if Trowa really thought Quatre or Heero would give over their secret, he was wrong.

Of course, there was the possibility that Trowa’d just had his moment and seized it, which hadn’t given him the means to go back to his room and grab the thing.

It didn’t matter anyway, because Quatre wasn’t so sure he wanted to find Trowa again. He hated to think it, but Trowa had a cruel streak in him that had added to his own illness. He knew very well that if Trowa hadn't meddled as long as he had, then he himself would have gotten the medication he needed. Further, Heero would have been knocked down a rung or two and would have gotten help well before Duo ran away if Trowa hadn’t been playing.

That made Quatre’s stomach sour, because he’d treated Duo very badly…and without reason. He remembered very clearing holding a lit cigarette and seeing Duo’s exposed forearm. He wasn’t sure how that translated to him pressing the thing to the other’s arm, but it had. He hadn’t only done it once, either, and Duo’d had no where to turn to get away from the abuse. That was just one of many little things that he’d done without realizing what he was really doing.

The fact that Duo still came to talk to him made the guilt ten times worse.

Quatre rubbed at his forehead a moment as he studied the rose bush, then frowned and looked to his watch as the alarm went off…and stared at it. “Fuck,” he snarled, jumping to his feet and turning on the people behind him. “Where the fuck are my pills?”

They stared at him.

“You don’t let me keep them,” he added in aggravation, moving to the group. “I can’t take them on time when you’re busy and I’d rather not lose my damn mind again.”

“Oh…uh…” the receptionist turned to lead him back into the building as the director gave him a very level look.

Quatre didn’t care. He never wanted to feel that distraction again.

- -

“Hello,” a chipper woman greeted me as I moved into a salon. According to her nametag, she was Nancy. “What can we do for you?”

“I want a trim,” I returned happily, “some styling…and to go black.”

She tilted her head at me, then smiled more. “Black? Why black?”

“I dunno, my hair is dark,” I shrugged, touching it slightly.

“You’d look good blond, you know.”

Blond? That was a thought.

“We could do your eyebrows, huh? Make your eyes pop.”

“Ooh, let’s do reds,” a second woman muttered, her nametag proclaimed her Charity. She bounced forward to look me over and touch my hair. “Would you like to be red? Maybe a bit of…what do you want to do?”

“I want to look different,” I returned, smiling at her. “I want to look like a whole new man.”

She smiled back, turning to Nancy happily before dragging me after her into the styling area. She started with a wash, and I wondered if there was some way I could make her hurry the fuck up. I could hear the news on in the lobby, and didn’t have high hopes that me just walking out of the Center would be ignored. Of course, that dumb ass had gotten in my way, and I’d bruised him up a little...or a lot, depending on if not killing him or permanently wounding him counted... That might bother people, too. I wanted to be away from here before she realized who I was and turned me in.

The process of dying my hair into shades of red didn’t take too horribly long, and she trimmed it all up slightly, despite me telling her I wanted my hair changed.

Actually, doing the red didn’t make me look nearly as different as I wanted to look.

I played it off happily as not to keep myself in their memories, and paid with an average tip. The waitress who provided good service was one thing, but this was something else entirely.

I stepped back into the fading sunlight, glad I could still pull off the sunglasses until night-fall. I was a little hungry, but I didn’t really want another man to accost me where I was eating.

What I needed to do now was get to the black-district without drawing attention to myself so I could get some new identification. Then I could get me a hacker-proof account like Duo’s. That would be ideal, because it’d keep me from having to worry about anyone watching my accounts.

I moved onto a bus, grabbing up a schedule as I sat and opening it up to see the map. I knew the black district of London only by word of mouth. Manaus had a healthy underground movement, which made it simple for me to get things while at the base, and some of my contacts had mentioned an area of London where I.D.s could be bought. They weren’t cheap, but they got many people across borders, and that was really what I needed to do. I needed to get out of the U.K. entirely, and either go to China or Africa…maybe India. I’d go back to Brazil if it weren’t entirely stupid of me to do, because the climate agreed with me.

A bus transfer here, a bus transfer there…and another salon.

I really didn’t like my hair.

“I want to change my hair drastically,” I noted to a woman with a nose-piercing. “Something extreme.”

“Like what, black?” she asked, raising her eyebrow slightly.

“Or blond,” I agreed. “Something different.”

“Not brown?”

Now that was an ingenious idea.

I gave her a look.

She sighed in exasperation, leading me toward the styling area. Considering that it was nearly closing time, I could tell she wanted to close.

“I just had this done,” I noted, touching my hair as she thought. “The red was just put in an hour ago…at the most.”

That made her react…at least raise an eyebrow.

“Just so you don’t utterly fry my hair,” I noted.

“Go bald,” she retorted.

“Strip and I will.”

She gave me a look, and I returned it. Our conversation continued in that acidic vein as she went about changing my color to a nice ashen black. She kept threatening to make me bald when I’d annoyed her with the cutting part, but I couldn’t bring myself to be bothered.

“Close your eyes,” she snapped when she’d actually gotten to the part with my eyebrows. “Jesus, you ever hear of plucking?”

“I leave it to the women,” I retorted. “I figure giving them something else to torture me with will lessen other aggravations…ouch, shit…”

She laughed delightedly at that, plucking the area between my eyebrows. She was thoroughly enjoying herself well before she got to applying the dye, and by the time she considered me done, she was in an utterly pleasant mood.

The effect was…downright jaw-dropping. I hadn’t cut my hair in a long enough time that I could nearly pull it into pony-tail…before. The first dye and cut job had shortened it up to almost a normal boy length…and this really had. It was short and spiked. It made my face look more round and not quite as long, if that made any sense, and the fact that the eyebrows matched it made my face look different—of course, her plucking helped that, too.

“Wow,” I muttered, touching it slightly.

“Don’t mess it up already,” she retorted. “It’s thirty, ten tip.”

I passed her a couple bills, looking back to myself in the mirror.

The only problem was my eye color. “What time does the mall close?” I muttered, meeting her eyes.

“Take me dancing and I’ll tell you.”

I smirked at that, tilting my head at her. “Fickle bitch.”

“Cocky asshole,” she returned happily.

“What’s your name?”

“What’s it matter?”

“I just wanna know what to call you tonight,” I noted almost suggestively, tilting my head slightly.

Her eyes flashed almost evilly at that. “There’s a mall about three blocks away, it’s open for another few hours.”

“It got an eye center?”

“Eye?”

“I want contacts.”

Her expression changed to wary as she considered me a moment, then looked toward her television screen.

“Don’t think I’m above killing you,” I purred.

“Don’t think I won’t just run off screaming now,” she retorted, narrowing her eyes at me.

“And what? I’ll disappear into the night and you’ll never see me again.”

“You’re not mentally stable.”

“No, I’m an apathetic asshole,” I returned pointedly. “I have issues of trust stemming from a childhood from hell and the teen years of the damned. It’s not worth giving a damn about people and for some reason the psychologists at that Center can’t seem to work their minds around the fact that I don’t care.”

“You didn’t have to run like that…and that man you hurt…”

“He started it,” I noted, shrugging. “I was going to go with him and talk it out, but he freaked out on me and knocked me over…then tried to chase me down.”

“Talk it over?” she asked dryly.

I smirked at that, tucking my wallet away. “I don’t see what the big deal is anyway.”

“Having stress flashbacks kinda make you a possible threat.”

“Flashbacks?” I repeated, giving her a disbelieving look. “I’m not the one who has flashbacks…Winner does when he’s off his meds.”

“The man you attacked said you were acting like you were on a mission.”

I stared at her in disbelief.

“He said you only reacted when he used authority.”

I snorted in disbelief. “I only reacted when he was claiming authority. He was just some nobody trying to throw rank at me like it even mattered. Besides, I worked alone in the wars. No one had authority over me.”

She narrowed her eyes at me.

I shrugged at her. “Look at it this way, if I were a danger you’d have gotten hurt. I’m leaving now, and if you don’t want me to do something to this building on my way out I suggest you forget I was here.”

“Bastard.”

“Bitch,” I returned, smiling at her before turning away.

“Why did you just run off?”

“I only stayed at that base because Yuy and Winner needed to be controlled,” I retorted. “Winner as some schizophrenic tendencies and Yuy has some serious issues from his childhood that make him incapable of interacting like a normal and human adult. He wasn’t meant for peace times, so he can’t deal with them. He’s always at war, and since he was always at war he always needed someone to redirect him. The pair were dangers and I stayed with them to keep them from hurting themselves or anyone else.” There was some serious truth behind these words, but it wasn’t the only reason I’d stayed with them. Wufei’d had the pair quite well controlled.

I’d stayed to fuck with Wufei.

Maybe I did have some other issues that needed worked out, maybe I should have sat with the therapist and offered responses, but that Center hadn’t seemed safe to me. None of the people working in it had acted like we might be normal humans.

“The people at that Center think I’m hiding some deep dark issue that’d make me snap and take over the world or something. They just don’t realize I don’t have the motivation for that type of shit. It takes way too much effort to mobilize and lead an army, even with the other pilots on hand. Shit happened that shouldn’t have, and I didn’t stop it. They think that means I had a huge part in it, but I didn’t have much to do with it at all. I’m done trying to convince them otherwise.”

She frowned at me.

“I’m leaving,” I added pointedly, starting to back away again. I wanted to know if my rant had swayed her at all, but she remained expressionless as I headed out the door.

The bus that was at the bus-stop waited until I was on it before taking off again, and I saw that woman standing in the door to her salon.

I might have just gotten caught before I could do a damn thing but eat lunch.

- -

“I told them,” Charity muttered to Nancy, biting at her nail. “They’re sending an officer here so we can make statements…I feel horrible. He said he wanted to look like a whole new man…”

“It just sounded like he wanted a make-over,” Nancy protested, biting her lip as well. “We had no way to know who he was or why he came in…there’s nothing to do. At least they know to look for him with red hair.”

“Yeah,” Charity agreed, moving to sit by the television screen as well. “At least we saw their report.”

Nancy nodded, and the pair settled in to wait for the officer.

- -

“Oi!” Indra’s happy shout rang through the trees. “Nassaiya! …Narsi! Mama! Oi is back!”

Duo laughed happily, moving instantly to hug the man as the entire village cried out in pleasure.

“What are you doing here?”

Duo looked up at the acidic voice and blinked at the woman who’d made it necessary for him to run the way he had.

Well, Duo thought, I don’t have to go to the base to have her write Heero.

“Natalie,” Indra muttered, frowning up at her.

“You’re not welcome in my home,” Natalie informed the former pilot.

“Then the day I die will be his last day,” Mama informed the girl darkly. “You cannot say who is welcome in my home and who is not. Don’t rise above yourself.”

“When I stop bringing in money,” Natalie snapped, “I’ll listen…”

Mama slapped her.

“Natalie, please,” Nassaiya muttered in annoyance as she took Cam from the car.

Indra focused on the boy, then met Duo’s eyes in disbelief.

Duo smiled proudly at him, taking Camden from his wife to pass him to Indra.

“Hey, he’s my baby,” Nas protested, then giggled when Indra looked between them. “We said we were married so we could go into the American embassy,” she explained. “Then when we got to London we had a Christian ceremony.”

“You are married?” Indra demanded, smirking at his old friend.

“It’s my son,” Duo noted, then turned to look at Vasu, who was standing at the SUV. “Come on, son, you know Indra.”

“Wow,” Indra muttered as Narsi darted around her brother to hug Duo tightly.

“Look at you,” Duo muttered, touching her hair. “You’re ready to be married, aren’t you?”

Narsi laughed at that, darting over to hug Nassaiya. The village boys, who’d been Vasu’s friends, were moving forward to look at him uncertainly. The fact that he’d been as young as he had when they’d left had made him uncertain, but on seeing those old friends his face lit right up.

“Vasu!” one of the older boys shouted…and pandemonium broke out as they all met in the middle and started shouting at each other. Duo wasn’t entirely sure why they needed to shout like that, but it seemed to be needed.

The women, meanwhile, were coming down the stairs from either dock—there were two. Nassaiya reclaimed Camden from Indra…and darted to join them.

Duo smiled slightly at that as the men moved to where they could nod at Duo approvingly.

“Mark this spot,” Duo ordered the man who’d driven them in. “Remember, two weeks. If the waters comes and I don’t show up at the dry spot, send people out here to check on me…come on, Indra,” he added. “Help me get our shit out.”

“What did you bring?” Indra asked, admiring the boat.

“Clothes, non-perishables…more clothes,” Duo grinned. “I’ve got some other stuff in here, too. We couldn’t come back empty handed, now.”

Indra laughed at that, then tilted his head at Duo. “What is your name?”

The question had never been asked before.

“I’m Duo,” Duo replied, offering his hand with a grin. “Duo Maxwell.”

Indra nodded approvingly at that and pulled him into a hug. After a moment, he turned and gestured to the various men of the village.

This was going to take minutes, and then Duo would have two weeks to visit with his family.

Natalie was the only person who seemed upset by this, but Duo was far from caring.

He considered Indra’s home-group his own home group…

…and then he spotted Nassaiya’s brother. The moment they met eyes, they grinned wickedly at each other. Before, when Duo had just been taking care of the widows, the man had tried to insist that he marry Nas. The idea had scared him at the time, considering he’d had two relationships at the most, but the idea had been a good one.

“I married your sister, happy?” Duo teased.

The man laughed and moved to hug him.

“Let’s get this unloaded,” Duo added, looking around at the smiling faces.

He’d only been that happy three times before. Once when he’d gotten married, once when he’d legally adopted Vasu and could say the boy was his own, and once when Nassaiya had given birth to his child.

“I’m still calling you Oi,” Indra informed him. “I don’t need ghost names.”

“Ghost names?” Duo asked, wondering if his understanding of the language had really diminished.

“Long dead gods,” Indra agreed, smirking at him proudly. “I got a book on the pilots after Yuy left. I know who you are now.”

Duo smirked at that. “I’m the god of death, not a dead god.”

Indra snorted at him.

“…Mr. Maxwell?”

Duo looked to Natalie, who was moving closer with wide eyes as something obviously occurred to her.

“…do you know where Heero is?”

Where? Duo wondered blankly, then smirked slightly. “In a crazy house back at London.” There was a vaguely vindictive pleasure in saying the words. “The manager said they’d tried calling the base to talk to you but you had left. Didn’t someone find you?”

She frowned at him, her eyes going completely hurt and uncertain.

…the petty emotion melted away, and Duo pulled out his cell phone. He pulled the girl with him toward a dock-end as he dialed the Health Center.

“Have you heard from Barton?” the woman asked instantly.

Duo’d actually forgotten about Trowa. He snorted slightly. “He won’t contact me unless his life is in danger,” he noted. “I need Yuy.”

“What?”

“I need to talk to Yuy,” Duo repeated. “Hurry up.”

She hesitated, then put him on hold.

“What’s going on?” Natalie asked uncertainly. “I don’t understand enough English.”

“Duo?” Heero asked in confusion.

“Hey, fucker, tell Wufei I’m a bigger man.” He passed the phone to Natalie.

“Hello?” Natalie asked uncertainly.

Duo walked away.