Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Nevergreen ❯ Chapter 1

Title: Nevergreen

Author: Lethanon

Archive: www.geocities.com/lethanon

Warnings: AU, Australia, language.

Notes: A product of my overly imaginative childhood in Condobolin, in the bush, and my time spent at `Evergreen', which while not a station is a damned cool farm run by some very lovely people who are caretakers of some very strange places. *g* I have TRIED to pick up out all the slang and provide explanations, but…when its how you're used to talking it doesn't seem like slang, so if I missed a few…sorry.

1:

It was the name of the place that attracted him. Evergreen. A sprawling station stealing hundreds of hectares into the bush, connected to a small town by one, lone twisting thread of dust you could almost call a road. You could find it on a map, if you had the right one, and a magnifying glass to read the writing, but then you would still probably miss it as anything other than a yellow smudge. That's the thing about the bush. Everything looks the same. If it ain't gold, it's brown and if it's brown you better hope you brought your water bottle, coz there sure as hell won't be any water to guzzle.

It was an eight hour drive from Sydney. Straight west as the wedge[1] flies and with the same deadly thoughts in mind. That's the point, you see. No one goes that far west without a reason; no one lands in the bush unless they're pushed. Some hit back, but most are absorbed into it; swallowed whole and only the wedgies remembers them. Heero Yuy knew these things when he took the job. He knew there was no leaving without quitting, and he wasn't the kind to give in. The point was he needed a job and the system had ensured the only place he would get one was the place no one else wanted it. Teachers were easy to find on the coast. They plain didn't exist in the Bush.

He got up at three in the morning, to face a cold, drizzly day in the city, only to get in his car with a few suitcases and his laptop and back out of the driveway, silently saluting the `sold' sign hanging off the mailbox. He wouldn't miss the place. Too many memories. He went west. He wasn't even over the Blues[2] when the sun rose, light weaving in and out of the ragged mountain range. It's not an easy road. The traffic was ridiculous; ten k's[3] an hour is not a good traveling pace. It's not even a crawl. Something must have happened up the road, but if you can't see it it's just an annoyance.

Heero passed a crash on the way, but the cops were already there so there wasn't much point in stopping. He just kept going, only vaguely aware someone's day was ruined, maybe their week…maybe their life. He had no clue, and didn't really care. That's the way it is. Sometimes.

It was midmorning when the road wound its way out of the mountains, revealing green pastures, mountainous horizons and a sprawling city that could only be Lithgow. He'd heard stories, but never saw much point in visiting the place. It wasn't a part of the city; wasn't even in the mountains. Strange to think he had never been any further west. Had never seen the Bush as anything other than a place the politicians liked to argue about, and tried to give as little money to as possible. He didn't blame them. After all, on the other side of the Blues there was no way to know it even existed.

But that morning, driving down off the Blue Mountains and into the flat, Heero Yuy knew it existed. And by afternoon, well past Orange and on his way to Parkes he knew it was real. The green gave way to fields of spun gold that glowed red in the arvo[4] light. Heero had never seen wheat; not like this. Not at the end of its growth, almost ready for harvest a few weeks off, swaying minutely in a breeze that almost didn't exist. This was…something different. He stopped three times between Parkes and Bogan Gate to take photos before he realized all the photos looked the same. While beautiful, everything he saw was still the same, and it was quite belatedly that he looked behind him and realized the mountain horizon had given away and in its place was nothing but a flat earth, brown and red and gold, littered sporadically with trees that were half dead from the heat, barely moving. It was a dream; an entire world encased within itself, waiting for the breath that would never come. Waiting to exhale.

He reached Condobolin mid-arvo. It's not a `quaint' town. It's not even pretty. It's an ugly, haphazard place with a definite line down the middle that screams `people that get by' and `people who don't'. And it means `don't'. That they don't do nothin, and they don't wanna, so they don't and the government pays their way. Not enough for most people but when all you wants a permanent hangover and a Sheila to bang all night it's not that hard to get by.

The town doesn't even have three thousand people, but it's got nine pubs. Some of them only have two or three regulars, but that's enough to keep em open. Heero drove past them all, noting the banged up Utes, the stickers glued thick on the trays, and gripped the wheels of his BMW a little tighter. He followed the directions he had been given out of the south side, which technically was in the north, but it sounded better to call it south for some reason, and into the more modern side. Even here the houses were at least five years old, most ten to fifteen. Aging brick shacks sliding down the gentle slopes to the river running in a circle around the whole place. Heero got out of the car at the number he'd been given. It was a decent enough house, somewhat Mexican in appearance. A clam, cream brick with dark tile roof and an exhaustive garden. Split down the middle to accommodate two teachers. Probably belonged to a nice family that got away. Good for them.

He stood on the driveway for several minutes before he saw activity stirring inside and a shadow moved toward the doors. Odd doors; double doors that looked expensive but when Heero looked closely he knew were easily half the price the bricks would have cost to fill in the hole there. Cutting costs wherever they can; that's bush people.

Heero wanted to take a deep breath but there was something itching at his throat, not like pollution because this was clean. It was just…dirty. Like chewing on soil. He could smell it in the air and it tasted…different. Not bad, just not what he was used to.

"Dust storm coming."

He looked up to see a tall, slender figure leaning on the slanted brick cover of the walkway to the front doors. The man was young, about his age, casual, dressed in faded jeans and a flanny.[5] His hair was loose, sticking out in all directions, hanging all over his face. He looked….slow. Everything about the place screamed `slow'. Heero found he didn't much mind. It was…different.

"You must be Trowa." An art teacher if Heero remembered correctly.

The other man just nodded, casually, and ever so slowly, walking to the car and helping to grab the few suitcases from the back seat. They didn't really say anything after that. Hero just let Trowa lead the way, give him the tour, all two minutes worth of it. Nice neat place with a lounge, a living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, two bathrooms…huge verandah. It was there they went once Heero's bags were tossed in his cupboard, each settling on a cement step, pleasantly cool compared to the stifling hot air. Even the air you breathed was warm, and it wasn't even summer yet.

"So…Heero Yuy isn't it?"

Heero just nodded, accepting the beer Trowa held out and staring out over the back yard, across the paddock over the fence, past the river at the bottom of the hill to the sky, which was razed with fiery reds, flaming oranges and gold, the fading blue a dark violet he found strangely attractive.

"I love these sunsets," Trowa noted quietly, and it seemed to Heero he was telling a great secret; that this was the most important thing he could learn from Trowa. That he liked sunsets. So he kept listening. "I think I could leave here, if it weren't for the sunsets."

There was a long silence between them as Heero dreamt up what he felt might be the appropriate response to such a statement, but as he opened his mouth to speak Trowa slapped himself hard on the cheek. Heero raised a brow, but didn't say anything as Trowa rubbed the dead mozzie[6] off his hand on the rough cement. They sat there until the sun went down. Until the mozzies were so thick in the air they were breathing them in and when they grew tired of slapping themselves silly they got up, went inside and got another beer.

*

It was eleven o'clock when Heero finally retired, leaving the TV in the lounge room, nodding to Trowa as he left, and leaving a perfectly good game of footy to unpack his gear. Not that he had much. A few books, but most of his work was on his laptop, and a few changes of clothes, most of which he was beginning to realize would be too hot, or too dressed up for teaching at a country school. He was just a math's teacher. What difference would it honesty make? He decided to try and buy some new clothes soon anyway. It wouldn't do to look like a Nigel[7] in front of the kids.

He found a lone photo in the bottom of his suitcase and felt thoroughly disgusted with himself that it had managed to escape his pyromania and smuggled its way on board to his new life. Still he decided he should keep it, to remind himself of how stupid he was, of course, and so slid it between the pages of one of the textbooks he had brought with him. Then he lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

There were some funny marks there; little dark splodges in familiar shapes. This had probably been a child's room and they'd had those glow in the dark stars stuck everywhere. Heero wondered why they'd bothered taking them off if they were going to leave the mess there. Not that he really cared.

It was too hot. It only took him ten minutes to open the window, and five more before he realized he wasn't going to be sleeping any time soon. Maybe that was why they all seemed so slow; they never slept and made for it by moving in half time, like sleep walking? Shaking his head, Heero got out his laptop and booted it up.

There was a copy of the damn photo on the desktop. He scowled at it, trailed a finger down the edge, then changed it to one of the wheat field pics he had taken with the camera earlier. It looked much better.

He had intended to go online, but it only took a total of five seconds to realize he could no longer connect; the server didn't reach this far west. Sighing heavily, Heero opened a game of solitaire and started playing. It was one of those games that got so boring it wasn't boring anymore, and yet it still was, but you were so bored it wasn't. Yes, like that. His mind kept lingering on the picture in the dictionary, on the thoughts he was trying to push aside, and to chase them away one thought kept coming unbidden to mind.

Evergreen.

Nothing was green here. It was all gold, and red and…brown. Aged, somehow, trapped in a twisted time warp that wasn't any decade in particular but a world all its own. So why Evergreen?

It was a station not far out of town; about 25 k's if the map was right. He'd looked it up on the web. It was privately owned by the Winner family; one of the few `rich' families in the area. They supplied most of the income from Condo to the borders of the three states to the west. Of course, people still complained about them. After all, they had money, which was something most didn't, and it was easy to forget they worked for it.

Five games later, Heero managed to tear himself away from the laptop long enough to fetch the map out of his bag. It was the same one he had managed to nab from the NRMA[8] weeks ago when looking for a new position. He hadn't enough points to ask for a preferred transfer, so he had settled for the only position available. Anything to get away. His fingers were itching for the photo again, so he started a new game while he stared at the map.

The main homestead seemed to be on a section of the property up north; the real north. North Condo, just west of Ootha, the ghost town…Ghost town? Heero's brows shot up, mouth quirking a little. They had a ghost town! Sounded interesting, but probably wasn't. Still, worth exploring. He knuckled down looking at the map, trying to get his bearings and to make a list of the things he should try to do. He was new; it would be best to do the touristy things now so he didn't have a Barry[9] later on.

He woke to sunlight pouring hot and heavy on his skin through the open window, sweat already pooling on the sheets around him. Blinking back sleep, Heero looked down to see he had lost the last game of solitaire and that the desktop had mysteriously turned back to the photo of him…

Hissing furiously, Heero fetched the wheat field back again, shut the laptop down and grabbed a towel, heading for the shower. It was Sunday. He would spend the day exploring. Work could wait one more day. The school wasn't going anywhere. Unfortunately.

A cold shower didn't do anything to cool him down. In fact, it seemed to make the heat more pronounced. Heero wandered into the kitchen to see Trowa standing there in jeans and a flanny. Again.

"Aren't you hot?"

"Absorbs the sweat."

Heero grimaced, but returned to his bedroom to get the one flanny he owned. He already had his jeans on. They had seemed…appropriate. He reminded himself he needed a trip to the clothes shop, but now he was awake he was having trouble remembering if there even was one in Condo. There had not been many shops in the main street.

"You going somewhere?" Heero noticed Trowa was packing a small lunch. His car keys, or what Heero assumed were his keys (it was hard to tell they were keys caked in all that red dirt), were on the bench.

"Evergreen. They need some fence posts painted."

And so the art teacher was called in? Strange place. Still, Heero did want to go there.

"Mind if I come?"

"Nah, grab the beer." And that was that. Heero grabbed the six pack off the bench and tossed it in the esky[10] after the lunches Trowa dropped in and they were ech grabbing a hold and walking out the door. Heero didn't even blink when they didn't lock the door. Seemed normal enough. Not like there was anyone around. Except that old fat guy on the porch across the road…but he looked so fat he had become a permanent fixture on the swinging seat.

"That's Mr. Black."

Heero waved, mimicking Trowa's movement.

"Fat fuck."

Heero snorted, but didn't respond. Trowa opened the garage to reveal a Ford XR8 Falcon Ute parked before him in metallic blue. It paint job was too good to be factory standard.

"Good Mechanic?"

"Darby? Bloody nutter is what the knobby gnome is, but yeah…he knows his stuff."

Heero just nodded, lifted the esky into the tray, strapped it down and climbed in the side. Mr. Black eyed them suspiciously as they drove away, but Trowa waved again as they rounded the corner and headed out of town and Heero figured this was normal.

"What's Ootha like?"

"Ghost town. No one lives there anymore. Used to be a mine there." Trowa seemed completely uninterested, so Heero let it drop. They reached the main street in silence before Trowa reached down and switched on the local radio station, full blast. Heero gripped the seat and tried to ignore it, but the damn monster of a Ute had a damned good stereo! And why did they all have Ute's anyway?

"Hey, change the fucking station Barton!"

Heero glared out the window to see a boy not much younger than himself standing outside the Imperial Hotel. To his complete shock Trowa stuck his arm across Heero's whole body, put his hand out the window and stuck up his finger at the boy, a smirk firmly in place on his face. The youth just stuck his own finger up and yelled some choice swear words before stomping back into the pub.

"Is he even old enough to go in there?"

"Maxwell? Sure. Had his eighteenth last weekend, not that that matters. He's year twelve. Graduates next month…I hate to imagine what he'll do to the school."

Heero raised a brow. That…monster…was one of his students? Joy.

"Don't look at me like that!" Trowa protested. "You weren't here last year when his best mate graduated!"

Heero was not sure he wanted to be. That was, he was sure, that had resulted in his predecessors quitting teaching forever, at the ripe age of twenty six. Four casual teachers later he had finally taken the job. He was not sure what that meant. Track record was not looking good.

Heero tried to remember where they were going and match it the map, but everything seemed straight and eventually he knew they must have turned around, because the sun was in the wrong place, so he gave up. The area became even flatter, fewer trees, more brown, less gold…It was even drier out here.

"How come they call it Evergreen?"

Trowa just snorted.

"Because it's never green? No, seriously…there is one evergreen tree right next to the main house. It's the only one in the entire area."

Right. But, Heero thought wryly…it's also never green. Made sense, he supposed. Time slowed before they finally came to a large set of gates, rusted and falling off their hinges. Heero got out to open it and closed it after Trowa had driven through, and then it was another ten k's to the house, a sprawling timber monstrosity just begging for termites. It was one of the oldest houses in the area, or the original building was. The add-ons were definitely new.

The first thing Heero noticed was that there were kids everywhere. Trowa just grinned at him and winked.

"There are twenty nine kids here; all related somehow."

Heero just stared, watching them race around the yard, seeing one of the smaller girls stack it and land face first in the dirt, only to grab a fistful and throw it straight at the girl nearest her before running off. Heero was sure she was wearing a dress and gumboots, but it was hard to tell through the heat haze.

"You come here often?"

"More often than not."

Heero nodded, grabbed his side of the eksy and walked side by side with Trowa to the front door. They didn't get halfway there before the door smashed open and a small figure strode out, smile plastered over its face.

"Trowa!"

"That's Mr. Barton, Quatre."

"Yeah, whateva. You bring some grog, I'm desperate!"

The closer the boy got, the older he seemed, but even when he was shuffling through the contents of the esky, he was still a good head shorter than Heero, who was looking questioningly at Trowa.

"Quatre Winner, Heero Yuy. He's your new maths teacher, Quat."

Quatre raised his head long enough to look Heero up and down once before grabbing a beer out of the esky and rushing back inside, Trowa following at a more sedate and dragging Heero with him, still attached to the other end of the esky.

"Dad's out in the crop. Mum's…I think she's with the chickens. I said I would wait here for you."

"In the air conditioning," Trowa noted wryly, dumping the esky on the kitchen floor. Heero flexed his hand, only then realizing the damn thing was actually quite heavy and had left funny indents all along his hand.

"Well, I ain't stupid Trowa!"

"Fooled me. You think you can fool Heero?"

Quatre stuck his tongue out at Trowa and Heero couldn't help but feel he was missing the punch line of a joke. There was more to the scene than he was seeing, or maybe there wasn't…it was hard to say. He knew only that it was hot, that the sweat trickling down his spine was disgustingly annoying and that he wasn't even outside in the heat anymore; that it could only get worse.

He let them lead him outside to the fence and he sat with them, painting the darkened pickets white again. Heero wasn't sure why they bothered. Wasn't like anyone would see them out here. He kept thinking of that photo, but now every time he thought of it he had the strange urge to salute it with his middle finger. He would blink, clear his thoughts and then it would start again, thinking of the picture…the finger…

"So, Heero, how do you like Evergreen?"

Heero just snorted and slapped a brush of pain on Quatre's nose.

"That's Mr. Yuy to you."

Quatre just laughed and smacked Trowa on the cheek with his brush.

"Whatever, man. Whatever."

[1] Wedge-tailed eagle; pretty common in country Australia.

[2] Blues: Blue Mountains; a mountain range separating Sydney from the west of the country.

[3] k's; kilometers.

[4] arvo; afternoon

[5] flanny; a flannelette shirt

[6] Mozzie: mosquito

[7] Nigel; person with no friends and bad fashion sense. Usually a nerd.

[8] NRMA; NSW car insurance company…basically.

[9] Barry; an embarrassing situation, socially fatal. Lol.

[10] um…it's a box that keeps stuff cool?? Meh.

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