Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Nevergreen ❯ Chapter 8

Nevergreen 8/?

The moon rose fat and full and heavy, a dark orange as it filled the eastern horizon, slathering the world with golden light that swayed the wheat with a glowing, bulbous illusionary heat. The air was thick and warm, dribbling over the skin as the radio whispered softly, murmuring secrets to the open plains.

"This is 99.9, and I'm WildWill, and tonight we're talking about karma. I'm waiting for your call…"

Heero chuckled as he heard the familiar voice, even as his senses sharpened reflexively, searching for a random roo.

"Can you believe this guy?" Duo asked quietly, smiling as he poked at the Helen figurine he had tacked to the top of the gear stick. Heero just shrugged, not daring to mention the fact he had actually rung the bastard and asked the most ridiculous questions, all the while Trowa was listening on the other end of the radio…it just didn't bare remembering. Instead, Heero reached over and turned the volume up, flicking through the channels to find something playing actual music.

He went through three channels before he finally sat back and glared at the radio, wondering what was wrong with it. He just didn't understand.

"It's the full moon," Duo noted idly, apparently finding Heero's consternation amusing.

"Which means?"

"It means the Dish is facing just the right direction to pick up radio waves from south America. Give it a week and it will have moved far enough you'll be listening in on Africa, then Europe, then Asia…"

Heero recalled the space dish that had once been used to relay the footage of man landing on the moon, and more importantly recalled it was situated at Parkes. Considering there was nothing but red dirt and a few scattered trees between the car and the Dish, it was all beginning to make an odd sort of sense.

"Spanish radio…could be transmitted into Space…" Heero noted wryly, mind already scheming with possibilities. Duo merely nodded as Heero's mental cogs continued to turn. "WildWill…could be transmitted to Space…"

Duo laughed, a bright, curling sound that went straight to Heero's groin. Too pleasant.

"At least now we know why there aren't no fucking greenies running around. They probably came within range, heard Will and ran to a different bloody solar system. Can't blame `em."

Heero certainly couldn't blame him, having done just that, in a sense. He had heard the magic words from the wrong mouth at the wrong time and hadn't wasted any time packing his bags, arranging the transfer, and leaving the City…Moving to the Bush. Starting a new life. Living, breathing, forgetting, leaving it behind…running away. No, starting again.

They were quiet for a long time and Heero expected Duo to say something, ask anything, but he remained silent, gazing out the window at the darkness, hand subconsciously straying to his hip, rubbing gently. Heero wondered how much it hurt, to have darkened so completely so quickly. Yet he didn't say anything either. Didn't really know what to say, knowing full well how useless words could be.

They reached Bogan Gate and Duo suddenly sat up straighter. Pointing to a gate coming up not far down the road.

"Turn here."

Heero turned, pulling on the breaks as he came up in front of the rusted iron, wondering just what they were doing when Duo got out and ran to open the gate. Heero drove through slowly, waiting on the other side for Duo to close it once more and get back in the Ute. He was grinning from ear to ear as he waved a hand to indicate Heero should drive forward but refrained from saying anything else, so Heero simply took his orders and began following the dirt track over empty paddocks, the odd sheep raising its woolly head to stare at them. Heero wondered if they were Quatre's and if one of them was Sandstone's mum, then decided he really didn't want to know and turned his attention back to the road.

"Up here, on the right…take it."

Sure enough an even smaller, rougher track than what they were on soon came into view and Heero turned onto it, following it around the small bend in the earth and down…Frowning, Heero watched the brush grow thicker, the tree line more sturdy. He knew for them to be heading down they had to be heading for the river, but his calculations also told him the river was still a fair way south of them…

The ground leveled out and Heero looked all around them as he continued to drive straight down the middle of the empty river bed. He wasn't sure how long they drove, aware only of Duo's soft breathing, the grind of the wheels as they worked through the softer patches of soil and the soft scrape of leaves that fluttered free of their branches in the breeze made by the Ute's passing. The moon had risen high enough that the light had turned from dark umber to white, casting a surreal pearly pastel glow, making living monsters of the darker shadows in the riverbed's sides.

"Slow down…"

Heero obeyed as they came to a sharper bend and as they rounded it the riverbed dropped again and laid out in the valley below was Ootha, quiet and resting open in the moonlight, its small street of crumbling buildings rising, black monoliths that would never reach the sky. The shadows slowly dancing looked like spirits and as Heero watched them he could not be sure that was not what they were. It was an ugly place, run down and deserted, left to rot and ruminate, but it looked beautiful to him. Simply because it was.

"The river used to flow here, but when they built the Mine they changed a lot of the river channels, and this one dried up…" Duo whispered, and it seemed right to Heero. Speaking seemed some breed of sacrilege in this place. "The farms needed the water, but no one complained."

Thinking that odd, Heero tore his gaze from the landscape before him and fastened it on Duo, whose face was unnaturally pale in the light coming through the windscreen, his eyes darker than usual but glinting with flashes of dark purple and navy, a small smile playing on his lips.

"Why?"

"Because of where we are," Duo whispered and it was so softly said Heero had to lean across the gear box to hear. "This is the biggest bend in the channel between Condo and Yarrabandi," Duo explained quickly, "and back then it was one of the deepest, and the trees hung over it more than they do now. Everything was wilder, greener; fed by the river."

"A Billabong?"

Duo made a small affirmative sound in the back of his throat that was some bastard mix between a grunt and a moan. It made Heero want to hear it again.

"They used to say a Bunyip lived here. People have drowned here, others have been sucked under only to emerge further downstream. Things have gone missing from properties and then been found here, in the river. They used to say the Bunyip took them…that he stole the things they lost, and that when they had nothing worth taking he would take them instead."

Heero shivered at the look in Duo's eyes; at the darkness that swelled there, threatening to consume them both.

"I used to wish the Bunyip would take me."

Heero didn't know if it was the words, the implications behind them, the look in Duo's eyes or the feeling that stole over him, but his hand moved before he could fully process what was happening, snaking out and snatching Duo's hand from his lap, drawing it toward himself, putting it between them even as it linked them. The sudden movement and contact shocked Duo, whose head snapped around, eyes wide as he locked gazes with Heero.

"Duo…" Heero didn't know what to say, but that was okay, because Duo reached out and placed a single finger against his lips, a faint smile playing on his lips as he once more relaxed, fingers shifting in Heero's grip until they were holding hands, the sensation pleasant to Heero, who couldn't take his eyes off that joining, off the subtle shift of slightly dusty skin against his, the warmth of flesh against flesh.

"You didn't let me finish the story," Duo chided. "See, when the river dried up they thought they would find all the things they had lost, and they did find most of it…it was strewn all through the riverbed in a long line, leading all the way down to the Lachlan and into the water. So you see…the Bunyip, he's still there. Things still go missing. He just moved house, I suppose, but he didn't take everything with him. All those people who had nothing left to give; who had nothing worth taking? He gave them back what he took. He gave them what they needed, and he let them have his old house, and he didn't complain. He did it just for them…"

Heero wondered if Duo really believed the fairy tale, because the way his hand suddenly gripped Heero's told him there was more to the story than Duo was letting on. It was a strange story and while he was sure there was a point, the true impact of that point was eluding Heero who was simply enraptured by the narrator rather than the fable.

"Does it feel like you've been here long?"

Heero blinked at the change of topic, but he knew Duo wasn't talking about Ootha. He was talking about here; the Bush; the place beyond the Blues, beyond the city. He was talking about here; that time after his old life that was now his reality. He was talking about here; this moment, with Duo, alone. Just here.

"Every day, every hour, every minute, second, moment…feels like a lifetime I didn't know I would live."

Duo smiled at that, his fingers squeezing around Heero's, hand reaching up to twirl a small piece of his fringe around one slender finger.

"It feels like forever, and yet…" Heero smiled, counting it up. "It's only been four days."

There was a long quiet. Not silence, just…quiet, as they listened to the night and the moment. Then Duo spoke, and it was gentle…knowing.

"People spend a lifetime waiting for one person, waiting for that one moment, and they never get it," Duo whispered softly and Heero's stomach dropped, not sure what to make of those words, but Duo's fingers only squeezed his again comfortingly as he looked out at the small town.

"I'll wait a thousand lifetimes Heero. I'll wait as long as I have to; as long as you want me to, because here…and only here…I have a thousand lifetimes to spare. Here, I could wait forever and still know there would be another day after forever ended."

And they both knew which here Duo was talking about. Heero knew he should say something; wanted to say something, but his mind was blank, his heart too full and his wants…piled so high he couldn't begin to break them down, to make some semblance of real from it all. And what was real, exactly, in the middle of a ghost town, well past midnight under the full moon with nothing but the memory of ghosts to tell you what to do?

They sat in silence for a long time before Duo pulled his hand free and got out of the Ute, feet rustling on the heavy bed of leaves still rustling down the riverbed in some twisted version of the water that had once flowed. He seemed calm, collected, not expectant at all. And so Heero followed, walking out of the river and into the old main street of Ootha.

There weren't many buildings, just two massive pubs and a few ramshackle shacks. A building that looked like it might have been a bank. The bridge in the distance looked larger than the whole town, and the few farmhouses scattered across the paddocks were too still and quiet, long abandoned. The railway was a dead snake at the town's edge.

Heat suddenly swamped his back and Heero looked down to see a pair of arms tight around his waist, hands flush against his stomach as hot breath whispered in his ear, across his cheek, down his spine.

"Catch me…if you can."

And the heat was gone as quickly as it had come and Duo was racing off toward the old pub, flying up the rotting wooden steps onto the verandah and through the gaping hole where a door must once have stood. Before his mind even agreed his feet were moving, following, rushing forward, a laugh breaking out of his mouth as he let out a small part of himself he had long forgotten.

Cool air, hot breath, the scent of dust and dead rivers, rotting wood and gum trees mingled in his senses as he raced forward, up the stairs, past the ghosts of someone else's memories and into the darkness within. His eyes adjusted quickly to the lack of moonlight, picking out tables, chairs, a bar…all of it as if the people had simply left, taking nothing with them. It truly was a ghost town; as if it were all just waiting for the people to walk back in.

The sound of laughter came from above him somewhere and Heero headed for the dark shadow of stairs he could see in the far corner, taking his time on the rotted wood, but not afraid that it would break. He trusted Duo to warn him of any dangers. If was obvious his wayward companion knew the ghost town well, though how or why was not something Heero thought he really wanted to think about.

The rooms upstairs were smaller, more numerous and filled with staler, warmer air. The dust floating in the air was thick enough to taste and the light that managed to come in through the windows was coloured a pale orange as it floated all around him; bush glitter.

He moved slowly, appreciating the sparseness and emptiness of it; the complete detachment from reality as he knew it. There was no city in Ootha, no madness, no friendships or relationships, no future to plan and worry over. Even the past was forgotten. In Ootha there was no longer even a now. So many things just were, but the ghost town…wasn't. It was a memory of a memory…less than that.

He looked in one of the doorways and froze. Standing there, looking straight back at him was a young woman, in her early twenties, her jeans slightly torn and tucked into her mud-encrusted farm boots, her flanny buttoned up to the neck, hands on her hips as she glared at him. Her wild muddy brown hair was tangled and matted with filth as it flowed over one shoulder and down her back, green eyes fiery and flaming.

Confused, he took a step forward, blinking, trying to see her more clearly in the poor light, but she just laughed at him, moving back toward the window and further out of sight.

"I've been waiting long enough for you."

Shaking his head, Heero rubbed the dust out of his eye and when he opened them again she was gone. Grinning at his own foolish imagination, Heero left the room, closing the door as he went and hearing a rustle of cloth further down the hall he moved off, the woman already forgotten.

"Duo?"

Something crashed into him from the side but he didn't struggle with it, already smiling as they went careening through the open doorway at the end of the hallway and crashed into the ancient bed in the last room. The window was wide open, the horizon black, filled with a fat white moon and eerie white fields of fluffy cream wheat clouds and early morning frost.

The bed groaned and creaked as they tumbled across it, the mattress hard and filled with filth that exploded into the air all around them as they landed, bush glitter raining down all over them as Heero finally gave into the whispers inside him, his arms wrapping tight about his captive, refusing to let go even as hands held him down, fingers brushed against his cheek and lips, smooth and dry and soft as soil brushed against his own, warm and ever so welcome.

"Heero?" Duo whispered still as he leant back but Heero didn't reply. He was sitting on the fence again, listening to Trowa without any answers and he was waiting to be told what to do…And Trowa was telling him over and over not to make him wait forever…And he understood now that Trowa was talking about them both. Duo could wait forever, Heero could wait forever, and that day after forever would come and they would both still wait, because Duo would always wait for him…But Heero didn't want to wait that long. He had waited before to no avail. He had been Duo, waiting and hungering, patient and prudent and all for naught. All for the taste of ashes and long lost longing. All for a head of memories of a life already lifetimes behind him. Lifetimes between then and now…between there and here…between Zechs and Duo. Long enough.

Heero slid his hand up under Duo's shirt, let his fingers caress the small curves of skin and spine as he pulled Duo down closer, harder to him and let their lips meet once more. He didn't want to wait forever. He didn't want to wait lifetimes. He wanted here, now, this moment forever. And for the first time in his life it was his.

*

"FUCK!"

Something poked his side, whistled in his ear, whispered on his skin, tickled his nose. Heero scrunched up tighter, aware of his muscles bunching, his clothes trapping him. He was not comfortable, far from it, but he could not bring himself to move. Somehow he was too…content.

Shocked by this discovery, Heero made the mistake of opening his eyes. Only to come face to face with a very pissed off Duo Maxwell, hair mussed, shirt askew and end of braid in hand as if he had been…

"Tickling my nose…" Heero mumbled, thoughts still muggy as he sat up and looked around. They were in perhaps the ugliest room Heero had ever seen…and the dirtiest…In fact it didn't look like it had been cleaned in years, and the bed they were on…

Bed. Room. No door…Ootha. The thoughts slowly registered in Heero's sleepy brain, and then memory returned and he grinned at Duo, who only tossed his braid over one shoulder and got up, moving to walk off.

"Duo?" Heero wondered if they had made a mistake; if Duo maybe regretted whatever choices he had made. Not that they had done all that to regret…but still…kissing your teacher…Heero knew how much guts that took, and was well aware what kind of thoughts tended to float around in your head afterward.

"For fuck's sake Yuy, you're a bloody teacher ain't ya? We've got fucking school in a few hours! Now GET UP!"

Heero's brain froze as he reflexively stared at his watch, brain not really registering the 6am staring at him. The hands that pulled on his arm registered though so he let Duo pull him downstairs, out of the hotel and toward the Ute, which he noted was parked in the middle of some old ditch.

Riverbed, his mind reminded him. He really didn't like mornings. Still, he got in the Ute and started it up, relieved he had apparently left the keys in the ignition the night before. They had been driving for twenty minutes, when Heero finally realized they were almost in town and that Duo was staring at him, grin wide on his face.

"Are you always like this in the mornin?"

Mourning? What? Who died?

"Huh?" Duo laughed heartily and Heero cursed his sleep mussed brain for the dopey smile he could feel on his face.

"I need a shower to wake up in the morning."

"No shit!" Duo merely laughed at the unimpressed look Heero gave him.

They came to the house and Heero was forced to park in the driveway as the garage was filled with…his `new' car. They climbed out and made their way to the door, aware of a faint whistling. They looked up together, catching sight of Mr. Black sitting on his verandah.

"Fat fuck," they mumbled in unison as they crept inside, heading straight down the hallway for Heero's room. Heero merely grabbed his towel off his bed and headed for the bathroom while Duo was already tossing the new clothes they had brought in Heero's cupboard, taking the time to go through everything else in the cupboard as well…

Heero didn't mind, head already filled with the thought of clean water, hot and steamy…And it was a reality in no time as he let the hot liquid trickle down his back, slap against his face and he finally woke up, feeling more than a little stupid that Duo had seen him in…morning mode.

Finally clean Heero got out of the shower, dried himself off and realized he hadn't brought any clothes in with him. Wondering if he could really start a day off any worse, he nudged the door open, ready to peek out into the hallway to see if anyone was there, fastening the towel around his waist as he moved, only to have a bundle of clothes shoved in his face as he was pushed back inside.

Standing still, towel still held on his hip in one fist, clothes in his other, Heero just stared at Duo as he stood in front of the three-way mirror and re-plaited his hair, a faint smile still playing on his lips. Heero didn't try to stop the laugh that bubbled loose as he spun back into the bathroom and shut the door, dropping the towel and inspecting the day's outfit. He blushed a little at the underwear, not because they were underwear, but because it was obvious Duo had been through his underwear in order to find them. He pulled on the heavy dark denim trousers and the short sleeve white t-shirt, then stared at the flanny, knowing full well it wasn't his. It was nice though…Mostly black with navy and white stripes through it, a faint red stitch trim. Oddly…stylish…for a flanny.

He walked into the hallway to find Duo perched on the edge of the sink, head cocked to the side, studying him critically. Heero held up the flanny and raised a brow.

"Not mine, I'm not stupid Yuy. I haven't spent the last year watching Tro and Quat without learnin nuffin." Duo grinned. "It's Trowa's."

Still a little risky for a country town, but doable. Heero put it on and moved up to the mirror, but the comb he reached for was snatched from his hands. Duo wagged a finger in his face, reaching out and shaking the water from his hair and then brushing it back from Heero's face as best he could.

"Just let it dry. Not like combing it'll make any difference anyway."

Heero just grunted, but he didn't touch his hair, leaving the bathroom and heading for the kitchen, slightly surprised to find Trowa there, once again making breakfast…Only this morning it was refreshingly recognizable.

"Porridge," Duo sighed, deflated, but then grinned as Trowa tossed him a muesli bar. Heero went the toaster and threw in two pieces while Duo went off to have a shower. He was very much aware of Trowa turning to look at him.

They didn't say anything, each just making their breakfast, watching the other from the corners of their eyes. Duo returned, dressed and ready for school in the spare uniform he apparently kept at the house, and then they were off, walking to school as if they had never left, sun beating down, sweat already running, heat haze rising, Duo chattering about the car and what they should do to it first.

"The sun set?" Trowa asked casually, and Duo looked totally stumped, but Heero just smiled.

"A thousand times over," Heero replied quietly and Trowa just nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets as they strolled across the dead grass. All Heero could do was smile, because Trowa was right. You could probably leave, if it weren't for the sun sets.

Nevergreen 9/?