Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Secret Vampire ❯ Chapter 1

Title: Secret Vampire 1/?
Author: Kitai
Pairings: 1x2/2x1
Notes: All thoughts are like this 'blah'
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, don't claim to, don't sue. There that was relatively painless, ne?
Feedback: Begged for and craved!!

Chapter 1

Duo woke to the shrill sound of his alarm clock telling him it was time to get his lazy ass out of bed and get up. Groaning he stuffed a pillow over his head hoping to drown out the noise. After several minutes the alarm clock seemed to give up and was silent. Duo sighed, returned his pillow to it's proper place and attempted to resume his sleep. No such luck. Just as he was about to drift off there was a loud banging on the door.

"Duo? Are you getting up in there?"

Groaning again he sat up "Yeah mom."

"Good. I expect you downstairs in fifteen minutes or we're going to be late."

He heard her walking down the stairs. 'Fifteen minutes? But I don't have to leave until eleven.'

He picked up the alarm clock; it read half past ten.

"What! I set you to go off at nine! You hear me? Nine!"

The alarm clock just looked at him, saying nothing.

"Piece of junk" he muttered, slinging it across the room. He laid down again preparing to go back to sleep when he remembered the time.

"Damn!" he said jumping out of bed and quickly sitting back down again. He winced at the pain shooting through his side and waited until it had subsided before standing and walking to the bathroom.

He'd been suffering from these pains for about a year and after telling his parents about it they'd made an appointment with the doctor. He'd spent ten minutes seeing the doctor and half hour waiting and all the doctor had done was poke him in the back and the stomach then listened to his breathing a few times before declaring that he should go to the hospital for some tests, to 'further the diagnosis'. It was the results of those tests that he was going to collect today. He smirked. Telling his parents wasn't exactly true; they'd found him curled up on the floor of his room sobbing quietly when the pain had hit one time.

He hurriedly brushed his teeth, washed and got dressed then set about the task of braiding his hair. When all was to his satisfaction he ran out his room and slid down the banister.

"Ready mom" he called.

"No, you're not, you haven't eaten breakfast yet."

Grimacing he walked into the kitchen getting ready to complain but, seeing the look on his mother's face, he decided breakfast was the wiser choice. Rifling through the cupboards he found a packet of crackers. Opening it, he pulled out a cracker and broke it in half before eating it.

"Really Duo, you have to eat more than that." but he'd already put the packet back in the cupboard.

She shook her head "I remember when you used to have such an appetite I had to buy a week's shopping everyday just to feed you." She sighed "I miss that Duo."

===================

When they reached the hospital the doctor was still with his previous patient so Duo and his mother had to sit in the waiting room. While they were waiting a girl around Duo's age came in and sat down opposite them. Duo looked at her, she was rather pretty with large green eyes and it took him a moment before he realised that she was bald. She had a bandanna tied round her head to try and disguise it and Duo unconsciously held onto the end of his braid. Before he had a chance to speak to her a nurse told him that the doctor was ready to see him.

Sitting opposite the doctor, Duo felt a sudden urge to run, as though he already knew that the results would be bad and didn't want to hear them.

"Firstly I want you to know that the results are not 100% guaranteed as correct and there is always a margin of doubt."

Well that confirmed his fears. There was no way the doctor would have just given that speech if the results had returned clean.

"What's up doc?" he asked attempting a smile.

"Well it seems that you've got a small tumour growing on your pancreas." The doctor paused as if trying to guess what Duo was thinking. "Now this wouldn't normally present too much concern as we would operate and then irradiate the rest with radiotherapy." He paused again. "But unfortunately we cannot operate in this particular case because of where the tumour is."

Duo had stopped listening after hearing about the tumour. 'A tumour? That means cancer. How could I have cancer, I mean I'm only fifteen this sorta thing happens to old people.'

He looked up at the doctor "You mean I have cancer?"

"Um…." The doctor wasn't too sure on how to answer this "Well, you have a malignant pancreatic tumour which has spread though your liver that we are unable to operate on."

Duo frowned, that wasn't exactly a straight answer but it was enough of an answer.

"So you can't remove it?"

"We can't operate on it" the doctor repeated "but we could try a course of radiotherapy and chemotherapy but the success rate for that is very low."

Duo remembered the girl from the waiting room with the bandanna and clutched his braid protectively. He'd never cut his hair preferring it long and now some doctor was telling him that he might lose it because of some stupid old tumour. Besides his hair had always been the thing that people noticed, that people commented on. He felt like they were asking him to part with something so integral to himself that he wouldn't be the same afterwards.

"No!" he shouted, surprising both his mom and the doctor. "If the success rate is so low then I don't want to bother."

His mother looked horrified at this. "But Duo…"

"No, it's my decision and I don't want to bother." He said getting up and walking out the doctor's office.

====================

The ride home had been in silence and as soon as they reached the house Duo ran up to his room and threw himself down on his bed. He felt terrible, not because of the pain in his side but because of the knowledge he now had. Just as he was about to begin wallowing in self-pity his phone rang. He sighed before picking up the phone.

"Hello?" he called into the receiver, forcing enthusiasm into his voice.

"What's bothering you, Duo?"

He smiled at the voice, the first since he'd heard the results; somehow Heero always knew when he was feeling down.

"Anou, Heero it's nothing really."

The silence on the other end showed the other boy's disbelief. Knowing that Duo would always speak to him, Heero just waited.

"It's just, well…" Duo began "I just got back from the hospital." He paused not knowing if he knew how or even wanted to continue but gradually he recounted what had happened.