Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Creed Arc ❯ Apathetic: Lurking ( Chapter 20 )

Title: Apathetic 2/3
Author: Lethanon
Archive: www.geocities.com/lethanon
Warnings: Angst, 1x2x5, 2+R, 3x4
Notes: POV will alternate between parts of this fic. Part 6 of the Creed Arc. Flashbacks to 'the Creed: Almost'.

WUFEI POV

2: Lurking

He's sitting by the window. Again. I can't recall a time when he hasn't done it, and yet I never noticed it before. I don't know why it bothers me so much now. It shouldn't, but it does. He sees something there I cannot, and it frightens me. A lot. The things he sees…they're not supposed to be seen. And he doesn't tell me what's there; what I can't see. That hurts. I cannot begin to describe how that hurts.

I don't remember much anymore. That should scare me, but it doesn't. It's one of those things you don't need to remember. I just recall thinking something wasn't right, all those years ago, when he would dance down the hallway…he looked like he was waltzing; some sad, sentient parody of happiness and I wanted to understand it, only the more I watcher; the longer I lingered on his form then more I had to know. Now I think I finally know too much, because the happiness is all drained away and what remains is not what I loved, but some echo, and I can see it all falling, the house of cards caving, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. Except, maybe, try and dance.

I think it began that day on the bench, the morning after Duo was hit by the car. I remember wondering if he had hit his head; if his lethargy of thought had something to do with some internal damage Sally had missed. I agreed it would be best to increase the surveillance they had all the Gundam Pilots under, but I do not think I really considered the consequences of such an action. Duo had looked at me the same way he always did, but that morning, on the bench…it wasn't until I walked away that I saw it for what it was. His mask; that galling wall he had always put before us. Always before I could see through it, but that morning I took it for face value and nothing else. I didn't see; didn't hear. And then he ran.

That's what it keeps coming down to; him running, hiding, never lying but always hiding. Where did he go? I know he went to L2, but there is more to it than that. He did something there. You cannot spend two weeks in such a place and not do anything. No, Duo had a purpose and I need to know what it is; I have to learn it or this house will be destroyed and I don't think any of us will rise from the ruins.

So I did the only thing I could think to do. I followed him. Not to L2, though I have a strange feeling that is where my journey will end, but to the place that showed him comfort and gave him respite from the life he seems to so suddenly hate.

I went to Sanq. To Relena.

I've never really spoken to Relena. She always spoke to Heero, and I've never really seen her talk to Duo either, yet they seem to suddenly know each other so well. That makes me wonder. What do they have in common? What do they share in that they understand the thoughts of the other? There must be some clue; some hint that Relena alone could give, to understanding his lover.

She met me in the large antechamber off the side of the main ballroom of Sanq Palace. It always made me think of fairy tales and dreams; it was all an illusion of a prosperous society long destroyed and yet…peace infused this place. I was as enchanted as anyone else who comes here.

"Wufei."

"Relena," I nodded my head as she inclined her own. We were both equals, socially and in our own minds. Some might scowl at my lack of deference, but I was as highly born as she was, in my own strange way, and I helped make her what she is. She did not see the Gundam Pilots as beneath her. It was, perhaps, the only thing she had ever done to make me truly respect her as a person rather than a figurehead. That, and she takes care of Duo when I fail.

"This way."

I have no clue where we are going, and I don't bother to look. I am aware only of sunlight filtering through the windows; of the play of golden light on endless panels of glass and mirror and the rainbow reflections that refract themselves across the floor in snaking trails of shifting colour. It's beautiful; a river of shifting shards to walk across. It enhanced the dreamlike quality of the place.

And I stopped, dead in my tracks, as I watched the colours play. Because this was light, in the window…and I finally understand why Duo sits there, every day for as long as he can, as if waiting. He's waiting for the dream to come back; waiting for the colours to play again, for the light to welcome him, kiss his skin…He's waiting for life to go back to the way he liked it.

And I had no idea how to make that happen, because I had no idea what he actually liked. He keeps himself locked so tight inside and there are so many layers covering him it is now impossible to see in. I wonder sometimes, if there is anything there at all.

Relena's hand on my wrist, pulling gently, in understanding rather than annoyance, breaks me from my trance and she pulls me into a large, sparsely furnished room. I don't think I have ever been in this part of the palace, but it is immediately recognisable to me. This is Duo's room. From the dark drapes pushed open all the way, to the dark furniture, the bed with only a thin blanket and a single pillow, to the dark clothes still laid out on the end. Even the mirror on the far wall, and the low window seat. This is where Duo sat, enchanted, before Heero…

The terror still tingled at the base of my spine as I recalled that mission; recalled the lead-up to it. We had both known the moment Une handed over the fine manila folders that we could not complete it properly, but we had gone anyway. We had known there was one person more needed for our team; one person's specific skills, but we hadn't called. We wanted to give Duo his space. He had been acting so strange since his return from L2. He didn't seem to understand we were just trying to protect him. He seemed insulted somehow, and yet empty at the same time. Drained, somehow. So we left him, and it almost hadn't mattered. We came so close to getting out with no problems.

Then I heard that shout, felt hands push me down, felt something impact but no pain and I was sure everything was fine, despite my heart thundering in my chest. And then I felt warmth on my back and when I turned us both over Heero's eyes were staring at me apologetically, and then they slid shut and I knew. I looked down at the red stain spreading on his stomach and my brain knew the bullet had gone straight through and that it was a clean wound, but all I could see was blood as he slipped from my arms to the floor.

And I knew. We would not have been there if we had called Duo. The locks would have been open, and we would have been flying out the front door, heading home. Instead we were ten minutes too late. Too late.

"Wufei?"

I shuddered, blinked, stared at Relena and realised she had shut the curtains. It was cooler instantly, the darkness a haven from memory. I was grateful. So very, very grateful for so many damned things.

"I don't know what to do." Is this my voice? I've heard such fear, such uncertainty before, but not from me. Years ago, when Heero and I first dared to approach Duo…dared to place our skin on his and reveal what he had come to mean. I think…now that I hear it, I don't think he understood. I think he still doesn't understand.

She came to me then, wrapping her arms around me and kissing my forehead as if I were a child as she pulled us onto the end of the bed, whispering nonsense that was claming nonetheless. It was…nice. Is that what Duo loves about her?

"I don't know what to do…" I repeated the comment, no other words presenting themselves. They were the only truth I had left. Heero was hurt, nearly killed in my very arms, and our other third was…so lost I had no idea where to search for him. Duo is scared; I know that. But his fear is so intense with no target…I don't know how to beat it and I can't do it alone. I need Heero. I need them both in equal proportions.

"He doesn't know, Wufei."

What? I looked up, letting the dark thoughts recede and concentrating on what I had come here for. Relena knows things; things no one else knows. Things she shouldn't know but does; things people tell her that she doesn't tell anyone else. People trust her, and so do I.

"He doesn't understand what he means to you. He can't…I don't think he understands that you love him."

How could he not? Every day our thoughts are geared toward making him happy; to putting that smile we love on his face. And yet…is that it? Is every day spent trying to make that smile come out matched by his own daily endeavour to smile for us? Is anything real? Or is it all camouflage to hide what's lurking underneath? Who is the real Duo Maxwell? Do Heero and I even know him? Is there a real one or is it just a conglomeration of what people have expected him to be over the years? Its mind boggling, and too intense for me to comprehend. I don't want to.

"But…he's…everything." To both of us. I may not know much, but I know that to lose Duo would be to lose all three of us; when these cards fall we'll bury each other. That I do know.

"And you are everything to him, Wufei. He just doesn't see it. Think about it. He has never kept anything; even here. This is all he owns in the whole of Sanq kingdom. A change of clothes!" She shook the clothes at me and I recognised them; black jeans and a black t-shirt. Not his priest's outfit, but close enough. They are Death's clothes and they make me more scared than I have been in a long time.

I remember Duo once saying he would be the death of us all. I wonder now if he still thinks that. I hope not…god, but I hope not. Yet it would explain so much. He never got to keep anything, so now he doesn't even try and my heart is creaking under the strain of knowing it. I don't know what to do.

"You're going to go, aren't you?"

You seem so sad as you ask it, as if you're afraid I'm just going to go and never come back. Maybe I am. You always seem to know those sorts of things. And you're right; I am going to go. I don't see as I have much choice. I need to save this; rescue my family, like Heero tried to save me. And I have to do it fast.

I stand slowly, as if rising from a deep slumber, and it feels that way to me. How could I have failed to see these thins for so long? It seems impossible to me, but what's done is done. And now it shall be undone.

"Wufei…the surveillance…why?"

I was shocked by the question. It had become something I no longer even noticed, so why was Relena questioning it now? I just shrugged.

"We all have it. They're just making sure we don't plan anything against you. We were terrorists, remember?"

She nodded, and I thought she was just accepting the explanation. She wasn't. She was letting it assimilate with what she knew.

"Duo doesn't know that either."

I gaped, I think, for the first time in my life. We were all aware we were being held under surveillance, and yet, the longer I thought about it the starker the contrast between our reactions and Duo's. We had only ever discussed the decision to agree to the surveillance once, and I realised only then that Duo had not been there; that he had been downstairs in the garage…

Heero and I had never told him. And all I can see now is the accusation and mistrust in his eyes when we ran through the doors at the airport; the way his eyes had taken in the whole scene and picked out the Preventers with an ease that shocked me. I had thought he is skills fading with disuse but had known, as Heero had known, at that moment that they were sharper than ever. His subconscious is always watching, taking notes. I wonder what it says about me.

I ran for the door. Relena did not follow, standing in a pool of light in one of her hallways and staring out the window at the sunlight slanting in. She was part of the dream now; part of the fantasy and I had to escape it; pull us all free of it. It all seemed so beyond my control, and it was a sad second to realise I had put it there, just beyond my reach. That all three of us had, at some point, and not is was spiralling out of our control.

I sped all the way to the shuttle-port, more than ever aware of the Preventers tail that followed me the whole way there. I had not actually seen them in close to a year but now they stood out like pillars of fire in my vision. Is this how they appeared to Duo? What had we done…

They tried to stop me at the shuttle, but I elbowed the first agent in the face and the other backed away quickly enough. It wasn't like they didn't know where I was going. They could send Zechs to etch me from L2 if they were so worried. They sent him to get Duo, after all. And how much had that hurt him? To see they didn't even trust his own lovers to get him back, but that they had put him under house arrest, when he hadn't even known he was under surveillance.

Too many mistakes. And I think it's too late. But I go anyway.

*

It's a small shop. I didn't even know that was what it was until I went inside. It's right at the back of L2, as far away from where we started our search party as you can get, and it's just the sort of place I imagine when I think of hell. I cannot help but imagine Duo running here as a child, playing but always watching, waiting for death to stalk up behind him and strip him of all those things he loved. I cannot even imagine how one loves in such a place. Yet, I love something that has come from here.

Inside there is a man behind the counter and one hand is quietly resting on a shelf below, out of sight, and I know there is a gun there. I lift both hands in the air as I approach him, meeting his gaze levelly. I am not a threat to him. I just need information.

He knows me. I can see it in his eyes. I'm not wearing my uniform but it's what he sees. I'm an enemy here, but I'm used to that. It seems I've been an enemy all my life.

"You aren't welcome here."

"My friend is dying." It's true enough; we're all dying. Just depends how you look at it. The words have the desired effect. I see his weight shift slightly and he's listening, so I barge on.

"He's on Earth. He left us a clue to what's wrong here, but he can't tell me where he stayed so I can get it."

"Never known Duo to have a problem talking," the man noted darkly, eyes narrowing and hand once again shifting the weapon.

"But he never says anything," I added hastily and he relaxed again. Inside, I exhaled slowly, suddenly aware of the minefield I had entered. This man was a friend; Duo's friend, and he was as calculating and filled with shadows as my lover, if not more so. This man is completely a product of L2.

"Can't do any harm now, I suppose," the man all but snarled at me. "It's not like he's here to argue."

No thanks to me. But I won't let him go; I can't. It really will kill me. He's so far under my skin he's become a part of me. We're, all three of, a part of the others. To separate us…Duo's right, in his own twisted way. He would kill us…if he left us.

He gave me directions, obscure rave that left my head pounding until I found the first landmark; a red stone on a blue roof. It was a broken chimney that shone red as the sun was setting. From there it was not easy, but not as impossible as I might have expected. I imagine the shopkeeper had accepted me in his own strange way.

In time I came to a rundown building and I took the fire escape to the top floor, pressing the door open. There was a single room with a wide window and two trapdoors, one through the floor, one the roof. It was a perfect hiding hole and I knew Duo had lived here. By himself or with others was a mystery.

There was a low lying bed and a table. That was all. A box sat on the table, so I went to it and looked inside. There were ration bars still in their wrappers and I wondered why Duo hadn't eater them when he must have been so hungry. He was still too thin. There was wire and I wondered what he made. There was paper, the generic kind with faint blue lines, and pens. So many pens, and maps. One of them was drawn all over and I saw our search pattern and the way Duo had figured out where we were that day he sat in the road and waited for us. It terrified me. I had not known he could do that; that he knew this place so well.

There was a small bottle of oil, another of hydraulic fluid and I smiled, seeing the things he would have needed to work on parts of his Gundam. How many times had he stayed here, repairing his companion, working with the people who had raised him, harsh as that upbringing had been, to create some semblance of the dream. The dream in Relena's palace.

Only now, standing in this room, that is untouched by the peace of the rest of the world, do I feel like maybe I failed. Duo fought for something else; he fought for people, not ideas. We won our ideas, but Duo never won what he wanted for this place.

That makes me terribly sad. Seems I'm always sad these days.

There is a mirror on the wall; directly across from the bed, just like it was Relena's house. We don't have one in our bedroom and I wonder if Duo wants one. I'm going to ask when I get back. But I notice the bricks are loose around it and I go there, letting my fingers scrape around the mortar. It's caked in dark, dirty yellow and I know explosives have been spread here and I wonder why.

Is this it? Is this what I came here for? Is this the key? Is this where all the secrets are kept?

I pulled the brick out, throwing myself backwards and covering my head with my hands. It was several minutes before I dared look up and laugh at my own paranoia. Nothing had happened; no grande explosion, just a long dark hole in the wall.

I stood, stuck my arm elbow deep inside and my fingers reached the edge of an envelope. It would have been easy for Duo to grab; his arms are longer than my own, his fingers more slender and dexterous. Still, I managed to get a good hold and I instantly recognised the paper from the box on the table. This was recent; written only weeks ago. My hands shook as I settled against the wall and unfolded the papers, laying them flat against my knees. There was a lot of writing, most of it scribble I couldn't read, in a bastard form of English only those native to L2 would understand. But there were lines I could read; words I wished I didn't know. It knew what I held in my hands.

I held the missing piece; I held what should have filled the emptiness in him. I held Duo Maxwell, the man I loved and the boy I adored.

I'm a boy…and my mother is not here.
I'm a boy…and my friends are dying.
I'm a boy…and I'm left behind.
I'm a boy…and I'm sinking.
I'm a boy…with a mask.
I'm a boy…and I'm in love.

I felt tears on my cheeks as I ran wet fingertips over the words, squinting in the faded twilight as I tried to take them all in. It was as I read the final page that I finally became aware of a faint ticking, but I was so enthralled by the story; by the being in my hands, that I ignored it. As Duo had known whoever read these words would.

I'm a boy…poisonous.
And I'm a boy who became a man…who lies.

"No…" I hissed as the pages fell from my hands, leaning forward to put my head in my hands. It was the thing that saved my life.

The ticking stopped and the bomb Duo had placed at the back of the dark hole in the wall exploded. I was thrown across the room, tucked into a small, instinctive ball that protected me from the brunt of the force. It was not a large explosion, but it was sufficient. I slammed into the bed, bounced, smashed sideways into the wall and went still. I tried to move, but could not. Something was very wrong, but the more I tried to think about it the less clear it becomes…

I'm…sinking and I finally know how it feels to be him. To be my lover.

But Duo doesn't lie. We lie to him with our silence.

And he was right; he has, I think, killed me. Because I'm lying here, and no one will come because they don't know where I am and when they realise it will be too late. I will be lost to what lies beneath.

I'll be here, waiting, beyond reach. Under the surface.

Lurking.