Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The One-Eared Neko ❯ THE FLEETING LIVES AND UNSAID TRUTHS ( Chapter 15 )

Part 15 THE FLEETING LIVES AND UNSAID TRUTHS

The traveler glimpsed the slim black shadow momentarily as it exited the brightly lit gas station and smiled secretly to himself as he averted his eyes back down to the latest page he'd scribbled out. Assuming he simply returned to the parked Isuzu, as it was close time to begin traveling again, Heero didn't pay attention to the fact that Duo did not turn toward the side parking lot but slipped straight across in the dimming sunlight. A soupy pink and gray sky gradually swallowed the sun as it slowly fell toward the horizon and dipped behind the silhouette of a wooded Central Park planted across the street. Evening seeped in, darkening the cabin so that Heero instinctually reached to flick on a light and sat up in his seat. Had he not done so, he would have missed the black-clad bohemian trekking past the parking lot with a passion.

For an instant, the sheer criminal grace in the image of watching Duo slink silently off, his head lowered furtively, hands pocketed, and the tresses of chestnut hair shining beneath his anonymous black baseball cap, hypnotized him. Then a cold prick of fear bit into his stomach and he dreadfully knew something was wrong. The traveler bolted up and threw open the nearest door, tossing his thick red notebook to the floor. Chilled air tossed his hair about as he clenched the door and leaned out.

"Duo?" He called out, nervous and curious in the worse aspect. "Duo? Where are you going?"

It sent a stake through Heero's chest and fear slithering down his spine as the bohemian wordlessly bowed his head further and avoided even acknowledging his voice, fists balled in the pockets of his jacket.

"Hey, Duo!"

Speeding up, the bohemian loped in a furtive blur across the lanes of intermittent traffic, dodging between the glowing lights. Meanwhile, that fear was sprouting in the traveler's chest as he leapt to the pavement and slammed the door, growling a low chain of curses beneath his breath. The slim figure ahead of him melted into the trees along a curving concrete path, disappearing so that he had a hard time believing that he'd been there in the first place.

The sky was rotting into a smug violet overhead as Heero dashed across the open lanes of the road and followed instinctually, like a clinging pup losing sight of its alphas. And he thought of the strange consequences if he did lose his strange pack-mate, the lethal-eyed criminal with a loving smile. He did, and regretted it, because it terrified him in a way.

He entered the small park, traveling down the same twisting, half-worn sidewalk that led through the passive and generally green foliage as the leaves turned dark and were hung in shadow. Pushing stray branches aside with the back of his hand as he cut the corner of a curve, Heero tried to catch his anxious breath as his eyes fell upon the strangely comical and poignant image of one Duo Maxwell sitting on the wooden park bench beside the winding concrete path, with the sides of his head in his hands and his elbows resting on his thighs. He seemed not to notice the small flock of tame pigeons that had collected and massed at his feet, bobbing and strutting about waiting for the customary bread crumbs they had been coddled with by those wandering through the park. They cooed and turned their heads in birdbrain confusion with their glassy dead yellow eyes blinking at him. The birds scattered quickly as Heero walked over and tentatively sat down beside him.

Between catching his breath, Heero asked, "What happened, Duo?"

The bohemian frowned, staring down. "Nothing. Can't a guy go for a walk these days without be suspected of something, Yuy?" The pure lifelessness in his tone and the distant address by his last name told him enough to know the truth beyond the defensive snaps and sarcasm.

"Yes, but I know that you don't have that kind of time and wouldn't do so without at least trying to drag me along with you."

"I'm not completely obsessed with you. I can spend some time apart from you," Duo snapped in response. It was painfully obvious that something was drastically wrong and the lethalness in his expressions had returned, like a dripping hypodermic needle filled with slow poison. That predatory glare. "It's definitely not that way. I'm keeping you in my company for the good graces in my heart, otherwise you would have been left behind long ago, traveler." Something cold dropped into Heero's stomach. He only thought of a ruptured doe carcass lying discarded at the side of the road, and how easily it would be in Duo's power to render him similar. "It's not like everything I do revolves around you, Yuy. Jesus, you need to get off your high horse if that's what you think I'm like. Arrogant much?"

This reply was filled with much more aggression than he'd ever seen directed toward himself, and in the bohemian's stare, he lost what little confidence he had left. Again, as Duo shifted his head away to frown at the milling pigeons, a glimpse of fluorescence blinked in his eyes, turning them dull silver for an instant. That didn't seem right at all to him, the traveler thought vaguely. But the thought was cut off by-

"And stop staring at me like that. Hasn't anyone told you that it's rude?" Duo growled at Heero, still looking down at the flock of birds.

The traveler frowned. "Duo. Tell me what happened."

When the bohemian ignored him, angrily cradling his cheek in his hand so that he might accidentally break his jaw if his temper were to suddenly flare, Heero spoke again and knew that whatever the results of this estranged conversation may be, they definitely weren't going to be good.

"I know something's wrong, Duo-"

Angry eyes turned on him again, over a snarl. "Stop fucking calling me that! Stop saying it all the time, you're driving me nuts! Do I really look like I need any more shit to deal with, Yuy?" Duo pounded his fists on his thighs and ground his fingers into his palms. Heero noticed how sharp and deadly his teeth looked now that his bohemian smile was replaced with fury.

"That's your name, Duo," Heero replied, refusing to let his sudden fear take hold.

He bolted up into a standing position, almost pouncing, on his tiptoes, and yelled down at the traveler. "You don't even know me! What the hell are you doing!? You don't even know a fucking thing about me!"

"Of course I-" Heero's voice cut out, realizing with a certain amount of dread that aside from his criminal record, he actually knew next to jack upon the actual fabric of Duo's personality aside from what he could pick up through false smiles. Realizing that the growling bohemian over him was completely right. Realizing that the bohemian had seduced him without revealing a single personal fact so easily that it seemed effortless. That it was frightening.

"Yeah, what? What the hell do you know about anything? What do you think you can possibly understand about me, kid?" Those bohemian eyes fumed at him without signs of relent. Either something had gone seriously awry, or he'd been dead wrong about their friendship, ever since he'd defied the criminal and opened that car door on those carnival grounds.

Angry hands clenched the wooden bench inches beside Heero's head and the snarl intensified as Duo leaned down. "Do you believe that just because I dragged you along means anything? A few cuts and bruises don't make you my equal-fuck, you know nothing. You're not like me. Compared to me you're just some milk-toothed runt, so leave me the hell alone!" he snapped in Heero's face.

The stunned and growing expression of badly suppressed dejection on the traveler's face only spurred him on. "And I never asked you to come with me anyway!"

Wood splintered, and to mild shock, Heero turned to see that Duo's fingers had actually torn into the back of the bench and cracked the top board. Without realizing it, because he glanced over only moments after the traveler and the anger drained a little. He ripped his hand away and pawed away the slivers of wood, holding it with the opposite hand by the wrist. Duo stood back and seemed to stare angrily at his hand, as if it had been the one pushing it too far. After a moment of regret, that same bitterness overtook his features.

He growled lowly at his hand, though his words still struck at Heero. "I didn't ask to you come, so don't try to boss me around or think you can understand a fraction of where I'm coming from. Because you can't."

Still sitting, Heero lowered a skeptical eyebrow. "If you're so convinced that I'm so naïve, then why are you allowing me to write about you? I obviously 'can't understand' anything about you."

Violet eyes pounced on him, glaring in a fashion that put his own grimaces down effortlessly. "Because I pitied you back there for a second, and now I'm beginning to regret it."

"I don't believe you."

Duo smirked, while still retaining the hate in his eyes. "Fine by me. You've deluded yourself before, so do it again. I don't care."

Heero stood up from the bench and walked up to the criminal with an equally stubborn stare as the angry one he received, remaining but less than a foot from Duo's twisted-up face. Stumbling for the right words, he hesitated once before his face stoned over. "Don't lie to me, Duo. Something happened, and I can tell that you're trying to push me away from something," he said matter-of-factly.

The bohemian inched away slightly, putting just enough distance between him and the traveler-who was unusually pretty for being such a levelheaded, indifferent stubborn ass-to regain his focus. "Yeah, right. If you really knew anything about me, you'd know I never fucking lie. And I can tell you're disillusioned beyond repair, sick little man."

Heero's lips pursed cheerlessly. "Five minutes ago you were happyl, you didn't have a care. What happened to that?"

"Nothing," Duo growled.

The traveler tilted his head ever so slightly. Chiding with the smallest move of his head and prying understandingly all at the same time. That was what chewed at Duo, deepening his own fear and urging him to cover it with anger.

His face didn't change as he said, seemingly reassured by Duo's outbursts instead of spooked away by them, "My parents died, Duo. I know you probably think that I've had nothing but sunny days and easy nights, but I haven't. After they died, I was completely alone until I was taken in by another family. And after that, I ruined the relationship with the only friend I've ever had just so that I could speak with you again. I watched you kill men to defend me, and I saw the worst of humanity who found no remorse in trying to kill you. I'm not as innocent or ignorant as you thought I was."

"So what? Moot point. Everybody outlives their parents," Duo growled lifelessly.

"You told that bounty hunter that your mother died for you. What about her?"

"I didn't lie! I said I never fucking lie!" Duo nearly screamed back.

Heero kept his mouth shut for a moment, realizing just how loud the bohemian had been.

"I never fucking lie like them, those disgusting bastards-never," Duo muttered back dangerously, this time his eyes sparking as they shot a withering look at the foliage beyond the splintered bench. "But that's just another thing you wouldn't understand about me."

Heero's tense face frowned. "I only wanted to know what went wrong." It almost looked like he was hurt to say what he did next. "Pretend that you trust me, and just tell me."

Finally, Duo managed to pull himself from a defensive rage that only bucked against the fear he had when he looked at the traveler and realized he was putting him in more and more danger by every second that he was near him, tainting his life. The spite momentarily left his eyes and they were blank. Still clutching his elbows with each arm like his emotional safeguarding, he looked over at Heero. After what seemed like the strangest, slowest moment, Duo asked blankly, "Are you related to the Peacecrafts, Heero?"

He frowned in rely and was on the verge of asking why Duo was even asking him that when a tiny flash of light caught his attention and he turned his head. It was only for a split-second that he saw the man lifting the barrel of his gun {his accomplice in a gas station uniform} at the oblivious bohemian because he lunged and snatched black jacket in fistfuls, shoving the criminal down with all his mindless strength.

The instant the first gunshot when off, Duo became very much aware of the bounty hunter growling at him, discarding the empty shell and quickly reloading, teeth flashing as he bit in concentration. Profanity flew underneath the hunter's breath he fumbled the gun for a split-second, recovering from the recoil. Heero vaguely registered the warmth of the bohemian disappearing and impatient hands dragging him to his feet with no more effort than extracting a leaf from the ground. At that time, the adrenaline had been throbbing in his veins and things blurred as they sped up. Things were moving impossibly fast as Duo began to stir in response to the bullet.

"Goddamnit, move!" Duo half-snapped at him, standing somewhere vaguely behind him, as he latched his hand forcefully around his wrist, and began to sprint with traveler in toe. Heero remained stunned for an instant before the very lethal image of one grungy civilian turned "bounty hunter" in house slippers and leveling his gun jolted him into reality and he was sprinting barely a stride behind the con man.

"How the hell do these people know who you are?" Heero asked as he ran.

Duo leapt over the curb with an immensely long stride and took it effortlessly. "I bet they were watching the news in the station, and just guess whose face has been plastered all over the screen for the last week! Just guess!"

"Damn it," Heero hissed to himself.

Another angry, useless shot rocked the air, striking some unfortunate lilac bush as the two dashed across the motoring lanes of traffic, barely dodging the glaring white headlights. Duo seemed to glide effortlessly on his long, athletic legs and stop just as easily as he jerked to an abrupt halt to push Heero to the pavement in similar fashion. Another bullet hell-bent on chewing a hole between bohemian eyes whirred harmlessly by and shattered the glass of the front gas station window. The criminal slunk low to the ground, frowned as he shot an animalistic glance toward the unkempt bounty hunter, then clutched Heero's collar as he sprang to his feet again.

The traveler leapt up with him, his sights set on the object of their destination for relative safety, their white Isuzu sitting obliviously in the side lot as if napping with all the gunfire going on. Speaking of gunfire, Duo swore loud and viciously as he spotted another barrel sighted on them from beside the gas station and roaring as it fired. He'd have to get whoever passed that handgun law and made it legal for such bozos to lay their hands on weapons like that, but that would have to come later.

Luckily, neither bounty hunter was too accurate of a shot and the bohemian and the traveler reached the side of their truck. Just as Duo's distrusting eyes shifted away from the distant bushes and he surged forward for the latch, a bullet angrily sheered the paint from the metal door, mere inches above his knuckles. The bohemian withdrew and snapped out a low, "Fuck!" Another volley from separate guns followed, chasing him as he ducked to the side of the Isuzu and panted viciously beside the traveler.

"Now what?" Heero muttered in a condemned tone.

The con man swallowed dryly and shifted his severe expression over to the traveler, also half out-of-breath. He hissed defiantly, "We get the hell out of here, that's what. No man in his pajamas is going to take down Duo Maxwell-at least not today, he's not!"

With that, he slithered easily beneath the Isuzu and disappeared from sight. A skeptical confusion muddled Heero's confidence to follow, but after a few seconds of standing there, a hand reached back out from under the truck and yanked hard on his pant leg. He found himself ducking to the pavement and crawling after. Voices roared angrily, losing track of their sitting ducks, and bullets dented bluntly as they struck the sides of the white Isuzu. Without the slightest display of effort, Duo slithered onto his back and lifted his right leg, a severe scowl of concentration marring his face as his black flip-flop wove between all the essential lines and mechanical parts and found an empty space of metal. And then he punched his foot through it like it was a paper screen.

Heero stopped thinking for an instant, watching the bohemian sigh jadedly and curl back the edges of the cleanly-severed hole like heated butter in his palm. Duo then rested on his haunches, creating a large enough hole to crawl through by sheering back entire slabs of metal, and slunk into the relative safety of the cramped sleeper compartment, inside the cabin of the Isuzu. Outside, frustrated bullets whirred and bit holes into white metal panels as each bounty hunter crept precariously closer to the criminal and his traveler. Duo, still growling to himself, clamored onto the sleeping cot through the narrow space between the frame of the cot itself and the back of the front seat. He momentarily peered over it and through the windshield, which would prove dangerously fragile if any bullets discovered them and came their way. Heero was only seconds behind him, despite the strange escape route.

"Glad you made it," Duo said in strained humor as Heero's head and shoulders crawled through the jagged hole, invoking the ridiculous thought of a rabbit peering out of his home. For a moment, the traveler turned confused but levelheaded eyes on him in silent questioning, and he answered it with, "Hurry it up! Man, don't just sit there," and crawled to the floor again once Heero was sitting on the cot as well. The bohemian bent over the busted hole and easily peeled the metal back into a semblance of what it'd been before, like molding putty in talented hands. The steel groaned metallically, complaining as Duo threw it into shape.

Heero still panted silently, watching as if a ghost were knelt in Duo's place. It wasn't right. It was almost super-human. Inhuman.

Without a word about it, the criminal slithered a final time up onto the cot, being especially conscious if his head rose above the barrier of the front seat that shielded them from bounty hunter sights. He crowded beside the Japanese man on the tiny bed and promptly emptied his pocket, presenting him with a black semi-automatic. When he didn't move to take it, his hand was snatched up and it was forced into his palm. Intense eyes sighted him, staring out from underneath a low brim. "Listen now, Heero," he said, still not removing his hand, "I need you to-"

A row of bullets buckled at the bumper, ricocheting loudly. Aiming originally for the tires, the bounty hunter outside scratched his head and began to reload. Duo flinched at the sudden sound so that he nearly found his face pressed into Heero's collarbone. Eventually, he opened his squinted eyes and found his highly sensitive ears ringing and his inner alarm ringing. It would be a matter of time, at this rate, before the rest of the rednecks pursuing them would figure to disable the car they had disappeared into, preventing them from escape and ruining what Duo had worked up to for his entire miserable life.

The bohemian frowned and shoved Heero's hand away after securing a gun in it. "Just shoot, okay? Just get the lead out and don't whine to me that you don't want to kill them-if you haven't noticed, I don't think they care if they accidentally kill us."

"Duo-"

"You said yourself that you weren't as innocent as I thought. So prove me wrong, huh?"

Heero suspiciously paused, watching the con man, then nodded in grim understanding.

Duo then lunged into the front seat and unrolled like pure motion to be in the driver's seat, seeking the keys left idle in the ignition, the gear labeled drive, and the acceleration pedal simultaneously. A moment later, the Japanese man was beside him in the passenger seat. He rolled down the window just wide enough to sneak a barrel through and hesitated only once before firing.

He thought of only Duo and that he was doing this to protect him as the first bullet bit into shoulder flesh and the nearest bounty hunter and his rifle clattered to the ground. At the same time, the Isuzu roared into life under the insistent boot of the bohemian and the tires squealed as they gained purchased and began to haul ass. The bohemian threw the steering wheel to a sharp right, headed for the saving grace and open space to run of the highway with a vengeance. Heero fired again and another fell, this time the bullet shaving off the left section of his chest. Another followed that, as he dashed down the sidewalk and toward the road, when Heero aimed and took a grim look, realizing the man would never use the shreds of tendons and flesh that were his hand ever again.

And after that, beautiful, merciful highway spread out before them. The engine screamed as Duo punched it in an empty lane of liberty and they pulled far away from the wreckage and imminent chaos they'd left behind, onto a possibly worse, darker place-all in one very tight silence.

Alright, I know this has nothing to do with this story, but I wanted to apologize about the delay on the My Shini, My Hamburger update. But I do have a very good excuse.... HOMECOMING, BITCHES! Seniors suck! Hahahah! Who's got you running for your money, geezers?! Huh, say it, assholes! Yeah, SOPHOMORES, that's who!!

I apologize for my... um, apology. This week has been one hell of a week. I really don't have any school spirit, I really could care less, but I want so, so, so, so badly to put the class of 2005 in their place it's like I've got yellow-colored blinders on, and yellow ribbons and pigtails and shirts and socks and pants and faces and lipstick... If you haven't guessed, yellow is my class color. We're currently only three points THREE F-ING POINTS behind the Seniors and my window painting, cheering, and football playing is going to put them down! Hah hah! I'm only really competitive towards the Seniors, and there's an even BETTER reason behind that. I'd love to go deep into the details... so I will! Next time. For now, wish me luck! {So I don't get beaten to death tomorrow reaching for the glory of the spirit stick and grounding the upperclassment INTO THE DIRT!} *Goes off to paint war paints on her face and scream in the mirror to pump up.* Oh, yeah. Readers ROCK!