Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Twelve ❯ Let It Snow ( Chapter 13 )

Chapter 13

"Let it Snow"

Quatre took his time walking down the stairs, following his fiancé and finding it nearly impossible to concentrate anymore. Instead, his head swum with thoughts of the most troubling sort, though he knew how ridiculous it seemed to be so worried by the happiness of his friend. All those years after the war, he had never even considered Heero to be in danger at all—of all the veterans of the war, he was the last Quatre had ever expected to find in the state he had been. While depression and a loss of sense of purpose had been slowly decaying him, driving him to a new edge, Quatre had imagined him as he always had seemed to be, living for and prospering in freedom. A lone wolf, who preferred it no other way, with nary a constraint to fetter him. But obviously something had been missing. And now, as soon as he was able to bring himself to smile again, Quatre was unable to even think straight from worry.

It was a sickness of concern that almost matched that of the day he had found a copy of The St. Petersburg Times sitting quaintly on his desk, proclaiming the death of Heero Yuy, infamous war hero in a seedy hotel with no suicide note and the mysterious, unidentified photograph at his bedside. He remembered feeling the burning sensation as he had dropped the coffee he held, spilling over his feet and soaking into the carpet permanently. And as soon as he had reached the bottom stair, he blinked and realized that Trowa had gone far ahead of him and was no longer in sight.

Not surprising, though. He had been in the middle of a very heavy train of thought. He could still feel the sting in his skin and the stab of pain in his chest from that day, and now was having trouble shaking the sensation. The blonde stopped and glanced around, taken aback. His fiancé was no where in sight, and in the distant foyer he thought he heard the door swinging shut. A few moments later, a string of yipping and yapping filtered in from outside. He wondered with certain chagrin how long he’d been standing there, engrossed in memory.

"This is terrible," Quatre said sadly, gently sighing and rubbing at the pain and ache centered just off the center of his chest. "I felt so much guilt for failing to be there for him when he needed it the most. And now I’ve never been so afraid to see him so happy." For a moment, he felt himself about to find himself in the middle of another less than pleasant reverie, seeing himself walking down a stark white corridor behind an emergency room assistant.

"Are you a relative to the patient in anyway, Mr. Winner?"

"Psst! Yo, Quat!"

He nearly jumped out of his skin to hear the voice coming out of the wall from behind him, and whirled around, purely nerves, to see a black and brown and blue and peach lump with a bright red nose crawling through an opened window. Quatre quickly let out the breath he’d been holding, his heart now thrumming against that achy spot. "Duo."

The American had one leg over the windowpane and planted on the carpet when he grinned at him. "The one and only," he said, chuckling to himself as he hoisted himself through, bringing with him clumps of snow from his boots and snowflakes scattered in his hair and clothes. "Did ya miss me already? I’m touched!"

"What are you doing?" Quatre asked, after he’d managed to calm his nerves. He looked curiously at Duo’s interesting choice of entrance. "You weren’t planning on burglarizing the house while you’re here?"

"Nah, that’d be too easy. I’d prefer a little bit of a challenge, ya know," he piped up, still speaking rather breathlessly and with a sly smile. He hurried over to the blonde pilot, his face flushed from the cold. "Come on! You’re mine! I’m not letting that little cheat snatch you up too!"

"What?"

"He can’t know I drafted you onto my side—get moving!" Duo told him hurriedly, taking his friend by the arm and propelling him toward the door. If he didn’t know Duo better, he still would have seen that he enjoyed withholding even an ounce of explanation from the devilish grin. "Gloves, mittens, hats, whatever! You’re gonna need ‘em, Quat! Can’t go outside like that and expect to fight a decent battle! Hell, you’re not even wearing socks!"

That was when Quatre forcibly planted his feet and turned to face Duo. He was unable to resist the tiniest quirk of a smile when he asked just what the hell he meant by that, and who couldn’t? When he found himself on the receiving end of a brilliant and genuine smile, Quatre had to admit it was a rather infectious thing. The American still had his hand tightly around his arm, tugging him toward the door even as he refused to move.

"Duo, care to tell me where this battle is being waged?" he inquired, running his eyes over his face. It was flushed a cherry-colored tone of pink, darkest on the tips of his ears and nose, from the December cold, and his messy bangs poked out from underneath a black winter cap in amusing little tufts. Resisting a smile now was impossible. "You know you look no more than twelve years old in that hat, Duo."

"Why, thank you!" the Deathscythe pilot grinned proudly. He even let off a wicked little laugh. "It’s Heero’s. Snatched it out of the glove department before he could lock me out of the house. Maybe you can tell him he’s gonna hafta to better than that to get Duo Maxwell, ‘cause he doesn’t seem to believe it from me." He then sidled behind his blonde friend in a distinctly thievish way, moving silently in a pair of beat up Converse, and put the palms of both his hands on his back. "We can’t talk here. After all, the battle will come to us if we don’t keep moving, Q!"

And with that, he propelled his friend forward toward the front door. When they had skirted around the far wall of the house and made it to the foyer, with Duo constantly grinning as he flashed cautionary glances to each of the windows outside, staring into the falling snow for any flashes of movement, and Quatre confused but resignedly amused.

"Are we there yet?"

But Duo barely paid attention to him, he was too busy squinting at the obscured glass window on the door. He opened the chest full of winter clothing sitting against the wall with his heel, still watching. "Okay, if we move quick, maybe we can get back out the window. Well, come on, get ready! Heero’s been on that door like stink on a dog—swear to god, he’s throwing those snowballs to kill, too. It’s not like he needs Trowa’s on his side, he’s a walking weapon all by his lonesome. I’m starting to think he’s got a back-up best man somewhere, because he’s just whipping those things at me—"

Quatre blinked, pausing as he was halfway to pulling on his gloves for the second time that afternoon. "Heero? In a snowball fight?"

Suddenly he found a hand forcibly clamped over his mouth. Duo moved so quickly that his braid swung around and thwapped Quatre in the shoulder. "Shh!" His eyes shifted slowly back and forth in their sockets, almost as if fearful of making too much noise. He was craning his head warily around, pinching his lips together suspiciously when he whispered to Quatre, "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" he mumbled through the palm slapped over his mouth, still pinned against his friend as he strained to hear something that was probably not there at all.

Duo’s bright eyes squinted out through the obscured glass in the front door window and he frowned a little. "Well, maybe it was nothing. I’m hearing things again, but they’re not in my head this time—"

Then, very suddenly, Quatre noticed the energetic ball of scruffy brown fur named Numskull sitting at the foot of the stairs and staring upward, happily tilting his head back and forth, the tip of his pink tongue sticking out. And, looking as best as he could over Duo’s arm, he followed the dog’s look, his eyes widened, and he lunged out of the American’s grip just in time to let the incoming fistful of ice and snow pass him and hit its target, splattering cold slush across the side of Duo’s face. The sloppy snowball burst and started dripping down the front of Duo’s unzipped jacket, sending the ice and snow into his clothes and against the skin of his chest.

Before he could even wipe the slush from his eyes, his voice had leapt to the top of his throat.

"Jesus mother fucking hell! Heero!" he howled as he quickly flashed his attacker an obscene finger gesture, catching a glimpse of a rather depraved smirk on the Japanese pilot’s face before he spurted back up the stairs and headed for his another opened window on the second story.

He started brandishing a fist at his disappearing figure as Quatre started laughing riotously from where he sat on the floor, watching the cold ice pour down the front of him.

"Cheater! Just ‘cause it’s your damn house don’t mean you get to throw out all the rules!" Duo called after him.

And when Heero promptly answered, "No, it doesn’t. I get to make them in the first place!" Quatre even heard him let out a bona fide carefree laugh before he dropped out of the window and escaped to the outside.

Quatre was still giggling when Numskull trotted over and wagged his tail excitedly at his side, and Duo turned a perfectly calm but venomous look on him, ramrod straight and stone still with a trail of melted snow still trailing down the side of his face.

"This means war, you know."

"Not another one," the blonde groaned, unable to wipe the smile off his face even though that was what Duo’s fierce expression very clearly told him to do.

Some time later, the sun had surreptitiously crawled down toward the horizon without much notice, and the front door found itself doused with a layer of snow crumbling off the four pilots who came piling back in through it, craving the warmth of the heated house. As the entire lot began kicking off boots and one pair of beat-up Converse with snow-encrusted laces, the scruffy Numskull flew in over the threshold a moment before Quatre shut it behind him. He couldn’t help a smile when the tiny dog when scampering up to Trowa, pawing at his leg, and then, just as suddenly, when screaming around the corner into the kitchen, darting clean between Duo’s legs, making the American burst into laughter. Heero, standing a little ways behind him, cracked another one of his rarer smiles as he threw his boots and scarf into the open closet in a haphazard pile before following him out into the den. Not even a few moments later, the sound of Duo laughing and boasting of his triumphs over Heero (though he conveniently forgot to mention the Japanese pilot catching him off guard and landing three snowballs neatly on the back of his head) and Heero ever so subtly taunting him in return. Quatre felt his hand tighten without permission on the doorknob at the sound, and a hurt in his heart that he should find so much disquiet in his friend’s happiness.

He glanced up and Trowa was standing in the foyer, barefoot, still with a hat pulled over his ears, with a look that solemnly confirmed they shared the same thought. He didn’t want to talk about it anymore than he had already had—the last thing he wanted to was to be continually reading into every little thing between them and wondering if how it would effect everyone, to be constantly ridden with guilt to be scrutinizing Heero’s happiness. He walked past Trowa, caught his hand for a moment and squeezed, looking in his eyes and hoping he didn’t look as torn up as he felt, before continuing into kitchen. He prayed that a few rounds of hot cocoa and Duo’s animated storytelling would erase it from his mind, if only for a while.

Fortunately, he had more than enough war spoils to boast slyly about and was still doing so when Quatre found the whole group, spread out comfortably across the two couches and one love seat squeezed cozily into the entertainment room, with a tray of four steaming mugs. Heero lay sprawled out comfortably on the largest of the couches, looking more relaxed than ever, a distant, lazy smile at pulling his lips as he lay there like a lion satiated from the hunt and relaxing in his kingdom. He tore his eyes away from Duo, who had just recently leapt off the other, downy couch to turn on some music, to take his mug from Quatre and snatch the pair of frozen chocolate cupcakes sitting next to it. His smile widened as he thanked him, and it made Quatre’s heart settle a little.

How could it possibly be bad for him, to be this happy?

Duo was currently crouched by the stereo system in the cabinet, underneath the television, narrating in rambling, giddy tones as he picked through the music library amassed there. Inevitably a few impish remarks came flying their way, as he inquired to whom exactly all the Jimmy Buffet CDs belonged.

Quatre left the ceramic mug labeled in blocky red letters, ‘World’s Greatest Golfer’, on the side table by the other couch before taking his and Trowa’s over to the loveseat and settling comfortably in with his fiancé, though waiting there for both of them was a certain, shared unrest. As the blonde found himself inevitably sitting with his legs over his lover’s lap, after a few moments of trying to configure them into a more conservative position, and then realizing how bashful that was, considering how much Duo and Heero both understood and warmly accepted their relationship. It was all he could do not to let out a little blush as Trowa smiled at him, carefully handling the mug of hot liquid around him.

"Oi, oi," Duo drawled abruptly, his crouched body giving a little mischievous wiggle as he snickered to himself, turning around. On his haunches, his long plait of hair trailed on the carpet like a serpent, and the glint in his eye matched the sentiment. He wagged a CD case in the air like it was a smoking gun. "All right, I want y’all to fess up and tell me who’s the lucky owner of this mint-condition Kenny G disc?"

Everyone immediately pointed to someone else.

Duo eyed each craftily, then smiled. "Okay, I understand," he said. "It’s Relena’s, then."

"Pick one, Duo, before we wither and die," Heero drawled at him, smiling smugly as he bit into another of the frozen chocolate pastries in a most taunting way, as far as the American was concerned, head lying on the couch cushions so his damp hair fell around his face, making him look so young when he actually smiled in return.

"If only," came the response, with a special emphasis when he glanced at the Japanese man. "Patience is a virtue, and it ain’t expensive, yanno, ‘Ro!" Duo then turned back around and got back to faithfully digging through the collection, more than once stopping and taking a double take at the pleasantly odd and unexpected things he found there. He picked a few up, flashed the cover toward the group behind him, and asked incredulously, "All right, seriously now—I want to know who has even heard of the Pixies and the Velvet Underground in this room?"

"Those would be Heero’s," Trowa said, smirking a little. "Anything remotely eccentric you find in there you may accredit to him. Personally, I do just fine sticking with classics, but he’s the one who insists on buying all the music from every rock and roll pre-colony band he can lay his hands on. All in one go."

"And then blaring it at all hours of the night," Quatre added on.

"It’s more fun than paying bills," Heero purred, taking another bite out of the cupcake and cleaning off the spot of cream left on his upper lip with a casual swipe of his tongue. After a moment of Duo looking up at him in what was genuine surprise, he spoke up again, turning his head to look back at him. "Something wrong with that, or just not a fan?"

"It’s just that—you never—I thought… whoa," he muttered to himself, lying that one on a growing pile of CDs he approved. He shook his head to himself as he finally selected one, "Sweet tooth, punk rock music—what should I expect next? God forbid, Disney movies?"

Quatre suddenly snickered rather devilishly from the couch, wrapping his hands around the mug and holding it up to his growing smile. "You know, Duo, Heero’s awfully fond of Snow White," he said teasingly, not flinching for an instant when the Japanese man’s face pinched tight, sour with distaste, and glared at him upside down, still refusing to move from his comfortable position.

"I amnot," he retorted firmly, looking positively and thoroughly agitated at that.

"You know every line, though, Heero." Trowa joined in with equal enjoyment.

He pursed his lips at the other pilot, folded his arms on his chest, and let himself sink back into the couch, glaring up at the ceiling. "How could I not, when Relena watches it every other day," he mumbled. "I know them because they’ve been burned into my mind. I’m just too intelligent—my memory is too sharp for my own good."

Duo let out a crowing laugh at that, sitting up, grinning wider than was polite. "Right! You enjoy it! Admit it!"

Heero’s glare found its way to him. "I do not."

"Formidable," the American glibly complimented him on the fury his blue eyes radiated, "but I don’t melt so easily."

"I do not," he reiterated firmly. "I do not enjoy a moment of that movie nor the obnoxious magical creatures nor the cliché plot lines, and I especially do not being compared to a spotless prince on a white horse at every single forced viewing of that ridiculous fairy tale."

Duo lifted his eyebrows. "Ooh, someone’s a little touchy about this subject, aren’t they?"

Quatre began singing softly from across the room, the laughter growing louder in his voice as he continued. "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the grumpiest of them all—?"

Duo threw back his head and laughed, and was shortly joined by Trowa and Quatre, despite the thoroughly disgruntled look on Heero’s face as he threw a hand over his eyes and shook his head.

Now that the group had finally had its collective fill of tormenting the poor Wing pilot, and, even more surprisingly, Duo had finally chosen a musical selection, the American flopped back onto his own private couch and was just demanding that he know in extensive juicy detail about Trowa’s proposal when, from under the opening chords of London Calling, there went through the empty house a high-pitched shrill, making Heero and Trowa simultaneously sit up in surprise, though Quatre was too busily talking with Duo to hear it.

"Someone’s phone’s ringing," Trowa announced, glancing around the room. He winced. "Ugh, what is that noise? It sounds like a screaming baby or something."

Heero shrugged, though he was still twisted around, half-way reclined on the couch, craning his head so he could squint out at the den, where the hideous noise echoed again a few moments later, this time clearer, even over the raspy croon of Joe Strummer’s voice pouring from the speakers. "That is a screaming baby," he said, grimacing. "Not mine, though," he added quickly.

"Oh, that’s mine," Duo piped up quickly, fluidly uncoiling from his position on the couch and already halfway to the doorway when everybody’s stare fell on him, silently all asking the same question that Quatre piped up to voice, taking on a paler tint than normal.

"Why, may I ask, do you have the sound of a screaming infant as your ring tone, pray tell?"

The American shot him one last impish smile before he made it out of the room. "Just to torment the poor suckers listening in. It’s the best when it goes off in the subway. Makes the edgy businessmen secretly jump out of their skin," he said, laughing deliciously. "What else is a cell phone for?"

Heero had a pillow crushed against each ear as Duo left, striding quickly out into the den and heading doggedly for the garage door, from where each identical, excruciating sound came. The American went breezily down the stairs into his temporary lodging, whistling pleasantly as he fished the source of the "screaming baby" from inside his beat-up backpack, lying almost lonely at the foot of the bed. He flipped it open, not bothering to take a look at who was calling, and settled himself in the tire swing that oddly hung down from the ceiling. He made himself comfortable as he turned in a slow, spinning circle from his momentum.

"Duo here," he answered cheerfully. "What’s up?"

A familiar voice was waiting for him on the end, and it brought him away from the distinctly pleasant and oblivious bliss he’d been enjoying for the last few days, forgetting the past, basking in the warmth of old friends, and sitting on the carpet with a CD in hand, grinning at Heero. He felt almost disappointed to be reminded of reality.

"Hi, Duo. It’s Hilde."

"Oh," he let out, sitting up straight, his legs threaded through the center of the tire and his toes hovering over the floor. But as soon as the surprise wore off, his voice flooded with affection again. "Hey, Hil, girl. It’s been a bit since you last called—but hey, no news is good news, right?"

She laughed, a sound he missed, a sound that had comforted him so years ago. Comforted him when a certain face had begun to haunt him. "Yes, in a way," she said amusedly, and he could tell she was probably shaking her head on the other end, miles and miles away in L-2. "How are you doing these days?"

Duo scoffed with a grin. "When am I not okay? I’m a big boy—I ride the bus all by myself now."

Again, she laughed despite herself. "I meant, where are you? Have you settled down anywhere yet, or are you still dragging yourself from city to city like your crazy old self?"

"Well, just got to Seattle this morning, probably only going to be staying for another day or so before I’ll be somewhere else," Duo answered, smiling secretively. "I… bumped into someone interesting and he offered some lodgings, and he threw in a free tuxedo at that."

Hilde made a curious humming sound. "And just who would this generous fellow be?"

"Uh-uh! You’ve got three guess, but you’ll piss yourself when you find out," Duo informed her mischievously. "Come on, Hil, where’s the fun if I just blurt it out at you?"

"Well, in that case, I’ll just settle for a little mystery, Duo."

"Man, what a load of fun you are today," the American teased. "I was hoping you’d soil yourself in surprise."

"Is it a good or bad surprise?"

Duo grinned to himself on the other line, though the corners of his lips were falsely turned up. "A little bit of both," he answered cryptically.

"Well, I trust that you can take care of yourself, but I’d better get to the point, Duo—these Earth Sphere calls going to kill me pretty soon," Hilde said quickly, with the sound of readjusting the receiver to her ear. "Do you remember what day it is today?"

"Sure, I do."

"Then you know what’s coming up in a few days."

Duo blinked, his expression blank for a moment, then it filled with a mix of dread and fright. "Ah, shit, I totally forgot! Oh, god!"

"That’s very sweet of you. I’m sure he’d be happy to hear that you ‘totally spaced’ again this year."

"Ah, man, Hil," the American groaned into his cell phone, slapping a hand over his forehead and rubbing at his temples, "I can’t make it out there in time for him. I’m sorry—I really screwed it up again, didn’t I."

"So, what is that that’s keeping you there, huh? Can’t come to his birthday party while you’re too busy hitchhiking?"

"Something came up, Hilde," Duo answered, his tone less jovial, but she sighed good-naturedly as he apologized again, groaning again in exasperation at himself.

"It’ll be all right. He’s used to it. He’s got so many presents this year, he probably won’t even notice."

"Well, mine’s gonna blow all of the rest out of the water! He’s gonna wet himself when he sees it," Duo piped up, straightening up on the tire swing again, causing it to continue its slow, leisurely twirl over the cement.

Hilde paused on the other end of the line. He felt the knowing smile come slowly across her face. "So what is it, Duo?"

"I’m not telling you!" he drawled, though he knew that she knew that no such fantastic present had been purchased yet.

"He’s into dump trucks and tractors now," Hilde informed him obligingly, still slyly smiling at him from an impossible distance away. "And tool sets."

"Ha! He’s me through and through, ain’t he?"

"If you mean loud and incoherent and inable to sit still for a moment's time, then yes," she said teasingly.

"Can I talk to him?"

"He’s exhausted, Duo. He’s been sleeping since lunch. He went out in the junk yard again with Howard this morning."

"Well, then give the little snot a big sloppy one for me, all right?"

Hilde laughed and he heard her smile coming through as she continued. "I definitely will."

"Thanks, Hil."

"Oh, and Duo?"

"Yeah?"

She hesitated. "You know you don’t have to run and hide forever, like this. The key’s still under the doormat, same address, same street." The tone in her voice was tender and cautious, something Duo was all too familiar with, and it twisted a nerve in him. "He’d love to have you back home again. He loves you. And Howard and I do, too."

"I know, Hil," he answered, his voice falsely smooth and unaffected. "Thanks. I’ll give you a call, later, then?"

Before she replied, he heard a painful trace of a sigh. "Sure. Talk to you later."

"Ciao," Duo said in finality. His finger found the button on the smooth, metallic surface of his cell phone, and he clutched it in his hands, sitting in the tire swing for a few quiet minutes, staring distantly at the walls into a much further place, before he worked himself up to return to Heero, Trowa, and Quatre, with the burden of reality resting on his shoulders again.

Ooh, I just love ending chapters Just when I've revealed a little more of the painful past, you, the hapless reader, see those horrible three words : To be continued! But hopefully sooner than this one took... I always say that, and I always try to mean it. ^_^ Enjoy the rest of your summer, everyone!