Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Wilderness ❯ Swept Under ( Chapter 10 )

 

Wilderness

By Dentelle_Noir

 

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing, duh. Don't you find this as redundant as I? I hope so.

 

Warning: Eventual yaoi. Man bashing.

 

NOTE: I'm giving Wilderness a bit of a re-haul and edit! Mostly from the middle on arethe larger changes, but the earlier chapters have more format and minor wording changes. Look for new chapters soon, though!

 

 

Chapter Ten Swept Under

 

The next morning was cheery and bright. And although Quatre really didn't want to get up, it was easier than it had been the day before.

 

But once he was up and about, he spotted the little clique to the left of the main group, Heero, Duo, Treize and Trowa, already up and closing camp. He remembered that Trowa would be leaving with the rest of his friends.

 

Now he was depressed again.

 

Going to the nice laid out table filled with cooking breakfast foods, Milly and the crew frying up pancakes and bacon on the fire for it, Quatre munched quietly seated on the same log he and Trowa had sat on yesterday, wallowing in sadness. He missed Trowa already, and he had only known him for a day! And he hadn't even actually left yet!

 

Deciding to take his mind off his feelings the best way he could, he began to mentally run down his schedule. Today was the `only eight more to go' day. They had been out on the water for two days, and this was the third.

 

That triggered his memory though. Today was the first of the "blackout" days, as he had coined them. Once they left this morning it would be their own cooked food and fishing until the next day's lunch take-out, where they would be at the ranger station and staying there from lunch to lunch the next day. They had communication, yes, but no vehicles could make it out there, except for helicopters or other rafts, for the next day.

 

While everyone else seemed fine and dandy about the idea, it made Quatre nervous. Not just nervousness he worked up himself (he did that a lot), but a feeling of dread. He could literally feel something was going to happen today, but there was nothing he could do about it.

 

The sudden feeling of someone watching him spun Quatre around, finding the very tall legs of Trowa right behind him. Taking a step over the log, Trowa sat himself down beside Quatre and seemed to stare into the dead fire pit, as if searching for words.

 

"Quatre," he started. Quatre could almost feel the tall boy beside him bothered. "We're off today; we'll be going the same way as you until your lunch time take-out. We'll be continuing on about a mile then breaking off. We plan to do our circuit in about the same time it will take your group to get back to the lodge. Unless something happens, I think I'll get a chance to say goodbye there. It was a pleasure meeting you." Trowa nodded shortly and stood, almost nervously, he had said it all without once looking at Quatre.

 

Quatre was sure something was not right. "What is it Trowa? I can tell something is bothering you." Quatre demanded.

 

Trowa blinked owlishly at the blonde. No one save Heero, his oldest friend, had noticed he was worried, and just out of nowhere a boy he just met the day before could read him like a book! He was loosing his hold on himself or something.

 

Trowa slumped forward a bit, hand running through his bangs and looking anywhere but Quatre. He really didn't want to tell him.

 

Quatre stood as well, and with a determined step he gripped Trowa's arm and wrapped himself around it awkwardly, stepping on his feet in the process. He wasn't going anywhere with that hold. "I won't let go until you spill. You'll have to take me with you. And I can be a real pain. I know ROUNDS!" Quatre warned, actually serious despite the silliness of his actions.

 

Trowa was defeated, and he knew it. He just couldn't take `found a peanut' for more than five seconds. "I have a bad feeling about today. Just- Be careful, Quatre, alright? Really careful." And with that, Trowa shook off the stunned blonde and began to roll up his sleeping bag, making sure to pointedly ignore the blonde's stares.

 

 

 

 

The river was rocking and hard that day, the current fast on either side of the raft, more torturous than the day before. At least they were in the line between the two racing and tumbling sides. The travel group took their time and pressed ahead, the only thing they really could do. Quatre was getting more nervous every second.

 

There wasn't anything different about today, they knew the water was faster here because of the Spring runoff making the water level higher and masking some of the rapids, but Quatre could feel it in his bones something bad was looming.

 

Although he continued to try and calm his nerves, he couldn't seem to stop his teeth from rattling or his heart from beating faster at each itch or buck the raft made. If he looked behind his raft he could clearly make out the two canoes a few miles behind containing Heero, and Duo in one and Trowa and Treize in the other. Simply knowing that Trowa was right behind the group, and Wufei sat beside him, helped to calm him.

 

He wasn't sure where Wufei had gone, but he was back just in time to climb into the raft and that was all. He didn't even spare a glance to Treize who tried desperately to speak with him. It seemed Wufei was still pissed.

 

Almost as if sensing Quatre's thoughts, Wufei turned to look right to the blonde and leveled a calculating stare to him. But Quatre held firm, eyes not wavering. That was one thing Quatre had always been good at: keeping eye contact. Even when he was being bullied at school, he watched them every step of the way. It unnerved some, but others just thought it more of a sick thrill that he'd watch and not fight back.

 

Wufei dipped his chin a little, a small smile gracing his features for just a second to reassure Quatre that he was in fact going to be alright, before turning his face back to the paddling at hand. Dipping in and pulling back, Quatre continued to stroke down the river, his mind confined to repeating the mundane motion to keep him from thinking too much about his feelings or about the swift rapids beside him.

 

The raft began to speed up with the current, a small fall coming up ahead and Milly yelling out directions right behind Quatre's ear. Not that it was a challenge.

 

Quatre wanted to see the side of the water, so he let his feet slide out from under the bench in front of him with the supplies and teetered just a bit over, nowhere really near the edge.

 

All of a sudden from Wufei's side came a loud exploding hiss.

 

The boat bucked frantically; the raft arched up sideways, the left edge flinging into the air and the right plunging into the water with lightning speed.

 

Quatre felt cold envelop him, his breath catching as he pitched with the water. His legs tumbled out from underneath him and the colour swirling in his eyes turned from bright sky to icy white in nanoseconds.

 

Fighting the waves, Quatre made it up to the surface, gasping for breath and chocking up water. But almost immediately, he was being pulled down and through again, caught in the Eddie line between the fast and slow moving waters.

 

Bobbing up again, sputtering and splashing, Quatre heard another beside him, calling out to him. "Stay Still Quatre and grab- For the branch!" it sputtered out as the voice gurgled through the water.

 

Through his pounding mind he decided to just do as told, stilling his flailing limps and frantically searching for whatever branch the other had been talking about.

 

But all he could see was rushing whitewater and spinning colors. Sickly, he knew he was being pulled somewhere he didn't want to go. The water rushing around him was the only thing he could hear or feel.

 

Then like a sudden shock of reality, a firm hand gripped his wrist, burning hot, compared to the icy water and brutally fierce. Even though his body continued flailing downstream with the current, his arm did not.

 

Practically being yanked from its socket, Quatre's arm protested and ached, but the leverage was enough to let him gasp for the surface. Sputtering and chocking he tried to find his bearing, the water deafening him and crashing into him with fervor.

 

Turning around enough to see who was holding him, he came face to face with Wufei, and his own arm stretched to the limit to grasp Quatre. The rest of his body was wrapped around a branch wedged half a foot above the freezing water between two gigantic sharp rocks.

 

With a gulp, Quatre realized just how lucky he was to miss them; he had just about passed right through the rocks and went down the choppy falls that fell into the offshoot of the river.

 

Feeling breakfast wanting to come up again, he held it back, catching only pieces of something being yelled to him.

 

Concentrating all he could, he tried to filter out the scream of the water around him that was viciously fighting for him to rejoin it. He made out Wufei was telling him to climb up his arm. Quatre's ragged breath gulped one last mouthful of air and he flopped upwards, his belly in the water instead of his back like it had been; now he could see Wufei.

 

And the gear racing towards him!

 

Wufei didn't see it behind; Quatre began to tug away from the waterproof packs, his legs pumping the rushing water and free arm paddling as best he could.

 

With a sickening thud, the bag nailed the rock just a few feet away from them, and rebounded, raking itself across the jutting rock, thankfully only banging Quatre's hip as it passed and splayed out on the jutting rocks down stream.

 

That could've been him.

 

Now he was worried.

 

"DAMN IT! GRAB!" Wufei bellowed and cutting off Quatre's shock at seeing the bag wrapped around the rocks below and pounded mercilessly by the current.

 

He turned his face to Wufei and grit his teeth. Pulling his dragging arm from the relentless current, he willed it ahead of his body and then free from the current. With strength he never knew he had, he gripped Wufei's wrist and began to pull.

 

The current forced him back, but Quatre would not allow it to take him. Pulling harder, he was able to bring his arm closer to the branch Wufei was grasped to, then closer still.

 

Gasping hard, and fighting against the water pounding his face, he let one hand go from Wufei and swung his arm to the log.

 

The rough bark cut into his water-pruned skin, but he grasped even harder. Jaw set, he curled his arm around the bow and gripped it, dropping Wufei's hand totally to wrap both his arms around the branch.

 

Hauling his chest and head from the water, he realized just how frozen he was, his teeth chattered and his fingertips were bluing. He couldn't even feel his legs that dangled and dragged in the water rushing underneath them.

 

"Quatre, Are you alright?" Wufei yelled over the roar of the waves.

 

Quatre gripped tighter to the branch and caught Wufei's worried eyes. "I'm al-l-right" he shivered out. Okay, so was even colder than he would even admit to himself.

 

The Sweep boat was closing in on their location, the man in the canoe trying his hardest to get as close as he could, but the water was flowing so fast through the obstacle that the boat couldn't get close to the sieve.

 

It ended up pulling up to the rock nearest the slow channel and tying off to it, throwing a rope and harness over the top of it to Wufei and Quatre. Sweet Rescue!

 

Wufei was the closest where he was and grabbed the harness, "Quatre, put this on!" he demanded.

 

But Quatre refused, his head shaking profusely. He would not allow Wufei to think he was lesser or in need of saving first. They were both equal. And really, put in the scheme of things, Wufei had more people who would mourn him if something happened anyway. "You're closer and they're here. Put it on and while you're going over I can shimmy closer. I need the time anyway." Quatre yelled to him.

 

Damn it all to making sense. Wufei hated realizing his overprotective streak. Quatre made more sense then his logic did. Quatre was right. The boat was there, it wasn't like a few seconds would mean much of a difference. Although a part of his mind screamed back every second counted in circumstances like this.

 

That was right, though, every second did count and the time he was taking by not putting the harness on and making Quatre shimmy along the log before being pulled was wasting precious seconds.

 

Grudgingly and snarling to himself, Wufei wrapped the harness around his waist and locked the carabineer in place. Then with a tug and a yell to the boat to let them know he was coming, he began to pull himself across the fallen branch and towards the rock. Once he made it there, he wrestled himself higher and higher out of the surging waves and slid to the top of the rock, seeing the boat on the other side.

 

Crack.

 

With horror, Wufei turned to see the log beginning to splinter, Quatre stationed right in the middle and with nowhere to go.

 

Scrambling towards the breaking and bending limb, he reached out, just as the branch gave way and the current swept the blonde under.