Title: Little you
Author: Kidishcaresh
Pairing: 02x05
Word count:
Theme: kid
Timeline: AU, post war.
Author notes: A sweet ficlet for In2lalaland. X3 happy birthday buddy mine! This will be in 2 parts I hope. First of Duo's POV watching the video and learning about himself.
Summary: "I'm going to kill G I swear I am. Just as soon as I find out where that man went." Wufei growled looking at his former comrades as they parted ways before looking down at the miniature version of Duo that hugged his ankle and tried to stand.
Disclaimer: I own nothing except my OC's.
Little you, video journal. Part 1 of 2.
With a soft groan Duo sat up. His head pounded badly and nothing in the small room looked like his room. He blinked and rubbed his eyes letting them adjust to the semi-darkness of the small room. The first thing his mind registered was that he wasn't alone; the second following directly after was that he had been lying on top of Wufei. He gasped softly and quickly shifted to the end of the small bed they were in. He looked around raking his brains to find an answer as to what had happened, but found there to be a huge gaping black hole where his memories should be. Thus he glanced around the room for clues.
The walls were painted to have a grassy pattern on it with a darkening sky. The ceiling was black with constellations and planets, a dark blue clothes closet with miniature colonies on it and tiny little space shuttles stood to his left against the wall. Surrounding the bed was a special children's toy closet which had a wide variety of toys in it already that could be taken out using a great variety different mechanisms that demanded either pushing, pulling, pressing or turning, the moon shaped desk on his right had several school supplies and books on it and a chair shaped like a pilot's chair in front of it. What stood out most in the tiny room though were the astronaut shaped rug and the space shuttle bed on which he sat. This gave little insight into how he came to be in the bedroom of his childhood dreams with the man of his adulthood dreams; not that said man would ever know this or want to know this for that matter.
'Sitting here won't get me any answers and I'd rather not wake Fei up…He'd kill me for even being in the same bed…kids bed…but still…well there has to be a clue in this house that can tell me what's going on and why it feels like I'm missing a huge chunk of memories.' Duo thought getting up silently and slipping out of the children's bedroom. Walking down the hall to the stairs he found that he had to be in Wufei's home, but since when did Wufei have a kid? Or a wife to have said kid with? The more he walked the more questions he had. It had become clear with one glance into Wufei's bedroom that this wasn't his apartment in Brussels, which only brought him even more questions. The most important one still being why he was in Wufei's nice house.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and glanced at the calendar that hung at kid height next to a tiny coat rack in the shape of yet again a space shuttle with a tiny little bomber jacket on it. His eyes widened when he saw the year count on the calendar. AC 215…He wasn't just missing part of his memories; he was missing five years worth of them. Quietly he stumbled into the living room and plopped down on the couch with his head in his hands.
"Five years…what happened to me?" he whispered. He raked his brains again desperate to remember the past five years, but all it got him was a headache. Having nothing else to do he looked around again. Taking in the small living room his eyes landed on a small disk lying next to a video camera. The disk had his name on it. Duo frowned.
"Why does Fei have a disk with my name on it?" he murmured picking it up. He looked at it from all sides and frowned. All it said was Duo, nothing more.
"I guess if it's got my name on it that must mean it's about me…but what's on it?" he murmured looking around the room. He walked over to the small TV set and slipped the disk into the player. After he sat down on the couch again he pressed play and watched as the disk started up.
A shot of Wufei sitting back down after apparently pressing the record button of the video camera starts is seen. A short silence followed and a child was heard laughing in the background. Wufei turned away from the camera and smiled for a few seconds then turned back.
"Uhm…well…when eh you see this…if you ever see it…I suppose you'll be wondering what happened…maybe even why you're in my house…if you still are. Uhm….well I'm not very good at this, but I thought I should at least keep this video diary as a way of answering a few things and keeping up with your life as it has become now. I suppose I should start by explaining how this came to be…" Wufei said staring into the camera. His face was full of confusion, it was clear he was nervous when he made this record. Not to mention that he was exhausted judging by the dark areas under his eyes. A small head of brown hair flashed by the camera and Wufei called out for the child to be careful.
Duo couldn't help but chuckle. The sight of the Chinese man doting and fussing over the child that kept eluding the camera only showing brown hair each time it passed made him feel better than he had since waking that morning. It was so utterly endearing and unlike Wufei that Duo almost forgot he missed it all.
Wufei straightened up again and took a deep breath.
"If you're watching this disk then I'm fairly positive you probably already realized you're missing some memories, though be they a few years, weeks or months worth I know not…At this point it's possible you never returned to how you were or well…I guess I should explain from the beginning. You see Duo…" Wufei began only to be interrupted by the child again.
"I Duo! I Duo!" the child chirped.
The boy's words sending a bolt of shock through Duo's system. What did that mean? Had Wufei named his son after him? Why?
"Uhm yes little one you're right, but I'm talking to the camera. I'm making a movie for big you." Wufei said his attention on the child now. Duo stared blankly at the video, his head was spinning. Big you? What did that mean?
"Big me?" the child echoed as if voicing Duo's own question.
"Yes, remember what I told you? About the doctor?" Wufei asked. The child's tiny head visible on the screen bobbed up and down.
"So I'm making this video for big you. When you grow big again you may not remember and that's why I'm making this." Wufei explained patiently kneeling by the child's side now.
"So…when I'm big me again then I can watch and I'll amemba gain?" the child asked.
It suddenly dawned on Duo. Wufei hadn't named his son after him. The child in the video…
"Well I suppose you've probably realized by now that uhm this is you…See doctor G kidnapped you 3 months prior to this video so he could do an experiment on you to keep you at your peak performance age…to preserve your talent so to say…I guess it's quite obvious that his experiment failed badly." Wufei said lifting a miniature Duo onto his knee. Little Duo grinned happily and waved at the camera.
"I will make certain he pays for this wrongdoing of his. Dearly so, just as soon as we find out where he's hiding." Wufei said trying to keep the child from pulling his hair with one hand and from falling with the other.
"Out out!" little Duo chirped grabbing at the hair. Wufei sighed heavily and pulled out his hair tie. Instantly little Duo stopped struggling and happily patted the silky mass that now framed Wufei's face and fell into his eyes.
"Apparently little you just loves to play with my hair. Thank gods you probably won't remember that through…" Wufei mumbled not very happy with that fact as he blew at the annoying strands that reluctantly returned to their spot right in front of his eyes each time. The blowing away of the hair only served to amuse little Duo who happily laughed at this.
Duo paused the video a moment. He felt dizzy and faint. It all suddenly made more sense. The little boy bedroom that was styled like he had once as a young child wanted it to be, Wufei asleep on the bed with him, five years having passed without his remembering and the strange urge that he'd squished earlier to jump up and down on Wufei's tummy to wake him up. He apparently couldn't remember because for the past five years…he had been a child. Part of him wanted to leave and forget he ever saw that, but another part of him urged him to unpause the video and watch all that he'd missed these past years. The part of him that wanted to watch won and so he pressed play.
"I suppose you'll be wondering by now why I was elected to raise you for the duration of time that you'd remain a child." Wufei said calmly. Little Duo bounced happily on his lap.
"Cuz you love me!" he chirped happily. Wufei shook his head and sighed.
"Yes that too." he said laughingly.
"Anyway, the choice remained between Quatre and myself because well honestly neither of us trusts Yuy with a child and a circus is not a safe environment for a kid to grow up in. Quatre was quite insistent on keeping you away from his twenty-nine sisters." Wufei said shuddering a second.
"I understand why. Especially after the whole Relena fiasco…" he went on shaking his head at the apparent memory of said event.
"UGLY!" little Duo chirped sticking out his tongue and causing Wufei to burst into a genuinely happy laughter.
"Uhm yes we decided you do not like pretty blondes in pink. After you had Relena running to her room in tears Heero refused to let us anywhere near her until you were back to normal. Though I know I saw him trying to fight laughter when you threw a fit in Relena's arms and demanded for the 'ugly woman' to put you down." Wufei said smirking now and ruffling the child's hair.
"You've been with me for almost two weeks now and you appear to be almost 2 years old." he then said somewhat calmly.
"My b-day is x-mas!" little Duo cheered.
"Yes, yes little one your birthday is on Christmas day." Wufei agreed readily.
"Fei b-day is old year!" little Duo then said proudly.
"That's right. My birthday is on old year's day." Wufei agreed again smiling fondly at the child.
Duo couldn't help but smile. So he had even being a child remembered the self assigned birthday. He recalled vaguely the Christmas tree that was always present at his birthday so he decided that Christmas had to be his birthday and so it was from the day sister Helen asked him about it. He paused the video a moment to get himself some water; he'd decided that Wufei would probably not mind considering everything. Refreshed and armed with water and a pack of Oreo's he'd found on the cluttered kitchen counter Duo returned to the video of his last five years and pressed play.
Wufei turned back to the camera and smiled again.
"Well anyways Quatre pretty much threatened me into taking you in and caring for you until the effects wore off or until you were back to being 25 again. We can't find G anywhere so we don't know how permanent this is, but the others are threatening their doctors with bodily harm if they must. We will find some way to return you to normal…that or I will just have to raise you I guess. Well that's about everything I have to tell you so far…I doubt you're interested in Relena's rant about how I should teach you manners or Milliardo's insistence that we potty train you. Yes you did what you think you did. Right in the bull's-eye if you catch my drift." Wufei said his smirk growing.
Duo laughed at this.
"Yes I've got a pretty good idea of what happened." he said laughingly.
Wufei leaned over and seemed to turn the camera off then back on and sat down again.
"Well this is my second entry. A few months have passed and not much has happened. You had chickenpox and gave them to me as well so we've both been very itchy the last month.
"Zoo! Zoo" little Duo cheered hopping up and down on Wufei's lap.
"Yes, yes we'll go this afternoon when the rain stops." Wufei replies smiling.
"I'll be taking you to the zoo today. It's a bit of a late birthday present. You got to chose from different things, but you insisted on the zoo." Wufei said chuckling. Little Duo hugged him happily.
"Love you Fei!" he declared loudly.
"Haha, yes I love you too little one." Wufei said smiling.
Wufei went on to tell him about the troubles the media caused once they found out that a gundam pilot was raising a child he gained through unknown means and how he was thinking about moving someplace more quiet. After he reached out to turn the video off, instead of him turning it back on the video showed footage of their trip to the zoo. Duo smiled as he watched his little self sitting in the stroller Wufei had brought Sally with him it seemed and they were waiting to buy tickets.
"Hey Duo! It's me Sally. As you can see Wufei drafted me as camera woman today so I'll be taping the trip to the zoo. So far you can't wait to get inside." Sally said showing little Duo practically bouncing around in his stroller while Wufei tried his best to distract him.
"Fish! Tiga! Ooke!" Duo chirped over and over.
"Ooke? Hm…monkeys do you mean that Duo?" Wufei asked frowning.
"Yes Ooke! Ooke funny!" little Duo laughed.
"So the aquarium, the tigers and the monkeys huh?" Sally asked laughingly.
"Yes! Yes! Go see! Go, go, go!" Duo cheered raising his little hands up and laughing.
"Patience little one, we have to pay first." Wufei chuckled.
Duo smiled as he watched his little self enjoy the sights and sounds of the zoo. The video covering of the zoo trip ended with little Duo strapped into his car seat, fast asleep and hugging a stuffed purple dragon bought at the gift shop tightly to his chest. Duo smiled and paused the film again. He made a stop at Wufei's bathroom a moment then checked on Wufei, noting that the Chinese man was still sprawled over the children's bed and sleeping like the dead.
"Looks like I gave you quite a hard time huh?" Duo murmured smiling sadly. He then returned to his video determined to find out what else he forgot.
Three hours later found Duo hugging the stuffed dragon to him as he watched the video which was by that time half way done. He smiled happily when he learned that Wufei had decided to take his advice and leave preventors. They now lived in China it seemed and little Duo had learned Chinese and even went to school in the small town. This explained why he now had knowledge of Chinese language when he knew for sure he never learned. He also learned much about Wufei. About his past and his dreams and many other things he never knew. Like that Wufei was very skilled at sketching or that he played several traditional Chinese musical instruments. That Wufei had been married to a woman named Mei-ran and that it had been arranged, but that Wufei actually wasn't interested in women. There was video material of Christmas parties at Quatre's and of birthday parties with cake and presents, of more outings to many things, of little Duo learning soccer and of matches Wufei taped of the then 4 year old boy running after the ball and scoring goals.
What surprised him most though, was that Wufei missed him, not little Duo who was in school during most of the last video entries, but big Duo the original him. What hurt him a lot though was to see how Wufei was torn between loving and caring for little Duo and wanting him to be big again like he should be. The further he watched the more Wufei struggled with this. By the time the diary reached the third year of Duo's being a child Wufei's health was visibly suffering under his struggles.
"I haven't much to add today. We've still not located G, we still don't know if this is all temporary or not. I…I just don't know anymore…I…love little you I really do but…I want the true you back…the goofy laughing joking 25-year-old that would drag me out of my office for a burger at random times…the guy who would come pick me up on my day off and drag me across town just to watch kids play in a park and sit in the sun…what-what if this can't be reversed? I mean…I'd take care of you of course but…I'd lose a good friend…and…what if it's not…what if you return to normal and…leave…what if you don't remember and…what if you're….what if you wake up an adult at the wrong moment and take the wrong conclusion…what if you'll never see this and…gods what should I do? What…what if I fail you…like I failed Mei-ran…I-I don't want to lose you….I-I…
There the video ended. Little Duo was 5 at this time and even he had noticed the changes in Wufei. Duo blinked as he realized he was crying. Having seen especially that last entry had been hard on him. There had been two or three entries that Wufei hadn't made or hadn't had someone else make for him. They seemed like hidden moment caught by the camera that even Wufei hadn't been aware of. Duo wondered quietly who turned on the camera at those times. Had it been his little self? A flash of memory of little Duo pressing the big red button on top of the camera when his friend wasn't looking went through his mind. He didn't have time to dwell on that as suddenly a pair of arms wrapped around him.
"Thank god you're okay…when I woke up and you were gone I…" Wufei's voice whispered close to his ear.
"I'm okay…it's okay now…I'm fine…you don't have to worry anymore…it's all over…" Duo whispered back quietly.
Behind the two men the video turned on again showing little Duo's smiling face.
"It's okay now Fei…it'll be fine…I'll be big again for you…so don't worry kay? I love you…Wufei." the child's voice said softly then the video turned off again.
This is for you In2lalaland! Hope you enjoyed it. I've been thinking of this for a while, but didn't have the inspiration and now I do. ^^ PS: This fic was not BETA-read. So my apologies for any silly mistakes and grammatical booboos. ^^