Halfway To Hell
Halfway To Hell
Warning this fic may contain: angst, depression, shonen-ai (Take the hints anyway you want; i.e.: Quatre's blatantly obvious crush), cursing, and traces of child abuse, rape, etc. etc.
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing.
Chapter 2: Normalcy Doesn't Last Forever
The sun was shining, the birds were singing and all in all, Quatre Rebarba Winner was positive that today was going to be a beautiful- trouble free day at one of his 'smaller' mansions in the countryside.
The blond smiled happily as he mixed the contents of the large bowl in front of him, while ordering the events of the day in his head.
After breakfast, he would 'persuade' one of the others to clean up for him, and then get another, hopefully Wufei (the only one besides himself that could cook without the results being to terrifying or disgustingly bland) to cook lunch in Quatre's stead. Then he would go to the underground garage to visit his dear friend Sandrock, consequently making sure that his friend was still in proper working order, prepared for the unlikely event of an unexpected mission in this disturbingly quiet lull in the war. Unfortunately, the odds of that were looking impossibly dim. (He sighed tiredly at this, because even if one did come up, he would have to fight tooth and nail with the others for it. Being confined to a safe house, even one as large and beautiful as their current residence for almost two months was a tad stressful/stifling/maddening…but he was digressing…) Once he was done in garage, he would eat lunch with whoever bothered to show up, then he would check up on his company through his laptop, and then the rest of the afternoon would be spent doing something with Trowa…
His musings were cut off as he heard the door to the outside porch swing open. Right on time. He smiled slightly at the fact that he didn't even have to look to know who was there.
Some people, he supposed, might be irritated by just how predictable their lives had become in this quiet time of pseudo peace. And to be honest, he was quite sure that if the war didn't pick up soon, he would go insane…however, there was a certain amount of comfort in it. The predictability, that is. For once it was nice just to have a routine, to have the luxury of being bored, of simply having nothing to do. No battles to plan, no colonies to save, no comrades to worry over. So no matter how dull it got, holed up here in this little out of the way mansion, he did his best not to take the experience or granted.
After all, sooner or later, the war would start up again. He also knew that when that happened he would be spending a great many of his spare moments longing for this time of monotony. Or at least he thought he would, but some days it really was getting to the point where he would give anything for a little bit of excitement.
"Good morning Heero," He greeted the other teen amiably; "Did you have a good workout?"
"Hn." Responded the brunette.
"That's wonderful Heero, it's pancakes today, would you like some?" Quatre continued on, unperturbed by the other's less than sociable conversation. He was used to it by now.
The blond didn't bother waiting for a response. He wasn't liable to get one and by now he already knew the answer anyway. He only bothered asking to be polite. He smiled warmly and flipped on the burner and began to heat up the pan. "Alright then, three plain pancakes coming right up! Oh, and Trowa went to the store yesterday, so if you're in the mood for milk there's some in the refrigerator."
The Arabian pilot didn't need to look up as he poured some of the batter onto the pan in neat little circles to know that Heero had already proceeded to retrieve the milk…and…
'Enter Wufei,'Quatre cued silently.
The quiet creak of stairs out in the main hall alerted both pilots to Wufei's approach. They could tell immediately that it was the black haired terrorist, because he was the only pilot whose very steps permeated of pride and confidence. Approximately seven seconds later (So what if he could predict the course of his day down to a second?) Wufei marched into the kitchen, looking slightly more peaceful for his three hours of early morning meditation.
"Good morning Wufei." Quatre greeted the new comer with a smile, but he had already dismissed the Chinese youth from the forefront of his mind in favor of counting the seconds until…ah! Sometimes (not always, but sometimes), he truly loved predictability.
"Trowa…" he breathed fondly, a slight blush coloring his cheeks as the green-eyed acrobat glided silently into the room. Trowa smiled slightly in the blond Arabian's direction, causing the Arabian pilot to forget how to breathe.
Promptly forgetting Heero's pancakes, the only truly decent cook in the house (including Wufei, whose food merely bordered on edible placing him in a far second to the blonde) abandoned his post in favor of a chance to talk with his favorite brunette.
As he moved closer to the door, and Trowa, Quatre smiled affectionately at the tallest pilot, "Good Morning! I hope you slept well?"
Trowa treated the shorter pilot to a small, but warm smile and quietly responded that it was a fine morning, and that yes he had slept well, and in turn questioned Quatre as to his well-being.
Quatre was practically on cloud nine. It was a beautiful morning. The birds were singing, the pancakes were cooking and he was spending time with Trowa. It was perfect.
And yet…
Despite the good mood that saturated the kitchen, and the promise of a trouble free day, Quatre couldn't help but feel that something was off. He just could not figure out what.
It was only several seconds after he had responded to Trowa's question with something along the lines of, "I'm quite fine, thank you" that he realized it.
He realized it just moments before Trowa and Wufei and only an instant after Heero…Someone was missing… and shouldn't Duo have appeared approximately three seconds ago and berated Quatre for leaving the stove unattended…
Everyone froze as they simultaneously realized…
"Duo," breathed Heero, vocalizing what was on all of their minds.
The result was instantaneous.
The four youths went into pilot mode.
All four pulled out their guns and Trowa, Heero and Wufei gathered around Quatre, as one, he was their strategic genius and two; it was his house/mansion.
Thinking quickly, the Arabian devised a plan, and with a soldier's calm, relayed it to his comrades. "Trowa check the security feed, Heero check your laptop in case he got a mission. Wufei go down to the garage and make sure he didn't pull an all-nighter in his Gundam. I'll go up to his room and see if he, uh slept in." Each pilot nodded and immediately set out to fulfill their part of the plan.
Quatre hurried to the main hall and up the stairs to third floor as fast he could without making an obvious amount of noise. As he went, his space heart began reacting more and more strangely. His heart told him that Duo wasn't in any danger or in pain…but despite that, he could not shake the feeling that something was still…off. By the time he made it up to the braided pilot's room, his heart was beating rapidly with worry.
He paused outside Duo's room to check the surroundings. Nothing was out of place; even the bathroom down the hall that the American shared with Heero appeared to be in good order.
But he worried nonetheless and refused to let down his guard. His space heart had never picked up false readings before and he knew for a fact that the odd vibe that he had been feeling faintly in the back of his mind all day was suddenly a great deal stronger the closer he got to…he cut off the thought with a slight frown. There was no point in over thinking things before he had anything concrete to worry about. After all, Duo was probably fine.
This is mind he reached out to open the door…
Quatre's heart sank and he nearly cursed aloud; it was locked.
It wasn't that he was opposed to locking doors. Allah knows that he himself locked his bedroom door often as not. But if it was locked, that meant Duo was in there. There was no point in locking it if he wasn't because none of the other pilots would go near has bedroom without the justification of talking to him. This was simply because the other four pilots were smart, and knew they had a better chance of surviving an Oz capture and interrogation unscathed than walking into Duo's bomb infested war zone of a room and surviving…
In any case, the American was in there and the blonde empath couldn't help but feel that whatever he found in there wouldn't be to his liking. And that only made him more concerned because as Quatre had learned years ago his strange and inexplicable "feelings" were never wrong.
Shoving his worries aside and putting his gun back in his hostler, he set about picking the lock. It took over seven minutes and several buckets of sweat (he had almost messed up several times). Had it been any of the other pilots' doors he could have finished in a third of the time. Duo's lock took so long because the demolitions expert had taken it upon himself to "upgrade" his room's security.
In other words, our favorite (and consequently only) braided pilot had rigged all nine of the bolts on his door so that picking them in the wrong order and in the wrong way would trigger, in Duo's words, "a particularly nasty little bugger that will probably take out the entire wing of the 'house', (sorry Q-bean!)" (Complete with the hand-signed quotation marks and everything). The Arabian thanked Allah that the American had warned the others about it after he had learned about their "slightly" extended stay at the mansion.
That out of the way: Quatre carefully opened the door and cautiously made his way inside.
The room looked like it had been hit by a small tornado and trampled by a heard of angry elephants.
Well, nothing unusual there.
Quatre's trained eye quickly surveyed the room, taking inventory of his surroundings. Random bags of food (mostly past the sell by date), scattered pieces of bomb and gun parts, laptop buried under random bits of paper, crumpled articles of black clothing…a suspicious lump protruding from the bed…hold on.
Watchful for any stray objects (like a throwing knife, oh and that sharp piece of metal protruding ominously from the mess on the floor…), the blond picked his way across the room and over to the bed. Once there he examined it with a critical eye: the pillows were askew and the blankets were tucked around the lump like some sort of protective cocoon. Quatre smiled hopefully; perhaps he would pull back those covers and find a Duo that was perfectly all right, if a little annoyed at being woken up after pulling a long night in the Deathsythe.
The smile faded instantly, as he recalled that Duo never slept in, granted he might pretend to, but he never did. He didn't even bother to consider a prank; the American knew how badly an unexplainable rut in their routine would affect the others, and Quatre didn't think he was bored enough yet to try anyway, just to see the consequences. But besides all of that, there was still that off-feeling that wouldn't go away.
Something just wasn't right.
Tentatively, the blue-eyed Arabian reached out a hand and gently peeled the blankets back…
And there, was Duo.
He looked fine, but Quatre couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't quite right. Not that he had much time to ponder that thought…
The braided pilot's eyes snapped open.
However instead of being filled with the good humor that the young man was famous for, his violet eyes were clouded with pure terror. Duo Maxwell, self-proclaimed Shinigami, pilot of the Deathsythe, opened his mouth and screamed.
The blond was so shocked that he fell backward onto his but with a short, utterly degrading, high pitched shriek. After that, all he saw was a streak of black and brown, and then there was silence.
So…who knows what I did to Duo? The first person to guess right gets a cookie!!
In any case, was this chapter any good? (Besides the fact that I tend to go ellipse happy ) Please tell me what you think, because if no one like it then I'll just throw this story out.
Ah yes, and thank you to my lovely reviewers!!
HeeroDuo4eva - Thanks for the review, and here's an update for you!
QueenNarca – Thanks for reviewing. Sorry about the cliffhanger, and the one in this chapter too, but you'll find out what I did in the next update, that is if I decide to keep working on this. To be honest, the more I think about it, I don't know if it's good enough to finish. But I'll get in a few more chapters at least, I think.
Abi2 – Yes the Gods are quite sadistic, if I wasn't the one behind all of this, I'd probably pity our poor, err… hero? You're right it doesn't really fit him; maybe I'll just refer to him as the protagonist. That works, right?
In any case, please review and tell me what you think of this newest chapter! But no flames, just constructive criticism, because I don't think my poor heart can handle blatant cruelty!