Disclaimer: Okay, really? Every single time? I don't own Gundam Wing. Anyone dumb enough to think otherwise, please go away. Save me the turmoil.
Note: I did research, but research is never perfect.
By Your Side
Chapter Seven
A Dog is a Dog Whatever its Color
Duo heard a little thumping noise outside the room and lifted his head, even though the door couldn't be seen past the ginormous princess bed. The room was dark, too, and the filmy curtains in front of the room cast strange moon-shadows over the floor. Duo tried to get up and got his paws tangled in the blankets.
Someone knocked on the door, and Duo wriggled like mad until a scent floated past the door – giant cat piss. Duo relaxed a bit then. "Is Heero not in there?" Quatre murmured. Duo focused on one front paw, twisting it around the blanket and pulling it free, then the next, pulling it left, then right, until it was free, too. He pulled himself up with his front feet planted firmly on the ground, finally twisting his back feet and shaking the blanket off. He hobbled three-legged to the door.
"He may still be with Relena and Zechs," Trowa said. "Duo? You in there?"
Duo barked and scratched at the door. He could get the door, but he would have to put weight on his injured leg. It wasn't absolutely necessary to; he probably shouldn't keep ignoring the wounds. Heero was right. He needed to rest while he could.
"All right. I suppose he locked you in for your protection?" Trowa said, and there seemed to be a little smile in his voice. Duo barked again. He wasn't thrilled about it, either. Especially after having woken up in the damn bathroom earlier that day. "We'll go get the key from him, then." And Duo listened as they dropped a couple of things and went off down the hall. Then it was silent again.
Duo was feeling a bit uncomfortable despite having not drunk all that much; he whined. Stupid vocal cords, running loose without his permission.
He took a closer look around, finding his eyesight not even remotely deterred by the obvious darkness of the room. He could still make out the make-up stuff all over the top of the bureau, saw the knick-knacks lying scattered on a table by the closet doors – double, of course, and almost as huge and the entrance to the room. He went that way, enticed by the scents of flowers, maybe, or more probably just morbidly curious about the girl who's room they were borrowing.
The knick-knacks turned out to be pictures and jewelry and notes and a whole bunch of little things. Duo saw a hair clip next to a necklace with a broken chain, and both sat beside a little mp3 player. There was a note that must've come off of a thing of flowers – probably why the entire room stank with the smell – and, beside that, an old photo of what Duo thought might be a plane of some sort. Stupid dog eyes didn't want to focus on–
But that picture, the one in a frame tucked into the corner, almost hidden by some tulle – that he recognized, even in its 2-D rendering.
Heero.
And not just any old picture of Heero. Duo had a couple of those – he'd grabbed a disposable camera one day and had subjected Heero to countless candid camera shots, all of which had ended up showing him with the same expression of annoyed acquiescence. Heero looked like a righteous martyr in every last one.
But not in this one. Relena was pulling Heero into the picture, and Duo knew he was allowing it, because Heero didn't move if he didn't want to and nothing short of a two-by-four could make him, and Heero was looking down at her with what even Duo could make out as a tender expression. There was a half-smile on those gray lips.
Duo sat.
Okay. So he'd known the two were close. How plainly obvious could they make it? The two of them still did that stupid name thing, and they almost seemed to know what the other was going to say, even before they started speaking. The two of them were comfortable with each other, and Zechs was apparently a norm for Heero, too. Duo had hardly seen the man after the wars ended. Well, war and uprising, or whatever. So Heero had apparently gotten in contact with her at some point, either before or after he'd shown up from his trip around the globe and joined Preventors. And stayed in contact. Close contact.
But he wasn't with her. He'd turned her down flat, and she'd let it go without a problem. Duo reminded himself of that as he looked at that picture, but it didn't help him. Heero hadn't given Duo that look in any of his pictures, not once. And Relena was looking at him slightly – he was smiling right in her face! It made something in Duo's chest just ache. He felt like his very veins were bleeding. How stupid of him.
There was a short two-pound knock and then something slid into the door. It twisted open, and Trowa was entering the room, a couple computer carrying cases in his hands and a plastic bag with what smelled like tea on his arm. Duo stood and hobbled up to him. "Hello, Duo." Trowa smiled and placed his things next to the first aid kit by the door. "How's your leg?"
Duo huffed. Of course that would be the first thing the man asked.
"Right." Trowa looked around the room. "We were given the room to the right of this, just down the hall," he said. "Myself and Wufei. Quatre has the room to the left." Duo whined at that. He understood that Wufei was Trowa's partner, and that Quatre was a big, famous diplomat, but Trowa probably wanted to be by Quatre's side more than ever now. "I'm fine with it. Wufei and I work best together, and Quatre can take care of himself." Uh-huh. But Trowa didn't smell fine with it.
Inspection of the room over, he pointed to the floor. "Lay down, Duo. I want to check your leg."
Duo huffed, but he did as told and lay down. He tucked his good legs under his body and wiggled his back left leg out. Ouch. That actually hurt.
Trowa rolled his eyes and leaned down. "Good. They're still clean." He touched the bandage over Duo's bullet wound. "I need to change this and put more peroxide on it." Apparently Trowa already knew how that news was going to blow over. He stood and grabbed the kit. "Do you think you can keep your leg still?"
Duo honestly didn't know. His body did things – made noises, performed movements – that he didn't seem to have any control over. Like his tail. His damn tail ignored any and all orders. He whined as an answer and bent his head. Honestly... no. He didn't think he could control his own stupid legs. He hadn't even known he was pulling away from Quatre's touch! How could he ever think to control a body he'd never suffered in before?
"All right." And the man came back with the kit and sank to his knees. "All right," he said again. "We'll take this slow. Okay?" Duo whined. Trowa smiled for him and touched his head. "You and Quatre were right, of course. About that man. His name is Kristopher Vandura. An old armyman. He received a purple heart and a string of honorary mentions. Left the military about a year before we arrived." Duo huffed in relief. Well, thank goodness at least for that. But the man most likely had friends on the inside – they might have been lost to Duo and the others. It didn't mean the man wouldn't hate them if he knew who they were. "In any case, he's clean. As for Turris..." Trowa opened the kit and pulled out a cotton swab and the dreaded peroxide. "Well, I'll let everyone know that at the same time. But we know they're only after us because we managed to fool Maremaia's plans. Now they've learned that we need to be killed before anything is attempted. That fool girl almost gave them an easy victory, going to Heero's house like that."
Duo's eyes flickered to the picture again. Maybe he understood why she'd gone. Telling Heero over the phone would have been enough to pass along the information, but she probably needed to see if that smile was safe.
"We spoke to Wufei before we left. He seemed hip-deep in... things." Trowa snorted. "I'll be the first to admit that I don't quite understand what happens in a laboratory. Most poisons are easy enough for me to make, but I don't dissect the things. I just add the ingredients necessary." Duo woofed softly in agreement. Trowa smiled as he pulled apart the bandaging. "Yeah, that's a lot of plasma," he murmured. "We have to make sure it doesn't turn to pus." He felt around the wound. "We're lucky to have someone like Wufei on our side." His fingers paused, and for the first time in a while, Trowa looked into his eyes. "You saw our argument."
It wasn't a question, but Duo woofed again, anyway. He uncurled one front paw and put it on Trowa's arm. It was the best he could do.
Trowa tilted his head in recognition. "Thank you. We realized what we'd done – ousting him for showing his concern to us. We apologized properly in the lab." Well, thank goodness for that, at least. "Now more than ever, we need to pool our strengths to bring you back."
If Duo were human, he would've blushed. His paw slipped back to the floor.
Trowa put the peroxide on the cotton swab then and looked down at Duo's leg. "This is going to hurt," he said, as if Duo wasn't well aware of that fact, and then the man held Duo's back leg – and Duo found himself automatically trying to get free – and dabbed the wound. He yelped and definitely felt himself trying to pull away then. His front paws moved until they were grabbing the carpet with the claws. He clenched his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. The yelp ran into a whine and just kept going.
"I know. You're sensitive to touch now." And Trowa just kept dabbing.
The door slammed open then, the force enough to make it bang against a door stopper on the wall. Duo and Trowa both turned, Trowa taking a defensive stance in front of Duo and Duo raising himself onto his feet until the smells hit and he relaxed, plopping back down on a sigh. Heero and Quatre looked in with guns drawn. "Trowa?" Quatre asked.
"We're fine. I was cleaning his wound." Trowa waved a hand toward the supplies on the floor. Quatre and Heero put their guns away then, but both were looking at Duo. "He's all right, too. Dogs are sensitive to touch, and usually they clean their wounds themselves with their tongues. The peroxide hurts."
Heero stepped forward first, but while he paused, Quatre didn't. The blond rushed straight to Duo's side. "Duo, are you all right?"
The constant worry was going to annoy him soon. He barked for the blond and turned to Heero. The man was just standing there in the entrance looking a little lost. Duo barked again.
"He's worried about you, Heero," Quatre said, and he turned, too. "Frankly, so am I." And Quatre rubbed his chest with the heel of one palm. Duo tried to curb his emotions then, but Qat's eyes were on Heero. "You haven't been acting-"
"I'm fine." Heero walked in then, closing the door. "We found the mole. Lionel Winsley." He looked over to the cases Trowa had dropped and nodded. "Thank you for getting my computer." Then he walked to Duo. The man stopped a foot away, even though Quatre made room for him, and when he squatted down, he kept his hands on his lap. "The man admitted to contacting Turris through his computer. Zechs is questioning him now. We were coming to check on you when..." But Heero stopped there.
"Duo? Do you need to go out?" Duo looked up at Quatre. If 'go out' meant go to the bathroom, the answer was a resounding yes. He barked. "All right. Relena's maid had an excellent idea. There's a miniature potty you can use that she made. It's low to the ground, so you shouldn't have a problem with it." Duo was so glad he wasn't human to blush on that one. "I'll take you to it once Trowa's done."
He wasn't done? Duo looked up and saw the man with a clean swab. The other one was on the floor by the kit, a part of it just slightly darker than the rest. And dammit, but he whined again.
"I know." Trowa's smile was a little forced. "Quatre?"
"I – I'll do it." Heero scooted a little closer, and with those bare hands he wrapped his fingers around Duo's foot and upper thigh. Duo froze. "I'm his partner."
"All right." Trowa leaned back over Duo as Quatre moved to Duo's head, putting it in his lap. He pet Duo's cheek, his hand sliding to his ear, and Duo nuzzled into his legs, rather afraid of himself now. Heero's hand was very close to where it had been before – right there. Just a few more inches... shit. So of course those thoughts ended up distracting him momentarily from the eminent pain, and Trowa's stupid peroxide swab of death made him jump and yelp again. He heard Heero wince.
"Lionel Winsley had a perfect record," Heero said then. "Clean, save for two speeding tickets in his first couple of years of driving. He was a coordination manager – he's been fired now, of course. Une wants to take Winsley in, but Zechs thinks he might be able to get something out of the man. She's purposely going to arrive late."
The information was enough to make Duo gain enough control that he didn't whimper again. Shit, had peroxide hurt like this when he'd been human? Was Trowa right – was he more sensitive to touch now? That sucked. Of course, it also helped explain why Heero's hand, doing nothing more than holding him down, was giving him shivers. Of course, it probably would even if he were human.
"There. Done." Quatre sighed at Trowa's words, but the petting didn't stop. Duo looked over to Heero, who was letting go of his leg like it was poison – ha, ha – and standing. Trowa put the swab next to its brother and began rebandaging the damn thing, putting gauze over the still-burning skin. "I really hope this works. Taking him to a vet might have disastrous results."
Quatre hummed an agreement. Heero seemed uninterested in the conversation; he'd already moved over to his computer and snagged the thing. "Hopefully, we'll get something out of Lionel, and we'll be able to take down Turris without much of a struggle."
"They have a large following," Trowa said. He taped Duo's wound and turned to the kit, putting everything once more in its place.
"We'll take the head," Heero said, and sat on the bed, unzipping the case and pulling free his computer. "If we get the leaders, the rest will fall. Just as before."
"The problem will be getting through all those people without any casualties," Quatre said. "It was difficult enough this morning without our Gundams, and that was with us successfully infiltrating the building. We won't be so lucky again. We won't be given the same opening."
Heero pounded on the power button. His computer chimed merrily to life.
"I agree." Trowa picked up the cotton swabs and tossed them in the trash. "I'm going to wash my hands. Quatre, why don't you take Duo to the restroom?"
Quatre nodded. "All right." And the blond smiled down at Duo. "It's pretty inventive, actually. She took a cake pan and put newspaper shreds and grass inside it. It should work, and the maids will clean it up. I figured you'd be horrified enough with that, without us being the ones to do it."
Duo barked loudly at that one. Damn straight.
Duo heard the faint sound of water running and turned to it. So the bathroom was beside Quatre's room. Of course it was – the diplomat should be given the most ease, shouldn't he?
But then Quatre moved out of the room and grabbed something, coming in only after having picked that something up, and Duo watched the man come in with the actual cake pan in his hands. His doggy mouth dropped.
"Come on," Quatre said, and Duo sent a disbelieving look to the man before turning to Heero. His partner didn't even look up. Probably for the best, though; the thought of peeing as a dog while Heero knew – it was absolutely humiliating.
So Duo trudged after Quatre as he went to the closet – really? Duo was going to be doing his business amongst the princess' dresses? – and opened the door. Duo's nose was attacked by flowers and soap. Duo wrinkled his nose. Soap? And some of those flowers smelled like Relena's hair. Shampoo? And when Quatre started moving into the closet, Duo found he had no choice but to do the same, hobbling like a fool through the swathes of grayish-white dressed and skirts, each packaged in a plastic bag like corpses in a freezer, and there was enough room that the place was probably where the princess probably tried on each outfit, too. The thought was cemented when he passed what looked like a dog in-between two rows of clothing. He stopped cold. That dog was limping on three legs.
Him? That was him?
Quarter continued on, and Duo turned as the sound of his footsteps changed – holy shit, the woman's closet led to a ginormous bathroom – before turning back to... himself.
He couldn't see his fur color, but it was a dark gray. Probably brown. He hobbled over to the mirror and cocked his head. Yes, he could see the white bandages over the back leg, which was held carefully off the ground. He was rather tall, he supposed, with long, skinny legs and a long, thin tail that was still at the moment. His ears were long, too, flapping over to rest on the sides of his face. He had a long muzzle and a really dark nose.
Dog. He was a dog.
He sat, disturbed that the thought was smacking him in the face again now. How long had he known that he was a dog? How long had he walked around on four legs and felt the awkwardness – or worse, the recognition, the comfort, the ease of the act? And how often had he hated his vocal cords, his inability to speak? How many times had he barked? Growled? Been pet and felt the fingers run through his fur?
But here it was again, a new, painful way of realizing it. Mirrors never hid truths. He was... he was a dog. A tall, potentially brown dog. A chocolate lab. Yes, he was brown.
He didn't know he was whining until both Quatre and Heero raced once more toward him.
Quatre leaned down beside Duo immediately, touching the bandage on his back paw. Duo turned to Heero as the man came up to him, too, and then froze where he stood. Heero's eyes swept from Duo to the mirror, and on the mirror they stayed. Duo looked back, too.
He saw himself, and Quatre, the blond finally concluding that Duo was probably fine physically and touching Duo's back. Heero stood beside them, half chopped off by the mirror's edge, his eyes slightly wide. Duo could smell Heero's pain. It came like a gust of icy wind, chilling his flanks, spearing his lungs. Heero saw what, in that instant, Duo saw. His two human friends and their old teammate, his eyes glowing a weird, dark blue-gray – apparently the color purple wasn't one widely accepted in dog-vision – and his fur dark. He tried to imagine what he thought they saw – the brown of his old hair, the violet of his old eyes. All trapped in that dog form. Heero's hands twitched. The movement caught Duo's gaze for a moment. Yes. They were all being shown for what they were in that instant. Two human men bound to their old friend, who in turn was a dog. A dog. They couldn't joke together anymore. They couldn't spar. Couldn't commiserate. It was all over.
And looking into that mirror, Duo couldn't say that it would blow over eventually. That he would definitely be human again someday. From everything he saw, everything he knew in that instant, he was a dog.
If dogs had tear ducts, he would have cried.
Quatre gasped and clutched his chest, and though Duo was aware of it, he couldn't do much to help his friend. He found himself whining again and wanted to strangle his own vocal cords. Why did everything have to be shown to the world? Why was his every emotion right there in his throat? Stupid dogs!
Gods, he was calling himself a stupid dog.
Heero's eyes caught on Duo's in the mirror, and they stared at one another. Heero turned his face away, breaking the contact, and Quatre gasped again as Heero walked away.
Shit.
Duo found himself laying down before he quite understood what he was doing. His bladder was a bit impatient with him, but he couldn't find it in him to move. Heero had turned away from his doggy form. Of course, that made sense. How painful was it to have your partner turned into a dog? Duo couldn't even imagine how he'd feel if Heero was a dog. Of course, that could be because of his particular... emotional circumstances.
Still, if Heero cared enough about Duo to be his partner, then the man certainly cared enough to be upset.
"Duo," Quatre said, touching Duo's back and scratching slightly, "it'll be all right. Wufei was working feverishly. It means he had to have found something. He'll keep working on it until he finds a way to make you human again."
Duo whined again and laid his head on his paws.
But he only allowed it for a few more moments. Dog or not, everyone was still responding to his bout of angst, and he needed to make it stop. He was the uppity one; the one everyone depended on for happiness. He had to shape up. After all, everything wasn't over yet. There was still a lot they could do. Even him. Even in his stupid dog body.
So Duo stood up again and nudged Quatre with his nose, and the blond smiled for him and stood, leading him in to the closet-bathroom. It was huge and sparkly and everything was probably peach or pink – gods, everything for this girl was pink – and his little make-shift potty was sitting there in the left corner by the toilet, wedged between it and the countertop. The countertop that spanned from one edge of the room to the other. Another mirror sat atop it, like a hotel mirror, from one end of the wall to the other. Duo was thankful it was above his height.
Then Quatre left the room, giving him privacy to take care of his business. He stared at the thing and felt that damn wave of depression roll over him again. This was really how it was, then, huh? He couldn't use the human toilet because he wasn't human, and no amount of pretending would make it so. Damn, he'd had a much easier time grappling with all this when he was just Shinigami. When he'd been trying to argue his humanity, it had seemed like them seeing him as a dog had been wrong, and in fighting to prove himself human, he'd conveniently overlooked the fact that he looked like a dog and focused only on finding a way to communicate. He'd been running and hiding, and from something as clearly unavoidable as his change in species.
He pawed the bathroom door almost closed before stepping over to the cake tray. He put one paw in it and tested the thing, but it didn't slide around at all. There must've been something sticky on the bottom, and his stupid little breakdown had missed him from hearing or seeing it. He took a deep breath and stepped into the thing. He had to lean down to take care of business, and dammit but even through the newspaper and the grass, there was the sound of water on metal. He winced at it, then just suffered through and took a dump, too. At least that was quieter. Shit. It was going to stink up the entire damn room.
How humiliating.
He pawed open the door and hesitated before leaving. He would have to pass the mirror again. And again and again, until they at least left the room. He took a deep breath. Okay. He could handle this. There wasn't anything much to it. He just had to face what he might be for the rest of his life, and he had to stop pretending it wasn't there, or at least not permanently. He had to suck it up. He was a dog. A dog with a human brain.
He wanted to scream.
Instead he stepped forward, once more hobbling to the mirror and staring at himself. That was what he was. A dog. A large, gray dog, because brown didn't exist anymore. Neither did violet, or purple, or red. He could never be sure if that bathroom was as pink as he suspected it to be. The towel on the rack was gray. It wasn't yellow, or pink, or peach. It was gray.
Lots of things were gray now.
He found himself needing to take another deep breath. He could probably deal with being a dog. It would mean a shorter life span, a different way of living. He would be nothing more than a pet to his once-friends, but he thought he could deal with that.
But Heero. He wished he could have what he'd had with him before – a partnership. A togetherness that would be lost forever now. That was probably what made Heero turn from him, the knowledge that what they'd been was gone now. That what Duo had told himself was enough was now more than enough, so desired the longing burned in his chest. Gone. It was gone, and it was gone forever.
He had to think like that, or he might break. Deal with the heartache now. Get it done and over with.
He was a dog.
He came out of that closet just as someone called Heero's phone. He watched Heero answer the thing and looked over to Trowa. The man was with Quatre, rubbing the blond's back. There was food on Duo's plate again, something he must've missed due to his spacing out – again. But he smelled it now, and he moved to it as Heero answered. "Yuy."
"Yuy, I'm on my way. How is everything?"
Duo felt Heero's eyes flicker to him, but he just leaned down and ate. His first concern was food, his second water. His third was a good nap, and his fourth – to become his first if necessary – was to answer Heero's or Qat's or Tro's orders. "Fine," Heero answered, "You?"
"Well enough," Wufei said, sighing. "We were right – it was some strange DNA compound. It seems like the DNA hadn't been made for what it produced. There are several places where ligases seemed to fix whatever had been initially done."
Heero's eyes flickered to Duo again, and this time Duo turned to the water bowl. Damn, but he'd been hungrier and thirstier than he'd thought. Showed what thinking as a human did in a dog's body. "And?"
"Well, from what we've gathered, they'd actually meant to pull Maxwell's DNA apart, somehow. To leave him debilitated or, perhaps, simply gone. As if to pull Maxwell's cells apart."
Duo heard the metal of Heero's phone crack slightly under pressure. "And?" he said, this time with that dangerously low voice that preceded pain and torment.
"The ligases tried to fix the DNA strands that were to alter those in Maxwell's blood," Wufei said. Duo lapped up the water and wondered if he was the only one not quite following what the hell Wufei was saying. "They and the nucleases created a canine DNA construct, which was incomplete until it touched Maxwell's blood. Then the single-nucleotide polymorphisms formed to create the specific labrador DNA."
Heero took a deep breath. "What is it doing to him now?"
"Now?" Wufei hesitated on the other end. Duo heard a shifting on the bed and looked over, finally; Quatre and Trowa were unobtrusively listening in to Heero's conversation, though they smelled frustrated – probably they couldn't hear Wufei (not like it was doing him any good to hear the man). Heero was gripping the phone hard enough to break it. In fact, Duo heard another small grind of metal on metal. He gave up on drinking and went to stand in front of Heero, knowing from the tension practically vibrating along his skin that was man needed comfort. "Now," Wufei said then, "the viral DNA is most likely trying to change all of Maxwell's body to that of a canine. His blood and skin have obviously already been altered, and I believe his organs will be next, if they haven't already been completed. After that?" And the man sucked in a breath. "After that comes the brain. And if that happens... I don't know that we'll be able to save him, Yuy."
Duo gave up on the nap, of course, when he learned of his impending... canine completeness. Heero had explained it to Quatre and Trowa, using all the big, fancy words that Wufei had, and when Duo barked for clarification, Quatre told him his DNA was being changed by the virus. Basically, he was going to be completely dog-like soon. And that meant bye-bye human brain. Forever.
It was scary to learn that, after all that time in the closet having a heart-to-heart with the mirror, he'd still believed he was going to be human again. After all, anything done could be undone, with enough effort. But to learn that soon he would be fully canine... no. He couldn't stand the thought.
He really was going to be a dog. Forever.
He lay down as Heero clacked furiously on the keyboard of his computer. Wufei was due to arrive any second now. Quatre had returned to Lionel and Zechs, hoping to get more information. Trowa was standing in front of the window, talking on the phone to someone, a voice Duo didn't recognize. He was asking for information on Styx Cafe – a cafe so great, you'll forget your troubles, har har – and getting very little that was useful. Duo was fairly positive his friends – shit, he was still thinking like that... although now he was more afraid that he wouldn't think of them like that soon – were going to jump in again, this time in order to save Duo before he slipped into permanent dog mode. It made a sick sort of sense – they were afraid of losing him, so they would jump into action. But hadn't they already fought? They didn't smell like too much gunpowder or anything, but Heero still had the faint trace of smoke on his clothes. Had the man been caught in the fire? But no, the smell would be much stronger if he had. He'd probably just been near it. The idiot.
They heard footsteps, light and steady, and then someone was knocking on the door. "Yuy?"
Trowa was the one to get the door for his partner, the one who stepped aside and let him in. Wufei came in, looked down, and nodded. "I thought there would be heavy carpeting." And the man carried in a huge cardboard... thing, one that was white and flat, and dumped it in the middle of the floor. Trowa blinked at him. Duo raised his head and woofed. "Yes, hello to you, too, Maxwell." And the man pulled out these little tube-like things from a bunch of bags and set them down in front of the cardboard before pulling out a bunch of velvet pouches and opening them. "Barton, are you getting anywhere on that thing?" He nodded to Trowa's phone. Duo was so curious he lifted his head.
Trowa shook his head. "No. Thank you for everything, but I have to go. I'll call you if I need anything else." And he turned off his phone and tossed it to the bed. "What do you need?"
"Help me sort these." And Wufei gave the man a bunch of the sacks. "We need to effectively communicate with Maxwell. These should help."
Duo stood then, coming to investigate. There was a lot of clacking going on inside those little pouches. It took Duo a second to notice that another conspicuous clacking noise was absent – Heero wasn't typing anymore.
Trowa opened one of them and peered inside. "Wufei, you're a genius." And he dumped out what looked to be little square pieces of wood. Duo hobbled over and peered down. Scrabble. They were scrabble pieces. He grinned. He could differentiate between the light gray of the tiles and the hard black of the letters. A, S, N, K. He touched one of them, flipping it over with a paw. H.
He panted and nudged the H with his nose.
Trowa caught the movement and nudged Wufei before picking it up and placing it on the cardboard. Duo hunted around, even as Wufei snorted and rolled his eyes. "Give us a few minutes, Maxwell. We still need to set all this up." And Duo watched as the man grabbed four more things from one last bag – computer paper, tape,scissors, and a black marker. Heero went back to typing whatever as Wufei went to work writing letters on one piece of computer paper, cutting them out, and taping them all up. Trowa, in turned, put all of the letters into a pile. Duo nudged an E, then an O, and finally pawed another E and R. He rearranged them on the cardboard himself, just to see if he could. It was much easier than he'd thought; apparently the practice with the damn pen and marker had done him some good, after all. In no time the cardboard showed his little message. He panted in happiness.
"Heero," Trowa said quietly, and Duo looked up just as Heero once more turned to them. "It's your name. He wants to speak to you."
Heero looked at Duo, then away. "I don't have time."
Duo panted, happy despite Heero's poor attitude. He turned to Trowa and barked, then started moving around as they continued working. The little things Wufei had gotten turned out to be coin dispensers of some sort; the things had hatches that opened with the press of a finger – or paw – and fed a block through. Duo had doubted they would work until he tried it; apparently there was a weight thing at the bottom that kept feeding until something dropped and moved the scale. Kind've cool. Where the hell had Wufei found them? And how expensive had they been?
Trowa plunked in the blocks he'd sorted, and Duo popped open the first letter he wanted – I.
He kept going as Wufei and Trowa spread the little tiles out further. The man had gotten enough for Duo to write a freaking essay if he so desired – which he didn't – and they took over almost all of the floor working. Quatre came back just as Duo was finishing his message, long before Trowa and Wufei had finished. Heero sighed and stopped typing just long enough to get the door, then returned to his laptop.
"Hi, everyone." Quatre stopped and gasped at the sight of them all on the floor. Duo barked. His stupid tail was wagging. "Duo – oh, Wufei, did you – look–"
And everyone did look; there on the cardboard was Duo's message, one he'd been wanting to give everyone for a while now. He barked again.
"I'm here," Wufei read, and his eyes slid over to Duo. Everyone's did. His tail was going crazy. "Maxwell..."
A tiny sound caught in Heero's throat, and Duo turned to him. Heero's eyes were squinted, his chin high, his lips parted. He looked almost on the verge of tears.
Heero stood and went through the closet to the bathroom.
Duo thought it said something about the opulence of the room that Heero's exit didn't involve having to squeeze past either them or their little cardboard table. Then he found himself whining.
"It's – okay, Duo." Quatre came forward and put a hand on his head. "He's..." But Quatre couldn't find a word that would make Duo feel better, and Duo knew it. There was nothing to make anyone feel better about the fact that their friend was now a dog. And though Duo tried his damnedest, he couldn't help but whine again.
Trowa and Wufei, once they were done, asked Duo to start putting down as much as he could about what happened to him, then went to grab some food. Quatre, meanwhile, had taken up Trowa's place on the phone, and Heero resumed his laptop... whatever-he-was-doing, this time with a feverishness that made Duo's fur stand on end and his muscles stay tensed. Still he went around pressing switches and nudging tiles until he was almost sick of the process, trying to keep the words as short as possible as to keep from running out of tiles. Wufei and Trowa returned with what looked to be fast Chinese food – something Wufei didn't seem thrilled with – and handed the food around.
Then it was information-gathering time.
Everyone seemed to lean over all at once, their eyes on Duo's lengthy message. "I can hardly read that," Wufei said, and rolled his eyes. "Maxwell, honestly."
"I went to the house and called Heero," Quatre said. The others stared at him with rather wide eyes. "What? It says, 'I go home cal H.'" Quatre shrugged before continuing. "Drank Gatorade, felt tired and dizzy."
"Where the hell does it say that?" Wufei asked, cutting in. The Chinese man glared down at the message board. "It says, 'drank G, tire a spin.' How the hell can you understand that?"
"Duo sends short messages," Heero said, his first contribution. Heero's gaze was darting over the cardboard. "He goes on to say he sat, ended the call with me and got up to put it away. He fell." Heero's lips parted back, his eyes wide, too, his skin stinking of fear and hatred. "He dropped the phone and couldn't reach it. We saw that when we went to his house – the phone on the floor."
Quatre nodded, beaming. "I guess Duo never sent texts to you two?"
"Of course he did," Wufei said. Trowa finished off his plate while everyone sat, letting their meals get cold. He reached over and plucked a mini-corn-on-the-cob from Quatre's plate. The blond shouted and reached to take it back, but Wufei glared at the two of them, and Quatre settled for glaring at their tallest friend. Trowa popped the cob in his mouth and grinned. "Perhaps he simply felt that a higher level of education would be appreciated from my end."
"Or that you wouldn't understand what it read," Trowa said, winking down at Duo. "As for me, he knew I hate texting, so he simply texted, 'call me,' or, if it was about someone else, simply gave me their name."
Quatre 'oh'ed, but Heero didn't seem to care. "After he dropped the phone, he woke up a dog. He doesn't remember where his clothes went – strange; we didn't see where they'd gone, either – and tells us he'd left his house in order to escape any pursuers. I don't suppose they would have arrived, though, since they'd thought he would either die or disappear." Heero's chopsticks broke. He cursed.
"Here – we brought spares." And Trowa reached into a bag and pulled out two more. Heero looked down at them for a moment before taking them and eating. His eyes didn't leave his hand.
"Then he says, 'any questions, ask.' And that's it," Quatre ended. They were all a little quiet then, each eating their own food. Duo watched them and found himself wanting to taste all of it, to gobble up everything they had. He went back to his fountain and drank a little more. It helped with the hunger pangs, and he'd really gotten a workout hobbling three-legged around the cardboard.
"Yes or no questions would be best for a quick discussion," Wufei said finally. "One bark for yes, two for no. That sort of thing."
"First," Quatre said, "from everything we've found through – well, since we'd known he was a terrorist, we were allowed a light truth serum – and from that, Une and Zechs got only that Lionel was recruited into Turris for his position in Relena's home and his computing skills, and that he believed a World Nation would crumble to internal conflict and the human desire to war. He believed Turris was saying the same – that humans were arrogantly assuming that they could live harmoniously despite their obviously violent nature. The man doesn't know anything about Turris other than that."
Heero stopped eating and stared at his hand for a while before grabbing a piece of chicken with the chopsticks and bringing it to his lips. At least one organ hadn't been turned canine yet; Duo watched those lips surround that piece of meat and felt a flash of heat from his groin through the rest of his body.
"Well," Wufei said, picking apart what looked to be a very nasty meat-in-pasta thing, "since we know the cause, we now have Po and the rest of the lab working overtime to try to find out a way to reverse it. Po believes that if we can use Maxwell's DNA, we should be able to use it as a sort of virus, as well. The only problem is that we'd only have one test subject, and if it fails..." The man let out a long breath. "Needless to say, Po is covering all of the bases. And she thinks we might need some of Maxwell's original blood. I don't know that we have that."
"I do."
Everyone turned to Heero. "I do," he said again. "But it's at my house."
Wufei stood, then Trowa and Quatre. Heero looked down, calmly placing his chopsticks on his plate and getting to his feet. "How?" Wufei asked. "Where?"
"Duo and I spar," Heero said. "We did so the night before the bust, in order to release tension. I haven't cleaned my sparring gloves yet, and I caught him on the cheek."
Shit, that was right. Duo had forgotten about that. The blow had been unexpected; he'd basically been staring for a millisecond too long, and with Heero, that was more than enough. His damn mouthpiece had gone flying. The inside of his cheek had bled, and Heero had tried to touch Duo's wound as the blood started dribbling. Duo'd wiped it onto his sleeve and then had promptly forgotten about it; when Heero had made to apologize, Duo had swung a fist and told him to hurry up and fight.
It had gotten on Heero's gloves?
Well, shit. That was kind've awesome.
"We have to get it now," Wufei said, pulling Duo back, and Trowa and Quatre nodded. Heero was already heading for the door. Wufei and Trowa followed, but Quatre hesitated. Heero was already out the door before Trowa stopped and turned back. "Quatre?"
Their blond friend was looking at Duo, who sat by his cardboard feeling lost and alone. "We can't leave him here," Quatre said, and came back for him. He looked up as Quatre knelt in front of him. "You're coming with us," Quatre said. "You're still a part of our team. Never forget that."
And Trowa came up beside him and picked Duo up, holding him between his front and back legs. Wufei held the door open for them, and Heero, waiting silently at the top of the stairs, looked into Duo's eyes and tilted his head to the door. "Ready?" Heero asked quietly. It was the same word he always asked before they left – the same as Heero had said the night he'd changed.
Duo barked.