(Fly on Broken Wings: Chapter Twenty Eight - Departure)
rated: R - language, content, violence
shounen-ai/yaoi
Departure
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They were watching television when Trieze perched himself on the arm of Quatre's chair. Legs crossed delicately at the ankle, Trieze waited until he had their rapt attention before giving a toss of his head and greeting them. Duo gave a distracted response, eyes darting back to the television program. On the screen, the contest bumbled through the final response. Duo jumped out of his chair and gave an overly theatric, "No! You fool! The answer was Switzerland!" The cry drew stares from nearby patients. A girl in the corner drooled over her shirt.
Quatre turned his head, but Trieze had vanished just as easily as he'd approached. He half-stood, catching sight of the boy over the plexi-partition separating out the T.V. nook. "Duo…" he warned in a low voice. Duo was fully involved with the television. Quatre snagged his roommate's arm and repeated his name over and over until the older boy looked at him. "Zechs," Quatre said simply.
Duo's head swiveled around. "What's Wufei doing?"
"No," Quatre urged. He bounced nervously on his toes. "Trieze. I think he's…"
But Duo was already up and moving. Trieze snuck up on Zechs and, to his friends' mutual horror, threw his hands over the boy's eyes. Zechs flailed his arms for a moment before Trieze backed away and looked up with an expectant smirk. Duo grabbed Quatre and they ducked behind one of the half-walls. Ice-blue eyes looked everywhere but at Trieze as Zechs said several lengthy things which they couldn't hear, but had the effect of slapping the smile off the other boy's face.
Recovering quickly, Trieze tossed his head and reached for Zechs, but the older boy took a quick step back and shook his head, the long, pale fall of hair dancing. The hand fell to his side and formed a fist. Zechs stuck his hands into his pockets and took off, long, lean legs carrying him quickly out of the room. That left Trieze standing there with several stares directed his way. The boy defiantly glared at them, individually and collectively, and made a rude gesture to Zechs's retreating back.
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-July 29th 9:37pm
What the hell is going on here? I leave your shit alone, you leave mine alone. That's the rule. Don't try and pretend you don't know anything about it. I asked around and everyone says that in group today you fought with Milli and he ended up punching you. I want to know exactly what you said to him. You absolut jerk he won't even talk to me now. Futhermore no one will tell me what you said not even Duo and he's the worst gossip around.
Meiran twirled the pen around in her hand as she read. Thick, dark lines of Trieze's angry, erratic writing sketched across the page. As if the tone wasn't enough, the grammar and spelling mistakes stood out to her like red beacons; Trieze was livid. Not that she cared. All for the better, as far as Meiran was concerned, that Wufei finally put his foot down. She turned the page to Wufei's carefully constructed reply.
-July 30th 10:20am
Therapy with S was uneventful. We discussed fighting and the negative outcomes of violence. I agreed that neither are appropriate responses, which seemed to please the doctor. Although it was not my intention to interfere with your affairs, my actions did unfortunately seem to cause a rift between you and Peacecraft. At risk of sounding cliché, however, you started it. At the sentence evaluation hearing your actions were brought up to negatively reflect on myself. I simply took steps to protect myself. As to what I said, that will remain between Peacecraft and myself. Also I have noticed a marked improvement in Maxwell. Winner seems more assertive at times but at others quieter. He seems to miss Barton very much. I worry about them.
Chewing on the nubbed end of her pen, Meiran thought a long time before making her entry. Long lines of looping cursive flowed out across the page.
-July 30th 11:35am
Both of you shut up. Trieze, you're a selfish jerk. Wufei, you're an insensitive fool. You're even, so stop sulking! I don't want to read another word about it. We've been through this before and I'm sick of getting stuck in the middle. It's Wufei's decision and you just have to deal with it!
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The week passed smoothly despite the chaotic start. Group therapy livened up briefly when Richards tried to bring Wufei and Zechs's scuffle out into the open, but the boys simply sat on opposite ends of the circle and politely refused to talk about it. Duo expressed distrust at Zechs's seeming acceptance of the situation; he insisted the boy had to be plotting something. Several times Quatre caught Zechs watching them from across the circle, or across the cafeteria. To Dorothy's great delight, the tall, handsome blonde now sat between her and Relena, who was less than pleased. Zechs seemed to turn on the charm, however, and her frequent threats to have her father get Zechs transferred ceased.
The swelling around Wufei's eye had faded down to dark gold shadows before long, to the boy's evident relief, before vanishing entirely. Duo lamented that they'd given Wufei a tough, hard-boiled image and earned an hour's cold silence in return, broken only by Wufei rubbing a Scrabble victory into his friend's face. Quatre had tried to use his own name on a triple-word score and been disqualified.
Trieze sulked, and several times tried to strike up conversation with Zechs, who always and politely turned him down. As far as he overheard, Zechs never once blamed Wufei or fully explained the situation. This made Quatre feel a little sorry for Trieze, right up until he and Dorothy played keep away with Sandy. The bear ended up getting confiscated by a nurse and Quatre's reaction landed him in the quiet room for a few hours. He spent the time chewing all his nails down to the quick.
The only upside was he missed individual therapy and, when released, could go straight to dinner. Joining the end of the line, Quatre shuffled forward to load his tray up with macaroni surprise – he really, really didn't want to know what made it a surprise – and a few apple slices since they'd run out of cookies three people in front of him. Weaving around tables to get to their usual spot, Quatre was surprised to find only Wufei sitting there. On the bench next to him was Sandy.
Soon as his tray was on the table, Quatre scooped his bear up. Hugging the soft, plush body made him forget about the empty, padded cell. "Where's Duo?"
Wufei chewed for several moments, and then swallowed before replying, "I don't know. He might be getting ready for tomorrow. I got your bear back for you."
"Thank you."
He shrugged. "Wasn't that hard. I just explained Trieze was a belligerent bully. Made the nurse laugh, anyway. You okay, now?"
Quatre nodded, embarrassed, and they ate in companionable silence. The surprise seemed to be that this was just last night's macaroni and cheese with seasoned beef added. Fridays were almost always rehashed or modified leftovers. Wufei cleared up his tray and stood. "See you later." Quatre mumbled a response around a mouthful of pasta. It wasn't until after Wufei had left he realized his apples had been swapped out for a cookie.
Quatre ate quickly and took the cookie with him, munching on it as he filed out from the cafeteria. A supervising orderly gave him look, however, so Quatre ate the rest very quickly to avoid trouble. Richards was already mad at him because on Wednesday, instead of sharing their inner emotions, he and Duo had played a clapping game they'd picked up from the girls. And G had to be mad Quatre'd missed individual today, but that was hardly his fault. Quatre pushed his worries aside and hummed the little rhyme that went with the game. If he could find Duo, they could practice. Relena and Dorothy boasted they were better coordinated, and Duo had bet a week's worth of desserts otherwise.
Not finding Duo in the common area, Quatre made one final circuit of the room before heading down the hall. Drifting out of the open door to their room was the sound of drawers being jerked open and slammed shut. Quatre stopped humming at the sight that greeted him; Duo stood in the middle of the room, an open duffle bag at his feet, with clothes and belongings sprawled over every flat surface, even Quatre's bed. As he watched, Duo got a great armful of clothes out of the top dresser drawer before slamming it shut with his hip. He dumped the clothes on to the floor and started kicking them everywhere.
Sandy bounced off his sneaker.
Quatre's breath hitched.
Duo turned around, and Quatre's knees nearly gave out in relief. His roommate looked pissed, but not crazy. Not like he had that one night.
He scrambled to collect Sandy and tentatively crossed into the room. Duo whirled back around and started stuffing several pairs of black jeans into his duffle. "Go away," he said, not bothering to look at Quatre.
Tempted as he was to do just that, Quatre instead stepped further into the room. "Wh-what're you…?"
"Moving out." Duo started reaching for shirts. "Apparently I'm a bad influence," he spat the words out bitterly.
Richards's words floated back around to haunt him. Quatre felt his stomach drop. "I—I didn't, um, that is, it wasn't me – I don't think."
Duo stood, a black shirt clutched in one hand. Quatre retreated hastily, stumbling over his feet. "You know, whatever. We both get our room this way. Fuck Dickie for being a stupid, pompous—FUCK!" Duo gave his duffle a kick that sent it flying under the bed. "I hate this place!" He knelt and dragged the bag out by its strap.
Every instinct told him to flee, but instead Quatre edged into the room and started folding the clothes strewn over his bed. He made a stack of shirts and a stack of pants. Duo paced the narrow space between their beds and muttered a nonstop tirade against Doctor Richards, Doctor G, every nurse he could name, quite a few of the orderlies, and even one of the janitors. He was halfway through a scathing critique of the head nurse's injection procedure when Wufei appeared in the doorway.
"What the hell are you doing?" Wufei's eyes were round as they took in the scene before him. They tinged toward sudden fear. "Are you running away again? You're not being very subtle if you are. Winner, stop helping him. Maxwell, I absolutely—"
"Shut up," Duo growled. The harsh tone snapped Wufei's mouth shut and colored his cheeks red.
Quatre jumped in before they could start fighting. "He has to move out."
"Dickie passed down all mighty judgment from on high that I am a corrupting and potentially damaging influence to dear, sweet Quatre. So instead of forcing blondie here out into a new room, I booted from my room! My room! I was here first! I've been here! I like this room. I like this hallway! This is such fucking bullshit I don't know where to start!"
"Well, pissing all over your friends isn't the place," Wufei responded coolly. He picked a few sweaters off the floor and set them on the bed. Quatre promptly started folding them.
"Yeah, well, I'd go piss all over Dickie but I get the feeling he'd come up with some even more hideous punishment. He is such a fucking bastard."
Wufei set about gathering up more clothes, which Duo had managed to fling all over the small room. He pulled a pair of boxers off the corner of Duo's nightstand and held them gingerly by one corner before suddenly flushing darkly. "These are mine."
"You weren't using 'em. Man, this is such fucking bullshit!"
"You've said that," Wufei shot his friend a disapproving look. "Profanity isn't going to help this situation."
"Fucking makes me fucking feel a fuck of a fucking lot better." Duo paused. "Fuckity fuck fuck—"
"Pack your own damn bags!" Wufei snapped, storming out of the room with the boxers in hand. Duo watched him go with a gloating smile before it drooped down. From the way he stood there scowling at the door, Quatre realized he fully expected Wufei to come back. Duo reminded him a petulant child sometimes.
Duo flopped on to his bed and yanked the nightstand drawer open. From it he pulled out handfuls of elastic hair ties, two different hairbrushes and a comb. He tossed them in the direction of the duffle, the ties naturally just exploding into a piled mess between the beds. The comb, at least, fumbled its way into the open bag. One of the brushes bounced up against Quatre's ankle, and he had to step quickly to avoid breaking it. Duo dug further into the drawer and sorted through the knick-knacks and other little things he had accumulated. Broken pieces of pastels, charcoal and pencils rained down on to the carpet as Duo made a mess of everything.
Quatre quietly pulled open the second of Duo's dresser drawers and wasn't at all surprised to find the clothes just stuffed in at random, shirts and socks nestled among towels and underwear. Quatre kept up his folding and sorting in the sudden silence, as Duo's outburst had stopped with Wufei leaving. Near the bottom of the drawer he found something curious, a green tank top that he'd never seen Duo wear. It seemed a little too small for him, anyway. Quatre pulled it out and started to fold it up anyway, but suddenly Duo was right there and yelling as he snatched the top out of the smaller boy's hands.
"Don't touch that! Give it to me! This is mine! Leave all my stuff alone!" Duo clutched the top to his chest and regarded Quatre balefully. "Get out!"
Too shocked to fight back the sudden tears that sprung to his eyes, Quatre scarcely remembered to snatch Sandy off the bed before fleeing. Chin tucked firmly on top his bear's head, Quatre started walking at random. The floor passed under him in a blur, taking him in a circuit from the linoleum hallway to the carpeted commons, through the T.V. nook and back down the other residential hallway.
He made three such circuits before a nurse finally stopped and kindly asked if he was all right. Despite his frenetic nods otherwise, she kept such a close eye on him that Quatre reluctantly found an empty armchair by the television to settle in. He and another patient, a rather overweight girl in flannel pajamas, watched old black and white cartoons with the volume turned so low it might as well have been muted. The girl kept trying to turn the volume up, only every time she did an orderly would step in and fix it.
When lights out rolled around and Quatre was forced back to his room, Duo was gone and so was all his stuff. The other side of the room stood out, stark, empty and silent. Quatre curled up under the covers and hugged his knees close. And then he cried himself to sleep, using loud, wracking sobs that went unanswered.
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Author's Notes: Excuse me while I victory-dance! Haha! Okay, sorry, I'm just thrilled to back on pace with the story and everything. Seems a little rude to be so happy when Quatre's so sad, actually. Oops.
Kirihana, your comment made me so happy! I actually didn't read it until just a few minutes ago, so the cookie-swap above was an unintentional homage. Everyone else's comments also made me quite happy. I'm very giddy with praise right now! Makes me very happy that I didn't make everyone wait forever for the next chapter.
I forgot what else I was going to say...
Oh yeah! I know I mentioned it in prose, but the mistakes in Trieze's journal entry are quite intentional. Spell-check kept gnawing at me and tricked me three times into fixing them... I also put the entries in italics since that makes them a little easier to differentiate from the prose. At least, I hope so.
Feedback/reviews are very much appreciated!
copyright 2007 - Gundam Wing & Co. (c) Sotsu/Sunrise
LSE - Violet Nyte (violetnyte dot livejournal dot com)
