LSC / 01-09-12
(Fly on Broken Wings - Chapter Fifty-Five: Written Down)
rated: R - language, content, violence
shounen-ai/yaoi
CHAPTER 55
Written Down
"Well, there you are," said Duo. By the guilty way that Quatre startled at the dry words, Duo had failed to keep his concern in check. What did the boy expect, wandering off like that will little more than a sloppy note saying gone with trowa followed by a crooked little smiley face? That was the sort of inconsiderate nonsense that Duo pulled.
"Sorry," said Quatre. He didn't especially look it. An infuriatingly adorable smile peeked out from the edges of his mouth as he stood there, wide-eyed and innocent under Duo's curious stare. When Quatre came closer, Duo was pretty sure he spotted a tell-tale red mark half-hidden under his shirt collar.
"I need some new clothes. Can you help me find the mall or something?" Quatre asked. He smiled again, all shy and cute and oh-so-impossible to stay angry with for long. "You're my navigator."
So Duo agreed, his ego suitably flattered and pampered by Quatre's deferential trust that he knew where he was going. He was, in fact, merely quick at reading bus schedules. "Why do you need new clothes?" he asked, once they were on the bus and moving.
"Catherine's already seen me in these." Quatre said absently. He was looking out the window as if something out there could possibly be more riveting than Duo's undivided attention. Duo followed his line of sight but could see nothing more than a tall, dark office building shooting up into the sky. Even when he craned his neck and draped himself over Quatre's shoulder trying to match up his stare with the younger boy's, he saw nothing more interesting or important.
"Did you get your bling back from Trowa?"
"My what? Oh. Some of it. I let him keep some, too. I didn't like carrying it all around with me anyway."
"How'd you get that much?" Duo kicked at the base of the bus seat. "You knock over a bank or something in a past life?"
"No," said Quatre slowly. His cheeks dusted over with pink. "I told you; it's birthday money."
"Since the beginning of time? Come on, Quatre," Duo lowered his voice. "I counted it. You had over a thousand dollars."
Quatre sunk low into his seat. Only when he crossed his arms over his chest did Duo realize they were empty; no teddy bear there, or at his feet, or in the seat next to him. The wounded sort of silence that followed Quatre's lack of an answer made Duo feel contrite for pushing the matter in the first place.
Rather than apologize, which Duo figured he probably should do, he felt a small shot of vindictive accomplishment. Which then made him feel like an asshole, so Duo said, "Sorry," and followed it up with an airy and dismissive, "Boy's gotta have mystery, I guess." It was a nice compromise. Maybe he was still a little mad at Quatre for making him worry like he had.
Maybe the kid just came from a rich family and just felt guilty about it, since Duo so clearly was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Maybe he'd been part of some teenage criminal underground, robbing little old ladies of their wallets. Nah, that was totally something Zechs would do. Hadn't Relena even said he'd been in a gang? And he knew that drug dealer/psychiatrist; that's the sort of skeezy bastard St Hel' should have hired, Duo decided, rather than trust in Dickie's Holier Than Thou degree in superiority. And good riddance, while he was thinking of that pompous therapist and every single stupid nurse - good fucking riddance.
They stepped off the bus into an ominous grey afternoon, one than threatened rain but at least beat down the oppressive heat they'd been cursed with so far. Duo pulled the brim of his baseball cap low over his face. A bewildering exchange of pedestrian crosswalks across a snarled intersection later, the mall stretched out before them with promises of window-shopping. Quatre, oddly enough, seemed to know where he was going once they got inside. Duo nearly called him out on it before he remembered that stupid hospital day trip. He thought it seemed somewhat risky, like they were revisiting the scene of a crime, but they were just two teenagers among the throng. Mothers dragged reluctant younger children through the back-to-school sale racks and goaded older ones away from whirling displays of fancy electronics.
Duo trailed after Quatre as the boy went from store to store in search of whatever his particular fashion inclination seemed to be, apparently whatever was the absolute cheapest. Duo amused himself by making silly faces at a toddler strapped into a stroller while the baby's mom wasn't looking. It was fun, right up until the girl burst into sudden tears, and Duo had to pretend he'd been examining a nearby rack of flip-flops. Apparently he made a poor baby-sitter.
As they shuffled from one store to the next, Duo's attention caught and stuck on a window display outside a black-light infused store that steadily pumped terrible alt-rock into the air. "Oh, my God," he said. "Quatre, Quatre, look at this." Across the front of a black shirt the small white type read, I don't suffer from insanity. I'm enjoying every minute of it.
Quatre's lips moved silently for a moment before he grinned. "Do you want it?"
"Oh, my God," Duo said again. "I'd never stop laughing!"
Quatre disappeared into the store. Duo hurried after him. "Oh, come on. Don't waste your money on me. One black shirt's as good as the other."
"You know you want it," Quatre countered. He squeezed through the small, crowded aisles until he got to the right section. Side-stepping a girl with electric blue hair, Quatre searched for and found one of the shirts in Duo's size.
"Are you sure?" Duo asked as they stood in line.
"Yeah," said Quatre. "Call it an early Christmas present."
"Well, damn. Thanks!" said Duo. As soon as Quatre had the shirt paid for, Duo swapped it out for the one he was wearing and stuffed the old one in the shopping bag. Changing clothes in the middle of the mall, he was just that classy. "How do I look?"
Quatre just shook his head with an amused smile. Duo caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection of the window, once they were back outside the store, and he couldn't help but grin. "You know, Heero's going to hate this shirt. I just know it. I think that makes me love it all the more."
The smile drained from Quatre's face. A squiggly line of worry replaced it. "Oh?" he said carefully.
"Sure," said Duo. He'd made a mistake there, talking about Heero in front of Quatre. Rather than make a joke out of it and risk burying himself deeper into trouble, Duo pretended to be fascinated by a kiosk full of hats. He thoroughly attempted to distract Quatre by making the boy try on an assortment of the hats, each one more ridiculous on him than the last, until Quatre laughed and forgot to be worried.
When Quatre assessed that he had enough shirts to fool Catherine, or whatever his plan was, they left. The dark sky menaced with thunder as they hurried on to the bus, but the threat of rain held off until they were nearly halfway to downtown. Duo swapped his shirt out once again, as he didn't want the new one to get soaking wet within an hour of owning the damn thing.
Quatre frowned out the window, as if he held the weather personally responsible for every inconvenience this represented to his certainly empty schedule. Or, actually, that's how Duo felt; fuck the rain. He gave Quatre a careful once-over, noting again that unless Sandy could turn invisible, Quatre's ever-present bear was entirely un-present.
Duo nudged him with an elbow. "Hey."
"Hm?"
Duo opened his mouth and, for once, lacked words. Bizarre. He grinned and tried again, "Everything all right?"
"Sure. Thanks for taking me shopping. I got everything I needed."
"That's not what I meant."
"Oh."
"Do you feel okay?"
Quatre frowned at him, with much the same bewildered confusion that Relena always wore when confronted with a puzzle missing its pieces. Although Quatre, he figured, was unlikely to start up a banshee impersonation because of it. Or, fuck, Duo surely hoped not. He had to stop trying to jinx things.
Quatre's expression suddenly cleared. "Oh!" he said, in a much different tone. He carefully shifted his shopping bags into the crook of his left elbow, well clear of the wrist brace. He dug through the front pocket of his jeans and then tried to get open the orange prescription bottle without much success one-handed. Duo took it from him, wrenched off the top, and then tapped a single pill out into Quatre's open palm. Quatre dry-swallowed the pill with a grimace. "I'd nearly forgotten. Thanks."
He hadn't meant to serve as a walking alarm clock for medicine checks, but Duo figured he could take the credit for it anyway. "No problem."
"I'm feeling much better," Quatre assured him. He blushed a furious sort of pink as he re-pocketed the bottle.
"Yeah? Well, good. Awesome." He cuffed a hand lightly over the boy's shoulder. "So don't scare me like that again."
The blush darkened into molten embarrassment. "Sorry."
"Are you staying with Trowa now?"
Quatre hesitated before nodding. "When I can, I guess. Do you mind?"
"Nah. We're not roommates anymore. What about Catherine?"
"She's okay with it."
"How'd you pull that one off? Does she know you're macking on her brother?"
If Quatre's cheeks became any redder, they might burst into flame. "No. I don't think so. I don't know. It isn't like that."
Duo lifted his brows in an exaggerated feint of surprise. "It isn't? So what's this, a bruise? Trowa beating on you with his fists instead of his lips?" He tugged Quatre's shirt collar to expose the hickey.
"No, of course not!" He sounded so shocked it made Duo laugh. Quatre clapped a hand to the hollow of his collar bone, right over the little mark. "Leave it alone, Duo."
"Why? Why can't I have my fun? You're the one who shot down my plans. I mean, not that they were all that great in the first place." Duo scowled. He knew it wasn't fair, to take out his frustrations on Quatre, but damned was it hard to stop. "You said we're in this together, but I'm the one stuck just sitting around watching TV - alone. Zechs is off doing whatever the fuck he wants, you've got Trowa, and what about me? At least at the hospital I had shit to do. This sucks."
"Duo, please, keep your voice down."
"Oh, fuck off," Duo grumbled. But quietly.
Quatre said nothing. He, in fact, looked close to tears as he watched the rain drops streak across the window. Duo pretended not to notice or care, until finally an annoying thorn of regret stabbed him into action. "Sorry," he muttered. "That wasn't very fair of me to say.
"It's okay," Quatre said softly. It sounded like a lie, but Duo couldn't bring himself to apologize again. The first had been hard enough. He tasted bitterness and heartbreak, and his traitorous stomach growled hopefully in response, like he was about to conjure a cake from thin air and consume the whole thing in one delightful binge-eating splurge of stupidity.
Previously on the adventures of Duo the runaway crazy patient, he'd spent a few days wandering around lost until finally scrounging his way into enough change for a payphone. Heero had tricked him into thinking it'd all be okay before giving his address. He'd even gone so far as to seem nice about it, fixing him a hot meal and letting him stay the night in Heero's own bed. They lay entwined together listening to a spring thunderstorm, and Duo made the mistake of feeling safe and loved and happy.
Rain always reminded Duo of that night, and he hated everything about it. He hated the roll of thunder and the distant flashes of light, he hated the streaks across the bus windows and the big wet puddles in the street. That April night lay shattered and broken, a twisted heap of devastated memory, because stupid Heero ruined everything.
Heero shuffled past the receptionist's desk in a daze and did his best to ignore the sickly-sweet smile of sympathy she directed his way. Apparently they were on better terms now than an hour ago, when she first looked at him in surprise and said, Duo Maxwell isn't a patient here anymore, and Heero responded with raw, bleeding anger when the situation became clear. He was lucky she had not begun intake forms for him right then and there. With it being Sunday, and the doctors absent, some confusion followed in which no one could give him a straight answer. The news that Duo had runaway again only surprised him a little. It served mostly to transfer his fury from the hospital administration to the braided idiot.
What sent him staggering outside in a dazed stupor, however, was finding out that Duo had runaway the week before. Not the night before, not a few days ago… No, an entire week. I'm sorry, Mr, Yuy, but you're not family. We had no legal obligation to contact you. They hadn't contacted him last time, either, but Duo had.
Duo knew where he lived. He knew his phone number. He knew where he worked.
Duo had not contacted him.
Heero took a swipe at the bushes and earned a scratched hand for the trouble. A woman's laugh followed. He turned quickly, not expecting company, and spotted her standing nearby. She had an elegant knot of platinum blonde hair at her neck and crisp, ice-blue eyes that watched him with amusement, and something about her seemed familiar.
The woman waved an expansive gesture toward the bushes, a snaking plume of cigarette smoke following her hand. "Now what did they ever do you?" she asked. She gave a low, throaty laugh.
"Do I know you?" Heero asked. The tight knot in his stomach made it impossible to blunt the sharp edges of his question.
The woman lifted one pale brow. "Turn around, let me get a look at you."
Heero obediently turned in place, arms stiff at his sides. She laughed again, in a softer way, full of teasing delight. "Aren't you a treat! No, I don't think we've met. I'm Charlotte."
"Heero," he said.
"Now," she dropped her cigarette to the ground and tamped it out with the round toe of her scarlet pumps. "You're much too young to have a child here. So, who is it? A brother? Sister?"
"Friend."
"Really? How old are you?"
"Nineteen."
"Ah, you are young."
Heero frowned at her, unable to understand her tone. She sounded disappointed.
The woman considered him for a moment and drew another cigarette from the pack in her purse. She hesitated for a moment, as if waiting for Heero to react, before cupping a lighter to the tip. "Much too young," she repeated. At her feet sat several white department store bags, and Heero noted the sleeve of a blue dress shirt poking out from one. "My son's," she explained, catching him looking. "I guess he didn't want them." She blew out a smoky sigh.
"I see," said Heero. He normally did not converse with strangers, but something about her nagged at him. A memory tried to work through the numb haze of his thoughts, some barely noticed observation he'd made and filed and forgotten.
"I'm going to see if I can't return them. When I get my hands on him, the only thing he'll be wearing is a military uniform anyway. I've still got a few weeks before the tuition deposit's forfeit."
"I… see," said Heero again.
The woman, Charlotte, laughed. "My clever son managed to escape from this place last week. Can you believe that? Christ, they haven't even the decency to sound ashamed about it either. Like it's my fault for raising a kid who'd run off."
The memory jarred loose with enough force to make Heero dizzy. Tuesday, on the way home from work, on the bus, right there in front of him, and before that, last time he'd visited Duo – the boy had been there as well; tall, blonde, ice-blue eyes, clear features, they even stood similarly, the weight shifted to one hip and chin held high and haughty. Heero's own jumbled thoughts confused him, but one thing was clear. It couldn't be a coincidence that this boy, this woman's son, disappeared right at the same time as Duo.
Heero forced himself to nod. He wasn't even sure if she'd asked a question, but nodding seemed like the right response. It made her laugh again, at least.
"Well, Heero. Nice to meet you. Let me know when you get a little older," she said, with a smile that could be nothing other than flirtatious. Heero barely noticed. He nodded again and watched her leave with an armful of shopping bags.
Heero turned and marched back through the glass doors. The receptionist looked up at him, startled, and adjusted her glasses several times. "Yes?" she said. "Can I help you?"
"I want to visit another patient."
"Okay." She blinked rapidly and shuffled the papers on her desk. "Name?"
He went blank for a moment, thoughts stirring too rapidly to be of any use. "Quatre," he said at last.
"Last name?" she prompted.
"Winman. No, Winner."
She typed something into her computer. "Oh, wow. Um," she said, leveling a look up at him over the rim of her glasses. "I'm sorry—"
"Nevermind." He could see the answer on her face. "My mistake."
When Heero boarded the bus to head back home, he snagged a route map to study. He unfolded it against the seat and studied the sprawling multicolored lines. He found the auto shop where he worked and slowly traced a finger along the corresponding bus route. Where exactly had he seen that woman's son? Heero considered it carefully, but he'd been tired and distracted and not paying much attention. A sudden horrifying thought grabbed him; what if Duo had been on that bus, and Heero just hadn't noticed?
Slowly, Heero folded the route map back together. He had to think about this calmly. He couldn't think about it now and stay calm. Therefore, he wouldn't think about it.
Heero scanned every occupant of the bus. He took of each new addition as more and more passengers boarded the further east into the city they traveled. His eyes searched out the window at the countless faces on the sidewalk and in the cars. A head of blonde hair, man or woman, sent a small jolt of electricity racing through him. By the time he reached his own stop and trudged the short distance home, he nerves were shot to hell.
He pulled a handful of coupon mailers from his mailbox and deposited them immediately into the lobby trashcan. While he waited for the elevator, however, Heero dug them back out and searched each one more thoroughly, in case a note from Duo had fallen between the pages.
His keys bounced against the sloped curve of the bowl he kept by the door specifically to hold them. Bounced, and fell to the floor. When Heero bent to retrieve them, he noted with a detached wonder that his hand shook.
Heero went from room to room of the apartment lifting all the cheap plastic blinds, so that every room lay exposed to the street below. The influx of sunlight only made the stark furnishings and utter lack of decor seem colder. Heero fetched the notebook and pen from his nightstand and sat down at the kitchen counter to work.
Heero flipped over the current list, which read Ways to Tell Someone Their Baby is Attractive (first item, your baby's face is not as red as it was last week). He filled out the top with the heading for his new project, Places Duo Could Be, and then stared down at the blank lines. He normally found lists reassuring. They helped organize his thoughts. It reduced interpersonal interaction to the same sort of mechanic schematics he understood without effort.
My Apartment, Heero wrote. He couldn't think of anything else to add. He flipped to a clean sheet of paper instead and titled it, Reasons Duo Has Not Contacted Me.
This list came easier, and he spent several minutes in the quiet of his apartment, listening to the reassuring scratch of pen across paper. Only when he reached the end of the page did Heero stop. He already felt calmer about the situation, despite the horrifying list of scenarios he had created.
Top of the list, I made him return to the hospital in April. Bottom of the list, he is injured and unable to communicate. Somewhere in the middle, an entire line where his normally precise writing grew sloppy. He is now in a relationship with: Quatre, Wufei, Unknown Tall Blonde. He crossed out the first two names. More reassuring items on the list followed; he has forgotten my address, he has forgotten my phone number, he is unable to find a telephone.
Heero turned the notebook over and wrote at the top of a new page, Ways to Find Duo. He filled two entire pages with ideas, some realistic (retrace bus route from Tuesday), some more confusing that useful (find Quatre or Wufei) and some he had to immediately cross out (file missing person report). When he finished writing, Heero set the notebook to the side and consulted his calendar. "Laundry" it told him. The item had been carried over from yesterday, when he'd taken on an extra shift at work to ensure he had today clear. Duo's name, written in all-caps and circled several times, nearly overwhelmed the tiny addition to the bottom of Sunday's square.
Heero looked at his upcoming schedule. Then, carefully, he wrote "look for Duo" and drew an arrow across to fill out the rest of the week.
(Author's Notes)
I should have thought of what I'd say here earlier, when I wasn't this sleepy. Oh, well. Until next time!
copyright 2012 - Gundam Wing & Co. (c) Sotsu/Sunrise
LSC - Violet Nyte
