Heero ran home from school, his backpack thumping on his back, and a piece of paper fluttering in his hand. He burst in the front door of the large house he lived in and looked around for his parents. "Mama? Mama, where are you? Daddy? Are you here?" Paintings by all the latest and most famous artists looked down on him from every wall and strains of old classical music drifted from one of the rooms at the back of the mansion, but no answer came in response to his call. He tried once more, "Mama?" He looked up at the life-size portrait of his parents that hung above the fireplace, willing it to respond to his plea, but they stared coldly out of the frame and paid him no more notice than they ever did.
Heero sighed, his shoulders slumping, and let the piece of paper fall from his hand to the floor. He glanced down at the picture he had drawn with so much pride that afternoon and snorted in disgust.
Near the top of the picture, his parents, hand-in-hand, smiled and waved from in front of their house; Duo and himself were in the middle of the picture, swinging and laughing. Duo's sister, Nancy, was off to one side, playing with a puppy and keeping a watchful eye on Heero and Duo.
"As if that would ever happen." Heero said, low enough so that his words hardly reached his own ears and he was not sure if he had spoken at all. It was enough, though, to shatter the magic of the picture. He kicked the paper and it floated slightly into the air, then settled just a few inches from where it had been.
"Wish Duo was here," Heero said out loud; back when he had first started to voice his thoughts, he had felt silly, talking when there was no one but himself to talk to, but by now it was a nervous habit, something he did to keep fears and sorrows and most of all, loneliness away.
He didn't bother to go into the kitchen to look for a note from his parents. He knew better than to hope they would have left one.
There had never been a note.
And of course, the servants always ignored him when he went into the kitchen or anywhere else in the house for the matter. Only the brave few would see him, speak to him, spare him the occasional kindness. Only those who weren't afraid of his father. And that was a small number indeed, for his father was a fierce man when he wanted to be. Heero knew that by the guilt he had often felt from just a sideways glance from his father.
And his father was a man with a temper that burned fiery and deep and hot. Heero knew that by the bruises and scars he had received when his father had punished him in anger, which was almost every time.
But most of all, Dion Yuy was a man who loved a drink and a good time, but despised his life, his family, and all that he should have held close to his heart. Heero knew this by every waking minute of his life, how the hate of his very existence blazed out of his father every time he was near.
No matter how much he hated or loved or thought about the fact that his father rejected him, it would never change a single thing, so Heero turned his thoughts from it. He could not help but make one small remark, however, as he turned his back on the richly furnished first floor and walked up the stairs to his bedroom:
"Maybe Mama and Daddy will be home later,"
Duo slammed the door on the makeshift hospital and gulped back a sob. In his head, the demons were celebrating.
"Finally, we got rid of the broad!" Donovan crowed.
"We told you so!" Kali cried gleefully.
"Now you're all ours, kid," Cassias growled.
Duo took off at a full out run towards Heero's house, wishing the demons would fall out of his head and be left far, far behind.
By Duo's best estimation, Heero lived about seven miles from where the little hospital was, so he could plan on getting there in about two hours. Less, if he took all the shortcuts he knew and ran where he could. He stopped to catch his breath.
"No matter how far or how fast you run, you'll never escape us." Aiden purred.
Brennan giggled, a high, childish sound. "I can't believe you killed her! She was, like, the only person in the universe who loved you and now she's dead! All your fault and you don't even cry! You're almost as bad as us!" He giggled again and Duo realized that he had never heard himself or any other orphan ever giggle that way. It was a sound born of comfort and pleasure, not from the hunger and pain of the streets.
Heero had probably never giggled either.
Duo set off towards Heero's house again, trying to shut out the insults and cheers the demons kept throwing at him.
Heero lay on his bed staring at the ceiling; there wasn't much else to look at in his room. Unlike the rest of the house, his room was sparsely furnished, with only a few necessities -- a bed, a nightstand, a mirror -- and some little things he had bought with money "borrowed" from his father's wallet -- a lamp, a few posters, and a rug.
His room was smaller than any other room in the mansion, too. Looking at the way the paint around the window and closet that didn't quite match the rest of the room and the fuse box that sat leering in one wall, he sometimes got the feeling that his room was meant to be a storage closet or something of the kind and had hastily been remodeled when he was born.
"I'm probably pretty lucky just to have a roof over my head though," he said, thinking of Duo and Nancy.
Someone stepped on the creaky board in the middle of the stairway. Heero tensed, his whole body instantly ready to move. Now he could hear the soft footfalls on each of the remaining steps and he scorned himself for not hearing them sooner.
Too gentle to be his father, almost too heavy to be his mother; one of the servants perhaps? Another footstep in the hall. Heero rolled noiselessly off the bed and moved closer to the door. He never knew if it was his father or not, but he usually walked with a heavy, staggering step, not the light, almost hesitant steps that were now paused right outside his door. No matter who they were, Heero Yuy would not meet them defenseless.
The knob turned slowly, the door eased open, and Heero found himself looking into a familiar pair of violet eyes, inches from his own face.
"Duo?"
Duo yelped and jumped back a few feet, bumping into the railing that surrounded the top of the stairway. Heero opened the door wider and walked over to Duo.
"Hi." he said, feeling one corner of his mouth twist up in a soft smirk.
Duo sighed, returning the smile half-heartedly. "Hey..." he murmured.
"I thought you were one of my parents, you could get hurt sneaking up on people like that," Heero said, glancing away from Duo.
Duo made no reply, but instead walked into Heero's room and sat down on his bed. Heero turned to follow him, but paused in the doorway, watching his friend. Something was wrong with Duo, but Heero couldn't quite figure it out. Duo was just sitting on the bed, no obvious signs of torment there. But Heero knew his friend well enough to recognize the things he did that were different than what he normally did. Kicking his feet back and forth, fidgeting with his hands, his gaze darting everywhere, the short, shallow breaths. Duo had never done anything like this before. But the thing that most disconcerted Heero was Duo's near-silence. He kept muttering to himself, but never loud enough for Heero to hear what he was saying; he sounded more like he was breathing in a weird pattern, even aside from the shallow breaths.
Heero moved to the bed and sat next to Duo, turned toward him slightly.
"Wh-where's your parents?" Duo asked.
"Out."
"Oh,"
Heero thought a minute before asking a question, watching carefully for Duo's reaction. "Where's Nancy?"
Duo drew a quick breath, squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, and bit his lip, but made no attempt to answer Heero.
Heero turned fully to face Duo and studied the other boy's elfin features. Duo had started to mutter to himself again. Heero was close enough that he could catch some of the words now.
"Shut up, Cassias, what do you know? A-Aiden, st-stop!" Duo shuddered violently.
"Did something happen?" Heero asked softly.
"no..." Duo said under his breath, then louder, to Heero, "Y-yes... Something happened..."
Heero had never seen Duo so uneasy. He had started to hyperventilate and shake. Heero laid his hand on Duo's shoulder and forced Duo to look up at him. "Duo, did something happen to Nancy?"