Disclaimer: Still don't own Gundam Wing… sigh ;)
Walking the Dividing Line
Part 5
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK
Warm. I was so warm. It felt nice. Something pleasantly heavy and warm was draped over my right arm.
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK
I didn't want to wake up. I was so warm and comfortable. I didn't want to have to get up and face the world because there was just too much involved in that –
KNOCK, KNOCK
I curled up tighter into the warmth. I didn't want to wake up.
The warm thing above me shifted.
My eyes flew open.
And there was Duo, curled around me, holding me to his chest as he slept.
If he was still asleep –
KNOCK, KNOCK
"Alison! Duo!"
It was Quatre's voice, I noticed. It was a little annoyed, a little worried, a little reluctant as he shouted through the heavy metal door. And if he wasn't careful –
The blue eyes before mine opened slowly, and their warm gaze found mine and he smiled.
"Morning," he said softly.
I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. I couldn't even think.
Gundam pilot.
"Aww, Aly, come on, you're killin' me," he pouted, before leaning in and claiming my mouth in a kiss, shifting a bit and pulling me closer so that I fit against the warm curve of his body better. One leg slid over and intertwined itself with mine.
I was too shocked to fight him, to do anything but lie there, wrapped in his arms and legs and pulled close to his chest, eyes wide and mind on standstill.
Quatre was still knocking on the door when Duo pulled away; his long, unbound hair had gotten tangled and a few chestnut segments had somehow draped themselves over my shoulder, as if it were my own hair.
"Aly?" His voice held a worry that was mirrored by his deep blue eyes as he peered at me, unmoving and unresponsive in his arms because I still couldn't think and I didn't know what was going on yet. My mind was unable to wrap itself around my current situation, and strands of frantic thought were only just now beginning to spin a web of coherence inside my head.
Gundam pilot.
"Come on, you guys, it's nearly noon!" Quatre called from the other side of the door. "You can't sleep all day, we have to get work done!"
Duo turned his head upwards, away from mine. "Come *on*, Q-man, can't ya just give us a coupla more hours of privacy here?! We work hard for our free time!"
The knocking stopped and there was a barely audible chuckle from behind the door. "You know I can't do that, you guys. Come on, please get up, all right? Do you want Heero to come down here and break in the door?"
"Hee-chan can try all he likes, you know he can't!" Duo called back, pausing briefly. "Fine, we'll be up in a couple of minutes, is that good enough?"
"Yes," came the reply, "just please actually do it, all right?"
"I never lie!" Duo assured the voice behind the door; his face then turned and buried itself in my hair.
"D-Duo?" So I could speak, a little. I needed to speak, needed to form words so I could ask him questions because I didn't know how I got here or what was going on or why I was even still alive –
He lifted his head and looked at me again. "What is it, Aly?" His voice was so warm, so rich, so close to me and I could feel it reverberate through his bare chest as he spoke.
Gundam pilot.
"What – what's going on? What happened?"
"Ne? Nothing," he replied, snuggling closer, brushing off my question in an attempt to nuzzle my neck.
But something wasn't right here. I blinked – this couldn't possibly be happening. It didn't compute. The last thing I remembered, I had been drugged and tossed into the cockpit of – of Deathscythe. By –
"Giniko," I burst out, pulling away from the boy beside me and sitting up in the bed, the sheets falling off me and piling around Duo, framing his body just as his hair fell about his face and shoulders, trailing off down his back only to drape itself back over his hips as he lay on his side.
He looked up at me with confused, clouded blue eyes as he himself sat up, shrugging the sheets off his lean frame in the process.
"What?" he asked, concern coloring his voice. "Aly, babe, are you all right?"
I blinked at him. 'Babe?' He'd never called me that before –
He'd never slept –
Gundam pilot –
Enemy.
"What's going on?!" I insisted, aware of the frantic sound beneath my own voice, aware of the constricting feeling in my chest and the worry welling up in my stomach. There was this static hiss with this undertone of screaming starting up inside my head, and I couldn't think straight and my thoughts were all tangled up. The whole world had turned upside-down – I knew the pilots hated me, I knew that they were my enemies and that I had run away because if I hadn't I would most likely have been dead within hours.
That or I would be forced to kill them all.
Why was that so unappealing to me, all of a sudden, if they were my enemies?
I didn't know.
The only thing I did know was that there was no way in hell I could possibly be sitting in the same bed as the boy who sat before me, looking at me for all the world like he was worried I had just lost my mind.
Maybe I had –
"Aly, you're scarin' me," he said slowly. "There's nothing going on, I don't know why you're so worked up." And he slid over to me and wrapped his arms around me – I stiffened and started to pull away, because something was so wrong here –
"What – hey!" he protested, locking his hands behind my back so I couldn't escape and that only made me try harder.
"Duo – stop!" I yelled, because the noise in my head was getting too loud for me to think now, all I could hear was the screaming and the static –
"Aly –" he said, and tried to silence my mouth with his own.
I couldn't – I pulled back and he stared at me with wide eyes.
"Aly – "
"This is wrong!" I yelled at him, still struggling in vain to disentangle myself from his arms, pushing against his chest because he was my enemy and I had to get out of here before he killed –
"What? What do you mean? There's nothing wrong, I love you and I don't know why you're trying to – "
"You don't love me!" I screamed at him, straight into those eyes because he was my enemy and I wanted to kill him, never wanted to see that damned face of his again because he had killed me and I was nobody and I was empty inside and I knew it was because of him.
He pushed me down and kissed me, suddenly, hard.
I shoved against his chest, trying to get his weight off me, trying to squirm out of his grasp –
He lifted away and I tumbled out of the bed, scrambling to my feet, fists in the air, and I knew I had to kill him. I hated him and he was my enemy and I was going to kill him and then maybe I'd kill Quatre, and then I'd have to find some weapons before I took care of the others.
He was sitting on the bed, still half-tangled in the sheets and bare-chested, hair falling about his shoulders and blue eyes glinting with a hint of hidden anger.
"You just won't make this easy on yourself, will you little Ali-chan?" he asked, his voice totally changed into a low, provoking tone that hit something in my chest until my stomach dropped away and he sounded like *her*.
And then everything dropped away and I was left with only silence, my mind and body numb once more.
* * *
The numbness was shattered with a sharp pain – my eyes flew open and I saw a fuzzy figure standing before me, arm extended and the stinging sensation in my cheek told me that I'd just been slapped.
It wasn't Giniko. And I wasn't drugged – I knew that before I could feel anything else, before I realized just how close the stinging in my cheek was; I knew that because of the sudden, immense hatred that welled up at the very thought of the girl who'd done this to me.
My blurry vision slowly focused on the individual before me. They were smiling, a cold, icy, sadistic smile and I suddenly wondered how this *couldn't* be Giniko. But the hair color was all wrong –
Chestnut brown bangs fell into blue eyes and long hair cascaded down over shoulders that were hunched towards me as he drew his arm back towards himself. It was a boy, I noticed, despite the long hair; he was wearing a plain white t-shirt and black pants, black boots. I squinted, trying to bring the image into even more focus, trying to place his features, because he looked… familiar…
"Time to get up, little Ali-chan," he said, tone low and seductive and singsong, and I stared at him.
It was Duo.
