Disclaimers: Don't own GW.
Warnings: Yaoi
Duo?
Chapter 9: Prick my Finger, Make it Bleed
Relena gasped and made a small squeaking noise as she stood there grasping Heero's arm. The squeak came again - higher pitched as Duo took Heero's free hand and slipped the rose between his fingers.
Once Heero held the rose safely, Duo stepped away from him and quirked an eyebrow at Relena. Her jaw dropped and Duo returned upstairs once again.
"What was that!" she screeched.
Heero blinked. "What just happened?" he asked quietly.
Relena snatched the rose from his hand impatiently and waved it in front of his face. "This!" Heero extended his hand as the rose dropped from Relena's fingers.
He winced as a thorn bit into his palm. He gazed at the small dot of blood with a strange expression. Relena's tapping foot made him look up.
"Well!" she demanded.
Heero shook his head. "I don't know."
Relena growled and glared at the staircase. "Ooh, that boy!"
Something snapped inside Heero. "What's wrong with him?"
Relena blinked at him. Her eyes widened. "You're defending him?" she asked venemously.
Heero thought for a moment. "Yeah, I am," he answered. He looked down at his hand again as a powerful tingling sensation started from the tiny wound and bloomed in all directions. He felt the something spread down through his arm and into his body.
He shuddered. He could feel it pulsing as it ran through his body. The something was also cold, it felt so strange as the cool, pulsing thing flowed into his head.
He pressed a palm to his forehead and sat down. The tingling feeling made him sigh. He suddenly became very weary and asked Relena to leave.
"Heero," she said gently. "You don't look well, I'm staying until your parents come home." She smiled somewhat sadly and went into the kitchen.
Heero sighed again. He would have preferred to have slept in his bed, but his body felt too tired to take him upstairs. He leaned back against the couch and immediately fell asleep.
Relena returned with a glass of water and smiled when she saw Heero's sleeping form. She set the glass down on the table in front of the couch and moved him so he was lying down with his feet up.
Duo stood at the top of the stairs and clenched his fists when Relena sat down in a chair and just sat there watching Heero. He snarled and growled deep in his chest, giving Relena a disgusted look. He walked down the stairs slowly, and when he reached the bottom, he disappeared. He then walked to Heero's side and searched for the rose.
He spotted it grasped in Heero's fingertips. He smiled and looked past the rose and saw the small cut. He tilted his head and glanced at Relena who had found "Haunted Heartland" and was reading.
He smiled down at Heero and kneeled. He kissed two of his fingertips and slipped them inside Heero's partially closed hand and placed it over the cut. Heero sighed in his sleep, making Duo smile. His eyes widened when Heero's fingers suddenly closed completely - and tightly - around his.
He gently tried to pry Heero's fingers apart, but to no avail. He soon gave up the fight for his fingers and rested his head on the couch in front of Heero and watched him sleep.
All three of them stayed in these positions for about 20 minutes when Heero suddenly opened his eyes.
"Duo?" he said, sitting up abruptly. Duo jerked his fingers out of Heero's loosened hold and fled.
Heero's eyes scanned the room quickly and appeared not to notice Relena's surprised expression. He lowered his eyes to his hand. It had stopped bleeding long ago and still felt strange.
He thought about the feeling that Duo was in the room when he awoke and suddenly felt a wave of that powerful tingling all through his body. It calmed him greatly and he relaxed.
He looked at Relena and the tingling stopped. He wondered how long he'd been asleep. He looked at the clock and saw that it was about 20 minutes after Duo had given him the rose and he'd gotten pricked. "I feel like I'm in a fairy tale," he said thoughtfully. "I was pricked by a thorn and I fell asleep... How strange." He looked at the rose that was still in his hand.
Relena nodded. "Why did you call for Duo when you woke up just now?" she asked curiously. Heero gave her a confused look. She didn't seem so hostile towards Duo now, she didn't scowl at the name or anything as he'd expected her to.
"I-I..." he thought for an excuse other than he sensed him. "I don't know, I guess I just..." he trailed off and shook his head.
Relena raised an eyebrow. "I think I figured it out, Heero," she said. He looked up with a questioning expression. She smiled sadly. "Duo's not real." Heero's eyes widened. "He's a ghost, I could feel him too, I could tell he was with you earlier, but when you woke up it vanished." She looked down.
Heero blinked. "How could you know that?" he whispered. He thought he was the only one who could sense Duo's presence.
She bit her lip. "It's obvious. These weird things that happened to me, the tapping on my shoulder." She shook her head. "You can't hide something like that, Heero," she whispered and looked up.
Heero felt a pang in his stomach. Relena's eyes were filled with tears, her bottom lip was quivering. He'd never made a girl cry before, and he didn't like what effect it had on him just now. Relena had been his childhood friend and up through middle school when she decided she liked him more than that.
She made an attempt to smile and a tear from each of her eyes fell. Heero's stomach wrenched again. He really didn't want her to cry, even if he didn't like her all that much, she was his friend through all his troubles and she didn't deserve to cry on his account.
She looked down again and more tears fell. "I understand that he loves you, and doesn't want me to take you away from him." She sniffed. "I understand how he feels and I'm sure that you have feelings f-for h-him, t-too." She started getting the hiccups near the end of her sentence. She swallowed hard and took the glass of water from the table.
After taking a gulp, she looked up. Oh, how she loved him so. She set the glass down and rose from her chair. "I'll go now," she said and walked toward the front door. Heero set down the rose on the table and quickly went after her.
"Wait! Relena!" He saw her shake her head as she opened the door. "Please?" That caught her attention and she stopped. She'd always had a weak spot for Heero's pleads. She turned her eyes to him. He came up to her and closed the door. "You don't have to be like this," he said gently, putting his arm around her shoulders and leading her back to the couch.
They sat down and he took her hand. "Relena, you have always been my friend, ever since we were two. But I can't return your feelings." She looked up into his eyes filled with sympathy and care. She turned away again.
"But you have to know that I do still care for you, you're like a sister to me. And I wouldn't want to be any closer than that." He put a finger under her chin and lifted her head so she was looking at him. "Do you understand?"
She sniffed and nodded.
"I want you to know that I do love you, just more as a sister. We were very nearly siblings, we've been friends for almost all our lives, and I never had any other friends," he pointed out.
She swallowed and nodded again. "I understand that you care for Duo but I guess I just got jealous. I'm sorry." She stood up and turned around. "I'll keep in touch," her voice was a bit lighter. "Be sure to tell Duo that I'm sorry." She smiled and bent down and kissed him lightly on his right cheek.
She stood up again and smiled. On her way to the front door, she spotted Duo at the top of the stairs. He looked dumbfounded and she wondered how long he'd been standing there. She smiled at him and walked out the door, closing it behind her.
Heero sat as she left him. He blinked and looked around, as though he'd been in a trance. He stood up and, grabbing the purple rose, walked into the kitchen. He knew Duo was somewhere close by, but he didn't think that he would come too close to him just yet.
He sat down and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from the cup on the table. He thought for a moment then started writing:
831
8 letters...
He folded up the piece of paper and went upstairs, taking the rose and a vase filled with water with him. As he went further down the hall, Duo's presence seemed to drift farther away. He looked around his room and wondered where would be a good place to put it. He shrugged and set it on the pillow Duo usually slept on.
He had decided to give the riddle to him when he heard Relena's confident words that Duo loved him. He set the rose on his desk in the vase of water. He then went back downstairs and out the front door.
He inhaled deeply and walked down the street, the opposite way of the park.
xxx
Duo ambled down the stairs from the third floor as the door shut. He frowned and looked down the hall toward Heero's bedroom. He tilted his head curiously and started walking towards it. He immediately spotted the purple rose on the desk. He smiled and approached the beautiful flower.
He noticed one of the thorns had blood on the tip. 'That must've been the one that got Heero's hand,' he thought. Just then, something came to his mind, he didn't know if he could bleed. He assumed he couldn't because he IS already dead and a ghost, but he experimented anyway.
He took the stem of the rose in one hand to hold it steady while he pressed his finger to the same one that Heero's blood had stained. He winced a bit, he had felt it. He blinked and stared at his finger. It soon gathered a small dot of crimson blood at the tip. He blinked and it seemed to reverse itself; the blood flowed back into his finger, and the wound sealed itself.
He touched the spot where it had been and sighed. He inspected the rose thorn closely and saw that it had his blood on it as well. Wondering how that could be possible, he went and sat on the bed. It was then that he noticed the piece of neatly folded paper set on his pillow.
He timidly took it and unfolded it. In blue pen, it read:
831
8 letters...
He read over it again and pursed his lips in thought. What could it mean? Why was there a '...' at the end? Could there be more? He sighed and pocketed the piece of paper.
He suddenly thought of Heero, sending a strange heat through his body. He felt it and was immediately filled with an unfamiliar passion. He fought for control of this alien "possesion" so to speak.
He kept thinking of Heero though, it seemed to be a fuel for the heat flowing through his entire body. He held his head in his hands and clenched his teeth. 'I don't get it! What's wrong with me!' Those words tumbled around in his brain before he was overcome by this feeling of passion.
He stood up and looked around. He grinned and took the note out of his pocket and read it again. "Heero," he said, his eyes glittering mischievously. His voice was much deeper and his eyes were a more silvery-violet.
His gaze shifted to the desk and his rose. One corner of his mouth turned up in a half-grin and he reached out and stroked one of the purple petals. "Heero," he said again.
Just then, he heard the door open and the heat stopped. Duo shook his head and wondered how he ended up by the desk. He heard the front door close and ran out into the hall. He saw the heel of Heero's foot going into the kitchen and slid down the railing. He felt happy and wasn't ashamed of his love for Heero, although he was still going to do the rest of the rose thing.
"Hello, Heero!" he said cheerily.
Heero turned away from the refrigerator with an apple stuffed in his mouth. Duo laughed. Heero took it out and smiled sheepishly. "Hi, Duo."
Duo sighed. "So did you get everything worked out with Relena?" he asked. Heero nodded and decided not to mention the rose thing. And Duo the same with the note.
Duo yawned. "I'm tired, I'm goin' to bed," he said and left the kitchen, raising his arm in a goodbye.
"Night, Duo!" Heero called and sat down.
Duo reached their room and turned off the light. He yawned again and drew back the covers and got in. He fell asleep pondering about the strange experience he'd had earlier when he thought about Heero. 'I didn't just think about Heero,' he thought to himself. 'I thought about... us.'
Heero went upstairs about half an hour later and found Duo fast asleep. He smiled and got into bed too. He dozed off while wondering about the tingling feeling that came whenever he thought of Duo.