Disclaimers: I do not own Gundam Wing or any of the characters contained therein, this exercise was purely for fun, and I am not, nor have I ever made profit from fan work such as this. Do not sue me, for I am a poor, very broke student.
Author's Note: Call it a "What if" fic and leave it at that. You'll see what if when you read it . It's a rough draft, I haven't even done a revision, I'm sorry, if you catch any mistakes, let me know about them and I'll fix 'em right away.
Cold air seeped under the curtain; it crawled across the floor, filling the room with brutal efficiency, like noxious gas. First his toes curled under the threadbare blanket he'd been given, warding off his body's instinctive shaking, muscles slowly tensed, his calves, his thighs, his abdomen, his chest. Self control. Tight, effective, ruthless self control that would keep him from shivering in weakness until his last breath, and long after.
Winters on Earth had a smell that was unmatched by any cologne available in the known universe. L2 was a colony of stark contrast. The rich suffered long luxurious days of heat and excitement as only the wealthy would have it, riding through the streets in opulent vehicles the ashy color of synthetic mud that the poor trudged through day after day to blue-collar factory jobs where even the most enterprising were unable to succeed. Filtered in through the ventilation system for the upper echelons, debutants and wealthy proprietors of the self same factories that failed to support the economy, was the overwhelming stench of a manufactured winter.
There were other seasons, the sweltering heat of summer, melting tar and sharp metal that seemed to converge into the actual scent of summer, indefinable spring, even fall mold was reliably pumped through systems, changing at every equinox and solstice, but winter was all he remembered. The only manufactured scent that was palpably vile, not unlike the every day scents of far too many people packed together in a space with barely enough water to drink.
He didn't understand until he came to Earth why the wealthy would willingly suffer such an offensive smell, and even now he could only attribute their tolerance to a biological yearning for home. Humans need genetic familiarity, simple. It was so much worse here, the natural scent burned his nose in a way that nothing oil-based ever could – he felt much the same way the week after he accidentally stuck his nose in Sister Helen's bottle of ammonia. The scent of cold: but L2 had always been cold, and the only natural scent was that of heavy grease and body odor.
His shoulders, hips, and ankles burned with cold, every point of contact with the unreasonably solid concrete surface felt on fire. Pressure had built up somewhere in his temple, and his eye had long-since been swollen shut by the kind attentions of his personal guard, he doubted he could walk, even without having been hobbled by the fetters so thoughtfully provided him. The effort to clench his teeth against the cold was somewhat hampered by the suddenly out of place molars in his left cheek, but he forced it anyway, biting back the incessant chattering of his teeth. If he ever got out of here he'd have to coerce a dentist into repairing his enamel.
He didn't have shoes on. He couldn't precisely recall why that was, or when they'd been forcibly taken from him, but he knew he'd walked in here with shoes, and he knew that not having them was supposed to prevent him from walking out. Surely this was the case because some ridiculous psychological stigma held that removing a person's shoes removed their self assurance, personal security or some equally inane psychobabble. He was personally more comfortable without shoes, they were restrictive, off-balancing, and uncomfortable, which didn't matter because he could no longer feel his toes and would probably kill for a pair of socks.
Heero would kill for a pair of socks. This was a strange thought. Heero would kill for a pair of socks, he smelled like gunpowder, motor oil, axle grease, and the dusty human-warmed canvas that had been the staples of his youth, Heero was a strange thought, because he knew Heero. There was a clang in the distance, he jerked and drew his knees to his chest as tight as they would come without the aid of his shackled arms. Something rocked the wall opposite the open window, and he shied away from it, not willing to be caught in the backlash of someone else's mistake. If some poor bastard wanted to get himself killed, that was fine by him. He'd made a lifetime out of doing exactly the opposite, keep your head down, and once they target you don't fight back. Get away while you can, strike if you can, but don't, whatever you do, fight back once they've got you.
Heero would be so mad at him if he said that aloud, he was the do or die type, if you fail your mission you'd better hope they kill you so you can't live with the shame. Duo wished he could remember what his motto was, but the simple truth was that he'd spent a week in this dark, freezing hole with nothing but his past to keep him company, and sanity was slowly seeping away from him, replaced by the numb winter cold, and the cruel smell of exposure. And somehow he knew that Heero would be mad at him for that too, but he couldn't seem to remember why.
He didn't simply fail the mission, he forgot it entirely. He didn't lose out to Oz, because Oz meant nothing to him, two letters that were barely letters anymore. He was going to die in here, he was going to freeze to death, or starve to death, or simply become so mad that he forgot life and was dead with a heartbeat. He'd watched it happen, one morning in the orphanage he'd rolled over to find a five year old boy named Thomas, frozen to death on the mat next to his, he was completely blue, and Duo could remember every last detail of his face before that image too faded away. Plague struck L2 every now and again, but the worst plague was that of poverty, it was the no heat, strictly regulated water, and food too expensive to look at that took people's lives, the plague only took their ability to breathe.
A nagging remnant of Duo's waking mind kept yelling at him, move, stretch, talk. And the sinking pit in his stomach that was far more reliable than anything his brain ever tried was saying "You'll be dead if no one comes for you." On cue, as if the gods too were listening to his gut, a bolt slid, a latch was thrown, a cosmic key was turned, and outside his door a keycard was swiped. Duo struggled to his knees, task made difficult by the thick manacles binding his arms in front of him – he didn't shy from the light that flooded his diminutive cell, and he didn't shy from the barrel of the gun staring him in the face.
Every muscle he could call his own was ready to snap into action, every fiber tensed against the cold, even the ropes of his jaws stood out a mile, clenched in stubborn desperation. So it took a long time for his frigid body to fall when the gun went off.
The End
A/N: At least the end of that chapter. I'm sorry. It was going to be a sight different, but I wrote it at three am and I must admit I'm just about tired here. That was mostly Duo POV even if I DIDN'T say his name until the eighth paragraph. Heero's will be different, but no happier.