Category: Angst, Adventure, AU, Slave/Master
Pairings: 1x2, 4x3 (eventually), 5x?
Rating: R (?)
Disclaimer: Standard. You know them all by now so I won't bore you with a repeat.
Warnings: This story does show how a lot of people felt about the owning of slaves, a feeling that was very alive in this country not that long ago, as well as in many civilizations down through the ages. There are some good owners and some bad owners, like in everything. If someone owning another person bothers you, you might not like this fic. But then I'm not forcing anyone to read it. There are also M/M relationships in this fic (I'm very much a 1x2/3x4 fan.) so if boys being together (and I do mean together) bothers you don't read.
Golden Lights Part Thirty
By SilverLady
"You're up awfully early," Heero commented as he walked into the room.
Trowa barely glanced up. "I could say the same thing about you." He paused. "Or maybe not, since you're in here and not in there."
"Or in him?"
"Precisely."
Heero shook his head as he moved across the room. "I won't ask who pissed in your porridge."
"You know I hate the damn stuff."
"Then maybe that's the problem. You need some."
Trowa sighed. "I'm not even going to try and figure out this conversation."
"Good. It would hurt." Heero calm scooped a large portion of the still hot porridge into a bowl, then added enough sugar to make Trowa cringe.
"I still can't believe what a sweet tooth you have."
Heero smirked, but said nothing. "So, what's going on?"
"Not much. We're ready to move out as soon as the doctor clears Quatre. Other than that, there isn't much we can do."
"Someone tried to run you down yesterday."
"And if they're smart, they've already left."
"To what do we owe the honor of this early morning visit?" Wufei's voice was calm, but there was an undercurrent of sarcasm in it.
Heero glanced over at him. "Exhaustion."
"Not yours, I would think."
"No."
Wufei nodded. "Breakfast is here?"
Trowa pointed to the low table on the other side of the room. "Just delivered."
Wufei moved across the room. "At least this place has decent room service."
Trowa looked at Heero and arched his eyebrow. Heero just shrugged.
"So what is going on?"
"Nothing. We wait. Until Quatre is cleared to travel, we're going to have to stay here."
"With a killer still on the loose?"
"There isn't much we can do here. I don't want to risk anyone needlessly."
"A wise thought."
"So, from now on, no one leaves without someone with them. I've already informed Sal."
"Sally," Heero interrupted.
Trowa looked at him. "What?"
"Duo's started calling her Sally, which she said was fine with her. So I guess I've just started to think of her that way. It's much less.... manly than Sal."
Wufei snorted his opinion. "Trust Duo to change someone else's name."
Heero shrugged. "Be glad he keeps the nicknames he comes up with to himself. Some of them are not repeatable in mixed company."
"They're probably not repeatable, period." Wufei glanced down at his plate. "Why does he have such a perchance for name, anyway?"
"When you don't even know your own, you have a tendency to notice others."
Wufei blinked. "What do you mean by that?"
"Duo Maxwell is not the name he was born with. He doesn't know that name. He was given the name when he was taken by the slave trader when he was around four or five."
Wufei was silent for a moment. "I did not know that."
"It's another one of those things he doesn't talk about."
"Actually, Duo may talk a great deal, but he rarely says anything."
"I believe it more for noise than anything. Duo has a thing about silence. Though, when I first got him, he talked very little. But that was fear more than anything. He didn't know how I would react if he talked, so it was safer to say nothing at all."
Wufei blinked, finding it hard to believe Duo being silent. Even when he was asleep he made noise. "He was that badly treated."
A deep anger suddenly flared in Heero's eyes. "It was just too bad that his previous owner was already dead." The flat way in which the statement was spoken told Wufei that Heero would very much liked to have been the one to kill the man. It would not have been fast or painless, of that he had no doubt.
"You just have to hope there is truly justice in the afterworld."
Trowa smiled to himself. Duo had once commented that he thought Wufei had to say the word 'justice' so many times in the course of the day or something terrible would befall him. Sometimes Trowa wondered if he was right.
Wufei looked at Trowa. "So we are just going to sit here?"
"You might and I might, but I doubt if Heero will."
Heero glared at Trowa, but said nothing.
"That may disturb the other guests more than any attempt to hurt any of us."
"At least they wouldn't be listening to you rant about something," Heero muttered under his breath.
"So what is going to happen once we able to leave this place?"
Trowa looked at him curiously. "Meaning?"
"What about Quatre? What do we do about him?"
"The restrictions have been lifted. I'm now nearly certain that Quatre had nothing to do with any of the attacks."
"He has never been the target."
"Those rocks nearly killed him."
"Bad timing. That slidee was meant to take everyone out. If he had not had to dismount at that time he would have easily gotten away. And in the confusion he could have gotten completely away."
Trowa straightened angrily. "He has had many opportunities to escape and hasn't. Besides, who's to say he hasn't been attacked. What about the pond?"
"He got too close and fell. The bank there was slippery."
"No one that scared of the water would have gotten near enough to slip."
"Duo saw no one."
"He wasn't looking. He was a good distance from the bank."
"It could have set up....."
"No more. Unless you find Quatre with a bloody knife in one hand and a body at his feet, I will not hear any more accusations. He is innocent. That is final. I will no longer allow anyone to accuse him of anything without solid, positive proof. Clear?"
Wufei blinked, but nodded slowly. Then he glanced at Heero. "Get out on the wrong side of the bed?"
"Wrong bed."
Wufei nearly choked on his breakfast.