A/N: You can go see Juzilla's wonderful commissioned artwork for chapter 11, which is now up. Beware ofthe odd way I'm forced to type this.Check it out at gwyaoi . org / challenge / 2005 / entries / howtobedead (underscore) art . php
Part 13 "Shadowland"
Duo distinctly heard the rusted wrought iron beneath his feet give long-winded, eerie metallic squeals, an indication that the rickety structure holding him up was actually moving, but more disturbingly, he felt the shiver and sways reverberating up through the soles of his Chuck Taylors proving it. Beaded with water, the dark, forbidding metal that shivered somehow reminded him of the vampire he'd befriended—in a word. The swaying staircase perched on a heaving building brought back fleeting memories of his thin, undead frame pressed against him, cold as death.
Undaunted, Heero was climbing just steps above him on this particular staircase on the fire escape, running his hand and over-sized sleeve over the water-beaded rail as he climbed seemingly effortlessly. Yes, considering he's dry as a bone of any blood, that might make him considerably lighter, he thought, a bemused grin coming across his face, painted in stark shadows by the obscured alleyway.
They continued climbing the fire escape until Heero reached the third floor, able to see the gleam of what little light there was reflecting off the window to his former home. He hesitated, his cold fingers fiercely gripped around the railing, and felt Duo accidentally pile into him unwittingly, his nose digging between his shoulder blades. Instantly, he heard Duo let out a noise of annoyance and he turned to look over his shoulder at him, secretly welcoming the contact of a warm, blood-filled body.
"Sorry," he apologized in a low voice.
"No, no," the mortician whispered and waved it off. Heero felt a little of his guilt relent, though it probably showed despite himself. "I'm fine. You're like a walking pillow, anyway, seeing how you're wearing nearly half a department store. Should'a been paying attention, tha's all. Now, come on, are we just window shopping, or are we going to break into your apartment?"
Before finishing the climb, Heero reminded himself to try that particular trick again sometime, pleasantly recalling the weight of Duo's body against his. When he finally did continue, the mortician took a wary backward glance over his shoulder at the darkened, narrow alleyway, out into the shadowed street without knowing why. The glimpse of a cat stalked out of the night and slipped as quickly and silent back into it a moment later. He followed Heero, and when he crouched beside him at the window, speaking in low, conspiring tones, he asked, "You're roommate's out for the night, right?"
Heero had his eyes trained intently on the lock just showing in the black, glassy reflection, his brows tightened together. "Hopefully."
Instead of raising his voice and letting out "Hopefully? You're just taking a chances that the nastiest hunter in all of New York isn't waiting for you to stumble into his living room?", Duo simply felt a corner of his mouth twitch into an uneasy grimace and stared at Heero as he stared into the glass.
"Window shopping already?" he asked quietly, eyeing him a tad skeptically. "If it's locked, 'Ro, I can pick it quicker than you can say—well, say just about anything—"
"Wait—" Heero told him suddenly, his deep blue eyes taking on a foreign tint for a moment, as if entranced—or rather, enchanting something—putting a hand on Duo's wrist to make him pause.
And, as silently as a ghost and as suddenly as if he'd been summoned from nothing, to the window came a spectral-looking gray wolf, its face paled by the light drifting inside, making its amber eyes glow like coal in comparison. Heero smiled as Duo let out a cussword in surprise and jumped back a little ways, his hand gripping his shoulder tightly and turned to look at him and the look of stunned surprise he wore.
"Holy shit, 'Ro," he managed out, catching his breath. "You can't be serious! Is that your pet? But—how did you—what—where did you get him? Where do you keep him? Jesus!"
"Duo, meet Fridolf."
The eerie image of the wolf in the window titled his head toward the mortician then, silent as death, and with a certain knowing expression that was severely unnerving to Duo, as if he could see straight through him, pierce him down to his soul just with a well-placed stare. Though, he reminded himself, dogs had a habit of growing to resemble their masters.
"Hi," he breathed timidly to the wolf, then turned to the vampire. "Seriously, Heero, what are you doing with a honest-to god wolf in your apartment? I don't think I've seen his kind down at the local shelter as of late, yanno."
His undead friend smiled at him briefly, in that sublte, nearly invisible way he did, and turned an affectionate look toward his pet. "In older days, vampires and wolves were as thick as thieves," he whispered. "We were inseperateable. Fridolf was my only friend, until I met you."
He said it in such a way that Duo wondered how old the eerie creature must be, with those ageless and discerning amber eyes, and then wondered for how long he'd been with Heero, then how long Heero had lived in the horrible, lifeless way that he had, cold, perpetually hungry and scorned from all living society.
Wait a minute… then how long will I be with him?
Duo shook his head quickly, clearing the thought before it stirred up the hoards of winged insects in the bottom of his stomach that appeared when it came to Heero and matters of time, of how close he was, and of how blue his eyes were. Luckily, Heero speaking to the wolf presented him with a distraction from that and he indulged eagerly.
"I'm glad you're all right. Unlock the window, please," Heero told his pet, his hand still on Duo's wrist, pleasantly forgotten.
Fridolf put his paws on the windowsill and reached for the lock, bearing his jaws wide to turn the small, bronze switch with his bleached white fangs. And, as promptly as he had accomplish his assigned task, he slunk back into the shadows, awaiting his master. He moved with a finely controlled strength of sinew that was very familiar to Duo. Heero threw the window open then, and tightened his grip around the mortician's wrist, inviting him to enter first. When Duo had slipped inside, he gave one last wary look over his shoulder and followed, entering the complete darkness of the apartment.
"Oh, great," Duo mumbled as he stood there, blind but not unaware of the continuing unnerving sway. "The goddamned floorboards move too?"
Heero was quickly beside him, his shoulder at his, the entire lengths of their arms touching. Duo swore, becoming momentarily unable to breathe, that he felt his fingertips brushing against the back of his hand. "I need to find my the container of my home soil. I'll be back as quickly as I can," he said in a hushed, calm voice. "Don't turn on the lights. Walker will be able to notice them from miles away. And keep watch."
"Listen. I know this darkness's just peachy for you, 'Ro, but I'm only a mere mortal. I couldn't see my hand in front of my in here," he whispered. "That sort of hinders the 'keep watch' thing."
Heero's hand clenched around his and placed them in the thick fur of Fridolf's coat, as the wolf suddenly appeared at his side, his canine head at the level of his hip. He started and felt Heero pressing gently against him as reassurance, steadying him in the blinding darkness.
"He'll help you," came the whisper, closer to his ear than it had been before. He closed Duo's hand around a fistful of thick fur. "I'll be back soon."
"You've already said that," Duo drawled in return, purposely avoiding the instinct to turn his head toward Heero's face with a grin slowly pulling at his face.
"Just making sure." He still hadn't moved.
"You know, if I didn't know better, Heero, I'd say you were whispering sweet little nothings in my ear for fun."
"Ah. I didn't know you knew better," came the response, then a squeeze around his hand, and he disappeared into the shadows. If he'd been able to think clearly, he would have been taken aback at the near mischief in his voice. Rather, Duo felt odd, light-headed, and at a loss for words for a moment. He could barely think straight above the flutter of winged insects just below his lungs, the heat on his skin left by a cold hand, and when he remained there, motionless, Fridolf gently nudged him toward the window facing the street to keep watch.
Heero found something bitterly amusing about lurking silently through his own home, carefully avoiding the loose floorboards as he skirted from room to room in the darkness. He was on high alert in the place where he had spent years, hungry and lonely, and he couldn't help but resist a chagrined quirk of his lips as he crept into his bedroom. It still hadn't been cleaned from the night before.
Heero stood momentarily in the doorway, again seeing himself lying beneath the thick comforter, still bitterly cold and sleeping miserably from hunger. It was nothing new. He knew, even then, that Walker was there. Being undead was nothing to be proud of, in his opinion, but certain abilities allayed that condition. He knew that his roommate was standing silently in the doorway as the sun was just setting behind the thick black curtains. He knew that Fridolf was no longer lying at the foot of his bed, lured into the basement to hunt rats for his master. He knew that his teddy bear still lay clutched to his chest, with a small, brown glass vial slung around its neck on a rusted chain.
What he didn't know as he slept was Walker was equipped with some crucial new information about his roommate.
Heero dully watched Walker leave doorway beside him, approach his sleeping figure, raise a gun loaded with a pair of silver bullets, and fire. He heard himself let out an involuntary gasp, thrown to the ground with a tremendous force, bringing the blankets with him to the floor. He heard his head strike the floorboards with sickening force and his dizzy groan of pain immediately following. A blossom of red was blooming on his shoulder. The bullet had only skimmed him, merely nipping into his skin, but a bullet was not a pleasant thing, and neither was a silver one. Heero continued to watch his illusionary memory play out before him without knowing why. He knew what happened all too well.
While the vampire was pulling himself off the ground, bleeding the blood of rats and stray cats, Walker strode over and fisted his hands around the back of his shirt and threw him into the wall, knocking over the first piece of furniture of many to come. Heero witnessed himself being attacked, too hungry and weak to fight back. Healthy vampires could have ripped a human such as Walker clean in half, but Heero was anything but. The last time he'd had the taste of a decent meal was a hazy memory in his mind—years, decades maybe. Definitely not since he'd come to this godforsaken tenement.
He heard himself swear dizzily as he was finally knocked unconscious and slumped to the ground, pale and seemingly lifeless. He grimaced, not realizing how much blood he'd spilled throughout his battering, and scowled even further as Walker stood over him, chuckling and victorious. The vampire hunter turned to stalk out of the room to retrieve a kitchen knife, and Heero turned back to stare at his bleeding body in this strange recollection that he had never really had.
Heero suddenly knew that Fridolf had come into the room moments after his master's attacker had left, roused from his morning hunting by the sounds of a body striking the floor through the paper-thin walls.
The massive gray wolf silently padded over to Heero's own prone body, slumped against the wall, bleeding over his green tank top, head limply hanging over his chest. He cautiously nudged him with his nose, body low and waiting for Walker's return. When Heero didn't respond, Fridolf hesitated, then carefully closed his jaws around the worn, scraggy stuffed bear, which was splattered with red, one button eye missing. With a whimper at his motionless body, the wolf nudged the teddy bear toward him, trying to press it into his hand to wake him, but Heero knew that he wouldn't stir.
Walker's voice erupted from beside Heero, startling both him and the illusion of Fridolf, crouched at his own still body, bristling and growling savagely through the stuffed animal pinched in his jaws. The small vial filled with dirt that hung from its neck swung in the air, glinting off a fraction of light and immediately catching the hunter's attention. Walker's eyes lit up beside the corporal Heero with understanding and was immediately filled with an almost wicked conceited smile as he lifted the gun at the snarling wolf, barking at him to drop it.
Fridolf glanced back at his master, and Heero could see his indecision. Unsure whether to defend his master to his death, uncertain if he could kill the hunter, or flee with his own life and leave him to Walker's questionable mercy. Glowing amber eyes looked back upon the vampire hunter looming in the doorway, who fired without remorse, the bullet biting into the floorboards where Fridolf had been only seconds before. The wolf fled through the curtains and out the open window, teddy bear in jaw, and leapt the three stories to the ground.
Walker, with a laugh, made his way to the window, sneering happily as he peered out the opened window, expecting a pile of roadkill splattered thirty feet below. But all that greeted him was the sound of a cat yowling and feet disappearing into the darkening night. He swore, but soon turned toward Heero, lying prone on the floor, pale face contorted into a pained expression even in unconsciousness. Walker readjusted the knife in his hand and crouched down beside him, pulling out a crucifix from under his shirt and raising the sharpened blade for a task Heero knew all too well was coming.
He would have stayed there, watching this illusion, until he would have woken and fought and fled, exhausted and bleeding into the street, where Relena would find him, collapsed in front of her headlights, with a wolf standing protectively at his side, a teddy bear clutched in his jaws.
Heero's eyes widened. That was it—Relena had taken it, and assuming Heero was dead and therefore no longer in need of a stuffed animal, had kept it for herself! But where had that frightened girl taken it?
"Shit," he growled, feeling another sting of pain as the dawn drew steadily closer. It would not be long before he needed the native soil, before the sun would rise again.
Heero was just turning to leave when Fridolf squealed, a shrill, pained yip, then stumbled heavily to the floor. Duo then let out a loud cry in the other room and then was stifled, filling him with a horrible flame of electricity.
Walker was home.
