Disclaimer: so do not own Gundam Wing…wouldn't that be great though? But I just write about them as I wish it would happen
1x2 yeah!
Before I start, I would like to say Thank You to everyone who has posted comments with feedback! It really helps with the writing process and further inspires me with what I want to write next! Keep Reading Please! There were some problems with the chapter order, but that was my fault andI hopw it is fixed now!
Scars
Part Four: Trying Again"MAXWELL, YOU OWE US THAT DATA AND CARIGAN WANTS IT TODAY!" Duo looked around frantically, he needed a place to hide. Martin wasn't known for his patience. He was now banging on the door to get in, not to get the occupants attention.
Duo's first instinct was to go for the closet and hope that Martin would overlook him, but he just as quickly dismissed that idea, Martin was a man made for his job. He went after people like Duo when that times work was due and it was late. Carigan liked his "toys" when they were due, no earlier, no later, right when the time came.
Duo had been late once before, in the beginning, and that memory of his first (and last) experience with Martin was enough to still send him into shivers. And now he had completely forgotten with the past weeks excitement, and the program wasn't ready yet.
Duo looked around wildly for any weapons, he only had two guns on him and had neglected getting any more, less he look too suspicious. And now he wished he had stocked his apartment full to bursting! Duo was in a bit of luck though; at that moment his computer informed him that he had all the information on his disk. Duo slipped it into a case and into his pocket and glanced around.
The fires escape came to his eye and Duo launched himself for it with no hesitation. No other place to go he went down, taking the steeps as quickly, but as quietly, as he could.
The iron beneath him flew down at the bottom and he hit the ground just as Martin stuck his head out Duo's window above. Duo heard Martin yell after him, but didn't pause to turn around, he started running as soon as he got traction under his feet and bolted towards the crowd.
His first mistake was immediately pointed out to him, and Duo cursed everything he could think of, he'd forgotten his coat. People began to yell in excitement and brake away to let him trough, his disfigured body making a path for him. Duo saw instantly that the path behind him would be clear for Martin and he had to get away from all the people, if only he had had enough sense to ask Heero and Quatre where they would be.
Duo broke off the street and into a small strip of stores and stalls set up on the side of the street. Duo ran through a series of curtains between the stalls and crashed into body after body as he finally found one that sold cloths. Duo gasped as he bent over and forced some money into the clerks hand and grabbed a coat off the rack, only checking it long enough to see it had a hood. Then he calmly walked out into the light and sauntered off in the direction of his apartment, planning to pass it and circle the area until Heero and Quatre came back.
Duo heard the commotion form behind him that told him Martin was making a big fuss of trying to find him, and people were protesting to his search, he even backed up against the wall and watched for a minute, giving him the look of just a curious pedestrian. Duo waited until and number of people just began to ignore Martin and then turned to leave for where he could wait for Heero and Quatre in the safety of a café that he suddenly remembered was outside his apartment building.
He walked as if he had a distinct place to be at an exact time. Walking through the crowd at a leisurely pace was the hardest part. Duo wanted to turn around to check and see if Martin was still following him, or to break off at a run and keep going till his legs gave out from under him.
Duo could feel a twitch of hair on the back of his neck, something coming lose from his braid but with a more foreboding feeling. It made him run his hand over the sweat soaked skin and try to rub away a chill that ran like and ice cube on his backbone. Duo ignored it as best he could, though he tightened the hood of his jacket around his face, and continued to walk towards his salvation, a semi-clean, caffeine-addicts hovel that was known only by a faded sign that declared the small café as De Luche.
Duo was nearly there; he could see the dirty window of the cafe front that had month old notices of guitars being sold and lost dogs taped to it. He could see beyond that to the shallow eyed, dark dressed, comatose customers that there often enough to be 'regulars'. Duo would just walk in, sit down and order some coffee, and wait until Heero's car pulled up and then run out and he would be safe, he could move away from this despicable living he had been trying to hide out in and go onto-
Duo felt a hand slam across the back of his head in a side swipe and take him completely off his feet to fall on his side into a trash can that was at the mouth of the truck port to De Luche. Duo knew there was glass and probably old nails on the ground, but when his head hit the asphalt it didn't matter anymore. Duo was ready to lie around for another week right on the spot and never lift his head again.
Painful and permanently damaging things kept happening to him and he had no idea how to make them stop. He could only ask 'why?' before the next thug in line came out of the dark to beat him till he puked and passed out.
Duo hated that he could never fight back, that he had let his muscles go lax, and his mind soften to the everyday 'innocents', and even more that he had tried to escape a fate that he now knew was inescapable when he could have been fighting all along. At least then, when Heero had found him, he could've offered something more than anything he had now.
Duo looked up, and Martin was doing the one thing he was good for, besides beating up computer punks, blocking the sunlight from Duo's eyes. However, that just made him look all the more ominous, the light falling around his big and bulky shadow gave him a look that Duo had thought only he could pull off. Short hair that required the minimal amount of care, a suit that was a show for how much his job made for him, little gadgets that helped him to brake bones and more were probably in his pocket, including a gun and a bullet proof vest that Duo could just see through the dress shirt. Martin also had exceptionally shiny shoes; Duo could almost see his reflection in them perfectly. Martin was wearing a shiny silver hoop in his right lobe that day, just a little sparkle to add style (failure really) and he was the perfect image of a first class thug. A figure of death stood before him and Duo could only look up as each of his scars seemed to burn for him to do something, but there was nothing inside that could be called forth upon.
"Maxwell, enough." Martin reached down and picked up Duo by his shirtfront and put his face up against his own. "Now, dup to your running I can probably guess correctly that you don't have what Mr. Carigan sent me for."
"Gee, ya think?" Duo wanted this over with quickly, the worst Martin could do right now, without Carigan there, would be to try and beat some sense into him. He would probably be told to come back if Duo didn't have the 'toy' delivered and bring him before Carigan himself.
"Don't push it Maxwell, I'm not having a good day." Martin growled into Duo's face.
"OH GOD! That is RANK!" Duo tried to turn his face away. "Martin, no offence, but you need to use mouthwash more than once a month!"
"You little-" Martin shoved Duo against the brick wall of De Luche and then slammed his fist into Duo's gut.
"You've been working out?" Duo asked through gasps for air.
"So glad you noticed!" Martin smirked at him.
"Well, I have no life, what else is there to do besides examine the bodies of my bosses' henchmen?" Duo laced his voice with sarcasm and put on his old smile, the mask that no one could see past. Well…almost no one.
"So shut up and let me pound on you a little so I can go home punk." Martin smiled maliciously and raised the back of his hand and whacked Duo on the side of his face, on the rim of his cheekbone. Duo felt the pain like a crack ran through the bone and hit his core and a headache was just waiting there to surface.
Duo grimaced but kept smiling and looking up at Martin.
"We should really sit down and talk sometime, this is just so harsh, we never get a chance to interact." Duo tried to put some of his weight down on his toes so the fabric where Martin held him wouldn't rip.
"Shut it!" Martin let his whole fist connect with Duo's face so that his lips slammed into his teeth, causing it to rip and bleed into Duo's mouth. Duo licked his lip gingerly as Martin let him fall to the ground in a heap and tasted the copper metallic sting.
"But I thought we were gonna have a heart to heart next." Duo looked up the long length to Martin's face high above him.
Martin didn't answer, just started to kick him. First in the legs, Duo fell onto his side and groaned, but smiled on. Then Martins heavy boot connected with Duo's gut and dug deep into the fleshy belly where delicate organs were vulnerable. Duo hacked and choked as the air of his lungs left and he saw stars of white light in his vision.
"Do you have the data for Mr. Carigan?" Martin asked in a tone that said he knew the answer well enough, but was simply doing a job he enjoyed.
"Nope, I thought I might just slack off in the hopes of see you again." Duo spat out blood from his torn lip and smiled as his face began to show signs of swelling and bruising.
Martin sighed and kicked Duo some more, going for vulnerable parts, including breaking his nose, which gave Duo the most pain, and the most blood. It covered the ground beneath him and soaked the front of his cloths.
"Why'd ya habe ta dob thad!" Duo cursed him as he held his face and his eyes watered up in tears.
"Mr. Carigan said you needed to learn a lesson today. Second time, it always gets worse." Martin smiled down at him. " And not that you mention it, I think its time to bring out 'worse'." Martin reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver pocketknife. Martin snapped it open with a flick of his wrist and held it up so Duo could see it clearly. "You see, Mr. Carigan wanted to give you a present, he knows how much you love your scars, he thought you could use a couple more."
Duo's face lost all traces of any smile that had ever been there, his face went form dead scared to deadly in a few seconds and he stared at Martin with death in his eyes. The sparkly gone from the velvet and now filled with hate and daring.
Martin faltered only slightly, but then reached down and grabbed Duo's arm. He retched back the sleeve of the hastily bought jacket and examined Duo's arm, then placed the gleaming blade to soft and unmarked skin, he slowly dragged it over and into Duo's arm. Blood welled up from the incision, and Duo just kept staring at Martin, into his eyes, unfeeling of fresh skin being scarred. Martin dug in deep, to be sure the blade would leave its mark, then he smiled and raised the blade, letting the blood run down and over his knuckles to his wrist. Duo could see his view of Martin tainted red with the blood that seemed to fill his vision, somehow he had gone back to a state of mind where the only meaning was to stay alive, never mind pain, never mind distress, never mind who would die.
Martin saw the defiance and anger in Duo and did the one thing that came to mind; he raised his hand and brought the knife down with it in a vertical slash under Duo's right eye to his chin. Blood came up instantly and ran down in a small fall to drip to the ground. Still Duo looked up at him, unmoved and all together unaffected by the display of power Martin had over him.
"You little Fucker, you better watch it or one of these days I'll-" Martin raised the knife again, in a position that was used for plunging it into the torso area. But he got no further; a hand grabbed his wrist and held it there effortlessly.
"Or you'll what?" A low growl issued from behind Martin and squeezed the wrist so that there was a sharp crack as the wrist bones snapped under Heero's grip.
Martin yelled his protest and pain and cursed Heero, in about three different languages, and then tried to wrench his arm from Heero's grip. It didn't work at all, so Martin continued cursing with no other options left.
"Heero." Duo felt more blood dribbling down his chin and still pouring from his nose, and now joined by the two new cuts that would become scars, more scars. Always scars.
Duo's mind began to swirl, turning him around and pulling him down. He was letting the adrenalin wash away and the pain that it had kept at bay came forth anew. Duo felt his brain fog over and his vision go hazy as the blood loss began to make him dizzy and light headed. The pain was almost welcome, for accepting it meant it dulled and Duo began not to feel it at all, which he knew was a bad sign.
"DUO!" Duo heard Heero say something to Martin and then release him. Heero watched, standing over Duo, until Martin was gone and then kneeled, fell really, next to Duo and touched him gently, moving his hair and loose clothing aside to look at him closer. Examining Duo's wounds he caressed Duo's face and arms and pulled off his jacket. Duo didn't care when his newest piece of clothing tore under Heero's hand into strips. Nor did he care that they were going to become soaked with blood as Heero wrapped his arm. But as he saw all of his own blood cover Heero, his mind began to panic.
"I called ahead, the doctors I hired to ride over with us on the plane are going to have extra supplies for this." Quatre came into view just as Duo felt something inside him come to awareness.
"I need to get inside!" Duo demanded suddenly as he reached out and grabbed Heero's wrist. "He'll come back, I need to be inside, I can lock the door, I can get my gun, I can-"
"Duo, calm down!" Heero clutched Duo's arm back as his grip became desperate and he started to try and stand.
"Duo, we need to get you to the transport, the movers are already here and moving your stuff, that guy is not coming back." Quatre reassured him and stroked back Duo's bangs as he tried to catch his breath and stop his hands from shaking. He had no idea why he had just started shaking when those thoughts had come out, and it scared him.
"Let's go." Heero helped Duo up and swung his thin arm over his own broad shoulders. "Lean on me."
Duo tried desperately to kept he heat from his cheeks as he leaned into Heero and got a nose full of a trace of husky cologne that was simply sweat, grease, and a individual musk that could never be duplicated. He could felt he heat coming off of Heero and the muscles move just beneath his cloths and skin, moving fluidly as he practically dragged Duo to the black car they had parked hastily in front of Duo's apartment.
No, not his apartment any more, no more of this life. Duo knew relief, as he never had, not even during the war, as Heero levered him into the back seat. It was soft and seemed for a moment as if it would swallow Duo entirely as he sunk back and let out a long sigh of what he had been holding in for the longest time.
Duo heard his name being called, he had spaced out for a minute, and the car was just about to pull away from the apartment complex. It was Bruce, he was running down the front steeps with an envelop in his hands.
"DUO, Wait!" Bruce came up to the window; Quatre pushed the button for it to go down for him. "You got this yesterday, but I forgot to give it to you, since you were sick and shit." Bruce leaned against the car and handed Duo the envelop through the window.
"Thanks Bruce. I'll see ya around." Duo smiled, he would miss Bruce, not so much that he would probably ever come back here, but just enough, like he missed a few people he had meet during the war. Good people, people who represented the earth he had saved with his comrades.
"Yeah. Take care of yourself." Bruce gave him a salute as Quatre pulled the car away and they headed for the airport. Duo fingered the envelope as Heero turned around from the front seat and looked it over too. There was no return address, no markings other than the destination address and what the post office had stamped on it, and it was just a simple manila envelope.
There was a piece of tape over the metal tongs holding down the opening to make sure it hadn't opened in the mail, and it felt as if there was at least a CD in there as well as a letter, harmless little something that he had probably ordered online, probably illegally too from what Duo could remember from his online purchases.
He set the envelope in his lap and lay his head back. His eyes were becoming half-lidded; he was going to fall asleep soon. But Heero was looking at him, a little fidgety in the eyes, asking him something without voicing it.
"It can wait till we get to Quatre's." Duo explained.
"Then you know what it is?" Heero asked, relaxing in the shoulders a bit.
"No." Duo knew that would make Heero frustrated, but he didn't have the strength to open it now, it probably meant only grief or something that required a computer anyway. Not something he wanted to deal with right at that moment.
Heero made a muffled sound in his throat and then turned around in the passenger seat and watched the road with Quatre. Duo closed his eyes and drifted with the movement of the car, the smooth turns, and the little bumps that lulled him to sleep as he relaxed in the comfort of having two of the few people he trusted in the world taking care of him.
Duo had slept all the way to the airport, through mid-day traffic that had slowed them down greatly, and only woke up when Heero gently shook him as he was getting Duo out of the back seat from their improvised parking space near the runway. Duo tried to help by pulling his own weight, but his body had given out completely and Heero had refused anyway. Insisting that Duo simply not move and that would be his contribution as Heero carried him out to the private jet and into its belly where a small team of physicians was waiting for him.
Duo was put on a gurney and told to relax, it had the opposite affect as strange faces closed around him and began to poke and prod him, putting many cold and strange shaped instruments to his exposed skin.
Duo started to lash out without thinking, his reflexes kicking in at full and a twitch starting near his eye. The men and women back away quickly and Heero jumped up and came to Duo's side. He grabbed Duo's wrists as he thrashed about and calmly began talking to him as Duo calmed down enough to get his own functions under control.
"It's safe Duo, these doctors have all been approved by Quatre and I'll be right here watching you the whole time. I wont let anything happen to you Duo. Never again!" Heero was looking at him straight in the eyes now. Something stirring deep inside him let Duo know he meant what he said, swore upon the word he was saying without hesitation.
Duo let his muscles release their stiff positions and lay back. He nodded at Heero, still in wonder. Had he really meant what he had just said, he would protect Duo. From now on?
Of coarse he had meant it, Duo had been looking straight at him when he had said it. The doctors came back with Heero's reassurance that everything was ok now, and began what they had started. Duo was going to have to control whatever urges aroused as they went about their business, but with Heero there, somehow he was going to manage it.
Duo, on the way over the ocean, ended up having many stitches, and a brace for his chest where ribs had been cracked, also another one for his right leg where Martin had gotten over zealous with his kicking. Heero had been calm while the doctors had gone over their notes on Duo's examinations, he would be ok, and the wounds would heal, though he would have more scars, as Martin had wanted.
But as Duo watched them read further down the list, not to mention Duo was under nourished, he could see Heero was clenching his fists at his sides. Though his face showed no emotion, soldier like and simply processing information, his finger bit harder into his palms until Duo was sure it would pierce skin and he would see blood at any moment.
But, when it was over and the doctors when to their seats further back in the compartment, Heero simply sat next to Duo and pulled out a book to read.
"Try to rest, we still have a few hours to go." Heero sat back.
Duo wanted to talk, wanted to ask questions, his mind a buzz with information he had not foreseen and could not process. But Heero's words were taken to heart as he felt the time changing internally as they flew faster than the world could turn. Duo knew sleep was inevitable and welcomed it gladly, his questions could wait and they would have to. Duo was asleep as soon as his eyes closed.
The plane rocked as lightening struck near them and the winds of a storm buffeted the metal body. The inside rattled from the turbulence and awakened Duo with a start of a memory that was all too real in his mind and concerned bullets flying at his head.
Duo looked around wildly, he was strapped down to a make shift bed, there were dim lights overhead, most of the light came form lightening just outside the rows of windows on either side of him. He was trapped in a transport that was going down in a storm; he could feel it's decent.
But then, from the door that led to the cockpit Heero came and Duo remembered everything that had happened up till now and lay back. Heero came and saw that Duo was awake now. He hastily freed Duo of the binds that had held him in place and informed Duo of their current situation.
"We're at Quatre's estate, ready to land, we just have to contend with this storm, we didn't expect it to be here so quickly. The surrounding mountains hid its approach." Heero guided Duo to a seat and buckled him in.
"Where are we?" Duo asked, he didn't recognize anything as he looked out his window to the gray world below. Thought, it was near dusk and the storm was heavy.
"The mountains of New Switzerland." Heero said quickly. "I have to be in the front with Quatre, you ok here?" Heero asked. Duo nodded and watched as Heero disappeared behind the door.
Duo looked around, he hadn't had a chance to notice how nice it was in here before. Now he could see that it screamed wealth in about a dozen different languages. Everything was at the top of technologies advancements. Further back, where the doctors were seated, there were also attendants that had served food and beverages. Some of the Doctors even looked as if they had just woken up as he had. Indeed, there seemed enough room between seats for a person to lie down and sleep comfortably.
Duo was sitting where Heero had for most of the trip, and his book was still in the side pocket. Something big and heavy that Duo didn't have the slightest curiosity about. He just watched out the window as lightening forked the sky and lit up the ground below as if it were noon.
The rain was beautiful; Duo could have watched it for hours had he been in the comfort of a house with a blanket around him and a fire at his feet. But riding it out in a jet was a whole different matter. He wanted to be on the ground, safe within his own room in Quatre's mansion.
The landing was a bit rough, a large bump that made Duo's stitches ache and his stomach leap for an instant, but then they smoothly glided into a plane port and came to a halt. Men came out in a hurry and pulled a stair up to the jets side and opened the door as more attended to the jet itself and began repairs and such.
Duo let Heero help him up when the doctors had all filed out and they joined Quatre, who had been in the front the whole time. There was a car waiting to take them to the front steps and keep them out of the rain.
Duo hissed when he sat, the drugs the doctors had given him to numb the pain were wearing off and he was beginning to appreciate what he had been suspicious of when they'd fist administered them.
Heero looked at him worriedly, Duo gave him a strained smile. "Just get me inside, I won't feel any of it once I'm asleep."
Heero nodded in agreement and signaled the driver they were ok to go. As then went out into the curtain of rain waiting for them Duo looked out his window. They were in a sort of small valley. It was a brick mansion nestled between high mountains and rolling hills. Everything was green with little trees or none at all except within the walls of the estate itself. High windows reflected the lightening and clouds hanging low overhead. The flashes lit up the ground, or back lit the surrounding scenery that was even more beautiful in the kind of dangerous light it cast.
Duo was hurried inside with a minimal touch of rain to his shoulders and then handed a towel by a butler once he was standing in a great hall. The ceiling went up to the second story with great windows on either side, and a staircase ahead led up to the open hall of the second story where the rooms were placed across form each other. It was really quite humble compared to what Duo had seen of Quatre's other homes.
Duo was offered a wheel chair and assistance up to his room, third on the right down the hall, right across form Heero's, but he refused. He wanted to get there on his own, and he was almost sure he could too. He didn't come all this way just so he could use every convenience as a crutch; he was here to start over. He wasn't going to succeed if he didn't learn right off to fend for himself.
Duo started to climb the stairs, and he was well aware of the eyes on his back as he did so. He smiled to himself, he had expected Quatre to worry, but having Heero worry about him was a little unnerving.
"See you all in the morning!" Duo called over his shoulder with a slight wave and continued up the stairs. He heard a small giggle behind him and that got him up the stairs without thinking about it much.
Duo waited until he was further down the hall to stop and rest. He clutched his chest as he leaned against the wall next to a window Paine. Everything was staring to hurt again. It was agony to simply breath; he remembered that from former cracked ribs. It hadn't set in completely yet, but it would, and Duo wasn't looking forward to it at all.
Duo managed to get to his room without further trouble. He found a nice and simple bed; though it was raised it probably would have hurt more to get down near the floor, in a nice and simple room with an attached bathroom.
There was a phone near his bed with instructions about what number to call for any part of the house he wanted, including the kitchens. The windows had long drapes that were currency closed, but Duo could just make out a window seat as lightening illuminated it for a second. He stripped off what was left of his shirt and coat and rubbed his feet with it, threw it on the floor, and then lay down. He pulled back the covers, but he was asleep before he could bother to pull them over himself.
He could try again at this new life once he had some sleep under his belt, a good twelve hours seemed like a good start, maybe longer if he felt like it.