My ramblings-

Hi guys! This is kind of from Duo's perspective but it's in third person and it's all a dream (which is made clear by the first line).

Same warnings as before - some dudes like other dudes, there's some very light sexual/affection attraction going on but nothing detailed. No swear, no violence, some very light medical mentioning.


Some Things Don't Need To Be Said

Chapter 8 - My Thoughts are Trying to Escape - Because I can't

He dreamt.

At least, he believed he dreamt.

The world flooded in and out, and there was an occasional bright light shining in his eyes he pushed away with one hand, He heard heavy laughter and something about 'this one's a strong one!' before he felt his arm gently sliced open and something flat placed inside. An IV? Maybe. Maybe OZ had captured him! Where were the others; were they safe? He sleepily pushed away the glowing torch and the hand that held it until he finally fell into a deeper stage of sleep.

Wufei was meditating. Duo knew it must have been a dream then because the room was positively tiny and he was without the bamboo rug and meditation stool that he had treated himself to immediately when the war was over. His room in the palace had been much bigger and grander, and Duo decided even if he was dreaming of some future Wufei, he would have afforded a much better place; maybe in China, his spiritual home.

If Duo thought and forced himself to do as he wished in the dream, he could get closer to Wu. Close enough to see the greys. Close enough to remember the pinky-promise, close enough to touch the hands that rested palm up. The skin was cold, rough. Not the touch of the million times he had playfully touched Wufei before, to wind him up. At the touch, the ghostly breeze, Wufei's shoulders tensed but he didn't move nor speak.

Something was wrong. He didn't know what. Wufei was frowning, he could see that, little lines Duo wanted to gently push away - give him a head massage, which he had managed to do on two separate occasions despite the man's protests. But Wufei never frowned during meditation.

He had tried to teach them all, once. It was Winter, and with most of the battleground frozen over, even OZ wasn't taking a risk. So they were stuck in an abandoned but well serviceable safehouse - clean, once Quatre had done his thing. It had been the third day and although they weren't hungry or tired or injured, they were bored, and they were just discovering how most 15 year olds felt on a day to day basis - shoved in a place they didn't want to be, such as a school, with their only discomfort normally being boredom.

Of course, boredom was a luxury to the pilots, but Quatre announced after a thorough search, with Trowa at his side (which seemed to take 20 minutes longer than it needed to, and included their room with the massive king-size bed and a colour on Quatre's face that was similar to a tomato) there wasn't even a pack of cards around.

Heero grumbled something into his laptop - even he had to have run out of things to do. Duo remembered whining and practically throwing himself on the floor like a kid having a tantrum. Only Wufei seemed unaffected by the boredom and Duo had rolled onto his stomach to look at him. "How come you aren't going mad with boredom, Wuffies?"

He, of course, earned a narrow eyed glare. "I can teach you if you want." His face flushed a little bit. "Meditation, of course. All of you. This room is perfect."

He was right. They each grabbed a cushion from the sofas to sit on and Wufei sat in front of the fire, motioning them all into a circle. Eventually they were all fairly comfortable - even Heero closed down his laptop - and Quatre was sitting within an inch of Trowa, claiming that his cushion wasn't big enough.

"Okay, first...try to sit like this. It's called the 'Lotus position'," he demonstrated a position that made his legs look like pretzels. Of course, Trowa got it easy, and Heero managed after a moment, but even with Trowa's help (tomato-coloured face again) Quatre couldn't do it, and Duo couldn't even get close, so him and Quatre were granted 'permission' to sit simply cross-legged.

"The position is important, but don't focus too much on getting it perfect - being comfortable is more important," Wufei instructed, nodding a little. "Now, clear your mind. Just forget everything. I know it's hard, but we're pretty safe, and we're all here. ...We with the war how it is, that's all we can ask for, right?"

Everyone nodded, and Wufei instructed them to take a deep breath, leave their worries, and close their eyes. It was dark in there, and Duo couldn't stop his thoughts. What was everyone else doing? He half opened an eye and saw Wufei watching them, still in Lotus, palms up. He shook his head at Duo and he closed his eyes again.

It was hard, to kill his thoughts. Hell, if he knew he was going to be tested like this, then he wouldn't have had as much as that great, cheap coffee the kitchen was stocked with. Eventually, he heard Wufei get up, whispering - telling Trowa that he had great posture; gently correcting Quatre's hand position, explaining they were letting in good energy by having the palms up, and just muttering 'perfect' to Heero, because of course. But when he got to Duo, he gently ran a thumb against his forehead and Duo nearly fell backwards at the unexpected contact but managed to calm himself, imagining he was in 'Sychthe and he had just been unexpectedly hit. That helped him steady himself.

"We don't frown," Wufei had said, softly. "Meditation is about clearing the mind...creases in the forehead are like thoughts trying to escape into the world. That's not the aim."

At the time, Duo had snorted and blown it off at Wufei choosing to pick on him - surely one of the others had been frowning, too - but he had tried to stop the thoughts. It may have been impossible for the hyperactive teen, but every time he had seen Wufei meditate, he had never seen him frown, not once.

His forehead had been so smooth, so pale, not a hair out of place. When he started to unfold and opened his eyes, there was a brief frown, something of a scowl - maybe because Duo was watching him - but he had never frowned during meditation.

Apart from now.

My thoughts are trying to escape - because I can't.

The ghostly voice didn't scare or unnerve Duo too much - this was all a dream. It was all a dream, and it was all based on what he had seen before and...who he wanted to be with. This room was alien, small and cold, but Wufei was a friend, a friend who wasn't quite right.

As Duo floated there - in his dreams he always floated; he associated it with something to do with space - Heero came into the room. Heero and Wufei sharing a room was a rarity, but nothing too unusual.

"They're not letting us go any time soon."

Heero's voice, strong as ever, as if he were in the cage with the sedated Duo. Heero had no issue with interrupting Wufei's meditation - and Wufei honestly didn't seem to mind, unlike when Duo bounded into the room. Wufei's eyes opened and his eyes squinted - they were tired, they needed his glasses, Wufei always needed his glasses when he was tired.

"I know that, Yuy. I've made my peace with it. We'll be free if the Courts decide our actions were justifiable - I imagine we'll end up somewhere much worse than this if they decide any of our actions were without merit, even during war. There was a lot of injustice from both sides."

To hear his voice was beautiful. It was a dream, and he knew it was a dream based on what the doctor had told him - that they were trapped in some house, that they were prisoners, that they were waiting on some Court, probably formed after the war to deal with high ranking soldiers - and the pilots.

Wufei got up and Duo could feel himself being pulled away. No, no, no! He didn't care the room was cold and they were trapped - he wasn't alone. He was with comrades; people who understood him. People who didn't put him in a cage, people who didn't steal his blood and give him tainted water.

'No, please...' He felt himself thinking as he started to stir from his unconscious state. 'Let me stay. It was a dream and it was imperfect, but they were there. Let me stay..'

He must have spoken the last bit out loud. The doctor was in the room, shoving something in his other inner arm. "Stay? Of course you're staying. The first blood test showed very positive elements of the antibodies needed to make the vaccine. You're staying as long as I need you to."

Duo turned his head dully to his the side, eyes moist with tears he refused to let fall. He had been there. So close he could literally touch. Literally feel Wufei, even if he couldn't really feel him. All he could hope was the doctor kept him sedated, so he could keep dreaming, so he could keep seeing them. If he kept asking of news of his comrades every day, then they would be in his dreams every day - Quatre making dinner, Trowa nearby to dutifuly hand him knives, Wufei meditating, Heero marching about with that scowl on his face... He just had to make it happen.


To be continued