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"Lasting Impressions"Written By: Dragonmistress_7 Disclaimer: I don't own the Gundam Wing Boys.
Lasting Impressions Lasting Impression 16 Trowa helped Duo sit down inside one of the larger empty crates, out of the view of anyone who might look in the windows. Then he sank down beside him. "Rest. We're safe for now." Duo fought the urge to be sick again. Twice in their flight he had lost the battle. "Kill me now and save someone else the trouble," he sighed. "What's wrong with you anyway? Impression sickness? I've never even heard of that." "I don't know if anyone else has ever had it," Duo replied. His skin was getting clammy. That hadn't happened before. "If they have, it was a long time ago. It's caused by my attempts-" He paused, swallowing hard. "My attempts to suppress my Impression instinct." "What is that? Is it dangerous?" "Not to you. I slipped, back in the cell. I saw you. You're green. It's beautiful, but it isn't mine. It's Quatre's." "Have you lost it again? I don't know what Heero did the last time." Duo shook his head. "I'm fine. We gotta find Heero and Quatre." "There are over 40 million people in this city. We'll be lucky if we ever find them," Trowa said softly, discouraged. Duo thought about this. It was hard to think at all since he kept slipping up, getting flashes of color where people should be. He sat upright. He could see the colors through the walls! Not everywhere, but in and near all of the places he had been recently, he was unconsciously keeping track of everyone, even people he hadn't seen. If what he'd thought he'd seen earlier hadn't been a hallucination… "Trowa, I want to try something. Think of Quatre. Just picture him standing there in front of you." Trowa looked confused, but gamely closed his eyes. Duo released his control, but focused it on Trowa. Yes, there was something there, but it wasn't enough. "Can you see him?" he asked softly. "Not just his skin and his hair and his eyes, the parts of him, but also the sound of his voice, the way he smells, the things he does that make you smile…" Duo stopped, considered, and decided he'd been reading way, way too much. But it worked. To Duo's astonishment, it actually worked. A tiny spot, an influence, opened in the nimbus of rich grass green that represented Trowa. This one was golden, so yellow that it was nearly orange, like a single drop of light squeezed out of Earth's sunset. Duo had loved sunset on Earth. He seized the color in his mind and sought it out. His senses screamed, rebelled. This was not his color. This one was not what he wanted. Relentlessly, he pushed it to the forefront of his thoughts, causing all the many blues and reds and greens and purples around him to fade until only those he wished to see were left. There weren't as many as he'd thought. He didn't see it. Oh! Of course not. He was on the first level of the city. Quatre would be below him. He looked down. It was dizzying to see what he knew were people below him without the context of floors and walls. There were some faint traces, memories really, on the second level, but Quatre was not one of them. They were too far away. He pulled his senses in slowly, carefully, still fighting, but more in control. "I can find him." Trowa stared at him for ten full seconds. "What?" "I can find Quatre. He'd be on the third level hiding out, right? If we can get down there, I know I can find him." Trowa wanted to question this, even briefly wondered if Duo really had lost it. He seemed confident though. "They wouldn't have gone far once we were separated," he said, almost to himself. "Can you really pull this off?" Duo thought hard about this. It would be damn dangerous on a personal level, not to mention all the Ansirians out to get them. "If we do this, you'll have to see for the both of us. I'll be blind to everything but what I'm looking for." He hesitated. Trowa wouldn't like this part. "There's something else. I think I have control of it, but if I get surprised I will have to close my eyes, plug my ears, and stop breathing for a minute. If that happens, we may get caught. I have to do it, even if it means we do. Even if we don't, I won't be able to look for Quatre anymore. It will be too risky." "What are the odds of that happening?" Trowa demanded. Duo shook his head. "There's no way to know. According to you, there are over 40 million opportunities for this to go bad. By staying away from people until we get near where we think Heero and Quatre are, that risk is reduced significantly. By focusing on Quatre, it seems to become almost nonexistent. " They sat silently for a long time, each lost in his thoughts. Duo was torn. All of his life it had been ingrained in him to suppress the very instinct he would have to use. The danger was real. What if he Impressed to some stranger? The consequences would be far-reaching; and not just for him. Still, this was their best chance of finding their friends. If they stayed here too long, sickness would overcome Duo again. Trowa would have to leave him to meet the others, which he wouldn't do. Even if he could talk Trowa into it, Heero definitely wasn't leaving this planet without Duo. He'd probably get them all captured by refusing to do this. Duo shook his head. He knew what he should do. Why was he hesitating? He abruptly thought about Heero's favorite book. Heero said he'd learned a lot from that book. What had Duo learned from it? Characters from the book and people he'd met began to line up in his mind. Suddenly, it all became very clear to him. He wasn't a child anymore. He had grown up over the past few weeks and it was time to face life like an adult. Otherwise, he was going to end up very sad at best. Dead at worse. For once in his life, he had a choice. He couldn't choose to do nothing just because that was easy. Duo got to his feet, grinning inexplicably. "Well, let's do this." Trowa looked up, startled out of his own deliberations. That confidence was back, full force. Trowa wasn't sure that was a good thing. Duo's smile made him nervous, but that was nothing compared to the chill that ran through him when Duo's irises bled out, making both eyes turn completely blue. "Give me just a moment," Duo said, a look of concentration on his face. Slowly, the color changed to a vibrant gold. "Okay, we're ready." ~ * ~ |
