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" Rituals"Written By: Maaya
Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters! Don’t have time to write more on a mere disclaimer! Rating: PG-13 Summary: *cough cough* This is the first time I’ve tried to write something like a gundam fight so.. don’t be *too hard* on me, please? C&C is welcome though. And I know it’s pathetic that I haven’t written something like this before, since GW is an *action*-show. *Gundam* action show. This is a sequel to “Friendship”, but
it can stand pretty much alone anyway. Some references to “Friendship”
though. I also hate what I did to Wufei in this soon to be series
- he’s my fav. character after Duo but I can’t seem to avoid
bashing him ever so slightly.. Warnings: Heero POV, language, violence, etc.
Pairings: none
Rituals
NOTE: Someone asked me whose POV this story was in in the last part, so I’ll tell you this once; this story will *always* be in Heero’s POV, unless it is a side-story. Btw, whatever possessed me to write this in Heero’s POV in the first place? I mean, Heero is not very social, and I love to write dialogues. As for Anon – I apologize if I offended you. Even though I cannot promise this won’t happen again, I will at least know to put up appropriate warnings. *pulls out hair in frustration* So much to remember, so much to consider . . . . *** Rituals – Part 9 *** Darkness. That was the first thing I became aware of when I woke up. The second thing that came to mind was that I had woken up at all, which only meant I had been asleep in the first place. But as it was still dark outside, it wouldn’t matter much anyway, more than that Wufei maybe would worry if we didn’t arrive to the motel soon. My head hurt, though the dizziness was mercifully gone and my eyes didn’t pain me as much anymore. Only a light soreness in my throat remained. Duo, still cradled in my arms, was obviously asleep and warm enough to tell me he was still alive. Otherwise, his still rusty breathing would have betrayed him. I shifted slightly and hoped he would wake up soon, or I would have to do it for him. We should get out of here as soon as possible; the chances were that the soldiers on that base had finally realized that they had been attacked by gundam pilots and would be out searching for us now. But we were hidden for the moment - I couldn’t hear anything around us more than the occasional car at a distance. That was however only normal. In fact, I would have been a lot more worried if those sounds hadn’t been there at all – that could have meant that OZ had told the media something and exhorted people to stay inside - away from the ‘dangerous felons’. I have no idea how long we had stayed in the alley, however, my back was beginning to give in to a dull ache and my leg was going numb after having Duo rest over it. I shifted him again until his back rested against my chest and his legs were sprawled out between mine. I sat up straighter against the wall to ease the pain in my back and squared my shoulders. They were stiff. It felt . . . . warm. I couldn’t recall ever being this close to another human being before and it felt nice – warm. Was that because it was Duo I was being close to or a just person in general? I tried imagining Wufei, Trowa or Quatre with me in the same position as Duo in my arms, but somehow I couldn’t. We should probably go. The sooner we arrived to the motel, the better. But no one was around yet, and we weren’t in danger at the time being, so why not stay for just another moment? Duo was still asleep, and I needed time to think – to sort out my thoughts. The mission. It puzzled me. There hadn’t been any information to get, even though the doctors had been specific about how, where and what we were supposed to get. And the explosion – what had that been? The smoke had been stinging, too stinging, and made me feel dizzier than it should have. We hadn’t bought any biologically damaging bombs, I was sure. And Duo had been surprised. I hoped he hadn’t done any mistakes – it would be hard to explain to Dr. J and the rest if that was so. But I would have to wait for Duo’s side of the story before jumping to conclusions. Well, we should get going before the sun would rise. I sat up straighter and shook Duo by his shoulders. “Duo . . . wake up.” I was surprised at how raspy my voice sounded. He stirred and slowly started moving, stretching a little in the progress. Then he stiffened and fell back against my chest again, surprising me. “Duo?” I shook his shoulders lightly in confusion. “What’s wrong?” “Ouch . . .” His voice was barely audible, thick and raspy, and quiet as well. But he’d probably inhaled more of that smoke than I, so it didn’t surprise me. He’d just have to not talk as much. But now I needed to know what was wrong. “Are you hurt?” He jumped and seemed to realize that his back-rest was actually me, because he began to move again, whispering, “My knee is just a little stiff. And—” He coughed weakly. “—my throat is a bitch.” I think he was going to say something more, but his voice faltered unattractively at the last word. But it was clear what he was going to say anyway, because half of his face was covered in burns; even some of the bangs framing his cheeks were black and sooty. I began to stand up and let his back rest against the brick wall, as I instead perched down in front of him, examining his knee with my hands until his breathing got louder with held back groans of pain. “It is not more damaged than before.” I could finally decide. “It is only strained and stiff. You should be able to walk.” I stood up and held out a hand for him to help him stand. He rolled his eyes, a sign that proved he wasn’t too bad off since he still had his sarcasm safe and sound, and accepted my offer of help. “You’re not a very compassionate person, are you?” He rasped when he got to his feet. “You should probably not speak.” I positioned one of his arms around my neck, and he moved the other one to rub at his eyes. “Your throat is probably damaged.” “No kidding, eh?” Was his comment, but he kept quiet after that. I started moving towards the street, but something came to mind, and I began to rub my face with my sleeve. It came back was black. Damn. A quick look confirmed that Duo’s condition was as dirty as I felt. I began to rub my face again. He just looked at me with wide eyes before doing the same thing to himself, removing as much as soot as possible without touching the burns, until I told him, “That will be enough – it’s too dark to notice anything more.” He just shrugged as if agreeing. It hit me how . . . absurd it was I was the most talkative among the two of us right now. It felt wrong. We began moving again, and were soon walking down the street, looking for a sign that told us where we were. If we could just find the name of the street, I’d hopefully be able to find the way to the motel. We avoided the streetlamps the best we could and finally spotted a small sign labelled ‘West Street’. It was a little more trouble to find the motel than we had planned at first, because the map over town Duo had bought was probably only a pile of ash along with the knapsack he hadn’t been able to bring out of the room after the explosion. Our walk wasn’t pleasant, but not many people were up and about yet so we didn’t have to worry about hiding much. It took a while, but we found the motel at last, announcing its silly name with a white neon sign. I moved to the side of the motel and pulled Duo with me. “You have to walk in there by your own power. It’ll look suspicious otherwise.” His jaw clenched, but he nodded and withdrew his arm from my shoulders, taking a wary step towards the door. I studied him carefully for a moment, but he didn’t falter in his steps, so I caught up with him and we entered the building together. The motel was one of those that were open for anyone to arrive anytime, something that really fit to our need tonight. It wasn’t the most well-kept or luxurious, with sordid grey walls that could, once upon a time, have been white. A girl sat behind a desk, looking positively bored, chewing on a gum she sometimes blew into a bubble that burs and went into her mouth again. She wore too much cheap make-up and had a pair of old-fashioned headphones over her ears. She looked up when she saw us enter and walk towards her, taking in our, for her, strangely ruffled state of clothes and body. And, of course, the not so nice burn-injury on Duo’s face. “What?” She asked, bored. “Which room is Wufei Chang’s?” I asked her curtly, keeping my voice as clear as I could, but it sounded a little rusty anyway. She looked vaguely interested and stopped chewing for a moment. “Why – he’s in trouble?” “He’s expecting us.” “Well, it’s none of my business anyway.” Her expression betrayed that she was still curious, though. “Chinese huh? I was the one who gave him the key. Gorgeous body, eh?” Duo snickered quietly, the shaking of his body betraying it more than the almost non-existent sound. “. . . now let’s see . . .” She looked down at a paper in a binder, searching for the name with a finger. “Room twenty-two, second floor.” “Thanks.” I tugged at Duo’s arm to get him moving and went towards the elevator, hoping that the girl wouldn’t think we were strange for taking the elevator to only the second floor. For once lucky, we found that it was on this floor, and also empty. It was as dirty as expected, and reeked unpleasantly of something suspiciously reminding me of urine. We were both past the stage to care anyway. Duo slumped against the mirror covering one wall tiredly, turning his head to examine his face. He grimaced very, very carefully at the sight of the burns. We eventually found room twenty-two, and I knocked five times quickly, like we had agreed with Wufei before we left on this hellish mission in the first place. It was just precaution. The door flew open almost immediately, revealing an irate, tired-looking Wufei in the doorway. “What took you so long!?” He snapped. *** TBC |
