"Rip Current"

Written By: yaruna

Disclaimer: Gundam Wing isn't mine! I'm not pretending they are, I simply love messing around with the lovable characters. Any similarity to existing works is purely coincidental.

Rating: R

Genre: Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Romance…? Alternate Universe

Warning:Probably some OOCness. Kind of bastard Heero in the first chapters. Some swearing. Won't pass the Bechdel test. Somewhat cliché, I think. Hmmz… what more… oh yeah, I'm a bit of a sadist, people will get hurt… sorry about that

Summary: Feelings are running high on the shorelines. Duo has arrived on the shores of Sanc Island and is making new friends, and enemies, among the locals as they surf their way towards the big competition. AU

A/N:I live for feedback

Sit back, and let the waves take you for a ride.

"Rip Current"

Chapter 6: Surf's Up

 

There were a lot of comments the next week at the shop regarding my black and blue body. Most of them came from Howard but a few customers bemoaned it as well. Brianna, the old lady that had become a regular customer of mine that came in every day, had been especially upset with me. She hadn't let me get back to work until I had promised to try and stay on my feet while surfing. It was a promise I was happy to make, since I always tried to stay on my feet.

Thankfully, no one had asked me to stop surfing during the nights. The waves hadn't gone over six feet since the Saturday, and it had been decently safe going out even at night. It's never completely safe, not even during the day. But you can minimize the risk. Zero still came out to meet me when I finished, but I didn't see Heero again. He didn't even call his dog back anymore.

I continued to keep away from surfing during the day, not liking the crowds. Though I still headed to the Surf after work to watch them, I didn't join, despite Quatre's urging. Heero hadn't spoken to me again, after finding out I was a pro. It was pretty annoying, because just for a moment there, I'd actually thought he was kind of nice and had let myself think about what else we could have done together.

On the Friday, the wind was gusting just right, and there had been reports of waves at fifteen feet when I left the shop. The forecast for the evening was at twenty feet, which would have been awesome conditions during the day, but not even I was stupid enough to go at it again during the night. So once I'd gotten back from the shop, I had hesitated only for a second before I took my surfboard under my arm and walked to the Surf.

'Duo!' It sounded weak and faraway, so I looked out over the waters.

Quatre waved from the lineup, and I was surprised that he'd managed to see me. There were a lot of people at the small strip of beach, but quite few in the lineup. There were ten people out there, and it was more than I would have liked when the conditions were gnarly. Especially when I'd gotten to know four of them.

'Come on!' Quatre cried, waving both his arms towards him and I laughed.

Then he was paddling for the wave and popped up, riding it neatly as it turned into a barrel. It enveloped him, and for a moment I thought he'd miss it, but then he came out with the spit, languidly continuing forwards. He looked towards the beach and the sun made his blond hair look golden. He waved happily, and I waved back with a huge smile that had grown on my face since I saw him catch the wave. My heart was racing.

I wanted to be out there. I wanted to hit the waves and ride in the pipes. I wanted to fly!

The water lapped at my feet and I looked down at the green surface, surprised that I had moved.

'Nothing else to it, I guess,' I muttered to myself and padded in to my knees before I got onto the board to paddle into the lineup.

'Newbie alert!' someone called and I avoided looking that way.

There are many reasons to dislike locals. The territorial instinct is one of them. In Elto, I'd been much the same, feeling as though I owned every wave, and not trusting any new guys to be good enough to ever be able to catch one. The worst was when they tried for the best waves, and then they wiped out late enough that it was uncatchable for anyone else.

I hung at the outside, rolling with the waves. It was pure pleasure to watch as the others caught the waves. It was only slightly distracting when I heard some of them laugh at me. I tried not to listen as they gave me the advice to just get out and go to Coral if I wasn't going to try for anything anyways.

Then the guy that had been trying to catch the wave tumbled down and I paddled into it. It was fast, and I thought I'd lost it, but then there was a surge of power and I felt the board take speed. I popped up, and rode the wave down. It barreled around me and I reached out with my hand to touch the water. Finally, there was a rainbow in front of me and I heard myself laugh. I hadn't seen one in months.

The wave was barreling from the other side as well and I pumped. Once. Twice. Then I was flying over the shoulder, with my hand on the edge of my board before I landed on the other side and let myself drop off the board, and into the water. I gave a shout in glee before getting back on top of the board and paddling into the lineup again.

I'd missed this. I'd missed it so bad. I'd missed the green and blue of the ocean, the rainbows showing in the spray of the whitewash. But then I thought about Solo and felt kind of guilty, that I was able to live such beauty even after I'd taken that joy away from him.

I shivered, even though the water was warm and saw another surfer take a tumble down a wave. It was a beaut, and I began paddling for it and popped up just as I saw someone on the outside. He was just committing to the wave and gave me a smirk over his shoulder. It was my wave, but this guy wasn't going to let me have it. I leaned forward, riding the speed to break out, when something flew at me in my peripheral vision.

I pushed my hand into the water behind me and turned around with a cutback, feeling the object fly by behind me, and I turned again to be able to get out of the wave before it closed up on me. There was a black spot in the water and all it could be was a person. I swiftly cut away, straight into the falling lip that hit me hard in the back, pressing me down against the board.

For a moment, I thought I could save it, but it was to heavy, and I was pushed under.

There's a huge difference between being pushed under at night, and during day. In parts, it is the same. You tumble without control, you follow the flow of the wave. If you're unlucky at the Surf, you hit the reef. But during day, you can see a light. There's a way of knowing if you're swimming towards salvation, or death.

I aimed for the light, and broke the surface with a shake of my head and looked around for my board. It floated just a bit away from me, still in one piece, so I grabbed it, got on, and paddled back to the lineup.

'Are you ok?' Wufei asked as I joined up.

'Yeah, I'm good. Who was it that cut in on me?'

'Alex, he's a bit of an ass,' he said and I laughed.

'Yeah, I noticed.'

'I'm heading up after this wave, join us,' he said and started to paddle for the wave.

Shit. He called his last wave. How stupid could he be? I wanted to call after him, but knew it would only mess up his focus, so I shut up.

He caught the wave spectacularly, went into the trough, and I lost him. It was normal, I told myself. It's not possible to see through the wave, I couldn't be sure that he'd fallen. So I skipped two great waves as I waited for Wufei to be visible again.

He came out with the spit, and straightened up, hitting his closed fist into the sky in silent jubilation. I exhaled deeply and looked backwards to see if any waves were coming when something roughly turned my board over, making me fall into the water and take a breath of it in surprise.

I broke the surface, coughing to get rid of the water, and grabbed onto my board.

'What the hell, man?' I asked, recognizing the man as the one who'd dropped in on me on the last wave.

'You almost fucking killed me out there!' he said and reached down towards my face.

I grabbed onto his wrist and twisted hard, making him grunt in pain and fall off his own board.

'You're the on that dropped in,' I growled, not really wanting to go through this in twenty-foot seas, so I swung onto my board and dove under the water to get away from him.

'Fucking pansy-ass!' he yelled when I emerged, but then he paddled out, catching a wave, and I was left alone in the waters.

The way it should be.

I briefly considered just staying out there, but realized Quatre would come and get me if I did. So I turned, and I waited for the next wave.

It surged quickly, I'd come out just at the edge of the reef below. It barreled around me and I rode its power, pushing to get my speed up, fighting to stay ahead of it, even as I saw it closing up in front of me. I crouched down further to stay below the fall. Water from the foam ball sprayed passed me, and then I flew out of the small hole that the wave left for me.

I pumped both my fists towards the air and shouted happily as I straightened up. That was awesome.

I rode the board as far as I could before getting into the water and walking up onto the beach with the board under my arm.

''Fei!' I called to the Chinese as soon as I got close enough and he lifted an eyebrow, looking back at me. 'You don't call your last wave, buddy!'

He blinked before he let out a noise of amused disbelief.

'I wouldn't have expected you to be superstitious,' he said with a smirk.

'Only with the things that count,' I answered and wedged the board in the sand and sat down next to him.

'You're good,' he said then and I looked at him in surprise, before I remembered that he hadn't seen me surf before.

'Thanks, 'Fei. So are you. When's the qualifier, by the way?'

'This Sunday, at Coral,' he said, picking at the sand between his legs.

'You'll do fine. You didn't take a single fall today.' Actually, I'd been surprised, until I'd realized he fell more at waves in the eight to twelve foot range. 'You just need to learn to read the smaller waves as well as these.'

He looked at me with his brows furrowed.

'Quatre says the same.'

'Because it's true,' Trowa said from behind us and put a beer against Wufei's shoulder, which he took with a grateful smile.

'Here, Duo,' Quatre said, holding out a beer for me as well, and I hesitated. For all my shortcomings, I've never really drunk anything with alcohol before. On the streets as a kid, it wasn't very smart to get drunk, and when I'd become a pro, my money had gone towards other things.

'He can't have any,' Heero said and snatched the beer out of Quatre's hand. It made a hissing noise as he opened it and he leaned his head back to take a chug. His Adam's apple moved in his throat as he swallowed and I was entranced by its movement, until he took the bottle away from his mouth. The tip of his tongue came out to catch whatever residue was still on his lips, and I felt blood travel downwards in my body, making me tear my eyes away and lean over myself slightly to hide any trace of my attraction.

'What? Heero!' Quatre said in an accusing tone.

'He's underage,' Heero just said and Quatre looked at me with wide eyes. I shrugged.

'My birthday is in just a few months, though,' I said, as though defending myself.

'Like you didn't drink as a minor,' Quatre said with an exasperated voice as he sat down on my right side, and Heero smirked. I looked at him thoughtfully as I realized he had looked up information on me. I wondered why.

He and Trowa sat down on the edges, Trowa next to Quatre, and Heero next to Wufei, putting me in the middle. It felt nice, this silent camaraderie. Then I felt Wufei tense up next to me, and I looked at him. He was watching something ahead and to the left, and I followed his gaze.

The guy that had fought me in the water, Alex, and the prick that couldn't wait in line were walking towards us. Mueller, I thought his name was.

'Reaper? What'd you do to get that name, huh?' Alex asked, and Mueller laughed obediently next to him.

I sighed.

'You sure you wanna know?'

'Oh, you're trying to be scary?' Mueller said in a childish voice, attempting to make fun of me.

'Just get out of here, Alex,' Wufei said, jaw clenched.

'This kid almost killed me out there,' Alex said, pointing at me.

'You dropped in on him,' Heero said, and I frowned. What did he stand up for me for?

'He's an outsider!' Mueller said, rage coloring his last word.

'It's a free country,' I said with a shrug.

'Shut up,' Quatre hissed at me, and I turned to him quickly, not having expected him to say that. 'They're jerks, but don't egg them on,' he said silently, and got to his feet. 'Let's head out.'

'Yeah, take the coward with you!' Alex leered and kicked up some sand in our faces.

'Who's the coward, exactly?' I asked as I got to my feet slowly. 'You bailed on that wave. Was it too much for you? It must have been so painful for you to see me carve it perfectly.'

'You dick!' he called and flew forwards, towards me. I had kind of been expecting it, so I stepped to the side and forwards, and grabbed the arm that he'd extended for the punch. His bodyweight took care of the rest, and he was lying on the sand, blinking in surprise before he understood what had happened. He rushed up again.

'Duo!' Quatre said angrily, but then he took a step in between Alex and me. 'Get lost, Alex. This is our beach.'

It made me frown, but Alex raised his lips in a sneer, and then spat at Quatre's feet, before he looked over Quatre's shoulder and straight into my eyes.

'We'll see who's a coward. We'll both enter Rift Wars!' he said and I sighed deeply.

'Fine,' I said. 'You better learn how to ride those waves until then.'

Quatre stepped up and placed a hand on my shoulder to make me turn around and walk away. Leaving my back towards Alex and Mueller made every hair in my neck stand at attention, but they didn't try anything, and I was led to the Safe house.

'Shit!' I said as I understood just what I'd agreed to, and I leaned my board against the stand outside of the house.

'Just don't enter,' Quatre said, as though it was the easiest thing in the world, and led me to the chairs on the porch where the other guys were already seated.

'I can't not enter now. I don't lie.'

'You don't lie?' Trowa asked with a voice pitched in surprise and held back laughter. He wasn't so good at holding back the laughter however; as it fled from him once he'd finished his sentence.

'I don't.'

'So enter.' Wufei said. 'You can handle the Rift, I'm sure of it.'

'Yeah, but to enter the Rift Wars, I have to enter Gundams,' I said, and they nodded in agreement.

'There are still three qualifiers left,' Trowa said and I shook my head.

'That's not it. I'm qualified, but as a Pro,' I said silently, and Wufei looked at me in surprise. Trowa didn't seem to be fazed at all by the news, and I figured Quatre had already told him.

'So? What's the issue?' Wufei asked, as though that had solved everything. Maybe it did. But the main point was actually the cost. It was a lot more expensive as a Pro than an Amateur. You had more to win as well, of course.

'Yeah, I just...'

'It's too expensive,' Quatre said, looking at me intently and I shrugged in embarrassment.

'Yeah, it's 500 bucks for Pros that has to be in by the end of this month,' I said, and leaned back in the chair, looking upwards at the cloudy sky. 'I'll figure it out, though.'

It would be tight, but I could do it. I just had to keep living like I had been for a while. Fish and bread was quickly becoming hated food on my list.

What had I gotten myself into?

~ * ~

Chapter 7

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