"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 7: Sea Breeze

 

The waves were still thundering towards the shore during the night. The full moon lit up the waters with a silvery glow, making it look ethereal when the whitewash spread. Solo would have loved it, and would have told me some story about whichever guardian was watching the waters during night. I took a step forwards to feel the warmth of the water on my feet.

'Please, don't,' was said softly behind me.

I turned my head to see Heero standing a few paces away with Zero sitting at his side. It took me a moment before I realized what he was referring to. I was standing at the edge of the water with my surfboard under my arm, and had just taken a step forwards, towards the crashing waves.

'I won't,' I answered and turned my head back to look out over the ocean. I didn't make any move to get out.

Heero's clothes rustled and the sand crunched under his feet as he walked forwards. He stopped next to me, and I swore I could feel the warmth of his skin against mine. There was at least a foot between us.

'Then why are you here?' he asked silently, as though afraid of disturbing something from its sleep.

'To remember,' I said, watching a wall of a wave start to break, and imagined Solo catching it and doing a perfect drop into the trough. He would have had a wide grin on his face, a grin that said he would defy death every time. Except once. I shivered as I imagined me right there beside him, falling, losing control.

'Let's go up,' I said, and turned around. I didn't want to ruin my best memories with Solo and continually get back to his death.

We walked onto the beach in silence. I hesitated for a moment before I put my board in the sand and sat down, not ready to leave just yet. I got my face full of excited dog as soon as I sat, and I chuckled softly as he tried to lick me on my mouth.

Heero smacked his tongue and Zero stopped his ministrations and lay down on top of my feet as Heero sat down beside me. I leaned forwards to scratch the dog behind his ears.

'Why are you here, 'Ro?'

He hesitated for a moment, scooting forward a bit to pet his dog on his head. His hand was close to mine. All I would need to do was to extend a finger, and we'd touch.

'I was worried,' he answered after a while and I stared at him. He was looking intently at his dog, seeming almost afraid to meet my eyes. If what he had said hadn't sounded so sincere, I would have laughed and thought he was joking.

'Why?' I asked when it seemed as though he wasn't going to say anything more.

'Last time it was high seas during night, you almost died,' he said and I shook my head.

I chuckled. 'I'm only that stupid once,' I said. It was an attempt to lighten the mood, but he didn't even smile.

'I thought so too, but then Zee woke me up, and I wasn't so sure,' he said, turning his head slightly to meet my eyes. The small smirk he had on his lips looked sexy and not at all as superior as it had looked the previous times that I'd seen it.

'He's a bit of a traitor.'

'No kidding. He's been leaving me for some surfer every night,' he said with humor in his voice.

'The cad. Did you figure out who it was?' I said with a grin and Heero finally laughed softly. The sound was so beautiful I almost stopped breathing. I didn't want to miss a single instant of it.

'I did,' he said, looking at me intently, and he moved his hand from Zero's head to on top of my hand. I did stop breathing then.

'Heero?' I asked, voice slightly pitched, and he smirked.

'I don't particularly care for pro surfers...' he said and I felt my heart drop and I tried to pull my hand away, but he held on to it. Why the hell was he teasing me like this?

'Look, Heero, I have to get to work,' I said and his eyes darkened.

He let go of my hand as though he'd been burnt, and flew to his feet.

'Come on, Zee,' he said. Zero got up and shook the sand off of himself before rushing after his owner, who had already managed to get quite far.

'Asshole,' I muttered, still sitting on the beach, wondering what his game was. Sometimes, it seemed as though he might be nice, as though he might actually like me, or at least be attracted to me. And then he had to go and open his mouth and say something that was only meant to rile me up. Teasing me was what he was doing, and I kept falling for it, every time.

Asshole.

The sun started to creep up over the horizon and I took a deep breath before I got up. I really did have to get to work, so I passed by the shed to drop off my board on the way. It was no use dwelling over the may or may not be in regards to my relationship with Heero. I'd take it better if he just told me he had absolutely no interest in me whatsoever and get it over with.

'You still haven't gotten a car, kid?' Howard called from his balcony, and I looked up at him, shielding my eyes from the low sun.

'With whose money, old man?' I asked, grinning, as I unlocked the front door of the shop. 'Besides, I like running!'

'Frugal youth, never seen that before,' I heard Howard mutter in amusement as I went inside of the shop.

There was never much traffic in the shop on Saturday mornings, or at least there hadn't been in the time I'd been working it. I usually did some restocking of the shelves. It was grunt-work, and gave me way too much time to think about things. About how I was going to get enough money to first enter Gundams, and on top of that, the Rift Wars. About how I'd managed to let my big mouth get me into trouble once more. And about Heero.

'Kid,' Howard called from the counter and I went up to him. I hadn't heard any bell, so no customers had entered. 'I got a shipment from Elto yesterday.'

'Yeah?' I asked hesitantly, wondering who would send me anything from Elto. Who at Elto even knew where I was?

'In a box at the back. Go check it out,' he said and I shook my head.

'It can wait till I get off.'

'Maybe it can, but I'm curious,' he said with a grin and I rolled my eyes, but went into the back and saw the box sit on top of Howard's desk.

It was indeed addressed to me, at the shop, and I felt some trepidation as I opened it. There was a note on top and I lifted it to reveal letters underneath. Hundreds of letters. My eyebrows shot up and I looked at the note.

From your fans.

They're expecting you.

G.

I shook my head in disbelief. Somehow G had figured out where I was, and gone ahead to send me mail from the last months. There had never been a lot of that in the past. At the most, I might have gotten one or two letters a month from some young Elto surfer.

This was a whole lot more than one or two letters a month, and I doubted the contents were going to be altogether positive.

'You left your pen pal behind?' I heard behind me, and I snorted in amusement.

'Nothing like it,' I said. 'G is an old geezer who doesn't know how to mind his own business.'

'He is, huh?'

'Always has been one for manipulating me into things,' I said. He'd been my coach and manager until I'd left. He was annoying and bossy in every way that a coach should be. But he'd pushed too far, before I was ready to go on after Solo, and I'd taken the board and ran away.

'This is manipulative?'

I shrugged. 'It's mail from local kids in Elto, I guess.'

Howard peeked into the box, and I turned away from it, heading back to the front of the shop.

'What's this?' he asked and I looked over my shoulder just as I heard the bell from the store. He held up an issue of Surf'd, the surfer magazine from Elto and I rolled my eyes.

'I'm going up front, you can do whatever you want with the mag',' I said and went out to see Quatre, Wufei, the tall blonde I'd seen my first day and a pretty girl that I'd only seen from afar while she was surfing.

'Duo! Just the man I wanted to meet,' Quatre said as I came through the door and I smiled at him in greeting.

'Hey, Q', what's up?'

'We're having a barbecue tonight after hitting the waves,' he said, eyes shining happily. 'Join us.'

I hesitated, just for a moment, but it was a moment too much for Quatre, and his face fell.

'What's happened now?' he asked in exasperation.

'No, nothing,' I answered and shook my head.

'Heero came in this morning with his knickers in a twist,' Wufei said in a composed voice, picking chips from the shelves. 'Maybe it's got something to do with that.'

'Oh, come on,' Quatre said. 'You two were fine yesterday. How do you even have time to argue before sunrise?'

'Ask Heero,' I said with a quirked smile, a bit ashamed.

'I will! But you still have to come to the barbecue, I'm not taking no for an answer,' he said sternly. 'It'll be big, you won't have to talk to Heero unless you want to.'

'Yeah, okay,' I said, amused. Surely I could handle meeting Heero at a barbecue. I wasn't a little kid that had to run away from my problems. Maybe it would be the perfect time to actually confront him about his general prickliness. Or at least ask him to stop teasing me.

'Great!' he said, smacking the counter once with his hand before he went off to the rest and they began discussing which meat would be the best for barbecuing that evening.

It took them nearly an hour to pick out everything they would need for the evening, and I worried for a bit what I was going to buy. But then I realized it was a moot point anyways. I'd just catch some fish before going up to join them.

'Quatre, give the kid a ride back to the beach,' Howard said as I was packing up the last of their things. I rolled my eyes at him, not fully getting why he didn't want me to run between the store and the shed. It was good training.

'Sure, we've got room in the back,' he answered off-handedly and raised an eyebrow when Howard set down the box of letters on the counter, magazine on top.

'Here, kid,' Howard said and held out an envelope. 'For the last weeks.' I took it and put it in my backpack. Finally, I had some money again.

'Thanks, Howie. See you Monday,' I said, grabbed the box, and followed the group outside.

In the back apparently meant on the cargo area of the pickup truck, together with Quatre, Wufei and the girl whose name was Sally.

Wufei had immediately snagged the magazine that was on top and looked at it.

'Hey, this isn't published yet,' he said, and flipped it open.

'What?' Sally said and leaned in towards Wufei to see for herself if he was telling the truth. A blush spread on his cheeks and his lips went taut.

'What are you doing?' he asked, frowning.

'Checking if you're lying.'

'I'm not. See, issue number 12, it's for December. It's not due out for another week.'

'Why would you have an unpublished edition of Surf'd?' Sally asked me, still leaning slightly against Wufei who looked decidedly uncomfortable. I just couldn't figure out if he was uncomfortable because he liked it or not.

'There's probably an article about me in it. They send out previews in such case,' I answered, trying to sound blasé about it, but I was really quite worried. What could they have to write about me after I'd been gone for so long?

'Oh, let's see,' Sally said and snatched the magazine from Wufei's hands.

'Hey!' Wufei said, but didn't make too much of an effort in retrieving it. Instead, he leaned slightly against the girl as she leafed through the pages.

'Here!' she said excitedly. 'Duo, 'Reaper', Maxwell on hiatus after tragic accident...' she tapered off, looking up at me with a concerned look. Without reading any further she handed the magazine to me, but I shook my head.

While I was truly grateful that she offered, I didn't want it. Didn't want to read whatever new image they had put upon me after Solo's death. Didn't want to read how I'd killed my best friend. Didn't want to see them write that the Reaper had taken another victim. Human this time.

'Keep it, or throw it away. There are probably a few other articles in there that can interest you,' I said and knocked on the window to get tall and blond, officially known as Zechs, to stop the car. I jumped off of the truck before it had come to a complete standstill.

'Duo,' Quatre said and leaned over the side with the box of letters in his hand, that I accepted. 'We'll go to Coral today, the waves are small. I'll bring a longboard for you.'

'I...' I started, but Zechs drove off before I'd gotten a word of refusal out, making me sigh in resignation. I guess I'd have to go; I hated disappointing Quatre.

I dropped the letters through the small window of the shed and climbed in after them. I got myself a few slices of bread before climbing back out. While Quatre had promised to bring me a longboard, I still grabbed my own board in case the waves would increase.

Coral was crowded, but the waves were small enough that it didn't matter much. Even if two people caught the same wave, it wouldn't be too devastating since there would be no possibility to gain that much speed. Besides, despite the name of Coral, it's a beach break, and no coral reefs are present until the Surf.

'You came!' Quatre called and I turned back to see him jogging towards me with two longboards under his arm.

'You didn't give me much of a choice,' I answered in amusement.

'Of course not, how else was I going to get you to come,' he said smugly. 'Put your board in the pickup truck, it's just up there,' he said, pointing towards the parking lot and I ran off to do as he said.

'You're going to surf the big waves?' I heard an ironic voice behind me as I was hitching my board over the side into the cargo area of the pickup. It was Mueller, and I decided not to dignify him with a response, simply walking away to go down to the beach again. He grabbed a hold of my arm and I turned around to face him.

'Hey! You'll be sorry if you compete in the Rift Wars!'

'Alex is the one who challenged me,' I said calmly. 'You saying he wants to pull out?' I wouldn't mind that too much actually.

'Hell no!' he said and pushed against my shoulder, making me take a step backwards.

'You're afraid he'll lose then?' I asked, eyebrow raised.

'He'd beat you even if he had his hands tied behind his back.'

'Great,' I said sarcastically. 'I guess we'll se at the Wars, right?' I said and turned around and left.

'You'll be sorry!' he called after me and I raised my hand, waving in a dismissive gesture.

Sally and Wufei were standing a little bit off, obviously having watched the encounter, and joined me as I walked towards Quatre.

'What's that about?' Sally asked with a glance back towards Mueller.

'I've apparently managed to make some enemies here,' I said with a grin and grabbed the longboard that Quatre was holding out to me. 'Let's go.'

We were about halfway to the lineup when I felt something push my board down from behind, and I thought shark as I turned around quickly.

It was nothing of the sort, and I began to laugh in relief as Zero was trying his best to climb onto the board.

'Here, boy,' I said and tapped the water next to me. He pushed his paw off the board and swam around, and I helped him up in front of me.

'Duo, I don't think Heero's ever surfed with him,' Quatre said, cautioning me and I grinned.

'He'll be fine,' I answered, since I had already surfed with him once. If only Heero could avoid whistling while the dog was on the board, we'd both be fine. 'He's even got a life vest, so he's all set.'

Quatre didn't look convinced, but he didn't say anything else either so I lay down to continue paddling. Zero sat with his tongue lolling out, looking completely relaxed on the board. It was hard to believe no one had surfed with him previously.

When the next wave came, I paddled for it, telling Zero to lie down. I didn't miss the incredulous look that both Quatre and Wufei gave me as the dog obeyed. We caught the wave, and once I had it, Zero stood up on all fours, leaning along with me as we followed the long wave.

'Good boy,' I said silently, and he shook his head as the spray of the whitewater hit him.

The whistle came once the wave was done, and both Zero and I were sitting on the board again. The dog stood up and gave a wag of his tail before jumping into the water and swimming up to his owner. Heero stood by the shore in his red lifeguard trunks and the rescue tank in hand.

I watched as the dog ran in circles around Heero, then into the water and watching him, and then back again, pushing against Heero's leg. Heero lifted his eyes from the dog and met mine. The intensity of his gaze, even at eighty feet apart, was breathtaking.

'I'll surf with him some more, if he wants to,' I called and he narrowed his eyes. I was certain that he was going to refuse. Then Trowa came up to him with his board under his arm and said something to Heero that made him look back out at me, then the dog, and back to me again. He nodded.

'Here, boy!' I called for Zero and he immediately rushed into the water and swam back up to me, and I helped him back up onto the board.

Trowa paddled up next to me. 'What have you done to that dog that makes him like you so much?'

'I gave him treats that made him sick,' I answered and he blinked before he laughed.

'It's not a very smart dog,' he said, laughter still in his voice as he reached over to scratch the dog behind his ear. 'But he's a good judge of character.'

I frowned as he said that, wondering just what in the hell he meant. If he meant anything at all by it, of course.

'Yeah? He needs to bite Mueller,' I said casually and Trowa snorted loudly.

'Oh, he's been close,' he said and I reached up to pet the dog on his head.

'Good boy,' I said to him, and started to paddle back to the lineup.

'Yeah, but it's better that he doesn't bite,' I heard Trowa behind me, and I did agree. There was no cause to give Mueller any reason to try and have the dog put down. I had a feeling he was the kind of person to use anything to gain an advantage.

Zero was the perfect dog to surf with. It was like he was born in the water, because he loved every second of it, just like me. It made me forget about the crowds, about money, and about Heero.

There was nothing that could beat the feeling of travelling over the water and feeling the spray on your legs, the tremble of the board under your feet and the surge of power of the water below.

It had a way of making you forget everything else.

~ * ~

Chapter 8

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