24-Apr-2004
For those of you who have asked, these are the Preventer names I'm using:
Frost - Heero
Shadow - Duo
Cloud - Trowa
Sand - Quatre
Steel - Wufei
Title: Alternate Dualities
Author: WingNut
Archive: http://www.fanworkrecs.com, GWA, anywhere else, please ask
Category: adventure, angst, romance, lemon
Rating: NC-17 overall
Warnings: AU - AAAAAAAAAAAU. Some yaoi, het, lemon, violence, language, OOC and/or death, depending on the universe. You should be a legal adult to read this. Open-mindedness helps, too.
Spoilers: maybe, depending on the universe.
Disclaimers: I don't own the characters from Gundam Wing; Bandai, Sunrise and Sotsu do. I just play with them for non-profit fun until they run screaming back to their creators.
Pairings: all over the map; Duo-centric.
Blurb: Set in AC201, Duo is slipping from one alternate universe to another, trying to get back home.
Notes: started June 2001.
Part 7r ~ Premeditation
A choked cry from below him had Duo spinning in place to look down at his friends. Quatre was arched up into a back-breaking bow, his face contorted with agony. Duo could plainly see the blond's soul pulled halfway out of his chest.
Horrified, Duo sped back down, hoping to ease the strain on Quatre's spirit, but the bright cloud lifted free and rose to meet him. Quatre's body slumped back down, features slack, eyes half open.
Heero's hand flew to the pulse point in Quatre's neck, pressing carefully but clearly not finding what he was searching for. He lifted his gaze to Trowa's, and shook his head.
Duo felt guilty panic rising swiftly and fought it desperately. He remembered the terrible feeling of electrocution when his spirit had paused halfway out of his body. Combine that with the physical stress Quatre had already undergone during the questioning, and Duo couldn't be surprised at the result. What to do about it was another question.
Trowa pulled Quatre out of Heero's supporting arms, laying him flat on the floor and starting CPR with a calm efficiency that was belied by the barely-controlled fear in his eyes.
The tendrils that had enmeshed Duo began to ease away, melting back into Quatre's spirit. They seemed to come out of Duo, as if Quatre had not only touched the edges of Duo's soul, but had actually penetrated deeply within it.
Heero muttered, "Med team," and sprinted for the hall. He rounded the corner and Duo heard an annoyed growl, followed by a meaty thump.
Almost simultaneously, Preventer Lava came flying back into the waiting room. The investigator tumbled over a row of chairs and hit the floor with a breath-stealing thud, a notebook fluttering from his hands.
Duo shook himself out of his immobility, trying to ignore the distractions going on below him. He swept down, using the remaining empathic links to drag Quatre behind him, and tried to swing the blond's soul back into place. If he could only get the spirit to make contact with its body, he was sure it would be sucked back inside, as he himself had been during the helicopter ride.
The last tendril slipped out of Duo and Quatre's soul wobbled off course, missing his body and starting to rise toward the ceiling. Duo managed to interpose himself and block the blond's ascent.
Below them, Wufei glided forward two steps and retrieved Lava's fallen notebook. A quick glance, and he wrapped a hand in the dazed investigator's shirt, hauling him upright and slamming him against the wall. "You were listening in the hall?" Wufei snarled.
"Of course," Lava wheezed. "I knew you'd talk more freely among yourselves than you ever would to me."
Duo watched Wufei's fist clench further, and wished he could get a similar grip on Quatre's spirit. The sparkling cloud drifted serenely, glowing with contentment and the merest glitter of curiosity, effortlessly resisting all Duo's attempts to grab it.
Spreading himself out over top of Quatre's soul to hold it still, Duo reached underneath to grasp its lifeline - if he could wrap himself around that, he might be able to pull Q down like a balloon on a string. He searched carefully along the entire underside, but could not find any trace of a link. He looked down at Quatre's chest, where Trowa's hands were desperately trying to restart the silent heart. There was no sign of a lifeline - no silver string, no flash of light as he passed over top.
Crap! Without anything to anchor it to the body, Quatre's soul would simply waft away if he let it go, and all hope for the blond's revival would be gone.
Duo tried to push Quatre's soul down to his body. Every time he pressed down, Quatre slipped sideways and started to rise again, and Duo would have to scramble to prevent him from escaping.
Duo spread himself thin, making himself into a shallow inverted bowl, with Quatre's soul in the middle. Luckily Quatre made no move to merge their spirits again, seeming content to bob idly in the air.
Duo sank down, gently pushing Quatre with him. Q floated sideways, bumping gently against Duo's spirit, but he didn't seem to want to duck down low enough to escape under the edge of the soul bowl.
Duo moved lower - gently, gently - and lower still, until he had Quatre centred above his body. Trowa was still methodically pumping Quatre's chest, then breathing rhythmically into his slack mouth.
Duo decided to make contact with the body's feet. Firstly, they stuck up into the air, so he could guide Quatre's soul to them without having to change the shape of the bowl too much, and secondly, they were far away from where Trowa was working - he didn't want to complicate things by brushing up against a third soul.
He was just easing them both down Quatre's legs when the captive soul below him suddenly flashed with agitated sparkles. Quatre's spirit darted under edge of Duo's soul and over to Trowa, wrapping around him tightly.
Duo flared with hope - it looked like Quatre had been roused from his serene detachment - but kept himself spread out thin, ready to catch Quatre's soul just in case he didn't understand what he was supposed to do.
Quatre swirled up in a flicker of distressed motes when Trowa didn't respond to his embrace, but then coiled around his lover again almost immediately. Tendrils waved purposefully in the air over his prone body, as if studying an alien landscape. Then, with a determined glitter, he slid down Trowa's arms and dove into his own chest.
For a moment there was no change. Then Quatre gasped deeply, his eyes still closed, and Duo went limp with relief.
Wufei turned away from Lava at the sound, hope pushing aside the anger on his face.
Trowa pressing shaking fingers against Quatre's neck. "Pulse..." he whispered, as Quatre gasped again. He cleared his throat and said in a stronger voice, "He has a pulse."
Footsteps running down the hall heralded the arrival of Heero and an emergency team. Amid the bustle and confusion, Wufei's gaze met Trowa's and he smiled slightly, lifting his chin (take care of Quatre); then he narrowed his gaze and glanced quickly at Lava (and I'll take care of the jerk.)
One corner of Trowa's mouth curled into a strained smirk, and he nodded once. He tugged on Heero's arm as the latter turned to scowl at Lava, and the two of them followed the gurney bearing their lover away.
Duo started to float across to the wall separating the waiting room from the operating theatre, absorbing the lifeline leading to his counterpart's body as he went. The jump to the next universe would be happening very soon, and he didn't want to screw up and miss it.
Wufei, who had somehow managed to keep his hand wrapped in Lava's shirtfront without drawing unwanted attention from the medical team, smiled dangerously at his victim. "You cannot use what you've discovered as evidence."
Lava raised an eyebrow. "It was overheard in a public place. It's admissible."
Wufei bared his teeth and shifted his grip to Lava's neck, holding the taller man against the wall with insulting ease. "Let me rephrase that. You will not use what you've discovered. I will not permit you to turn Sand into a freak-show subject."
Lava tried to speak, but could not force the words past the strong hand gripping his throat.
Wufei smiled bitterly. "No matter how high a security rating you put on your report, any mention you make of Sand's empathy will leak out. Think of how easily Frost was able to hack into your files. Even if no one ever says anything to his face, Sand will feel it - curiosity and fear if his empathy is believed to be real, contempt and suspicion if it is not - and it will hurt him."
"Verbal report... only..." Lava managed to choke out.
"That's not good enough. Even a verbal report has to be corroborated, and the questions you'd have to ask - of his family, colleagues, and social acquaintances - would start up unstoppable rumours."
Lava shook his head, frowning, and Wufei loosened his grip enough to let the man speak. "My CO will accept my report as is. I-"
"You're asking me to believe that your boss will accept your unsupported word for both Sand's empathy and his innocence in this crime, and be discrete enough to not mention it to anyone else?? That's highly unlikely."
Lava glared. "As unlikely as meeting a Preventer who can tell spoken truth from lie with perfect accuracy."
Wufei blinked, taken aback, and Lava snorted softly. "Oh come now, did you honestly think your friend was the only Preventer with a newtype ability? My superior knows about my gift, but he also knows that to be used effectively it must remain secret - otherwise people would simply refuse to speak in my presence. I know without a shadow of doubt that Sand was telling the truth, both about his ability and his version of tonight's events. The only time he lied was when he denied that there was a problem."
Wufei narrowed his eyes. "If this is a trick..."
"Yes, yes, I get the picture," Lava said impatiently. "Just assume I've been suitably threatened and let's move on. What I really need to do now is question Wind. From what the four of you said here tonight, he has a solid motive to be involved, and I want..."
A sharp tug on his lifeline reminded Duo of his priorities, and he realized he had drifted to a stop, intrigued by the conversation. He fled through the wall to the operating room, where the steady beep of the heart monitor, the thump-hiss of the respirator, and the calm demeanor of the surgeons all reassured him that his counterpart's body was still alive.
What astonished him was the sight of his lifeline - it was pulled out of alignment. Instead of extending in a straight line towards his soul, it was pulled up in an arch towards the ceiling.
He drifted cautiously over to the top of the curve, feeling a steady pull on his spirit. There was something there - a rippling distortion, like the way the air danced in the heat haze above Deathscythe's vents after a long mission.
Intrigued and more than a little nervous, he noted that the distortion was getting bigger, the ripples in the air becoming more pronounced. Then, with a soundless shock that he felt through his entire soul, the wavering stilled even as he was sucked into the area where the distortion had been. He passed through an intense white light, and then he was sailing through the diamond-studded black void he'd seen during previous transitions.
There had been no pain this time, but perhaps that was because his soul had already been floating free of his current body. And speaking of which...
He flipped around, and his vision was filled with the brilliance of one of the star-universes, huge and intensely bright at this close range. It was difficult to see against the light, but the star seemed to have a hole in it, a window to the reality he had left behind.
The portal was shrinking, but just before it closed he picked out the shape of his former body, and the restless movement of the hand connected to the IV drip. Relief swept over him and he swirled with joy - it looked like his counterpart had been able to re-enter his body again.
Then Duo sobered. How elated would his alter ego be, coming back to a broken and shattered body? Would he even realize he had been gone? At least Quatre would be there to help him readjust - if Quatre recovered, that is.
Lost in his thoughts, it took Duo a moment to realize that he had picked up speed and was now sliding swiftly through the darkness, the silvery sparkles of alternate universes streaming past on all sides. He was headed straight for one of the shining stars, diving down into the overwhelming brightness.
He braced himself for impact, feeling a surge of pity for the poor unsuspecting counterpart whose life he was about to commandeer. Then all thought was gone as he slammed through the barrier into his next host.
End Page 38
(:./wingnut/alter38)
