Title: Alternate Dualities
Author: WingNut
Archive: http://www.fanworkrecs.com
Disclaimers: I don't own the characters from Gundam Wing, I just play with them for non-profit fun until they run screaming back to their creators.
Warnings: AU - AAAAAAAAAAAU. Some yaoi, lemon, violence, language. You should be a legal adult to read this. Open-mindedness helps, too.
Pairings: all over the map; Duo-centric. yaoi and het.
Author's Notes: A huge helping of "suspension of disbelief" would be appropriate before you read this. I'm sure J or G could explain the science behind it, but they're kinda dead right now...
Part 5 ~ Scraps (cont'd)
Duo cursed himself for a stupid blind fool. Trowa must have seen him skulking in the shadows, and had only pretended to go to the gate, circling around once he was out of sight.
His decision to call Wufei may have saved his life; he would have made a tempting target hovering over Quatre in the middle of that brightly lit area. But when he had appeared again, he had run straight for the closest shadows, right where his friend had anticipated he would end up.
Fuming silently, Duo slowly raised his arms and carefully let the gun swing loosely from his left hand. "Trowa, I'm not-"
"Be quiet." The gun was wrenched none too gently from Duo's hand. "I won't let you talk your way out of this. And I won't let you rebuild your gundam."
"I wasn't-" He broke off with a grunt as he was yanked over to a junked pod and slammed face down over one end, his arm twisted to the edge of breaking behind his back. His braid was snatched and wrapped around the captive wrist, pulling his head back, his spine arched into a tight bow.
He was dragged out into the open area, bent over backwards, unable to even see where he was putting his feet. "Tro," he choked out, "I didn't-" He had the merest glimpse of movement before the pistol smashed against his temple, sending him reeling to the ground.
He lay still, barely conscious. A few hazy moments later, his free arm was dragged behind his back and metal pinched around both wrists, clicking painfully tight.
Long moments passed, the images from his slitted eyes making little sense to his dazed brain.
Finally, recognition began to kick in.
Light. Bright. Painful. Light in his eyes. Lancing through his head.
A body.
Quatre. Quatre in front of him. Lying on the deck.
Quatre... Duo heard his own voice speaking. "Q-ball is looking good - fit, alert, not too over-worked. He said Trowa's been making sure he doesn't get too stressed."
His gaze wandered slowly around the area in front of him, stopping on a little pile of stuff. Gradually the concepts to match what he was seeing trickled into his brain. Some food. A knife. A hanky. A comm. Pocket stuff. From Quatre. From his pockets. Stuff Trowa had pulled out.
"Trowa's loosened up a lot since the last time I saw him." His counterpart's words swirled through his aching head. "He's more publicly affectionate than I've ever seen him."
There were more things for his eyes to look at. Farther back. In the shadows. Hiding in the shadows by the house. Wires. A detonator. A radio receiver. A flat package.
His brain slowly made the connections. The flat package held explosives. And those were the pieces of a bomb.
Trowa and Quatre, confronting each other over the scattered pieces of a bomb.
Quatre's voice, commanding, "Trowa, stop!" Then quieter, but no less determined, "You know I can't let you leave, Trowa. Please believe me when I say that I will shoot you if you try to get away."
A bomb. Wire the receiver to the detonator. Push the detonator into the explosives. Press the button on the remote.
Press the button and all the stuff would be destroyed. The knife. The snack. The detonator. The wires. The hanky. The receiver. The comm. The remote.
Press the button. On the remote.
The remote.
Icy realization swept over him, brushing away the remaining cobwebs from his mind. He looked again, frantically, knowing what he would find. Or not find. Knowing what it was that had been bothering him.
Trowa had gone through Quatre's pockets and had put everything into a pile. Except for the spare clips of ammo Trowa had taken, and the handcuffs that were now holding Duo's arms behind his back, and the discarded syringe, everything that had been in Quatre's pockets was in that little pile.
There was no remote to set off the bomb.
Duo's eyes flicked to the bomb parts. There was no remote there, either, but the radio receiver confirmed that it wasn't a time bomb.
He cast his mind back to when he had first approached. Quatre, standing by the side of the house amid the scattered pieces of the bomb-in-progress and pointing a gun at Trowa, who was facing away, closer to the back of the house.
Closer to the back of the house.
Closer to the back was farther from the light over the front step, which meant that if he turned and confronted Quatre he would be facing into the light, and Quatre would be silhouetted. Trowa wasn't that stupid; he would have intervened from a position where Quatre was fully illuminated.
Neither was Quatre stupid. There was no way he would set explosives without having the remote that triggered them under his direct control.
"Trowa's been making sure he doesn't get too stressed." Trowa must have been helping Quatre with his projects. "Trowa's loosened up a lot..." He's changed recently... "Trowa, stop!" Trowa had been moving away from Quatre when he arrived...
Trowa hadn't interrupted Quatre setting a bomb.
Quatre had interrupted Trowa.
In his own world, the Maguanacs had come to regard Trowa with great respect; it was likely that the same had happened here. The acrobat wouldn't have had great difficulty gaining their cooperation, or intercepting the report of suspicious footprints outside the office window, especially if he said it was at Quatre's request.
Obviously Quatre had caught on somehow, or he wouldn't have followed Trowa here. And Quatre must have been the last to arrive, for both Trowa and Heero would have seen Rashid waiting outside the yard otherwise.
Even as his thoughts were racing, fitting the pieces together, he was stretching and wiggling, trying to loosen the bonds on his wrists. The handcuffs were extremely tight. Trowa knew exactly how proficient Duo was at slipping out of them and had done his best to prevent it. The worst part was the way his braid was wound around his left wrist, pulling his head back and twisting his arm painfully high.
Before he could do much more than realize how very uncomfortable he was, he heard quiet steps approaching. He stilled and let his eyelids sag almost shut again.
Trowa walked into view, going immediately to Quatre and checking his pulse. He smiled slightly and stroked the blond's face gently. "Soon this will all be over, and you'll be safe again."
Carefully, keeping the rest of his body very still, Duo slowly forced his right hand up beside his left, and felt for his braid. As he flexed and stretched his fingers, the bullet wound Heero had given him woke with a vengeance. Despite the pain, he almost snickered as a line from one of his favourite late-night movies trickled through his mind. "It's only a flesh wound!"
Trowa rose and went to the bomb components. Duo watched through his eyelashes as he settled himself comfortably and began to assemble the pieces together.
Damn it! The bloody handcuffs were so tight they were cutting off the circulation to his hands. His fingers were numb, yet the flesh wound blazed with feeling. Stupid handcuffs. Why couldn't they numb the really sore parts?
Trowa seemed absorbed in his work, but Duo knew he didn't have much more time. And from the amount of explosives being attached to the detonator, neither did anyone in this sector of the colony. That bomb was going to breach the hull, just like on L3.
His fingers fumbled and slipped, but he eventually discovered the vital place where the braid was tucked under itself.
Trowa stood up. The bomb was complete.
Damnit!! He was out of time, he had to do something right now. Well, he had no weapons or mobility. The only thing left to him was his persuasive skill... and Trowa had never seemed particularly susceptible to that before. Damn him.
"Tro, why are you doing this?" Slowly, slowly, he pushed the tail out from under the rest of the braid, trying to keep his voice calm, a mere disinterested inquiry.
The other man ignored him, going to check on Quatre again.
Quatre... he had said he was protecting Quatre. That was the key...
"Y'know, Quatre's going to be pretty upset when he finds out you killed me," Duo said thoughtfully. "He's going to feel all guilty because he was here and he wasn't able to stop you."
Trowa stilled, his lean body tensing.
"You know I'm right. How will you explain it to him so that he won't feel responsible? And even if you convince him that I had to die, he's not gonna believe it of Hirde and Helen." The braid finally loosened, and he felt the blessed release of tension along his neck and down his spine. He gradually moved his head into a more normal position, taking it slow to avoid drawing attention.
Trowa frowned, still looking down into Quatre's face. "They aren't in the house, Duo, I already checked." He held up Duo's key ring for emphasis.
"Did you honestly think I wouldn't have a bolthole for them? You won't find them, but they are still close enough that your bomb will kill them. Not to mention all the other people that will die when the hull breaches. You and I both know I haven't stolen any gundanium. So what have I done that would justify killing so many people?"
His hands felt stiff and swollen. There was no way he could slip these cuffs off, they were simply too tight.
Finally Trowa looked at him. "It's not what you have done, Duo; it's what you will do."
To have even a hope of dismantling the bomb, he would have to curl up into a ball and push his hips through the circle of his arms, so that his hands would end up in front of his body. But he would have to wait until Trowa was gone, otherwise the acrobat would just knock him out again.
"And what do you think I will do?" he said aloud.
"Rebuild your gundam. Start the wars again. Kill millions of people. Spread fire and ruin everywhere. Ki-kill Quatre." Trowa's voice broke on this last statement and he looked away again, his bang hiding his expression.
"Kill Quatre? I wouldn't do that! Quatre's my friend, I wouldn't hurt him!"
"I've seen it, Duo!! I don't want to do this, but I've seen what you will do, what you will become. Every night, as soon as I close my eyes," his normally even voice sounded ragged, breathless, "every single night, over and over and over, I've seen the blood, heard the screams, felt his life s-slip through my f-fingers..."
Trowa abruptly gathered Quatre's limp body to his chest, hugging him tightly, cradling the blond head possessively. He began to rock back and forth, murmuring, his face strained and desperate. "Quatre... my Quatre. I'll keep you safe, I swear it!"
Every night, as soon as he closed his eyes? The hoarding had started six months ago - how long had this been going on? Even the most stable person would go crazy if he couldn't sleep for months on end.
"They're dreams, Trowa," Duo whispered. "They're not real. It's just the zero system, ALDIS, playing with your mind."
"NO!!" Trowa said fiercely. "I've seen it. I know what you will do. And if I have to sacrifice you, your family, innocent bystanders, even Quatre's love and respect, then so be it." He glared at Duo from one emerald eye. "I will not let you kill him."
Duo's mind raced, assessing possibilities and risks.
He hadn't convinced Trowa to stop.
He couldn't slip the cuffs, and with his hands bound behind him he would have no chance of either outrunning or overpowering Trowa.
He could wait until Trowa left (assuming that the acrobat didn't knock him out again), force his arms around his hips and legs to the front of his body, and then try to disarm the bomb with his numb and swollen fingers. Fat chance.
As much as he hated to admit it, he couldn't stop Trowa on his own. He needed help. He glanced at Quatre, but the little blond was still deeply unconscious. He couldn't think of a way to let Hirde know he needed help, and even if he did, he wouldn't want her to leave Helen unguarded. That left Heero, who was locked in with the gundanium, and wouldn't be coming to his rescue anytime soon.
Heero... What was that thing Quatre used to say about the mountain and Mohammed? But how to convince Trowa to do what he wanted?
Trowa was shifting Quatre in his arms, preparing to walk away with the smaller man cradled against his chest.
Duo rolled more onto his back and raised a smirk. "You do realize that killing me won't end the threat of a rebuilt Gundam, don't you?"
"Yes, it will," Trowa replied evenly. "You will be blamed for the thefts, but no one will ever discover what happened to the alloy. With it taken out of circulation, there will be very little left with which to make a gundam, and any that does exist will be guarded extremely well."
"That makes a certain amount of sense," Duo admitted. "Buuuuuuut you're forgetting that when I first found out that gundanium was becoming scarce, I started stockpiling it myself. I have quite a tidy heap of it stashed away." He widened the smirk.
Trowa's head snapped around at that. "You're lying."
Duo shook his head in mock regret. "You know I don't lie, Tro."
Trowa's one visible eye narrowed as he thought about it. "Why are you telling me? Don't think that you can trade the gundanium for your life."
"Not my life, Trowa - Helen's. And Hirde's. And everyone else's in this sector. Look, Quatre knows it was you setting the bomb. There's no way you can make my death look like an accident, so there's no need to use a big explosion to kill me. I'll show you where the gundanium is, but in return, you don't set off that bomb."
"I'm still going to kill you."
"But at least you won't be killing anyone else because of me."
Trowa carefully laid Quatre back down on the deck, caressing the blond's hair and cheek before straightening again. "All right, Duo. You have a deal."
"Great!" Duo didn't have to feign his relief. "Just scoop the detonator out of that bomb, and I'll take you to the gundanium."
Trowa smoothly pulled his gun from his waistband. "Lie on your belly, facing away."
Duo wriggled around obediently, not wanting Trowa to feel threatened. He heard light steps receding slightly, the tiny noise of wires being snipped, and then Trowa's return. He was about to roll over again when a firm knee in the small of his back discouraged any further motion.
He was a little startled when he felt a light tugging on his braid, but then he realized that Trowa was fastening the radio receiver and detonator into his hair.
"Dyntamix," said Trowa in quiet explanation.
Duo winced. "Gotcha."
The explosive Dyntamix had a high temperature tolerance, so the detonating flash had to be fiercely hot. By itself the detonator wouldn't do much damage to buildings or the hull of a colony, but it would be more than enough to kill a single human, especially if the blast were located at, say, the neck and head.
Duo felt a shiver ghosting down his spine. He wasn't a big fan of screaming agony. But to protect Helen...
He firmly turned his mind to a less unsettling topic. Like how he was going to let Heero know that he shouldn't shoot first and not bother with questions at all.
As soon as Trowa stepped back, he struggled to his feet. He shook his head slightly, feeling the detonator thumping the tops of his shoulders.
Without looking to see if Trowa were following or not, Duo started down the aisle that would lead to the old thresher.
The open area in front of the big machine looked basically the same as it had when he'd left. Well, except for the largish hole in the deck where the plates were pushed up in a rough semicircle. The one that looked like it had been started with a short arc of connected bullet holes, and finished by someone with a high pain threshold and an iron determination.
Well, it was just a guess, but Duo was pretty sure Heero wasn't safely locked away with the gundanium any more.
End Page 13
(:./wingnut/alter13)
