Running with the Devil/part three

February 20, 2002

Warnings: violence, language, and mention of abuse.

Author's note: Quatre's POV. Takes place during the series but no spoilers. Feedback appreciated, but apologies not guaranteed.

Pairings: none

It was snowing as I made my way across the parking lot to the car. Duo had ranted and raved about me actually stopping at the little market to purchase supplies saying it would be a dead give away to anyone if we were spotted. Especially after we found our first ride and safehouse had been found. Thus my reasoning for making him stay in the car. A fifteen year old with a yard long braid wearing all black, and stuffing things into every pocket he had would be enough to drag the attention of a two year old to us, not to mention every person with eyes in their head.

What solidified my decision to go was the look of skepticism on his face when I told him to stay put while I went in and got enough stuff to keep us alive while we waited for the heat to die down. With his remark that it was probably for the best that I go because I wouldn't raise suspicion with my disarmingly schoolboy good looks in addition to paying for everything, sparked my pride again. But it was the comment that I wasn't talented enough to steal it without getting caught that made me storm out of the car in a huff. His teasing challenge pretty much sealed it for me and I found myself grinning like a cat with my two bags of supplies and my pockets full all the way back to where Duo was hiding in the car.

Duo had crouched down behind the passenger side seat in the back of the beat up station wagon we 'borrowed' making me laugh when I approached it and not seeing anything other than his feet as they bobbed up and down to the beat of the music on the radio. From a distance the car looked completely normal in its surroundings, parked under a tree in the shadows in the dead of night.

It was an odd tannish-yellow color with rusty wood paneled doors and stick on purple tinted windows that didn't seem out of place at all in the tiny lot of the run down market. The reason Duo had picked it over all the other choices wasn't because of its blending characteristics but because of the bumperstickers it had all over the back window. His favorite one said 'If Jesus was my savior I would have already gone to meet my maker.' I didn't get it, but it made him hysterical with laughter. He had been giggling the entire time he was hotwiring it.

I had had enough of stealing for a lifetime in the two days I had spent with Duo. In addition to our newly acquired transportation, he had stolen the gas from another vehicle by sucking it through a piece of cut hose, nearly choking to death when some went down his throat. Then he stole me the shirt I was wearing now that was pastel pink and had 'Princess' across the front of it in shiny lavender script from the thrift store near where we took the car from. (My other shirt had been torn beyond repair during our hasty escape from the supply warehouse we had been at.) He had said it was the only one in my size that he could stuff under his own shirt that was his trademark black and said 'little devil' on the sleeve in red. It was another reason to prompt me into doing the shopping at our current stop. Stealing from a thrift store was lower than I had wanted to stoop.

We had grown very close in the hours following our misadventure from the warehouse, especially when it all turned to shit. I didn't blame Duo, it wasn't his fault that things went the way they did or for the position we now found ourselves in. Not that I could convince him of that if I wanted to. He would silently beat him self up over our present circumstances regardless of how we got here. The fact remained though; we were on the run. He and I both knew that by using the Mr. Snide's credit card for our purchases after we had mugged him left a trail that Oz had obviously found too unusual for just a couple of kids. The binoculars were probably a dead give away.

Our first safehouse had been compromised and it was just too dangerous to try to get a hold of Heero or the others for a pick up. I, being the eternal optimist, decided to make the best of our very bad situation. That included putting up with petty theft, grand theft auto, murder, mayhem, Duo's choice of music, his constant prattle, wearing a girl's shirt, and going to our secondary location.

I pulled up on the latch to the rear door of the wagon and started to lift it up so I could place the bags inside when I came face to face with the end of Duo's glock 9mm. I wasn't stupid enough to think it wasn't loaded or that the safety was on. Duo always had a loaded clip and never had the safety on even when he slept. Especially then.

I took a deep breath and kept still long enough for Duo to recognize me through his adrenaline haze. Duo was the type of person to shoot first and ask questions later (or not) and I for one didn't want to be on the receiving end of his happy trigger finger. When it disappeared and was replaced by his smiling face chuckling at I could only guess was my white one, I relaxed enough to put the bags in the back.

"Sorry Q. It's not often people get the drop on me and I didn't notice someone was there until I heard the latch click. You were gone for so long that I started to fall asleep."

Ha ha very funny. He new I had only been gone sixteen minutes according to my mental clock and it was hardly enough time for Duo to fall asleep. In fact I don't think he ever slept. Not completely anyway. Kind of like a cat. He looks like he's out cold but can still spring on you in an instant. The only time I ever see him really, truly out cold is when he's knocked out, has severe blood loss, or that one time I saw him with Heero.

He had gotten thrown around really bad when his shoulder strap let loose in Deathscythe. He managed to get the Gundam to the ground and landed without much fuss or noise, but when he didn't get out in the following few minutes, Trowa had told one of us to check it out while he secured our camouflage netting. Heero strode purposefully to the black mecha and I thought for sure was going to wring Duo's neck for breaking our pattern on the in-flight, but when he climbed down out of Duo's Gundam, his face was pinched with something far from anger.

At the time I thought it was me, that I saw something that wasn't really there. But the worried look that came through from Heero's carefully schooled features was unmistakable and to me it was like watching a car wreck happen in slow motion. There was nothing that Heero feared and he certainly hadn't made pleasantries with any of us. He went out of his way to tell Duo in particular that he was an obstacle to his mission of destroying Oz, and that he never considered any of us his comrades.

It never seemed to faze Duo in the least. In fact, to Duo it was like a challenge to get Heero to open up to us. When I saw Heero gingerly cradling Duo in his arms like some sort of broken doll I knew that he had succeeded in that even if he wasn't conscious to see it. It was so tragic and heartbreaking that I wanted to turn away, but found myself grossly unable to look anywhere else.

Trowa and I had finished covering the Gundams and by the time we got to the little shack of a safe house, Heero had tended to Duo's few really bad wounds and had him nestled in blankets on the only cot we had. He was stroking Duo's bangs out of his face when we walked in and quickly snatched his hand away, but not before I saw it. I think Trowa did too, but neither of us said anything. That night I woke up and I saw Heero still by Duo's bedside as he slept. Keeping vigil over him in the darkness of our cabin. The only light was pale blue that filtered its way through the boarded up window near them, and I could see Duo's face and Heero's fingers as they traced the contours of his cheek and jaw. It was beautiful and tender and I had fallen back asleep happy knowing that my friends had each other in the stillness of the night.

The next day it was back to business and everything followed its usual routine. Duo teased Heero relentlessly, eliciting a few growls and a few choice words from him. But Heero never acknowledged Duo's question of why he hadn't slept the night before or who carried him down out of his beloved Shinigami, and neither I nor Trowa got involved in their little dance. I wanted to laugh out loud watching the two together though.

"Quatre!"

My eyes flashed to Duo who was grinning like the Cheshire Cat at me from where he was sprawled in the back of the car and hanging out of the back window. "I've been talking to you for the past two minutes and you haven't said a word. Come back from la la land and let's get the hell outta here!" He pulled the window down tight, narrowly missing my fingers and locked the back door. I watched as he crawled over the back seat and came out the side door to get himself situated up front.

"Oh no you don't!" I laughed as he grabbed the handle to the driver's side door. There was no way I was going to let Duo drive. My heart was still racing from when he drove us away after stealing the wagon before.

"What? I'm a great driver!"

"Duo, you said so yourself that we couldn't afford to attract any more attention. You can't drive anywhere without speeding and it's ten miles to the spot Heero told me about. We're not risking it." I wanted to kick myself for the tone I had used. I sounded just like my father and it made my stomach twist when I realized it.

"Oh, like buying a bunch of survivalist gear in the local po-dunk marketplace wasn't enough to raise a fuss." He did, however, slide over into the passenger side seat and tapped his foot impatiently as I readjusted the mirrors and the seatbelt. "We are going to get out of here before the Second Coming aren't we?"

I shot him a look. For someone who was supposed to be Catholic I couldn't understand why he took every opportunity to slander their beliefs. Sometimes I wondered if he really believed in anything other than Shinigami. "Maybe they'll think I was a boyscout." He cracked up laughing as I pulled out of the parking lot and he fiddled with the radio. Then he reclined in seat and tucked his hands behind his head as he hummed along with the tune that was playing. He was wearing a silly smile that made me forget my ire.

Duo was like that though. You couldn't stay mad at him for more than a few minutes at a time and he certainly didn't stay mad at you. If he was, then you were dead soon after. His anger was like a maelstrom, so fierce and full of so much unleashed rage that few could live through it. But like any storm with that kind of power, it was fast as it was furious and blew over relatively quickly. I had been witness to Duo as he tried to come down after our flight from the warehouse. The best bet was to give him a wide berth. And I had thanked Allah more than once not to have his wrath directed at me.

We had gone six miles out of town so far on route to our safehouse. It was a little hunting cabin in the woods that Heero had told us about when we were assigned the mission. He had said it in passing, not thinking we would need it and thinking back on it I remember Duo laughing that it was absurd and that we'd be back before dinner. Things definitely didn't turn out that way.

We had been traveling on a road that wound its way along a small creek and were approaching a small bridge. It had started to snow as we left the edge of the little town and it made the surrounding scenery quite breathtaking. I hadn't really the opportunities to see a lot of snow in my life. The way it dusted the long green branches of the pine trees was like out of a picture postcard. The colonies rarely produced snow and that was only for the Christmas holiday and the like. Even then it was an artificial snow that barely could make it to the ground before melting, so to see so much of it actually floating in the air and covering the nearby trees was mesmerizing. So much in fact that I was more than surprised when the car took a hard jerk to the left.

I heard Duo yelling but I had already stood on the break, feeling it pulse all the way up my leg. We were doing a slow spin on black ice that I never even thought to look for and were careening towards the edge of the road and a good sized ditch. I tried jerking the wheel in the opposite direction as Duo was scrambling to pull it towards him when I found myself in a moment of sure panic stepping on the gas to try to right the car. It lurched and skid and I looked up to see the bridge racing towards us. I let go of the wheel entirely just as the car reached the ditch and we hit the bridge, went off the embankment and crashing into the trees below. I had hoped they were soft and found myself laughing hysterically as we hit them. Hard.

End Part 3

(:./ebony/running3)