17-Oct-2001
Email: anakerie@cinci.rr.com
Disclaimer: I don't own the Gundam Wing boys.
Warnings: Future lemon. Angst.
Pairings: 1x2, 3x4
He rowed for a while, enjoying the push and pull of his muscles, moving the boat along until it reached the middle of the lake. This is where we fished, he thought. This is where my father and I sat twenty years ago. He tried to cry, but the tears refused to fall. Maybe he had none left.
He leaned back in the boat, drawing his jacket around him, and turned on the radio. Most of the music was soft and peaceful, but that didn't suit his mood right now. His emotions felt raw, alive, angry. He was angry at the world for taking his father, angry with Papa for dying, angry with his mother for not being what he'd needed her to be. And angry with himself for still being lost after all this time.
He turned on a hard rock station, and the radio began blaring something loud and furious. The lyrics too garbled for him to understand, but the scream of the guitars and the crash of the drums made him feel better. He turned up the volume.
One second he was staring up at the starry sky, the next he was choking and sputtering as water closed over his head. His head broke the surface, and he spat out a mouthful of liquid, looking around.
The lake was quite around him. There were no movements in the water but those of his kicking legs as he tried to stay afloat. There wasn't even much wind tonight, he noted.
He managed to right the boat with effort and pull himself back inside. He was soaked to the skin and shivering, and his radio was no where to be seen. Good thing he'd left his cell back at the cabin.
What had happened?
The lake offered no response. "Must have been the Kappa." Heero said outloud, grinning. "That you, Kappa?"
With a sigh, he picked up the oars and rowed back to shore.
Duo sat cross-legged on the bank of the lake, examining his prize curiously. Whatever it was, it was dead now. He wondered if it had been the source of the wretched noise the night before. He'd seen some of the fishermen on the lake with similar boxes, but those had always emitted pleasant sounds. He loved floating under their boats and listening to them. Maybe this one had been broken? He shook it, and water gushed out.
He glanced angrily in the direction of the cabin. It was too late in the year for anyone to be living here. Sometimes they did, during the hot months, but the leaves were turning now. The lake was his! Until it froze over, he was free to come and go as he pleased, without having to hide himself away. A day fisher he could tolerate, but how long was this human planning to stay?
His wet hair streaming around his naked body, Duo approached the cabin hesitantly. Not that he'd never been inside of them; after the humans left, they were usually full of all kinds of neat treasures to collect, and sometimes human food, which he loved. But this was as close as he'd ever gotten knowing that someone was inside, and he was more than a little afraid. Lousy, stinking, no-good, rotten, human. Acting like it was HIS lake. Duo would show HIM a thing or two.
He tried the cabin door, holding his breath (air felt so strange to breath compared to the smoothness of water) and watched it swing open. His muscles were tense as he waited to hear a cry of alarm, but there was nothing.
Leaving the door wide open behind him, for a quick escape, he walked through the cabin, dripping lake water on the carpet as he went. His nose twitched and he stopped to examine a small, clear bag. He tugged for a second, and it sprang open, revealing fragrant slices of something white.
He sampled a piece, chewed thoughtfully, and then crammed another one in his mouth. And another. Finally he grew bored with it, leaving the half-eaten loaf of bread on the floor behind him.
He approached the back of the cabin, and now he could hear something. Heavy, even breathing. The human was here, but he was asleep.
Making less noise than a spider's shadow, he stepped into the room, and approached the bed, ready to flee every second. He chided himself for being here at all; curiosity was his biggest flaw, his parents had always told him that, told him that he was going to meet a bad end if he wasn't careful. Yet still he lingered.
The human lay sprawled on his back, the blankets on the floor next to him. Duo leaned closer, examining him. Odd. He looked almost familiar, but Duo was sure he'd never noticed him around here before. He wasn't an ugly human; some of the fishermen were ghastly looking. This one actually looked nice; his face was smooth, not furry like theirs, and his body wasn't as bulky. Duo reached out to touch that skin, and then drew back his hand quickly. What was he thinking? He wasn't here to admire the human. He was here to scare him away!
He put the ruined radio on the table, where the human couldn't miss it. He normally would have kept it, but he had a point to prove. He then looked around for something else to do.
Several square objects were stacked on a chair, and he examined them. They were covered in odd markings, and he saw that they were actually made of little thin squares, all stuck together. He pulled on a thin one, and it came out. So he pulled another one. Soon the floor was littered with them, and he started on another one.
What else was there? He glanced around, chewing his lip, and saw something small laying on the table as well, so dark he'd almost missed it. He scooped it up, not understanding what it was, but figuring it must be important to the human. The front was covered in those same strange markings. He ran his finger over one, and jumped as they suddenly lit up. He waited a moment, and they went dark again. He touched another one, and this time, not only did it light up, but this one made noise. Laughing, he pressed another one, and a different sound emerged. He began pressing buttons at random.
"HEY! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"
Whoops. The human was sitting up in bed, looking right at him. Time to go.
Duo dropped the cell phone on the floor and took off toward the open door, the human only a few steps behind. The human was fast, Duo thought, panting, but not as fast as he was. He'd lived here his whole life, and his muscles were strong from constant swimming.
They reached the edge of the lake and Duo threw himself in the water, diving under quickly. He could tell that the human was no longer following him, and he was safe now. That was too close for comfort. From now on, he would be good. He'd stop being curious about humans and just live under the water, the way his parents had done.
He swam down deep in the lake, deeper and deeper, until he came to a tunnel in the side, and slipped inside. It was another good swim in the darkness, upward, until he came out in a cave under the hill, and climbed out of the water again. Although the interior was pitch black, he needed no light to find his way to his nest; a thick blanket surrounded by various treasures he'd been collecting his entire life.
Once, his parents had lived here too. He sat down on the blanket, drawing his knees up to his chest. But that was a long time ago; they'd died when he was a small boy. Right after the humans had come and poured horrible things into the lake. He'd been sick a long time afterwards; but his parents hadn't survived it at all. He'd been alone to guard their home ever since.
That was fine. This was how he liked it; he liked the lake to be quite and undisturbed. He lived in fear of the humans pouring things in it again; maybe this time, he wouldn't be so lucky...
Duo curled up in the blankets, and a hand snaked out for his favorite treasure. His father had found it floating in the water when he was a baby and given it to him. It looked like a fake bear, and Duo never slept without it tucked firmly at his side.
The world turned outside the hill and around the lake, but in his nest, Duo was content.
Heero finished putting the last of the book's pages into a trashcan, and looked around for something else to clean. Unfortunately, there was nothing. He'd even thrown away the bread, which had a large, wet, bare, footprint in it.
Finally, he could put off thinking about what had happened no longer, and sat down in a chair heavily, his cell phone in his hand. He started to dial the police, and then stopped. "Tell them what? I was vandalized by Aquaman?" He muttered to himself. He kept expecting to wake up at any moment. If Trowa wasn't so far away, he might even suspect his friend of staging this whole thing.
The image of the vandal was burned his mind. Stark naked, with streaming wet hair all around him. Eyes glittering with fear in the darkness before he'd turned and ran. The fact that he'd torn open the bag of bread instead of opening the tie. And the fact that the radio Heero had lost in the lake was now sitting, useless, on his table.
"That's it. I'm loosing it. I'm cracking up." Heero stood up and paced. "Must have swallowed too much water when my boat tipped..."
He paused. Had the boat tipped accidentally, or had it been deliberately tipped over? He hated to think it, but it was looking more like the latter.
He could push the thoughts away no longer. Once again he was four, once again, he was peering over the edge of his father's boat, and once again, someone was looking back at him. And no matter how much he tried to tell himself it had only been his reflection, the image had looked nothing like him. And what about the man? Had that been a reflection as well.
Heero did not sleep the rest of the night, but instead sat back down in the chair, staring at the window and the lake beyond, the antenna of the cell phone pressed against his lower lip.
End Chapter 3
(:./lasha/kappa3)
