Kyuuketsuki Duo: The TV Series Episode 21
Ripples in the Ether

::Everything okay, Duo?:: the shadow-clad warrior was compelled to ask his partner. They were currently wrapping up a rather routine apprehension of a common stray. It was going smoothly as always, of course, yet there was something that appeared to be just a little bit off to his Duo-attuned senses. Going through the motions flawlessly didn't seem as effortless as it normally did for the guardian.

::Peachy keen,:: was the reply, sounding as calm and unconcerned as ever. Well, 'as ever' referring only to times when he wasn't in full guardian mode, or being moody and broody, or trippy and whimsical, and this 'as ever' was only barely a majority of the time, so perhaps that wasn't a very good measure. The power liked to play with him and his moods. ::Reason you ask?::

::Maybe,:: Heero answered ambiguously, part of his mind whirring off to find a better standard against which to compare the guardian's behavior. As he normally was? Well, 'normally' was such an unhelpful term, since he was rather normally mercurial. The way he was when the power wasn't messing with him? But how often did that come about? Not very often indeed. The way he was before the power came to him? But even then, there had been power in the mix, the power of his parents, set there to alter his behavior, and that therefore invalidated that short era from further consideration.

There was a slight hesitation in Duo's speech, during which the name of the Shinma escaped him. Heero helpfully supplied it. And when there was a short delay between the Naming and the opening of the portal to the Dark, Heero offhandedly nailed the stray to the earth with some well-placed shadowstakes so it couldn't get away and ignored its pained shrieks with a practiced ear.

The guardian's energy was reacting a tad sluggishly to its master's call. With only a faint line creasing his brow, Duo got the job done, but the light wrinkle remained even after the stray was gone and the dust had settled.

::Duo?:: Heero asked again, moving to stand beside his partner as the boy continued to frown into the empty air left behind in the stray's passing.

A short pause inserted itself before the response. "Did you see that?"

The smooth transition from museum to the backyard of the estate they currently occupied offered them no interruption in their conversation. Heero removed his mask as they made their way in through the sliding doors. "What?" he asked warily. Likely, Duo was seeing things again, but normally it didn't bother him. That he had to ask now was a bad sign.

"It... fought me." There was a mild indignation to his response. Duo had been leading the way into the sitting room, but now he turned, lightly seized the front of Heero's shirt, tugged him forward and pushed him down onto the sofa so that he could take up residence in his lap.

"The power?" Heero prompted as the boy got settled.

Duo abruptly changed his mind and bounded back to his feet. "Yes, the power," he answered irritably, beginning to pace the room. "Something very short of outright mutiny, of course, but I still had to poke it before it would cooperate with me."

Heero examined his companion's aura with a critical eye. It was looking rather quiescent at the moment. "A few weeks ago, when we thought your power was trying to tell you something?"

"I'm sure it was trying to tell me something," Duo sighed. "But maybe it was also reacting to this whatever that's going on? The buzz went away after that night, but it comes and it goes, you know?"

"As it sometimes does?"

"Yeah. I think this is just one of those times. I'm probably about due for a minor stir. The last one was, what, oh, I don't even remember how long it's been since it last acted up. I think it just does this to remind me who's boss here. It doesn't even have the common courtesy to expand my mind or anything anymore."

"I hope you're past your growing pains by now."

"Great, finally past puberty and already now the joints start aching when a storm's coming? Geez, why did I have to go and skip the prime of my life?"

Heero waited patiently for Duo's restless pacing to bring the boy in front of him before reaching out and pulling him down to sit beside him. "It'll pass, Duo. It'll make merry with your otherness for a little bit, and then it'll pass. It always does."

"I know." He pouted, just because he could, and scooted over a bit to be in better contact with his partner. "It's given me small problems before, but I've never got such a feeling from it... As if it were something else entirely. Like it had a mind of its own and it was the one that decided to take up residence within my head and it was lord of the manor and today it just didn't feel like coming out to play. Or something."

Heero laid his cheek upon the crown of the head that had come to rest upon his shoulder. "In all the times in your life that your power has and will be stirred by the ripples in the ether, there must be one that is the worst experience of them all."

Duo made an exasperated sound. "Damn you. That is just so bloody logical and unreassuring that I'm almost reassured by that. I must be spending too much time with you. Argh, but I must be tired. There's no such thing as too much time with you. Maybe. I hope. Or hope not. Or bleh. I don't know. I don't have time for this. I've got to drop by and visit the kids today--"

He made as if to get up, but Heero stopped him. "You've plenty of time yet," he said, settling the boy back down. His soft voice made its smooth way over his senses and shooed the agitation away. "Rest a bit."

He was more than willing to comply.

*****

"I practiced reading auras this week, like you suggested," Quatre informed him as he tried to wriggle his way into a comfortable position on the chair and still maintain his dignified air. Duo uttered some vague praise as he finally gave up with an inner sigh and resigned himself to being unable to get his lower back muscles to untense for the duration of his stay.

"I tried several people's. Meiran's, Wufei's.... I'd have tried my father's, but I thought that wouldn't have been very nice." The two youths in question were present as well. Wufei was off in the corner, playing with his sword. Meiran was listening in on their conversation, absorbing as she normally did. She had actually turned out to be rather helpful, quite happy to dole out what knowledge of the more ritualized and material things she had learned during her childhood spent at the Chang compound.

Duo murmured something encouraging once again. Wufei's attempts to manipulate the sword's power were giving him a headache as his own power flared in response to the fluctuations.

"Then I took a look at Trowa's aura." The boy in question was also present. He rarely had anything to contribute, yet there was no doubt that he was quite aware of and nearly a part of everything that was going on. "I saw him in there, of course, but imagine my surprise when I saw a little bit of me on top."

"Well, you've spent a lot of time with him," Duo responded absently, his attention directed inward as he constructed a shield between himself and Wufei's activities. A distant part of his mind recognized that Quatre was remarkably sensitive and observant, and coming along quite nicely. He would be a fine spiritualist one day, if any of them ever managed to figure out just what the hell a spiritualist did and how he did it. "You've probably rubbed off on him."

"Yes, maybe. But then, imagine my surprise when I saw a good layer of your colors underlying it all."

The shield faltered for a moment before he snapped it into place with a final reprimand to his power to behave. Oh yeah. That. Crap. Umm... "Oh?" he answered intelligently. He stopped himself before his eyes could dart nervously over to where Trowa was sitting quietly. He hadn't batted an eyelash, but as usual, with Trowa, that meant nothing. Duo cursed to himself, wishing yet again that he knew once and for all whether or not Trowa actually remembered.

"Yes. I was wondering if you might be able to explain that to me." Quatre's tone was light and innocent, but that didn't mean he wasn't demanding an answer.

"Hmm...," he considered, sounding as if he had no idea what his aural signature was doing mucking with Trowa's, but really having no idea how to explain it away because he had a very good idea of what it was doing there, and he hadn't been planning on telling. He really should have come up with a plausible alibi long ago.

"'Hmm' indeed. I probed further -- of course, I asked Trowa permission first -- and I found that it was rather extensive. Much greater than any influence of mine, for instance."

He couldn't possibly suspect. Not the truth, anyway. But certainly he suspected something. "Well, I don't know what to say, Quatre," he started. Yes, that was good. Clean and wholesome truth, that statement was.

Unfortunately, the longer he put off coming up with an excuse, the closer Quatre came to an answer. He was sharp like that. "It looks like it's been there for a long time, too. It seemed rather comfortable and settled where it was, if you know what I mean. Maybe like it had been there since before we met. But that's just my opinion, and I'm still learning, so of course, I'm probably wrong. I mean, you two haven't met before, have you?"

Crap. Crap crap crap crap crap crap -- ow. His mind was stopped in its circle-running by the brick wall that was Heero. He quickly picked himself up, dusted off the silent reprimand, and set about finding a good truth to use as a lie. Someone beat him to the punch.

"Yes, we have." They all looked over in astonishment at Trowa, who blinked calmly back at them in turn.

"You what?" Meiran asked, seeing Quatre was too shocked by the information to ask himself.

Trowa paid her no heed. Instead, he had turned his unrevealing emerald eyes on the guardian. "Haven't we?"

There was no uncertainty in the question, nor accusation, nor anything of the sort. The query was meant merely as a confirmation, which Duo answered solemnly and affirmatively with a silent look.

He didn't seem to mind or notice that they were now the center of attention. "I rather thought so," he mused, a faint almost-smile seeming to tug at his lips. But that couldn't be right. "I think I always knew, but I only just realized it."

Wufei had joined them. "What did you do to him?" he demanded of Duo, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"What?" Duo held up his hands in a placating gesture. "What do you mean, what did I do to him?"

"I know you did something, Guardian, if your signature is all over his, especially if he doesn't seem to have remembered. Trowa?"

"Wufei, I--" Duo tried valiantly to defend himself with an explanation he hadn't yet thought up. He was a little off his game today.

"Trowa?" the Chinese boy demanded again, cutting him off. "What did he do to you?"

Trowa shook his head slightly. "He helped me," he said slowly. "I don't quite remember how... but he helped me."

"Well, see! I helped him," Duo announced proudly. No, wait. That wasn't quite right either. He should be downplaying his role so that he could avoid the inevitably messy questions that they would--

"Helped him how?"

-- bring up. "Hey, that's ancient history now," he extemporized, bringing down that shield he had erected now that Wufei was no longer messing with the local ether patterns. It hadn't been working very well anyway. "It was nothing."

"Helped him how?" Wufei repeated, a hard edge to his words.

Duo sighed. The harsh suspicion in the air caused the muscle tension to spread up his back and into his shoulders, exacerbating his headache. He covertly rolled his shoulders a bit in an attempt to get them to loosen up. "Look, he just ran into a little trouble with a Shinma, once upon a time. I ran it off. That's all. Just doing my job."

Quatre had recollected his wits. "That doesn't explain why he's got your signature all over him."

Duo's eyes met Trowa's, the fall of bangs not getting in the way from his angle. He saw nothing in them that helped, but on the other hand, nothing in them that spoke of anger or bitterness or hate. "It was in his head," he admitted quietly, looking straight ahead, but not meeting anyone's eyes this time. "I chased it out, and cleaned up after myself."

"Since when does cleaning up after yourself involve leaving your footprints everywhere?" Wufei pointed out. When Duo said nothing, he continued his accusation. "Are you the one who made him this way?"

"Wufei!" Quatre exclaimed. "What do you mean, this way?"

"You know what I'm talking about," the Asian boy snapped. "The way he's so... so Trowa!"

"You think he maybe could have been born Trowa?" Meiran muttered acerbically, ignoring the glare that Wufei sent her way.

"He's pathologically quiet, for one thing."

"And a person can be quiet without having been touched by...." Quatre sputtered a little as he searched for the appropriate word. "By some power. Some external force."

"Only he has been clearly touched. You've seen it for yourself. You're the one who brought it up in the first place."

Duo tuned them out as he sought out Trowa's gaze once again. The blankness seemed to have thinned a bit. He displayed a small amount of interest in the proceedings, yet no concern. With a tiny shrug, he indicated that it would be up to Duo to decide whether or not to reveal anything. Duo snorted to himself. He had been about to say the same thing to Trowa. Whatever else one might say about the way Trowa was, he was certainly quick on the draw. Duo decided that from now on, he might as well just assume that Trowa knew or could figure out everything.

::They won't hang you, you know.:: Heero contributed his opinion, taking the opportunity to massage the guardian's power and maybe convince it to let go of some of the muscles it was cramping.

::Hang? No. Maim me? Maybe. Hell, even I don't approve of my actions anymore.::

::If the boy himself doesn't care, then who are they to act? And you as well. Besides, look at him. He's certainly not a soulless zombie held in your thrall, or whatever it is they seem to be implying over there.::

He was, of course, correct. Duo considered the pros and cons of the situation, then waited for a lull in the debate before clearing his throat to get their attention. "Hello? Trowa and I are still here, you know."

Quatre, at least, had the courtesy to look a wee bit shamefaced. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"Now. As you say, my footprints are all over him. That's because I gave him what he wanted."

"Explain," Wufei requested curtly.

Duo gave him a patient look that said, 'well, I was just about to, so why don't you let me finish?' Wufei's eyes narrowed in bare acknowledgement of the reproof, but that was all. "You know Shinma don't prey on happy, content people." It was more of a cheap shot at Wufei, a reminder that he, too, had been one of the discontent that a Shinma had found a home in for a while, than it was an explanation, but it seemed to pass right over the boy's head. Oh, how to phrase the rest of it so he didn't equate himself with one of those Shinma predators? "At the time, we both thought that he might be a happier person if he could put the past behind him and move on, so I helped him do that."

"So you what, blocked out the memories?" Wufei guessed haphazardly. "That doesn't explain anything."

"At the time?" Meiran asked with a false brightness, inelegantly blocking Wufei's line of questioning.

Duo smiled very briefly. "At the time. I've since decided that there are better ways of moving on, and I don't do that sort of thing anymore."

"Well, give them back!" Wufei said. "Whatever you did to him, undo it."

Duo raised an eyebrow at him, but it was Quatre who responded. "That's not your call to make, Wufei."

::Thank you!:: Duo thought. ::Like I don't have enough problems already.::

They all looked expectantly at Trowa for an answer. He looked calmly back at all of them. "I am who I am," he remarked mildly. They waited a little longer for him to say something more, but that was it.

"Great!" Duo smiled brightly. "Now that that's been decided, why don't we take a look at that sword of yours, Wufei?"

TBC...

 

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