Kyuuketsuki Duo: The TV Series Episode 25
Off Flipside
Heero scowled at the thick curtains masking their front window. He didn't need to be able to see through them to know that the boy was still out there, half hidden by the tree across the street. The boy had been out there for about an hour now, and Heero could sense him still, waiting quietly and passively. With a certain resignation, Heero flicked aside the fabric, just enough to see through and not enough for anyone outside to detect any motion, and reconfirmed the boy's presense with a visual. Unfortunately, the boy had not disappeared, despite Heero's attempt to will it to be so. With one last scowl at the innocent curtains, he sent a thought to the upstairs bedroom with a gentle, loving touch that belied his expression. ::Duo?::
::Heero?:: Duo mumbled groggily in his thoughts in response to the soft nudging from his partner. It was the afternoon, and Duo hadn't been feeling well all day. He finally had to admit he wasn't up to school and had stayed home to rest. The fact that he hadn't been able to get out of bed that morning may have been a sticking point. He may have made the situation just a little worse by trying to work last night, but after only half an hour, he had decided that the humans could survive unmonitored by him for just a few days longer.
::Feeling any better, love?:: Heero himself swiftly followed the inquiry. He materialized silently inside the room and settled himself beside his dozing partner.
"Sorta. Not feeling so queasy anymore, but not too steady, either." He tried to lever himself up with one hand from his reclined position, but Heero had to assist him when he swayed. Duo smiled weakly at him. "What's up?"
Duo looked curiously at him when he uncharacteristically hesitated to answer. Nevertheless, Heero took his time, thought about dancing around the issue, and then decided to take the more direct approach. "Trowa's here."
The woozy guardian blinked. "Here? As in, here?"
"Outside. He's been lurking across the street for a while now."
"Well, why didn't you invite him in?" Heero only needed to give him a steady look in response. "Oh. Right. Well, do you know what he wants?" Another look. "Of course. Ummm, well, you think it's important?"
"He has been waiting rather patiently for some time."
"Yeah, I guess," Duo murmured, restraining himself from extending his senses out to the boy before giving himself a headache. Use of the gift right then was strongly recommended against.
Heero looked concernedly at him. "Want me to get rid of him?"
"Oh! God, Heero, you make that sound so... permanent. No, umm, lemme think... Well, if it was important enough for him to come all the way out here, and wait around for so long... at least he didn't come right up to the door and knock. So we know it's not an emergency or anything. But, you know, it's Trowa. He's not going to be out there because he wants to talk about the weather or something. I haven't really been keeping in touch lately. Maybe something's happened."
"Want me to... go see what he wants?" The hesitance this time was from the fact that Heero still disliked human contact. It would be different if Duo weren't there with him, but Duo wasn't up to going out there to meet him himself. He was relieved when Duo turned the offer down.
"No, that won't be necessary." Duo chewed on the inside of his lip for a second or two as he closed his eyes and pondered his internal state. He sighed. "I guess I can talk to him."
Heero's hand on his shoulder squeezed almost imperceptibly. That was as much as he would allow to ask if Duo was sure about that. He didn't like second-guessing his partner, but, well, he had to admit that even he needed reassurance sometimes.
Duo brought his hand up to cover his lover's, but he missed the first time and slapped himself on the upper arm, surprised that there wasn't quite enough oomph behind the gesture to make it up that far. He made it on the second try, and hoped Heero didn't notice those last few inches his fingers had to crawl to make it there. "I can do this. I can at least talk to him. You're going to have to--" He paused, then forced himself to say the distasteful words. "--bring him here. To the house. God, someone else in this house. My house. Our house. A visitor. Here." He stopped himself from rambling any further. As sacred and private as his home was to him, there seemed to be no alternative.
"I can bring him to the backyard," Heero suggested.
Duo shook his head automatically, having forgotten for a moment about the inevitable vertigo that would accompany the movement. He spoke through the spinning of the room. "Sunlight. Bad."
"I can--" Heero blinked, slightly startled that the idea of blotting out the sun for him occurred to him. It wouldn't work quite as easily as the curtains blocking out the light from the bedroom, though. "I can bring you downstairs to meet him just inside the door."
"Living room's fine," Duo answered with another tired smile. "He'd be able to see it anyway. I mean, at least it's Trowa. We can be pretty sure he's not going to go poking his nose in the linen closets or telling all to the tabloids or something."
Heero nodded briskly, just once, and he slid his hand out from under Duo's to pull back the blankets and prepare to lift his partner. Duo stopped him. "No. Not yet. I think I need a minute or two to make myself presentable. Why don't you go get him first?"
He withdrew his hands for only a moment before raising them again to smooth back Duo's loosely braided hair. He then slid his hands down to cup Duo's face, his thumbs delicately caressing the light bags beneath his partner's eyes that he was unaccustomed to seeing, before swooping down swiftly to plant a kiss upon his brow and departing.
The rather softened ex-Shinma hunter strode out of the room on his own two feet and travelled down the stairs and to the front window again, pulling his dark robe out of the shadows as he went. He frowned slightly, noting that the boy wasn't visible anymore. A subtle probing thought located the boy on the other side of the tree. The question of why was answered shortly when a car came down the road in front of the house. Heero watched as Trowa carefully stayed hidden from the car's sight at all times by slowly moving around behind the tree.
He snorted softly to himself. While he appreciated the boy's respect for their privacy and property, he still didn't appreciate his intrusion upon it. He rather hoped that the boy might finally be ready to leave, but alas, it was not to be, so he waited for the car to disappear from sight entirely before whipping his mask out, putting it on, and blinking out of existence, only to reappear shortly beside the boy. There was a brief flash of irritation when the boy evidenced no surprise or fright, but he quickly dismissed it and did his job. A silent understanding was reached between the two of them when Trowa nodded his head, and in response, Heero transported them both into the garden in the backyard. Even though he could sense no one else in the area, he still didn't want to walk him in the front door. As far as he could remember, the front door had never once been opened since their moving in.
Eyes roving naturally over his surroundings, Trowa waited patiently as Heero wordlessly led the way through the back glass door and into the living room. The green-eyed boy regarded the interior of the home without showing any overt interest, yet he absorbed every detail. The furnishings were modest, if outdated. Despite the old look, however, everything looked as if it were kept in top condition.
A noise at the top of the staircase caught both of their gazes. Duo was making his way down the stairs on his own. His worried partner drifted a half step in his direction before the guardian shook his head slightly, disguising it as a casual toss to get his bangs out of his eyes. Painting what he hoped was a smile bright enough to draw attention away from the nearly white-knuckled grip he had on the banister, he greeted his guest. "Trowa. What brings you here to our humble abode?"
Trowa maintained his silence as he finished his descent. Heero, bending Duo's request to placate his own concerns, left the human behind and glided casually to the bottom of the stairs to await his partner's arrival before taking up a tacitly supportive position behind him. There, he could hide a helpful hand placed steadyingly on the small of Duo's back and guide him in walking a straight line.
Duo made sure there was a smile in his thoughts for his backup as he settled himself into an armchair, taking it slowly to avoid the impression of collapsing into it, and simultaneously gesturing for Trowa to take his own seat in the sofa behind him. It could have been read as dignity and courtesy. "Well?" he prompted the boy now sitting on the edge of the seat cushion. They both managed somehow to appear both relaxed and at attention at the same time.
Despite the reminder of the question, it remained unanswered for some time. "Something's... off."
Duo quirked up an eyebrow. He had a feeling the boy would be harder to crack than Heero was. Luckily, he had had lots of practice. And besides, he couldn't complain. He was the one who had made him this way. Maybe. There was no telling how the boy might have turned out without his interference so many years ago. From what he had seen of the boy before biting him, he did seem rather shy and quiet.
"About what?" Duo asked. He received no answer. "Is it the guys? And girl. I know I haven't been around lately to keep track of things. I apologize for that."
A slight nod of Trowa's head was the response.
Okay. Then the field of inquiry was narrowed down to exclude randomly occurring events. So who would be causing trouble? "Quatre?" he hazarded.
Another small nod.
"He hasn't tracked down another Shinma, has he?"
A short pause before a shake of a head.
"But he's run into trouble with something, someone?"
A longer pause. "Maybe."
Finally, a verbal response, if an unenlightening one. "What's wrong?"
A longer pause yet. "I don't know."
Duo ignored the mental snort that came from Heero's direction. "So what prompted you to come out here today?"
"...I don't know."
Heero didn't bother articulating another mental snort. It was understood enough that this was the appropriate time for one. Manfully not rolling his eyes, Duo continued his line of questioning. "How long have you... felt this way?"
"A few days, now."
"Just a feeling?"
A nod.
"Because...?" Duo didn't doubt his feeling. He still thought it a good practice to assume that Trowa was pretty sharp about damn near everything that happened around him. Most people thought he was slow because of his habit of not saying anything when he didn't have to, but it was quite the opposite. He wouldn't be surprised to hear that Trowa had even noticed how indisposed he was, despite his best efforts to hide it. The boy had also been touched by the guardian's power; he was probably a little more attuned to things than others were.
"Quatre's seemed... troubled lately." Each word was dragged out of him as if he gave each one careful consideration.
"Something happen lately that you know about?" It was interesting that despite this inefficient information extraction process, or perhaps because of, Duo was feeling a little more clear-headed than he had been before. Perhaps because there was structure here. Goal-oriented activity was always good for the ol' noggin.
"Quatre... met someone."
Duo smirked a little. "A girl?" he asked jokingly. He was rather startled when Trowa nodded in response. "...Oh. Uh, something funny about her?" he recovered poorly. This wasn't some sort of jealousy thing. It couldn't be. Trowa wasn't the type.
"She's a spiritualist."
Duo blinked. His first thought was, why didn't he say so before? "Well, that's great!" He took another look at Trowa's stone-faced expression. "...Or not."
A second and third thought were added to the first. A spiritualist? Since when was there a spiritualist in the area? He supposed he wouldn't have noticed, given his recent condition, but her arrival also had to have been a recent thing. She definitely hadn't always been around. So what was the problem? "Is she trained?"
A nod.
Duo hadn't been around lately. When he had checked in on them, Quatre had assured him that not having time for lessons was perfectly okay, that he was practicing on his own. "Is she training him?"
Another nod.
Well, normally he'd say that that was a very good thing, if not for the fact that Trowa was sitting in his living room discussing it, in his own fashion. "Quatre's... troubled, you say?" he mused aloud. Could she have been teaching him something odd? Perhaps just in a style that he was unused to? After all, Quatre had only been receiving rather sketchy lessons from two people that were making it all up and adapting as they went along. Duo stopped himself short of trying to take a peek at Quatre's impressions upon the ether. That would not have been a good idea. He almost asked Heero to do it for him, but that would have done no good either. Heero didn't have a direct line to him as Duo did. He would have had to go through Duo on his way to Quatre, and that would not have been a good idea either. Back to the old fashioned way, then. "Troubled... as in, mentally, then? In his head, and not anything off with his power, right?"
Confirmation.
Quatre worried too much. He really did. That didn't mean that this was nothing, though. There could very well be something here that Quatre had legitimate cause to be troubled over. Truth be told, Duo was getting worried, too. He didn't really like the idea of leaving Quatre in the hands of some stranger, despite her spiritualist credential. How did he know that she was really a spiritualist, after all? Then again, how could he know? It wasn't as if there were some test she would have passed. But did it really matter, so long as Quatre learned from her? What could she really be doing that would be so troublesome, anyway? She was only a spiritualist, after all. Couldn't very well use that power to take over the world. But then again, maybe the difficulty didn't lie with her use of the power. Maybe she was kicking little puppies, or stealing candy from babies, or molesting young boys -- or gods, Quatre, even!
Duo blinked and shook his head slightly, derailing his own thoughts. He admitted it: sometimes he worried too much, too. But that didn't mean this was nothing, and that was the most thought he gave that before pushing himself forward and getting himself out of the loop he had been about to damn himself to. It wouldn't have been fatal; no doubt, Heero would have whapped him upside the head a good one if he had gone much farther. It was probably only out of consideration for his condition that he hadn't already.
"Obviously, you think it's serious," he continued to think aloud. He considered asking Heero what he thought, but Heero would probably have just deferred to his judgment since he knew the situation better. "He's in over his head, maybe. What do you want me to do about it?"
Trowa cocked his head at him. "What can you do about it?"
The emphasis troubled him. "What do you mean by that?"
"You're off, too."
Damn. He did notice. Duo thought that was a little unfair that the boy could remain shielded and hidden as always when his own shielding had became rather erratic and unreliable of late.
He shrugged nonchalantly. "Yeah," he admitted, trusting Trowa not to do anything not nice with the information. "Been feeling a little under the weather lately."
Trowa looked skeptically at him as if to say, 'only a little?'
Duo just looked right back at him.
He shrugged. "Thought you'd want to know."
It was Duo's turn to glance skeptically at him. As if he didn't care one way or another about the outcome. Indeed! Trowa came because he was troubled as well, or as troubled as he might get. He just didn't feel he was the best person to deal with the matter. He was probably right. "I'll look into it."
TBC...
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