Fire Mated Part 9
The house loomed above them like some great stone giant. Painted white, its pillars still standing around the door and the lawn still as neatly kept as before. The large fence around it, even the windows were clean, washed to a near glimmer in the fading sunlight of the afternoon. Yet, the side of the house stood out in stark contrast.
While the swimming pool and the kitchen faced the back yard the damage was still visible from the front lawn. In fact, it looked like a part of the magnificent giant had just rotted and fallen away, rejected by the rest of the body. Around that area some of the paint was darkened and wooden support planks were splintered, looking like sickly brown bones protruding from an injured person's side.
Duo stopped himself and took a deep breath. Ok, rule number one; stop comparing the house to a dead person. He expelled the breath and let his eyes open once more, scanning over the remains of the house. It was so strange, aside from that one corner nothing else looked different. It was still Mariemeia's house... still the picture perfect painting... but in that corner someone had accidentally smeared the paint, combining colors into deep browns, burnt oranges and charred blacks. He shook off that comparison as well and instead set his mind on following Quatre.
Duo had spent most of the day in Quatre's bed, catching up on his sleep and wondering about the strange boy from his dreams. He knew the problem with Mariemeia was more pressing but thoughts of the boy offered him mental support through his stress, and that was something he desperately needed lately. So the day had been wasted rolling over in the sheets, small naps of sleep, and deep pondering on beautiful dark blue eyes and messy brown hair. How strange that a figment of his imagination could have so many minute details.
After he'd figured he'd caught up on enough sleep he'd gotten up and headed back to the hospital. There he'd found Quatre sitting on the bench in front of Mariemeia's room. Quatre had taken Trowa's post, accepting a term of watch while Trowa also tried to sleep. And now? Now it was hours later and the sun was just starting to set on the horizon. Trowa was back on the bench by Mariemeia's room, textbook in hand so he could make up for the day of school he had missed and would miss. Meanwhile Duo and Quatre were standing in front of Mariemeia's house, ready to comb the ruins and attempt to find... something.
He followed Quatre's careful and quiet steps around the house, his aquamarine eyes scanning over everything and not seeming to miss a thing. Duo tried to help too, but he found himself watching Quatre with curiosity.
Quatre really was serious about finding out what happened to Mariemeia. He found the blonde's devotion a little strange, especially considering he'd only been in this town for what? Less then a week. Why this fierce loyalty so soon? If Duo didn't know better he might have said there was guilt in there somewhere... that somehow Quatre felt responsible for what had happened. But no, that wasn't right.
If anyone was responsible it was him, taking that walk and not paying attention to where he'd walked-
No, he cut himself off. Don't think like that, it's absurd.
Walking past Quatre, and dismissing most of his jumbled thoughts, he crossed the lawn and walked into the backyard. Once again comparisons came to his mind as he looked over the ruins. Was this what it looked like when someone's appendix burst?
Furniture, utensils, scraps of wood, remnants of burnt wall paper... it all lay scattered about the lawn, floated in the pool and found itself wedged in the trunks of nearby trees. A small section of the wall which had once surrounded the doorway to the kitchen now leaned out precariously, ready to fall at any moment. Ashes lay everywhere, most things were only partially burned thanks to the quickness of local firemen, but there was still a huge amount of damage. Glass lay shattered across the lawn, looking like some kind of macabre snowfall. Duo shook off the chill sliding over his body.
Mariemeia was really lucky to have survived.
"What kind of person would do this?" He heard himself mutter softly, his voice sounding oddly detached and calm.
"Certainly not you," Quatre responded, kneeling down and picking up a broken piece of glass. He turned it over in his hand, then set it back down. Standing back up he walked toward the hole blown in the side of the house, his feet crunching the glass underneath.
"Yeah, I know that." Duo felt stupid. He felt stupid for even thinking he could have done this. He knew he couldn't do something like this, ever! No matter how much he hated or loathed a person he would never even consider something like this. Not on the person he hated the most, and he loved Mariemeia like a sister! Albeit a very annoying sister at times, but still!
Duo watched Quatre frown.
"Shouldn't there be... police lines around here or something? I mean isn't this a crime scene?"
Quatre shook his head. "I'm betting they passed it off as an accident. And as for Mari's mentioning she saw someone strike a match, well they could easily chalk that up to shock and hallucination." His eyes narrowed for a second at a private thought, then he seemed to shake it off and shake his head. "I can understand why they passed it off as an accident... there's nothing here. Nothing to say there was anyone here... the only sign of Mariemeia is the blood stained glass near the pool."
"Certainly no jacket," Duo murmured softly.
Quatre looked up at him in surprise, then his expression turned to a small understanding smile. "No, no wet jacket."
Duo sighed, relief washing over his body.
Quatre walked over and placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it slightly in support. "Come on, there's nothing here we're going to be able to find at the moment. Let's head over to Hilde's."
Mariemeia hadn't said anything to them but they figured they should pass the news onto Hilde about what had happened. The new girl was probably in near hysterics, worrying more then an old lady. Least she probably was if she was anything like Mariemeia. Duo smirked quietly at the thought of Hilde and Mariemeia running up and down the walls whenever they weren't the first to know about things.
He nodded and then he and Quatre headed for Hilde's house.
This house was a world of difference from Mariemeia's. It was simple, small and well cared for. The lawn was as well kept as any rich and expensive house that could afford lawn service, but it was more impressive since Duo guessed by the size of the house that they couldn't afford lawn services, and that this was all hand done. The house itself was a split-level, painted in a light off-white tone, almost pinkish, yet not in excess. An expertly kept garden sat off to the side in the lawn, holding within it a wide range of colors. Absolutely beautiful and artistic in its style.
Beside Duo he heard Quatre choke in a gasp of air, the blond freezing in his step with his eyes wide and almost... scared looking.
"Quatre?"
Quatre didn't seem to notice Duo's voice, instead his hand shook just slightly as it reached inside his pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. Slowly he unfolded it and glanced down at the picture. Duo noticed it was a pencil sketch of the exact garden, done in perfect detail save for a small difference in the time of blooming.
"Wow! That looks almost like a photo it's so exact. Quatre, are you all right? You look as if you've just seen a ghost."
The blond shook his head. "It-it's nothing." Quickly he folded the sketch back up and stuffed it in his pocket. Taking a deep breath he regained his composure. "Just didn't expect to find the garden here. Whose house is this?"
"Umm... it belongs to an older woman, her husband passed away a long time ago. She's got some strange, long first name. Lucrezia I think is how you say it." Duo said with a shrug.
Quatre nodded. "Sally, the woman I'm living with, has mentioned her a few times." His lips curved in a small smile. "She told me that Lu lost all her copies of the books written by Heero Yuy, aside from the one she let me read."
Duo laughed. "Yeah, that sounds like her, she's forever misplacing stuff. I swear her house eats junk... you know, the same way some people claim their dryers eat socks?"
The two laughed and Quatre walked up to the door, hitting the doorbell. Beyond the door there were sounds of someone moving about the house. A couple of heavy footsteps down the stairs and the door opened to reveal an older woman. She had short dark hair, cut in a fashion that was fashionable for young ladies but generally didn't fit older women, however it still managed to look good on her. Darker eyes looked at the two boys in question through reading glasses and then she smiled.
"You must be Hilde's friends."
Quatre nodded and took a step forward. "Yes, is she home? We need to speak with her."
The older woman, Lucrezia, shook her head. "I'm afraid not. She left a couple hours back, saying she had to go visit a friend. Terrible thing I hear, her friend is in the hospital? I hope she's doing well."
"That's what we came to tell her about," Duo replied. "But I guess Mariemeia beat us to it."
The woman nodded. "Yes, would you two like to come in and wait for her? She assured me she would be back soon. You could join us for dinner if you like, it shouldn't be hard for me to find something to whip up."
Quatre and Duo both smirked at the joke, though they didn't know if it was intentional. Lucrezia find something? "No, thank you for the invitation though," answered Quatre for both of them. "We should be heading home here anyway, it's getting late."
"All right then, safe trip home both of you."
She flashed a smile in their direction and started to close the door when Quatre turned, as if remembering something and frowned lightly. "Just a question... whose garden is that?" He pointed to the garden that had caused him to freeze earlier.
"Oh, that's Hilde's. She's quite a gardener; it was the first thing she asked me when she moved in, if she could plant herself a little garden. Frankly I'm very pleased I agreed to it, this old lawn has needed some color for a while now, but goodness knows I have no remnants of a green thumb."
"It is a beauty," Quatre agreed. "Oh well, we best be heading off. Good bye." This time he and Duo retreated down the walk and the door closed behind them, though Lucrezia stayed at the window watching until they were well out of sight, like any good grandmother would.
About a few blocks later, after walking in contemplative silence Duo yawned and stretched his arms toward the sky, a nervous grin on his face.
Quatre laughed. "Yes you can spend the night at my house."
Duo's eyes went wide and he stopped walking. "How did you do that?! How in the world did you know what I was going to ask?"
Quatre turned a small smirk at Duo. "Simple, I've lived with many older and younger sisters. Non-verbal signs aren't lost on me easily. Not to mention that you're going through a lot of stress lately, most of which is related to your home or family. A change of scenery might actually help."
Duo gave a mock defeated look. "Yeah, you've got it right on most points there. I figured Trowa would understand if I didn't come home tonight, he'll probably stay at the hospital all night anyway. That is, of course, as long as I'm not intruding or anything." He added quickly.
"Not at all, I'm sure Sally won't mind at all."
The two dropped back into silence for a while, moving down the street at a calming pace. Duo's eyes wandered over the streets and the houses as inside lights flipped on and streetlights decided to stop sleeping. He hated the silence; it always made his mind wander. Like to the dream... to the boy. The boy who burned every night. He shuddered slightly at the thought. Desperately he searched for something else to concentrate on when he remembered something.
"Quatre, what was it with you and that garden? Why were you so interested in it?"
Quatre frowned and his hand unconsciously drifted to his pocket where the sketch was. "My uncle sent me the sketch. I was just surprised that it matched so perfectly, I thought it was just a pretty picture. He does strange things like that... send me sketches and things occasionally to get my reaction." He shrugged. "I swear one of these times he going to cause me to have a heart attack."
"He's the same one who called earlier?"
Quatre nodded. "Yeah, before I moved here I used to live with him. Well, technically I lived with my family but I spent all the time I could over at his house. Numerous sisters can get really annoying, especially when it's a rich family and you also have to deal with servants and all that stuff. And the house was always too big... too full. I prefer quiet most times."
Duo was going to bring up that none of that explained why Quatre had been carrying the sketch around in his pocket, or why there were numerous scribblings on the back of the sketch in pen but he decided not to. Instead he let the subject drop, it really wasn't any of his business to poke into Quatre's home life or his family unless Quatre wanted to tell him. Besides, the two had just met recently, badgering into a new friend's life wasn't the wisest of choices.
They reached Sally's house not too long after that and then things dropped into a semi normal pattern. The nice old woman treated them to a large dinner, and Duo ate enough that by the time the dinner was over he was ready to fall asleep right at the table. Quatre helped clean off the table then they headed up to Quatre's room, ready for a very long sleep.
"Take the bed," Quatre said, pulling his sleeping clothes out of the dresser.
"Huh?"
"I said, you can have the bed. I'll sleep on the floor tonight."
Duo shook his head. "Quatre, it's your bed and-"
Quatre turned and cut him off. "And of the two of us you need sleep the most. I'm sleeping on the floor, you can sleep on the floor if you want, but it would be a shame to when the bed is open."
Duo laughed. "Have you ever though of joining the debate team? You're a master at convincing people to see things your way."
Quatre just laughed and headed for the bathroom to change clothes.
The two settled down to sleep after very few talks and both closed their eyes. Duo turned over in the bed, snuggling into the pillow and smiled softly. Despite his protests he was happy Quatre had made him take the bed, he didn't think he would have slept well on the floor. As it was, in the bed, he drifted off to sleep in seconds.
~*~
The taxi pulled up in front of the house and the man stepped out. He handed a pile of bills to the driver and then walked around to take his own suitcase out of the trunk. Setting it on the sidewalk, he didn't even blink as the taxi drove off, away to its next paying customer. Whistling a light tune he picked up his suitcase and walked up to the door, ringing the doorbell once.
It never occurred to him that the sun had long since set in the sky. It never occurred to him that most decent people were asleep at this hour. It never occurred to him that he would be better off finding a hotel or a place to stay for the night and paying a visit in the morning. None of these things really occurred to him, because he just patiently waited for someone to come to the door. Or perhaps they did occur to him, and he just didn't care. Because he knew at least one person in the house who was expecting him.
Minutes passed and no one answered the door. Behind him a few scattered cars drove down the street, but otherwise it was quiet and empty, the type of silence you could only find in the early mornings. It was the silence and peacefulness he loved, which might explain why he'd gained this strange habit of sleeping for half the day and staying up until the ungodly hours of the morning. His sleeping patterns were more obnoxious and random then a college student.
When he'd rung the doorbell a third time and the house hadn't even stirred he began to worry. He always got an answer by the third ring, always. Frowning he took a step back and scanned the outside of the house, which is when he noticed a few very disturbing things. The most important of which was the wire for the doorbell, which traveled down the doorframe and disappeared under the house. Near the sidewalk level it was broken, cut. How odd.
Reaching for the doorknob he tried it softly, and wasn't at all surprised to find it locked securely. That was nothing strange. But the windows beside the door bugged him. On closer inspection he found his fears were justified. What crazy nut would nail their own windows shut? Not to mention that he was starting to detect the faint smell of smoke.
That decided it, damn the consequences. Picking up his suitcase he slammed it against the smaller window in the door, shattering the glass loudly. Using his sleeve he cleared away the jagged glass and reached down, snapping open the dead bolt, after nearly pulling a muscle in his arm to reach it. Opening the door he stepped into the living room and the smell of smoke was stronger, a thick and sharp smell. He quickly followed it to the source.
The source happened to be the living room of the house and an old fireplace. A small flame was burning there quietly but the smoke wasn't retreating up the fireplace like it should be, instead it was staying in the room. Sitting in an old rocking chair, not far from the fireplace was an old woman, most definitely asleep. The smoke hadn't woken her!
Without much time for thinking Treize raced to the woman and picked her up, taking her quickly outside the house. She seemed to sleep well through all the movements, forcing him to leave her lying on the grass where he hoped she wouldn't have a heart attack when she woke up to the unfamiliar surroundings.
Racing back in the house he located a phone and picked it up... the line was dead.
"Quatre!"
He raced up the stairs.
"QUATRE!"
~*~
Quatre's eyes snapped open from the noise and he immediately noticed the smoke in the room, his throat dry and scratchy. He heard his name being called and he tried to answer, but ended up coughing painfully instead. Sitting up quickly he raced to the bed and grabbed Duo's shoulder, shaking him hard.
Duo woke up a second later and must have smelled the smoke as well, because his entire body froze, his eyes going wide. He didn't even cough; instead he just sat there in shock, his entire body starting to tremble.
"Duo? Duo! Come on, we have to get out of the house, right now! Move!"
The door burst open behind Quatre and his uncle raced into the room. "Quatre, come on!"
"He won't move!" Quatre responded with a cough.
Treize didn't waste any time and ran over to the bed, picking up Duo and nearly throwing the boy over his shoulder he raced out of the room. Quatre followed him, concentrating on getting to the door and covering his mouth with his sleeve, the smoke burning his eyes. They reached the front lawn, where Duo was set down, and Treize disappeared again, this time running to the neighbor's house, banging loudly on their door. He returned minutes later, along with the sounds of sirens down the street.
The next half-hour was a blur of people, questions and movements. Numerous people in uniforms asked Quatre questions while others ran into the house and broke open the windows, providing other ways for the smoke to escape the house. He resided himself to answering the questions with nods and shakes of his head and repeated his name and relation to Sally a few times to those who asked. Somewhere in the fury of questions and worried people he registered a few men carrying an old and burnt quilt out of the house. He recognized it as the one Sally had been working on earlier that week... come to think of it the quilt had disappeared a day ago and they hadn't been able to find it...
The police and firemen left the scene reluctantly. Sally was taken to the hospital in an ambulance and Quatre blinked to find himself sitting on the lawn, not too far from a very shaken Duo wrapped in a blanket, while Treize talked to a few of the police that had stayed. A moment later they left as well, apparently assured that the three were all right. A taxi arrived moments later and the three were in a car, headed toward the nearest hotel.
Once they reached the hotel room Quatre's mind seemed to have caught up with what was going on, or maybe he'd finally woken up enough to register things. Numbly he found his way to the hotel bed and sat down. Closing his eyes he took a few deep breaths.
"Are you all right?"
Quatre opened his eyes and found that Treize was talking to Duo, who was still huddled in the blanket, shivering like he was very cold. Duo had hidden his face and was murmuring something incoherent.
Quatre crawled across the bed and pushed his uncle away for a moment, sitting in front of Duo.
"Duo," he said softly.
The murmuring was coherent now, two words repeated over and over and over again. "...not again not again not again not again not again..." he just kept repeating them, lost in his own little world.
Quatre placed a hand on Duo's shoulder and got no reaction, the boy didn't seem to notice.
"He's in shock," Treize said quietly.
Quatre nodded. "I'm not sure what to do, I don't know how to handle this one." Frowning he looked at Duo with worried eyes. "His brother would know how to handle this but..."
"How old is his brother?" Treize asked.
"My age." Quatre blinked as he said the words, glancing to his uncle.
"And what do you do when one of your siblings is scared or worried?"
He got the hint. Leaning forward Quatre wrapped his arms around Duo, pulling him into a timid embrace. At first Duo didn't seem to notice and Quatre's mind began running through other things he did to calm down his sisters, but then he got a reaction. Duo slowly uncurled from himself and pulled himself closer to Quatre, wrapping his arms around Quatre's body. It was strange, like a moth flying toward a light. Duo's eyes were closed and he was still murmuring so he didn't seem to notice who it was that was hugging him. He didn't seem to care either, just pulled himself closer until he ended up curled tightly against Quatre, sitting in the boy's lap and trembling there. Slowly he stopped murmuring and the shock seemed to melt away until he was much more relaxed.
Duo opened his eyes and looked up at Quatre, and that's when the spell broke.
His eyes narrowed dangerously, almost in a look of anger and he jerked out of Quatre's arms. Jumping back he stumbled off the bed and to his feet until he was leaning against the wall not too far away. His eyes continued to glare at Quatre for a moment then he seemed to shake it off. Closing his eyes once more he covered his face with his hands and took a few shuddering breaths.
"Duo?" Quatre asked softly in question.
"I... I'm ok." Duo said softly. He took one more deep breath then pulled away his hands. His violet eyes shifted around the room and finally settled on Treize and Quatre in question. "Where... what happened?"
"Someone apparently tried to kill you."
TBC...
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