Title: Tainted Conviction - Part Six

Author: Sita Seraph

Genre: Angst, Religious relatings

Pairing: 1x2 eventually.

Rated: R

Warning: Gruesome treatment, stigmata, sixth sense, and a whole lot of shit.

 

 

Heero stirred from his dreamless sleep, mumbling into the pillow on top of his single bed.  His hair was a mess from tossing and turning all night.  He couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t fall asleep, especially since he was exhausted from the But Duo’s face, before the Shinigami pilot passed out, stayed with Heero, burning into his skull like a burning hot poker stick. The way the sense of relief, of having been found, had washed over the happy pilot’s face kept slapping Heero awake.  And his wrists were the worst.  The ability to see right through muscle, skin, and bone was beyond sickening - even for Heero.  He was able to handle broken and disjointed bones.  He was prepared for bullet wounds and knife cuts.  But he was not at all set for holes that went through the other side.

Heero had forced the twisting of his gut to stop long enough to clean and bandage Duo’s wounds before he set him to bed.  Afterwards, he and the rest of the Gundam pilots had searched the house, top to bottom, to find any drugs, weapons, or anything else that could have caused Duo’s first episode, the puking of the blood, and now this.

They came up with nothing.

Duo still had not woken when they went to bed.  After tearing the house apart and back together again, the ex-pilots each found themselves growing weary and body parts achy from the stress forced upon their young shoulders.  But before going to bed, Quatre had set up a short meeting.

“He would be dead by now,” Quatre said softly, the first thing he said as they assembled in the living room downstairs.  Wufei stiffened in the loveseat he was sitting in, arms crossed so tightly around his chest that he looked more uncomfortable than usual.  Trowa was sipping on a cup of black coffee from his green mug, lying back against the couch.  Quatre was standing up by the coffee table, across from Heero who sat on the floor with a knee drawn up to drape his arm over.

“He should have been dead a long time ago,” Trowa pointed out and his emerald eyes grew to the stairs.  They all knew what he meant.  The bathroom scene.

“And what about his motorcycle?” Wufei included, drawing himself into the short conversation.

“Its obvious that Duo has a lot to say to us,” Quatre said quietly, his right hand twisting the side of his pant leg with shaky fingers.  “We need to get some answers.”

“What if he doesn’t know them?” Trowa asked.

“Of course, he’ll know the answers,” Wufei cut in, his voice straining to keep the sarcasm out of his tone.  “Whatever he is doing, he’s doing to himself.  He needs help.”

“We found nothing to prove it was him, Wufei,” Quatre said.  “For all we know…”

They waited for Quatre to continue and he twisted his pants a bit more, shifting from one foot to the next and eyes drawn the floor.

“I don’t know,” Quatre continued.  “For all we know, maybe somebody came in here and did it to him.  Or perhaps it’s some new virus.”

It all seemed like logical answers.  A virus that made you puke up gallons of your blood.  A virus that in one-hour, ate away your wrists to make one clean, nice, circular gap on each arm.  Or it could have been an assassin that drove beautifully carved stake into a Gundam pilot’s wrists and drugs that made Duo throw up half his body fluids.

Uh huh.  Yeah.  Right.

Silence fell upon the prodding pilots heavily.  It was like the stress that had been thrown on their shoulders when a pilot, one of them, was ill and dying upstairs.  And the circumstances were so odd, so strange, that none of the soldiers could come up with an answer.  They knew a doctor would not know as well.

“We’ll have to wait for Duo to wake up and tell us,” Heero said, breaking the silence like a steel hammer on glass.

“What if he dies?” Quatre asked, looking down at him with his hands clasped in front of him.

“He won’t,” Heero said.  “He won’t.”

Heero didn’t know why he was so sure that Duo would not die.  Maybe it was because that even in war, with all likely chances that the Shinigami pilot would not survive, he left the battlefield with a crazed smile on his face.  Or maybe it had been the last few days, in which for all logic, he should be dead and buried in the cold ground.  Or maybe it was because he just knew.

Ah, hell, Heero thought as he blinked out of his daze. 

Heero kicked off the sheets roughly and they fluttered over the end of the bed.  Sitting up, hair a mess, Heero wiped his sleepy eyes and gave a very heavy sigh.  He was tired, he was cranky, and he was thirsty.  And most of all, Duo Maxwell was trying to kill himself in the other room.  Just great.  Heero sometimes really hated his life.

Swinging his legs over the side of his bed, his feet touched the ground.  It took a second but then reality kicked in and Heero immediately jerked them back off the ground.  The floorboards were freezing cold.  Reaching over blindly in the dark, Heero turned on his bedside lamp.  Light flooded the room and the shadows rolled back into their respective corners.  Heero stared at the floor, long and hard, as white wisps escaped from between the gaps of the wooden boards.  The air from the floor was freezing. Reaching, Heero’s fingertips lightly touched the ground.  He jerked his fingers back, startled as suddenly the air current from the floorboards shifted and changed quickly.  The cold mist was sucked back into the boards like a vacuum cleaner.  Heero stared, amazed at the boards, completely taken aback and terribly confused.  Gingerly, Heero lifted one foot out and lowered it slowly to the floor.

The frost and cold was gone.

And that’s when he heard it.

Heero whipped his head towards his door as he heard the water of a shower running.  Before Heero comprehended his racing thoughts, he leapt out of bed, across the floor and out of his room.  Stopping short with a jerk, Heero watched the light flooding into the hall by the open doorway to the bathroom.  It was the only source of light in the hall. It seemed creepy, the light and the pounding of water hitting the shower walls.  Escaping from the bathroom was a second white mist and Heero immediately thought about his room and the frosted floorboards that once surrounded his bed. The Wing pilot shuddered gently, almost afraid to go near the haunted bathroom.  He was afraid of what he might see.  Afraid that he might see Duo.  But since he heard no Duo, no sound at all besides water falling, Heero took small steps forward. He held his breath.  And then he peered into the bathroom, stepping into the single shed of light and strained to see through the heavy, very hot mist of the bathroom.

“Oh…My God…” Heero whispered, eyes growing wide.  Yet again, his training of a Gundam pilot was for naught for he was not prepared for the next sight before him.  Heero took a step back, a hand flying up to cover his nose as the stench of death, of burnt and still burning flesh attacked him full force.  His eyes met ruby red so dark, and skin so burnt that it looked like the skin was melting off of him.  His ribs appeared through the thin covering of scarlet tissue, his stomach caving in.  Blank, violet hued eyes stared out at him, hollow and void.  No one was home.  Dead eyes.

Duo was dead.

Heero rushed forward with a speed of a tiger, whipping through the mist and slammed the water off.  The pounding of water ceased but the stench of fried tissue stayed around him like the hovering mist.  Heero stared down at Duo’s blank face.  Blank eyes.  Heero stared at the burnt fresh that was just melting off his skin like wax. He gawked at the hair that was the only thing unharmed by the killing water.

“D-Duo…” Heero’s voice trembled, he couldn’t help it.  He started reaching out, eyes getting hazy, but changed his mind hastily.  He couldn’t touch him.  Not that burnt flesh.  He didn’t want to remember red and scorched skin.  He wanted to remember milky white and smooth skin.  Heero turned away quickly.  He gripped the counter for support, knuckles growing white and closed his eyes tightly.  Duo…was dead.  He was wrong.  Duo killed himself.  He scorched his own body.  Duo was dead. Dead. Dead.

One word.

Dead.

So powerful.

Dead.

Heero wanted to scream and cry at the same time.