Title: Tainted Conviction - Part Seven

Author: Sita Seraph

Genre: Angst, Religious relatings

Pairing: 1x2 eventually.

Rated: R

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

 

I’m sorry but this isn’t an update.  It seems that I skipped a chapter when I was posting this.  Please go back to the chapter called Taste of Death (3).  There, you can read a new chapter but its in the best.  I’m so sorry for the inconvenience and if anyone was confused.

 

 

Heero stood in the doorway of Quatre’s room, watching the blonde boy sleep on peacefully, head nearly buried into the pillows that surrounded the head of his bed.  Thick sheets covered the ex-Sandrock pilot, making only his little head appear from the mass of warm coverings.  He breathed heavily into the pillows, a child-like innocence sketched across his face as he slumbered on his side.  He snorted suddenly, took a deep breath, and then grew still again, lips moving into the pillow as he dreamt of another place.

And Trowa slept beside him.

Trowa was lying on his back, head turned away from his friend and the covers reaching his waist.  No innocence shone on his face.  Just content, a blank content as his chest rose and fell, the loose buttoned up shirt moving with him.  A hand was stretched out by Trowa’s side on top of the covers right next to Quatre’s limp hand that had been tossed over his body in sleep. Trowa’s other hand rested on his abdomen, rising and falling on each breath.

Heero took a slow breath and stepped inside towards the sleeping counterparts.  Walking into the dark and silent room, Heero took a hesitant seat on Quatre’s side of the bed, the mattress falling lower with the extra weight.  One’s breathing immediately changed at the third presence in the room and Heero waited, watching.  Slowly, Trowa’s eyes slid open and turned his head towards the perfect pilot.  Blinking away sleep, Trowa raised an eyebrow, his eyes questioning Heero’s presence silently.  Heero slowly shook his head.

“I need your help with Duo,” Heero whispered.  Quatre slept on, mouth open now on the pillow and taking shallow breaths.  Trowa sat up a little, being careful not to wake the third pilot in the room.

“What's wrong?” Trowa asked quietly, even as he started to pull back the covers of the bed and stand up.  Heero didn’t answer him.  Instead, he sighed and rose from the mattress, walking out of the room quickly with a call over his shoulder.

“He’s in the bathroom.”

 

*****

 

Heero walked downstairs hastily, keeping his trained eyes away from the bathroom as he passed it, and walked across the puffy living room carpet to the kitchen.  He was going to call Sally Po, to tell her what happened to Duo, and to get some help with his…body.

Heero, after composing himself in the bathroom, had immediately cut off all emotions like a ribbon against scissors.  He didn’t feel, he didn’t even think about what he was doing.  It was like the war again, just doing as told and not thinking about it during or once it’s done.  He felt empty inside again; the feelings being wiped clean like a Word Document.  He didn’t want to feel right now, he couldn’t. He had to call Sally Po.  Then he could walk away to someplace where no one would find him, and let his feelings show.

But not yet.

Heero picked up the phone quietly from its hook and started dialing Sally Po.  The small beeps from the telephone were the only sound in the kitchen, besides the ticking of the overhead clock.  Heero slowly raised the phone to his ear, listening to the rings from the other end.  The clock suddenly dinged as it announced the hour of 3 o’clock in the morning.  The phone kept ringing.  The clock ticked on.

It was so quiet.

Heero looked up slowly as he heard someone walking downstairs.  Trowa appeared around the corner of the staircase, confusion all over his face, as he stared at the ground.  Heero didn’t expect that kind of expression.  Slowly, Trowa looked up and saw Heero in the doorway of the kitchen.  The ex-Heavyarms pilot moved towards him, dodging the chairs and furniture of the living room.  The flaps of his shirt brushed past his black sleep pants as he walked, making no sound on the carpet flooring.  Heero slowly drew away the ringing tone in his ear, eyebrow rising at his Gundam pilot.  Trowa was neither scared, nor sickened.  Trowa wasn’t even surprised or stumbling at the death of their counterpart pilot.  Trowa was though looking a little lost, confused, as he stared at Heero.  Maybe he was still in shock…

“Heero,” Trowa said.  “What's going on?”

“What do you mean?” Heero asked, the confusion on the edge of his voice.  Wasn’t Trowa sad?  Did he block all his emotions out as well?

“What do I mean?” Trowa returned.  “Is this some joke?”

A joke!? “What?”

“Heero,” Trowa started.  “Why is the bathroom all hot and steamy?  And where’s Duo?”

Heero couldn’t feel the phone in his fingers anymore.  He stared, shocked, at Trowa, who stayed absolutely neutral in all aspects.  Was he joking around?  How could he be so cold when Duo laid burnt and dead upstairs?  What did he mean ‘where’s Duo?’  Duo’s upstairs, rotting in the bathroom with his flesh reeking the air like putrid disease.  Duo has been dead for 15 minutes, maybe even more, and all he can say is ‘where’s Duo?’  Was he blind…?

…Or was Heero wrong?  Was Duo alive?  Did he crawl out of the bathroom, whimpering out his agony but not saying a bloody word, and go to his room?  Was Duo…alive?  Heero was finding it hard to breathe and Trowa’s expression changed to confusion.  His hand flew up to catch Heero but the perfect soldier moved back.  He was confused.  Was Duo alive or dead?

Duo alive.

Duo dead.

The world spun for a moment and Heero closed his eyes tightly.  He noticed, too late, that the phone in his hand was no longer ringing and Sally’s voice was screaming in the phone.  He noticed, too late, that the phone slipped from his grasp.

And caught by someone else’s hand.

Heero whirled around, eyes opened to look straight into piercing, blank violet eyes.  But not dead, beautiful orbs of purple.  Alive, unemotional balls of lilac.  Heero almost felt his chest cave in with disbelief.

Duo was alive.

Duo slowly took a step back, a black robe barely covering his nude body parts.  Casually, watching Heero with the most intense eyes that the perfect pilot caught himself watching, he clicked the phone off and Sally’s panicked ‘hello!?’ disappeared with a beep. 

“Duo, what are you doing?” Trowa’s voice broke through Heero’s shock and it was then that the perfect pilot noticed yet a second thing:

Duo was perfectly healthy.  His skin was no longer burnt, but back to the pale, milky white.  His shoulders were no longer black but smooth and round.  His nipples were restored to the pink hue.  His legs were long and strong looking again.  His flesh was intact, not melting off his bones.  He was Duo again.

Heero sucked in his breath suddenly when Duo leaned forward, his eyes never leaving the blue of the ex-Wing pilot.  Their bare chests touched lightly, the only intimate contact Heero had ever had before.  Duo’s arm lifted, as if to draw Heero closer.  Heero held his breath.

There was a soft click as the phone was returned to the base to charge.

Heero let out his breath quietly, shoving his dripping excitement away. Had he imagined it all?  Had Duo been in his room all along?  Had he slept walk to the bathroom and made it all hot and steamy?  There had to be some logical answer because Duo was right here, well and still breathing.  There wasn’t even a scratch on him.  Well, except the wounds that were on his wrists, red and bloody now, and begging for a changing.  He was perfectly all right.

Him and the ax he was holding.

Heero shook his head once and took a double take down at the ax Duo was holding tightly.  It was slightly swinging in the pilot’s grasp, making it look perfectly casual in his hand, while it caught the pale light as it swung back and forth.

“D-Duo…?”

“Excuse me, Heero,” Duo said, his tone completely casual.  Nothing was wrong.  Nope, not at all.  “But you’re in my way.”

“Duo, what are you doing?” Trowa asked, blocking the doorway now.  Duo’s eyes finally broke from staring at Heero’s confused face, and up at Trowa’s.  He smiled slightly.

“Nuttin’,” Duo said.  He was acting completely normal.  Acting like Duo.  But then why did his voice bring chills down Heero’s spine?

“Give me the ax, Duo,” Trowa ordered and slowly offered his hand. Duo’s eyes snapped to the offering hand then, after a moment’s pause, drew the sharp blade behind his robe.

“No,” Duo said softly.  “No, I don’t think so.”

“Duo…”

“Get out of my way, Trowa.”

Trowa blinked, taken aback by the now livid tone.  It was dripping with menace and in one second, Duo’s mask of neutrality shattered into that of impatience and anger.  The ax suddenly rose and was gripped by the second hand, violet eyes burning with aggression and narrowed into slits.  Trowa took a small step back and the ax rose higher.

“Move,” Duo seethed.  Trowa quickly stepped aside and Duo stalked past, ax lowering again to sway by his side.  As he passed the doorway, his tense body suddenly loosened up and he walked casually to the staircase, a soft whistle passing his lips.  The last thing the pilots saw was the beautiful ends of Duo’s loose hair as he climbed the steps.

“Quatre…” Trowa mumbled, eyes widening.

“Wufei,” Heero muttered.  Both of the ex-pilots bolted for the stairs.

 

*****

 

SLAM.

CRACK.

Heero ran to his room where the loud noises were coming from.  But it seemed his feet were heavy, too heavy in fact, and he was moving in slow motion.  He feared that Duo dragged Quatre or Wufei into his room and started to attack them…but no, that couldn’t be right.  Duo wouldn’t do that.  Ever.  Heero found it was getting hard to breathe as he neared his room with Trowa.  Like something was sucking his life away…He felt so weak all of a sudden…

What was wrong with him…?

Finally, Heero’s hand closed in on the frame of his door, out of breath, and peeked it.  He was all prepared to see Duo swinging to cut off Quatre’s head.  He was ready for blood to be splattered on the wall and small cries out pain escaping his friend’s lips…

But Duo surprised Heero again.  There was no blood.  No cries.  Just his bed, thrown up against the wall instead of in the middle of the room.  In fact, there was only Duo.  And his ax.  Which kept slamming into the floorboard.

SLAM.

SLAM.

“Duo!” Heero yelled, confused and furious as Duo hacked away the beautiful floor of his room.  What the hell was he doing?  “Duo, knock it off!”

But he wouldn’t listen to him.  He kept chopping up the floor, splinters flying in the air and chestnut strands flying in the air with the effort of the swing as it crashed into the dying floorboards.  Heero was growing breathless again…and then he smelt it.

Revolting back, Heero covered his nose as the ghastly smell of death wafted up to his nose.  He gagged though; he wasn’t able to stop it as he lodged up in his throat.  Oh, God, it was horrible.  Where was it coming from…?

Quatre and Wufei had crawled out of their beds from the sound and joined the other pilots in the hall.  Quatre covered his mouth and nose, closing his eyes tightly and turning away.

“Oh, God!” Quatre’s muffled voice came through his hand.  “What IS that!?”

Heero though didn’t close his eyes.  He was the first to see them as Duo kicked and shuffled away the broken pieces of wood.  It was then, when he saw them, that he covered his mouth and turned his head away, eyes closing shut.  But their images still burned in his skull.

Three bodies.  A boy.  A woman.  A man.  Deathly pale and a single mark, the mark of a bullet, driven into their skulls as they rotted away.  Scratches and symbols splayed across their bodies.  Heero recognized some Japanese writing even on their nude bodies.  He recognized the holy cross for Christians.  He knew what the X over each heart was.  Oh, God, their dead eyes stayed with him, even if he just glanced at them.  Blank.  Like Duo’s.  They saw nothing now, yet they stayed open.  Their horror, misery, pain was still masked in their face.  Oh, God, no.

Heero gripped the frame tighter and slowly opened his eyes as he heard Duo toss away his ax to the floor.  The nearly nude pilot leaned down and to Heero’s horror, Duo picked up the naked boy from his resting place.  Rotten flesh gleamed in the moonlight and the stench grew worse.  But the insane pilot was immune to it.  He hugged the boy, very tightly to him as he sat down on the floor.  The dead child’s back slumped into Duo’s lap, his head limp on his stomach.  Dead eyes stared blankly out the window, yet Duo kept holding him, as if it was going to bring the child back to life.  But they all knew it wouldn’t.

Duo raised his lowered head and looked out the window, glazed, sparkling eyes catching the light of the moon.  But his expression was nothing; the frown on his lips was neither angered nor sad.  Emotion was lacking on the normally happy pilot’s face and the blankness did not belong there…

Yet Heero couldn’t help think how Duo looked so peaceful and beautiful that one single moment.

And then he spoke. It was soft, blank, ugly, and…deadly.  “So, you want to fuck with death…?  Bring it on.”