Tinfoil

This bit has changed a little bit since the begining(8/30/07)

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“Well it started out so simple…” Duo trailed off at a knock on the door. He gripped his Glock with a loose familiarity and went quickly to the door.

“I’m alone.” He heard a muffled voice chime and he began undoing the locks to the door quickly. He pulled back the tattered wood and took aim squarely at the arrival’s chest. He peered over the broad shoulder before stepping back to admit his guest. The tall, graceful man entered the room confidently and stood looking at the four other stunned boys in the room, each of them pointing a gun at him.

“I’m sure you all know Zechs Marquis…” Duo stated unnecessarily as he relocked the door. Duo moved to stand before the blond haired man. He cocked his head to one side as if thinking hard or listening to some unknown voice. Then without warning slammed his knee into the Lightening Count’s gut and followed it with a sharp left hook that knocked his head to the side. Duo slammed Zechs against the door sharply and pressed his face forward so that he was luscious violet to piercing blue through the cold metal mask.

“Jesus Christ what were you thinking!!!!” Duo yelled angrily and kneed the man in the crotch, then let him sink to the floor. “A fucking PEACE TREATY!!! What the HELL??!!” Duo declared pale with outrage as he turned away biting his thumbnail.

“Well 02, I didn’t really have much say in the matter.” Zechs declared angrily once his pain had subsided. He climbed to his feet and punched Duo hard in the face, causing him to stagger. “Oz was forced into it by Romafeller and was that really necessary.” He stated furiously as Duo collected himself.

“Well you have to break it.” Duo demanded his words slurring slightly.

“Why don’t you break it? And it’s really not that simple.” Zechs told him sharply.

“If the Gundams break the peace it’ll mean nothing, we’re practically hated by everyone, especially those we try to protect. We’re terrorists, murders, monsters and thieves and you know it!” Duo stated angrily as he began to pace, his faltering steps uneven.

“So am I.” Zechs’ deep voice commented laughingly as he folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall. “But that aside, Oz can’t break the peace first. If we do…well lets just say the results will not be pretty.”

“So I’m screwed.” He declared and stared off into space.

“I’m sorry.” Zechs told him sympathetically.

“Duo give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you now.” Heero hissed furiously, but his eyes pleaded for there to be a very, very good reason. His 9mm pistol trained on Duo’s head carried a slight tremor. The other pilots all had their guns trained on the two longhaired males.

“I’m sorry, I truly am, but I can’t help you. By the way, why didn’t you tell me they would be here.” Zechs wondered out loud irately as he raised his hands.

“They weren’t supposed to be, but I couldn’t get them to leave me alone.” Duo told him tiredly as he set his gun to the floor and raised his hands slowly. “I’m not going back!!” Duo whispered fiercely as he looked Heero in the eye. “I’ll die first, but I will NOT go back!!” He looked as each of the pilots in turn to stress how serious he was. “I…hadn’t wanted to do this in front…but…there’s no use for it.” Duo told the assembly with a sigh. He crossed his arms in front of his waist and grasped the edges of his long-sleeved shirt as if to keep it pulled down. The kind of shirt he always wore. He never wore tank tops or T-shirts or shorts ever. “You want a good reason? I have a lifetime of them.” He whispered with a tremor in his voice. “But I’m not saying anything with Zechs here.” He told them. “Now that the war’s over I’ll have to go back.” Duo whispered softly as he started to sway back and forth unsteadily. Wufei bounded across the room to catch Duo before his knees crumpled under him and lowered the boy to the floor gently.

“Duo? Duo?” He questioned anxiously trying to get a response as his eyelids fluttered wildly and his breathing increased. The other pilots gathered around him, Quatre and Heero still training their guns on Zechs, who hadn’t moved.

“Uuuhhh!” Duo groaned loudly as he pried his eyes open.

“My god Duo, how did you get so thin?!” Wufei asked in alarm, noting the way his ribs showed through his scarred skin. Then his eye narrowed suspiciously. “When was the last time you ate properly? And what the hell happened to you?!” Wufei asked already knowing that his hunch was correct on the first question, but having no clue about the second or how Duo became scarred. From the brief contact of skin he’d had when he comforted Duo after his nightmare he’d thought it was just his lower back, but there seemed to be scars all over him. Duo blushed lightly and he tried to sit up, fighting down a bout of dizziness.

“That’s why you sleep all the time, why you’ve always had dizzy spells, why you never seem to have any energy unless you’re on a mission.” Heero said in understanding as he lowered his gun after deciding that Zechs wasn’t a threat. Quatre hesitated a moment longer before lowering his gun as well.

“Duo why?” Trowa asked kneeling beside him.

“Old…old habits die hard…” He gasped and tried to sit up again, this time making it. He pulled his long-sleeved shirt down over his frail body quickly. He stood up slowly and did his best to hide the way his body tried to give out on him. “G is going to try to get me back.” He practically panted as he staggered to one of the two beds in the room.

“When did you last eat?” Heero repeated Wufei’s question.

“Um…sometime last week…” Duo stated softly and looked at the ground. “That’s not the important thing here! The important thing is that I find a way to get away from G.” Duo stressed to them.

“Duo……? Why don’t we just kill G?” Heero asked simply. The man was a threat. What do you do to threats? You neutralize them. Duo laughed. It wasn’t pleasant. It grated and rasped against it’s self, like metal against bone. It was harsh and full of pain, hatred and fear. And it seemed to go on forever. “We could go to L2, have the element of surprise and take him out before he knows what’s going on.” Heero planned aloud over the laughing, trying to drown it out. Then the laugh stopped abruptly. Duo looked at Heero blankly, his face devoid of all emotion and Heero felt himself want to fidget under that stare.

“If any of you ever try to make me go back to that colony, I’ll kill you.” Duo declared softly with a glint in his eye and they all felt a shiver go down their spines. “I run, I hide, but I never lie and if any of you try to take me back there I’ll kill you…slowly.” He whispered, then sighed after a moment. “Besides that wouldn’t solve anything. G’s in charge, but really he’s more of a…moderating factor.” Duo told them with a snort.

“Duo…what the hell…? How do you think you’re going to get away from anyone if you can’t even stand?!?” Heero exclaimed taking the conversation back to where he’d left off. He walked to Quatre’s bag and grabbed a protein bar from it. He tore the wrapper off quickly and thrust the food at Duo, holding it out for him to take.

“I…I don’t want…” Duo began.

“Eat it.” Heero commanded in his cold voice. Duo shook his head, his teeth clenched tightly.

“Duo, please don’t make us force feed you.” Wufei pleaded seriously as he crouched down before his friend.

“Look, here, you don’t have to eat the whole thing, just take a small bite.” Heero commanded and broke off a small piece. Duo shook his head again.

“Why don’t you want to eat?” Quatre asked gently taking his hand as he sat on the bed next to the braided boy.

“I can’t pay for that…” he whispered softly, letting his bangs fall over his face as he lowered his head. They all gaped in silence for a moment.

“You don’t have to pay us for food.” Wufei spoke first, assuring him with a shaking voice as he placed a gentle hand on the other’s knee. “You don’t have to pay us for anything.” Wufei told him, his voice cracking. Heero climbed onto the bed behind Duo, mustard yellow sneakers and all, and settled the shivering youth between his muscular thighs. Ignoring the stiffening of his spine and sharp intake of air, he wound his arms around the other’s torso.

“I’m sorry.” Heero told him fiercely and hugged him tighter. “I’m sorry, we’ve ignored you.”

“Please give us a change to make it up to you, let us be your friends?” Quatre asked him gently. Trowa just wrapped his long arms around him and Heero and most of Quatre in an enormous huge. Tears trickled down Duo’s face as he slowly, shakily reached out to hug whoever he could get a hold of. He felt Trowa shift, but couldn’t seem to focus on it around his tears. The others hugged him tightly as a sob worked its way out of his chest. He pulled back his tears slowly and pushed his emotions away for another time. He looked blearily around the room, then sat straight up in alarm.

“Where the devil is Marquis?” Duo hissed angrily.

“He left.” Trowa stated simply.

“HE WHAT!!!” Duo shouted enraged.

“He left. He said he couldn’t help you or wouldn’t and you trusted him enough to bring him here, so Trowa and I let him leave.” Heero chimed. “Besides, the war is over and he’s not our enemy any more.”

“Fucking Christ! I need him! Fuck!” Duo shouted and began to pace again, chewing a fingernail.

“I…still can’t believe you betrayed us!!” Quatre stated in disbelief and anger, they were all jumbles of emotions and kept jumping from topic to topic, almost as if they couldn’t take all of it at once. “You say you want to be our friend, but you were selling us out to the enemy all along! And now you want to start the war again! What is wrong with you?!”

“You don’t know what its like!” Duo told them firmly. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to feel such…such a deep, aching fear that settles in your bones and freezes you from the inside out… What’s wrong with me…what’s not wrong would be a shorter list. I…I expected, I wanted to die in the war…if I’d had any idea that it was going to end… I’ll kill as many as I have to, take as many as I have to down, I don’t care whose father or brother or sister or friend they are! I am fucking not going back! And I’ll do whatever I can to get away, anything! Even if it means starting a war.” He stated vehemently.

“You’d make yourself our enemy?” Trowa questioned soft and tense. They were all silent looking to the braided boy.

“You…you don’t understand.” He stated softly as he started pacing again.

“I understand that you want to start a war with the colonies, which is what we’ve always fought against.” Trowa stated evenly.

Duo ran his fingers through his bangs, then rubbed his eyes roughly. “I’m tired.” He stated. “I’m tired of it all. I’m tired of being hurt, tired of being afraid…” he whispered and sat down onto the crummy sleeper couch. He lay down on it limply. “You wanna kill me for what I’ve done……you have no *idea* what I’ve done…please…go ahead, shoot me…” he told Trowa and the room at large. “Save me the trouble…” he looked at them blankly. “No? No one?” he questioned seriously. “Oh well…” he stated and pulled out his Glock and tossed it to the floor. “I’m not doing it until I can’t get another way out.” He said seriously.

“We need to talk and we need to talk. Now. Because we don’t have a lot of time…” Wufei stated and Duo looked up at them puzzled.

“G contacted us before they told us that the war was over.” Heero told him and watched as the other boy paled to the color of freshly fallen snow. If he hadn’t been sitting he would have fallen.
“He told us that you have paranoid delusional schizophrenia. That you always have, but did well in the war because you thought you were doing the right thing and people really were out to get you most of the time. He wants us to keep you in one place until he can send someone to come get you.” Heero paused worriedly at the look of complete terror of Duo’s face. He wasn’t even listening to what was being said. “Duo? Duo!!” he yelled and the other focused his face back to Heero, tears now rolling down his cheeks. “I simply said ‘that explains a lot’ and the others nodded. Duo we want to help you be safe.” Heero told the other boy hoping he would be all right.

“You have no idea what you’re sending me back to…” he voice was subdued and blank, as if he’d already resigned himself to his fate. Wufei knelt and took the other’s face in his hands, hating the way he flinched from the touch.

“We said we want to help you, not that we’re sending you back. G’s full of shit.” He stated emphatically.

“Except the paranoid part.” Quatre mutter jokingly, trying not to look pissed.

“You hate me?” Duo asked the blond suddenly and the other looked surprised.

“NO! I’m shocked and disappointed, but no I don’t hate you Duo.” Quatre said looking him in the eye.

“I think you would…if you knew…” he told the other still in his flat, dead voice.

“Promise you won’t try to shoot yourself.” Heero demanded.

“I promise not to try and shoot myself.” Duo chimed blankly.

“No.” Wufei said. “Promise you won’t attempt to or succeed at taking your life.” Wufei stated looking down at him. Duo tossed him a hateful look.

“I promise I’ll do whatever I have to do to stay away from L2.” He whispered softly.

Heero sighed. “We all need to get some rest and then we need to keep moving until we figure out what to do.”

“I’m taking a shower and then I’m going to sleep.” He stated suddenly and grabbed his duffle then went into the bathroom, slamming the door as he went.

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“Duo’s been in there a long time.” Trowa commented suddenly to the room at large about forty minuets later. They all looked at each other, entire conversations passing in the glances.

**I’ll do whatever I have to do to stay away from L2** passed through their minds.

They all jumped to their feet as one and rushed to the bathroom. The door was locked but Quatre kicked it open with a bang as he’d been closer to the bathroom and had gotten there first. They all rushed into the room and Heero pulled back the shower curtain to reveal a very naked, very startled Duo sitting on the floor of the tub, water from the shower rolling over his body, hair pulled into a clip high atop his head, to keep it dry. He stared up at them a moment in silence, a Beretta 92 Centurion [7] clutched tightly and pointed right at them, finger only a hair away from pulling the trigger. They all looked down at him in shock, as if expecting him to have turned into a mermaid while he was gone. Wrath and offense quickly over took his stunned, fearful features.

“GET OUT!!! YOU PERVERTS!!! OUT!!! OUT!!! OUT!!!” He bellowed and yanked the curtain from Heero’s grasp to wrap it around his form, still pointing the gun at them all. They scrambled to all get out the door at the same time and Wufei slammed it shut as they left.

Duo stormed out a few moments later burning red in anger, clad in a towel and hair now falling damply from its clip. “I ALMOST FUCKING SHOT YOU!!! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!?!?!?!” He screamed loudly. “WHAT THE FUCK!!!” He grabbed the hairclip, which still clung desperately to the long strands, and yanked it out, throwing it against a far wall.

“Sorry we just thought that…” Wufei started to say but stopped, wide-eyed.

“You just thought what?!!!? What was so important that you had to fucking run in like a bunch of guys in the girls’ locker room?!?!” Duo demanded with his hands on his towel-clad hips. “I was this close to fucking shooting you!!!!” he stated again and held up his thumb and forefinger to illustrate how close they were to being shot.

“We thought you’d tried to kill yourself.” Wufei told him and Duo pulled his ranting to a stop, deciding to use his ‘inside voice’ instead.

“Well you couldn’t have knocked?!” he asked simply but still outraged.

“Duo, what the hell happened?” Quatre asked softly as he stared at the other boy.
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[7] Say it with me now… “Thanks Wikiapedia!!”

~~~~~~~~~~~TBC~~~~~~~~~~~