Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ In the Arms of the Angel ❯ Duo - 6 ( Chapter 13 )

Part XIII

He watched as Heero walked away from the building, hands stuffed deep into his pockets. Heero was slouched over as he drew closer to the car. Duo raised his hand to the glass of the window. Heero paused and Duo leaned against the cool glass. Heero turned, drawing a hand from his pocket to raise. Duo could see Heero's smile and smiled sadly in return. Heero seemed to reluctantly turn around and get into the car. Duo turned away from the window, not wanting to see Heero drive away. He turned in time to see that overly bubbly nurse bounce up to him.

"Come along, Duo. I want to show you around. I just know that you'll love it here!" She emphasized the love and Duo tried not to roll his eyes. He didn't even know why he was here. There wasn't anything wrong with him.

"Can I just go to bed?" The nurse turned to him with a shocked expression painted on her face.

"Of course not! We don't like to be alone here; friends help everyone recover. You need to be with people." Duo bit his tongue and refrained from saying anything. He decided that he would just ignore her -- and everyone else here at this fucked up loony bin. There were people who had problems; they should be getting help, not him. This nurse was probably on some high dosage of speed or coke in order to be as fucking happy and talkative as she was. Duo let himself be dragged through the complex as he mused that she talked about ten times as much as he ever had.

"And this is the love room. This is where we gather together to talk about our problems." At this, Duo had decided that he had had enough. He pulled his arm out of her grasp.

"Look, Lady. I don't have a problem. I don't need this group hugging hippie bullshit. I am quite content on my own, and I don't want to make myself sick by," he made quote gestures by his head, "lovey-dovey time. Okay?" He spun on his heel, intending to walk away from the overbearing nurse, but she latched onto his arm again -- this time with an iron grip.

"I hate to see anyone be a loner, I think everyone needs some group love." Duo snorted.

"Obviously you've never heard of alone time." The nurse narrowed her eyes slightly without releasing her grip.

"As for your problem, you wouldn't be here if you didn't have a problem." Duo opened his mouth to retort, but she continued. "And my name is Donna." Duo felt that conceding would be the best plan of action, seeing as Donna wasn't going to let him have use of his own arm, and he really wasn't in the mood to hurt anyone. In fact, he was coming down and needed to shoot up again. But it was also obvious that Donna wasn't going to let him do that. In fact, he wouldn't be aloud to medicate himself until he left. No one would sympathize with him here, except perhaps in those tree hugging, love feasts sharing. He rolled his eyes as he was dragged sown that hall again.

This was going to be a long day.

Hell, it was going to be a long how every long. Damn Heero for insisting he come here. Damn him.

Later that night he lay in his stiff bed hugging himself under layers of blankets trying to keep warm. He was so cold, and nothing had helped. He had suffered through dinner shivering almost to the point where he couldn't open his mouth to eat because his jaws were clamped so tight to keep from chattering. They were locked up from the cold.

These goons had searched his luggage and taken out all of his drugs.

He knew -- he had already searched for his stuff. Oh God, how he desperately needed a hit. One shot -- even half a dose would be a Godsend to him now, but there was no relief in sight.

The next day he sat unresponsive in a chair in the love room, waiting for the infernal share time to be over. He hugged himself and rocked back and forth. He couldn't do anything else.

"My name is Daniel Thernadine. I am an alcoholic. I lost my job because I would sneak those little bottles that you get on airplanes into the office and sip at them during the day. My boss caught me once and I was fired. I'm here because I have a family to support. I want to make them proud of me." Daniel was a pasty skinny guy who looked like he was an accountant. He came complete with a partially bald head and spectacles. Duo would have laughed had he seen any point. Donna looked at him expectantly. It must be his turn. He began speaking through chattering teeth.

"My name is Duo Maxwell. I'm cold." He clamped his mouth shut, locking his jaw so his teeth didn't bang together and stared back at Donna. She frowned but moved onto the next person.

"My name is Shelly Stiles." Duo tuned everything out.

A few days later, he had lost count, marking a slash on his wall every time he woke up. However, he finally was told by another prisoner -- no, patient -- that he was sleeping a good four or five times a day. As a result, the thirty or so marks he had cut into the plaster were not an accurate count as to how long he had been here.

They were outside today. He would have enjoyed the day if it hadn't been for the fact that he was starving. But he couldn't keep anything down -- it was like his stomach had forgotten how to digest food, so it hurled it back out of his body, wiping its hands clean and 'humph'ing at its as it closed the metaphorical doors. Duo shook his head, his unbound greasy hair slipping over his shoulders. He couldn't have cared less about his appearance. He was too fucking tired to take a shower.

They sat on benches and the counselor walked and paced from one side of the clearing to the other. He slipped off of his bench and curled up under it and fell asleep.

"Mr. Maxwell!"

"Fuck you."

"Mr. Maxwell!" He was being shaken roughly, and he didn't like it -- neither did his stomach.

"What?" He barked irritated as he opened his eyes.

"You fell asleep." Duo snorted, his mind stuck on his very empty stomach as it twisted and wrung itself out inside him.

"Yeah? What of it?" He spat. He had been asleep, one of there rare times that he actually felt okay, and here they were, shaking him so his stomach was thinking of emptying its left over acids on their shoes.

Fuck it. It was too late anyway.

"Oh, gross. Those were my good shoes, too." The words were fuzzy as his vision faded to black as he passed out.

He woke up with a start. He actually felt kind of normal. He still felt like shit, but something was different. He brought his hand up to his face, wincing as something pulled on the inside of his arm. He looked at his arm, noticing the tape that held a cotton ball to the inside of his elbow. He smiled and rested his head back into the pillow.

"Finally. They came to their senses." The doctors of this help center had probably given him something -- not very strong, of course, but something. He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He settled his feet on the floor and stood up, reaching out for the nightstand by his bed to steady himself. His legs felt as though they would collapse underneath him at any moment, but when he tried to take a step forward, he was still standing. He grabbed his wallet and tucked it into his back pocket of his jeans -- the doctors didn't undress him when they had brought him back to his room, probably after he had passed out on the lawn.

He poked his head out of his room and looked both ways down the hall. No one. Perfect. He slipped silently out and tiptoed to the reception area. He bypassed the doors -- they were probably rigged anyway -- and went straight for the already open windows. The staff usually left the big picture windows to either side of the main doors open at night to let the cool night air in and refresh the place. Tonight, they would regret it. He stepped up to the windows and gently popped the screen of. He let the screen drop silently to the ground outside before swinging his leg over the windowsill. Sending one last glance around the lobby to make sure no one was coming, he ducked his head under the open window and slipped unnoticed into the night.

______________________________

Heero had spent the majority of his time curled up in the window staring at nothing. The house felt dead, as though Duo was its beating heart. Everything was silent and slow. He wondered if he had done the right thing. The place said that they specialized in curing drug addiction. They also seemed to be the most recommended. So he had checked Duo in and left as he was told by the staff of the Center.

But had he done the right thing?

He sighed, stiffly uncurling from the window seat to wander aimlessly through the house. It was almost infuriating how empty the house seemed. It was infuriating that Duo had gotten himself caught up in drugs, but there wasn't anything Heero could do to change the past. But, oh how he wished he could. He would go back in time and tell his younger self not to jump to conclusions. To think things through without anger and fear. Maybe, just maybe, if he had known that he wouldn't have screamed at Duo and kicked him out of the house and maybe this whole thing would never have happened. It was like a row of dominos that were knocking the next in line over because the first was pushed over. The problem was: which domino was the first to be pushed over? Heero had a dread feeling that his listening to Relena and kicking Duo out in anger wasn't that first chain-starting event. He knew that it had to have gone back much further than that. Possibly to even before he had met Duo. Maybe it was some internal flaw that he carried every where inside of him and didn't even know it because he had been born that way.

What ever it was, he couldn't change the past, and dwelling on it wouldn't make things better. The best thing he could do was keep his anger in check, to not let his actions be controlled by that anger. He would not repeat his mistake. This time and next time, he would hear Duo through. The only question now was: did he do the right thing? It was a question that had been banging against his skull since he had turned to leave the Center.

He sat down by the phone and pulled out his address book. He should call Quatre. First and foremost because he hadn't talked to his friend in almost a year, and secondly because maybe Quatre could calm him down and reassure him that he did in fact do the right thing. He rested one hand on the phone as he flipped the pages with his other hand. He wondered how Quatre was doing, the last time he had talked to him, Quatre actually hadn't been doing too well. Quatre had looked like he hadn't slept in a month. But two days later, he had kicked Duo out of the house, and soon Quatre was completely out of his mind as he dropped everything to find Duo.

Ah, there. He placed his finger just under the phone number scrawled across the page and turned to look at the phone just as it rang. He jumped as it blared through his mind as well as vibrate through his hand. He picked up the receiver and tentatively put it to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Is Heero Yuy there?"

"This is he."

"This is Donna from the Center." Heero's eyebrows drew together. "I need to talk to you about Duo." His heart flailed wildly about in his chest.

"What is it?" There was a pause.

"He's gone."

"What?" Heero's voice had lowered, taking on a more sinister tonality.

"He wasn't in his room this morning. We looked every where for him, but he's not on the grounds. We think he may have left during the night." Heero looked at the clock on the desk. Its fiery numbers blazed that it was 7:28 p.m. That means that Duo had been gone for over twelve hours. Why the hell had they taken so long to call him? "Hello? Are you the--" Heero dropped the phone into its cradle, not caring that he hadn't even said goodbye. Where the hell could Duo be? He grabbed his car keys and jacket and he raced out of the house to his car.

He would drive around the city; maybe Duo went to score more drugs, so he'd look in the slums and rich neighborhoods. He would find Duo.

______________________________

It was raining.

Duo didn't care.

Monstrous drops splattered against his coat, weighing it down. He pulled the coat closer to him, annoyed. He wasn't annoyed at the rain, no, he could have cared less about the rain, it was the fact that his coat weighed ten times heavier, that was annoying. Oh well, it wouldn't matter soon anyway. Soon he would be on the shuttle and no one would be able to find him. It had taken him a while, but he had scored some drugs and a shuttle ticket and finally made his way to the Spaceport. He was entering the great glass doors now.

He felt wonderful. The drugs were exactly what he had needed, and now he was able to think clearly as well as remain a proper temperature. He hated being cold.

He was leaving. Leaving everything behind. No one to watch him, to take care of him, he would have to do that himself. He had even left behind his clothes. He shrugged absentmindedly. It didn't really matter, nothing really mattered. He was going to make a new start in the colonies. He paused to look at his ticket. Which colony was he going to? Ah, L4. Maybe he'd look up Quatre when he got there. Quatre wouldn't ask too many questions, and anyway, it had been far too long since he had last spoken to his friend. It was definitely time for a visit, just as long as Quatre didn't call Heero or vice versa. That would cause him trouble.

He looked up as he heard the announcement for his shuttle. It was time. He grinned. He fingered the needle and drugs that were hidden in his coat. As soon as the shuttle was stabilized, he'd go to the bathroom and shoot up again. Maybe he'd shoot up again before the shuttle docked with L4. It all depended on how long the flight was, but maybe he'd do it just for the hell of it. It couldn't hurt, after all.

He was all of the sudden sitting in his seat aboard the shuttle. Wait? When did that happen? Duo shrugged, didn't matter, it's not important. The important thing is that he was seated and the pilot was announcing the final procedures for lift-off.

Yay! Here I come!

He had heard from some dealer a while back that the best quality drugs were to be found on the colonies. Man, he hoped he had brought enough money. Although, Quatre would probably give him some money if he asked real nice. Sweet, he was just hours away from the cream of the crop. Just hours away from the best drugs in the system.

He grinned.