GW/YYH crossover: Moments of Redemption (4/30)
Title: River Rising
Pairings: Kurama + Heero Yuy
Warnings: Violence, some angst, weird-ass crossover (but it works, I swear!)
Series: Moments of Redemption (4/30)
Notes: This storyline is written for the 30 Kisses challenge. This is # 29 - the sound of waves
Summary: Kurama and the others help the Gundam Pilots put their ghosts to rest
Dedicated to: deathgod02
Special thanks: nightwalker who helped me iron out the GW boys' characterizations. What stupidity remains is my own fault. ^_^
Extra Disclaimer: All aspects of Shin Kidousenki Gundam Wing belong to Sunrise, Bandai, Sotsu Agency, and associated parties. These characters were borrowed without permission, but only for fun and not for commercial purposes.
(X-posted to: 30_kisses)
Previous parts can be found HERE.
"Fssshhhooo....fssshoooooo..."
Ignoring Duo Maxwell did not make him go away, but that didn't mean Heero wouldn't try. He concentrated on easing the tension in his shoulders that made his injury ache.
Being in the same room with Relena made him tense. He kept calculating all the ways an assassin could get to her, where she stood in proximity to the window, how far she was from the door, the angle of the hallway, how he could cover her in time should anyone try to attack.
Keeping all that in mind, it had been difficult to focus on what she'd been saying. He'd sensed she'd been concerned, which was unnecessary. He was in no danger of dying. His wounds were annoying--fractured collarbone, bruised ribs, strained ankle--but even if there were unforeseen complications, none of it would likely be fatal.
She'd had to leave to take a phone call. Wufei, still in the hallway, was watching to see that her security got her out safely, and Heero was slowly coming down from the hyperawareness that Relena's presence put him in.
Still, Duo's voice irritated more than usual.
"Fssssshooooo..."
"Duo, since you smuggled me my gun, I can shoot you." It was solid under his pillow, reassuring, and he felt a lot better knowing it was there, even if he doubted he would need to use it. Heero tried not to think about what that said about himself.
Duo grinned, unrepentant. "I love it when you talk dirty." He let that sentence hang itself in the silence of Heero's glare, and then continued with a flow-y, wiggly gesture of fingers, "Fssshooo--Ow!"
Wufei poked his head in from the hallway. "She's clear."
Heero nodded, and let a little more tension go.
"What the hell did you hit me with?" Duo glared at his partner, rubbing the back of his head.
"A five-cent piece," Wufei said, unashamed. "Don't be such a baby, Maxwell."
"Why the hell did you do that?"
"You were annoying Yuy. He needs his rest, and can't accomplish that if he wants to kill you."
"Indignantly wounded" was a look Duo specialized in. "I was helping him rest!"
Wufei could raise one eyebrow better than anyone Heero knew. "How?"
"Ambient sounds!"
"Ambient sounds."
"Yeah--they're soothing! The sound of waves: fshooo…"
"I have plenty of change in my pocket, Maxwell."
Duo smirked as if he'd like to see just how much of it Wufei was willing to sacrifice to make him shut up. Heero decided now was a good time to cut in.
"Status?"
That got him twin looks of annoyance, though Duo's faded into a grin as he answered, "Nothing big--scratches and bruises. Don't worry about us! You're the one stuck in bed, you poor schmuck. Can't say I envy you the hospital food. Wu and I are going to go out to a nice restaurant tonight and order some big juicy steaks in honor of you, aren't we, Wu?"
It was true that Duo didn't lie, but Heero knew that honesty was as flexible as chewing gum sometimes, and that "scratches and bruises" could cover a large swath of injuries.
"Not unless that's code for finishing our reports and calling it an early night because we need our rest, too," Wufei said.
Heero watched Wufei. Not because the Chinese Preventer would be any more open about being hurt but because, sometimes, Heero could read him better than Duo. Wufei wasn't as good at hiding, especially with body language.
"You are a real work-a-holic, you know that? There are support groups for guys like you. WA--Work-a-holics Anonymous. I should get you a brochure. What do you think, Heero?"
Both of them looked all right. He supposed they'd already been checked over by medical personnel, but Heero preferred making his own conclusions.
"Oh, never mind." Duo rolled his eyes. "Just look who I'm talking to. I bet Quatre would agree with me."
That reminded Heero. "Quatre and Trowa?"
"They're coming. They had to wrap things up with the press. Well, Quatre did. And Trowa kept him company."
Duo had acquired a seat from somewhere and affected one of his gangly sprawls that made even the hospital chair look comfortable. Wufei had shifted so he could keep an eye on things in both the room and the hallway.
"And before you ask," Duo continued. "They're both fine. Quatre got a bump on the head but nothing serious. So you can just stop fretting now, Mr. Worry-pants."
So Heero had taken the most damage. It was good to know the others were mobile and ready to go should another emergency occur.
"Winner may not be able to help you remember things any more clearly." Dark eyes scanned the hallway almost automatically, though Wufei's body language said most of his attention was on the people in the room. "His 'talent' doesn't exactly work that way."
"It's a worth a try." The rhythm Duo's fingers tapped out on the metal arm of his chair was restless. Heero automatically listened for code patterns, but there were none. "But, yeah. We may only have what you remember now. Which even you admit is pretty sketchy."
Heero didn't consciously remember clenching his hands into fists, and only noticed when the fibers of the blanket he held pressed into his skin enough to cause discomfort. He forced himself to relax, frowning in self-recrimination. He ought to have more control than that.
"See, I told you those late-night benders would come back to haunt you." Duo stretched his legs out, smile just a few shades shy of wicked. "I mean, come on, man, lay off the beer from time to time. Stop going to all those parties. There's social, and then there's social."
Duo batted the next coin Wufei sent toward his head out of the air, but then missed the one that bounced off his shoulder.
Detailed memory recall had always been one of Heero's strengths. That everything after his fall in the stairwell, and even the events up to that point, were blurry--what he did remember incomprehensible--was disconcerting.
Green eyes dominated the only memory that stood out with any clarity, and red hair and a mischievous curve of smile that slipped into an otherwise solemn expression.
Duo cocked his head. "What's that look?"
A corner of Heero's mouth crimped in annoyance, but he answered anyway. "Minamino Shuichi."
"Cute singer guy?" Duo grinned. "What's he got to do with anything? Besides possible hot date material."
Heero ignored that last bit. "He might be able to--"
All three of them reacted in surprise as the TV in a corner of Heero's wall flipped on, volume on high, static like a crash of a wave. Tense and frozen, each of them reaching for a weapon, Duo was the first to relax and move with a little snort of amusement, standing and looking around for the remote. When he couldn't find it, he looked at Heero who shrugged. It wasn't as if he'd touched it.
A few minutes of hunting didn't reveal it, so Duo turned toward the television, stepped up onto a chair and jerked the power cord out of the wall. The static didn't stop. Duo frowned, startled. Unease prickled between Heero's shoulder blades.
By the door, Heero felt Wufei's attention turned out into the hall, and could hear the sound of static rise, as the faint background drone of news or sports or daytime talk shows were silenced in a hiss that was getting louder.
"Quatre?"
Hospitals were difficult places. So many people, their high emotions pressing in around him, became just a buzz of almost-voices at the edges of hearing. Too long lingering here and his headache, vaguely muffled by painkillers, would threaten migraine proportion.
"Quatre."
The television in the lobby was showing a cartoon. He'd been trying to remember its name, because it looked familiar, a fragment of memory. A scattering of children sat in a haphazard circle around the television, watched over by three women he guessed to be their mothers.
As he watched, a small girl made a grab for a cup and knocked it over. For a moment he saw something thick and red spill on the ground when the cup hit, but then he blinked and it was only water.
The mother (or older sister, or aunt, or cousin) bent with shushing sounds to scoop up the little girl. Their hair, the same shade of gold, blended as the woman bent her head and gave the crying child a kiss, just between the eyebrows.
His own mother's hair had been that color, in fuzzy, distant dreams. Iria's hair had been that color, tangled in his hands as she died.
Light fingertips on his elbow focused him, brought his head around. "Ah, I'm sorry, Trowa."
Trowa scanned him once, as if looking for injury, and then glanced back toward the children. Quatre kept still and projected calm with his eyes and the set of his shoulders and smiled.
"We're done," Trowa said finally. He'd spent the last ten minutes filling out paperwork that would allow them to see Heero. "We can go. Is your security in place?"
"Yes." He knew without turning that there were two discrete plainclothes guards at the main entrance of the hospital.
Trowa nodded and turned to lead the way. Behind Quatre, there were a chorus of protests in high children's voices and he turned to see that the television had flipped into static. On the ground, the little paper cup was still overturned, yellow and purple daisies decorating its surface, and water flowing from it, a constant trickle that had already covered more of the floor than should have been possible.
The little girl with golden hair turned away from the television and stared at him, and her eyes were not the color he'd been expecting. They were dark, black, like hollowed shadows in her face, and her lips moved, forming a name--
Quatre.
He didn't realize he was backing away until he ran into someone. There was a girly squeak and a little squish, and he whirled instinctively, reaching out to steady the person.
"I'm sorry," he said, and then paused when he got a better look.
She was small, shorter than him, with vivid sky blue hair in a high ponytail. He'd seen stranger styles, he supposed, but they usually were accompanied by black clothing and leather and the gratuitous use of piercings. Instead, she was dressed in a bulky yellow-and-green hooded sweatshirt with a grinning cartoon cat face on the chest and jeans.
She was also soaked. The cloth beneath his fingers was dripping frigid water, her hair was plastered, ponytail weighted, rivulets slipping down her pale cheeks and around her bright smile. Quatre flicked a look toward the windows, though he already knew it wasn't raining outside.
Then he glanced back toward the television, but the child was gone.
"My goodness!" the blue-haired girl said, and he looked back around, met with a cheerful smile. "How did you manage that?"
Quatre blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Oops! Am I corporeal?" She picked up his hand and poked her own cheek with his fingertips.
"Um." Quatre threw a glance around, and saw Trowa coming back from further down the hallway, his expression puzzled. "Are you…are you all right, miss? Is there someone…"
Perhaps she was a patient, escaped from a room and still loopy on drugs, but that wouldn't explain why she was dripping a puddle on the floor.
"I'm a little lost." She kept hold of his hand, though she let it fall away from her face. Her eyes were a strange flat purple that seemed to see through him. Her hand was wet and cold. "You're odd, aren't you?"
"I'm odd?" Ingrained politeness was the only thing that kept his response questioning instead of incredulous.
"There's trouble. But you know that already, don't you?"
"Do I?"
"Yes. Even if you're ignoring it, right now." Her smile was serene. Her skin was so pale he could see the faint veins of blue running under it. "I suppose I shouldn't tell you these things. But you're warm." Her hand tightened on his fingers, and he found himself squeezing back, old gesture of comfort.
"I don't understand but...perhaps we should get a doctor to look at you. What happened?"
Trowa stopped beside him. "Quatre?"
"Trowa, could you call a doctor?"
"Yes. And perhaps you should sit down."
The hand on his arm, tugging him toward a set of chairs was a surprise. Quatre turned and frowned slightly, and Trowa met his look with one of his own, lips pressed together, eyebrows drawn down.
"What are you talking about?" Quatre asked, pulling against Trowa's hold. "It's not me it's..."
There was only empty hallway where the girl had stood. He blinked, eyes darting over the chairs, the red exit sign, a gurney pushed up against a wall, trying to find her as if she could hide in the soft shadows of neon light.
Trowa's voice was soft. "Who is it?"
"Didn't you see her? She was...right here."
He couldn't help looking at Trowa for confirmation that he wasn't going crazy. Because he'd gone crazy once before and knew what it felt like. His eyes darted back toward the television, but though the screen was still static, everything else seemed normal. He rubbed the back of his head restlessly, hoping the twinge of pain would clear his thoughts. The doctor had told him he wasn't concussed, but maybe...
Trowa studied him, the worry fading into the background as he analyzed the situation. Then he looked down, and Quatre followed his gaze to see where wet footprints trailed away from the puddle of water at his feet, off down the hallway.
Pairings: Kurama + Heero Yuy
Warnings: Violence, some angst, weird-ass crossover (but it works, I swear!)
Series: Moments of Redemption (4/30)
Notes: This storyline is written for the 30 Kisses challenge. This is # 29 - the sound of waves
Summary: Kurama and the others help the Gundam Pilots put their ghosts to rest
Dedicated to: deathgod02
Special thanks: nightwalker who helped me iron out the GW boys' characterizations. What stupidity remains is my own fault. ^_^
Extra Disclaimer: All aspects of Shin Kidousenki Gundam Wing belong to Sunrise, Bandai, Sotsu Agency, and associated parties. These characters were borrowed without permission, but only for fun and not for commercial purposes.
(X-posted to: 30_kisses)
Previous parts can be found HERE.
"Fssshhhooo....fssshoooooo..."
Ignoring Duo Maxwell did not make him go away, but that didn't mean Heero wouldn't try. He concentrated on easing the tension in his shoulders that made his injury ache.
Being in the same room with Relena made him tense. He kept calculating all the ways an assassin could get to her, where she stood in proximity to the window, how far she was from the door, the angle of the hallway, how he could cover her in time should anyone try to attack.
Keeping all that in mind, it had been difficult to focus on what she'd been saying. He'd sensed she'd been concerned, which was unnecessary. He was in no danger of dying. His wounds were annoying--fractured collarbone, bruised ribs, strained ankle--but even if there were unforeseen complications, none of it would likely be fatal.
She'd had to leave to take a phone call. Wufei, still in the hallway, was watching to see that her security got her out safely, and Heero was slowly coming down from the hyperawareness that Relena's presence put him in.
Still, Duo's voice irritated more than usual.
"Fssssshooooo..."
"Duo, since you smuggled me my gun, I can shoot you." It was solid under his pillow, reassuring, and he felt a lot better knowing it was there, even if he doubted he would need to use it. Heero tried not to think about what that said about himself.
Duo grinned, unrepentant. "I love it when you talk dirty." He let that sentence hang itself in the silence of Heero's glare, and then continued with a flow-y, wiggly gesture of fingers, "Fssshooo--Ow!"
Wufei poked his head in from the hallway. "She's clear."
Heero nodded, and let a little more tension go.
"What the hell did you hit me with?" Duo glared at his partner, rubbing the back of his head.
"A five-cent piece," Wufei said, unashamed. "Don't be such a baby, Maxwell."
"Why the hell did you do that?"
"You were annoying Yuy. He needs his rest, and can't accomplish that if he wants to kill you."
"Indignantly wounded" was a look Duo specialized in. "I was helping him rest!"
Wufei could raise one eyebrow better than anyone Heero knew. "How?"
"Ambient sounds!"
"Ambient sounds."
"Yeah--they're soothing! The sound of waves: fshooo…"
"I have plenty of change in my pocket, Maxwell."
Duo smirked as if he'd like to see just how much of it Wufei was willing to sacrifice to make him shut up. Heero decided now was a good time to cut in.
"Status?"
That got him twin looks of annoyance, though Duo's faded into a grin as he answered, "Nothing big--scratches and bruises. Don't worry about us! You're the one stuck in bed, you poor schmuck. Can't say I envy you the hospital food. Wu and I are going to go out to a nice restaurant tonight and order some big juicy steaks in honor of you, aren't we, Wu?"
It was true that Duo didn't lie, but Heero knew that honesty was as flexible as chewing gum sometimes, and that "scratches and bruises" could cover a large swath of injuries.
"Not unless that's code for finishing our reports and calling it an early night because we need our rest, too," Wufei said.
Heero watched Wufei. Not because the Chinese Preventer would be any more open about being hurt but because, sometimes, Heero could read him better than Duo. Wufei wasn't as good at hiding, especially with body language.
"You are a real work-a-holic, you know that? There are support groups for guys like you. WA--Work-a-holics Anonymous. I should get you a brochure. What do you think, Heero?"
Both of them looked all right. He supposed they'd already been checked over by medical personnel, but Heero preferred making his own conclusions.
"Oh, never mind." Duo rolled his eyes. "Just look who I'm talking to. I bet Quatre would agree with me."
That reminded Heero. "Quatre and Trowa?"
"They're coming. They had to wrap things up with the press. Well, Quatre did. And Trowa kept him company."
Duo had acquired a seat from somewhere and affected one of his gangly sprawls that made even the hospital chair look comfortable. Wufei had shifted so he could keep an eye on things in both the room and the hallway.
"And before you ask," Duo continued. "They're both fine. Quatre got a bump on the head but nothing serious. So you can just stop fretting now, Mr. Worry-pants."
So Heero had taken the most damage. It was good to know the others were mobile and ready to go should another emergency occur.
"Winner may not be able to help you remember things any more clearly." Dark eyes scanned the hallway almost automatically, though Wufei's body language said most of his attention was on the people in the room. "His 'talent' doesn't exactly work that way."
"It's a worth a try." The rhythm Duo's fingers tapped out on the metal arm of his chair was restless. Heero automatically listened for code patterns, but there were none. "But, yeah. We may only have what you remember now. Which even you admit is pretty sketchy."
Heero didn't consciously remember clenching his hands into fists, and only noticed when the fibers of the blanket he held pressed into his skin enough to cause discomfort. He forced himself to relax, frowning in self-recrimination. He ought to have more control than that.
"See, I told you those late-night benders would come back to haunt you." Duo stretched his legs out, smile just a few shades shy of wicked. "I mean, come on, man, lay off the beer from time to time. Stop going to all those parties. There's social, and then there's social."
Duo batted the next coin Wufei sent toward his head out of the air, but then missed the one that bounced off his shoulder.
Detailed memory recall had always been one of Heero's strengths. That everything after his fall in the stairwell, and even the events up to that point, were blurry--what he did remember incomprehensible--was disconcerting.
Green eyes dominated the only memory that stood out with any clarity, and red hair and a mischievous curve of smile that slipped into an otherwise solemn expression.
Duo cocked his head. "What's that look?"
A corner of Heero's mouth crimped in annoyance, but he answered anyway. "Minamino Shuichi."
"Cute singer guy?" Duo grinned. "What's he got to do with anything? Besides possible hot date material."
Heero ignored that last bit. "He might be able to--"
All three of them reacted in surprise as the TV in a corner of Heero's wall flipped on, volume on high, static like a crash of a wave. Tense and frozen, each of them reaching for a weapon, Duo was the first to relax and move with a little snort of amusement, standing and looking around for the remote. When he couldn't find it, he looked at Heero who shrugged. It wasn't as if he'd touched it.
A few minutes of hunting didn't reveal it, so Duo turned toward the television, stepped up onto a chair and jerked the power cord out of the wall. The static didn't stop. Duo frowned, startled. Unease prickled between Heero's shoulder blades.
By the door, Heero felt Wufei's attention turned out into the hall, and could hear the sound of static rise, as the faint background drone of news or sports or daytime talk shows were silenced in a hiss that was getting louder.
"Quatre?"
Hospitals were difficult places. So many people, their high emotions pressing in around him, became just a buzz of almost-voices at the edges of hearing. Too long lingering here and his headache, vaguely muffled by painkillers, would threaten migraine proportion.
"Quatre."
The television in the lobby was showing a cartoon. He'd been trying to remember its name, because it looked familiar, a fragment of memory. A scattering of children sat in a haphazard circle around the television, watched over by three women he guessed to be their mothers.
As he watched, a small girl made a grab for a cup and knocked it over. For a moment he saw something thick and red spill on the ground when the cup hit, but then he blinked and it was only water.
The mother (or older sister, or aunt, or cousin) bent with shushing sounds to scoop up the little girl. Their hair, the same shade of gold, blended as the woman bent her head and gave the crying child a kiss, just between the eyebrows.
His own mother's hair had been that color, in fuzzy, distant dreams. Iria's hair had been that color, tangled in his hands as she died.
Light fingertips on his elbow focused him, brought his head around. "Ah, I'm sorry, Trowa."
Trowa scanned him once, as if looking for injury, and then glanced back toward the children. Quatre kept still and projected calm with his eyes and the set of his shoulders and smiled.
"We're done," Trowa said finally. He'd spent the last ten minutes filling out paperwork that would allow them to see Heero. "We can go. Is your security in place?"
"Yes." He knew without turning that there were two discrete plainclothes guards at the main entrance of the hospital.
Trowa nodded and turned to lead the way. Behind Quatre, there were a chorus of protests in high children's voices and he turned to see that the television had flipped into static. On the ground, the little paper cup was still overturned, yellow and purple daisies decorating its surface, and water flowing from it, a constant trickle that had already covered more of the floor than should have been possible.
The little girl with golden hair turned away from the television and stared at him, and her eyes were not the color he'd been expecting. They were dark, black, like hollowed shadows in her face, and her lips moved, forming a name--
Quatre.
He didn't realize he was backing away until he ran into someone. There was a girly squeak and a little squish, and he whirled instinctively, reaching out to steady the person.
"I'm sorry," he said, and then paused when he got a better look.
She was small, shorter than him, with vivid sky blue hair in a high ponytail. He'd seen stranger styles, he supposed, but they usually were accompanied by black clothing and leather and the gratuitous use of piercings. Instead, she was dressed in a bulky yellow-and-green hooded sweatshirt with a grinning cartoon cat face on the chest and jeans.
She was also soaked. The cloth beneath his fingers was dripping frigid water, her hair was plastered, ponytail weighted, rivulets slipping down her pale cheeks and around her bright smile. Quatre flicked a look toward the windows, though he already knew it wasn't raining outside.
Then he glanced back toward the television, but the child was gone.
"My goodness!" the blue-haired girl said, and he looked back around, met with a cheerful smile. "How did you manage that?"
Quatre blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Oops! Am I corporeal?" She picked up his hand and poked her own cheek with his fingertips.
"Um." Quatre threw a glance around, and saw Trowa coming back from further down the hallway, his expression puzzled. "Are you…are you all right, miss? Is there someone…"
Perhaps she was a patient, escaped from a room and still loopy on drugs, but that wouldn't explain why she was dripping a puddle on the floor.
"I'm a little lost." She kept hold of his hand, though she let it fall away from her face. Her eyes were a strange flat purple that seemed to see through him. Her hand was wet and cold. "You're odd, aren't you?"
"I'm odd?" Ingrained politeness was the only thing that kept his response questioning instead of incredulous.
"There's trouble. But you know that already, don't you?"
"Do I?"
"Yes. Even if you're ignoring it, right now." Her smile was serene. Her skin was so pale he could see the faint veins of blue running under it. "I suppose I shouldn't tell you these things. But you're warm." Her hand tightened on his fingers, and he found himself squeezing back, old gesture of comfort.
"I don't understand but...perhaps we should get a doctor to look at you. What happened?"
Trowa stopped beside him. "Quatre?"
"Trowa, could you call a doctor?"
"Yes. And perhaps you should sit down."
The hand on his arm, tugging him toward a set of chairs was a surprise. Quatre turned and frowned slightly, and Trowa met his look with one of his own, lips pressed together, eyebrows drawn down.
"What are you talking about?" Quatre asked, pulling against Trowa's hold. "It's not me it's..."
There was only empty hallway where the girl had stood. He blinked, eyes darting over the chairs, the red exit sign, a gurney pushed up against a wall, trying to find her as if she could hide in the soft shadows of neon light.
Trowa's voice was soft. "Who is it?"
"Didn't you see her? She was...right here."
He couldn't help looking at Trowa for confirmation that he wasn't going crazy. Because he'd gone crazy once before and knew what it felt like. His eyes darted back toward the television, but though the screen was still static, everything else seemed normal. He rubbed the back of his head restlessly, hoping the twinge of pain would clear his thoughts. The doctor had told him he wasn't concussed, but maybe...
Trowa studied him, the worry fading into the background as he analyzed the situation. Then he looked down, and Quatre followed his gaze to see where wet footprints trailed away from the puddle of water at his feet, off down the hallway.