Chapter Text
Beneath
by duointherain
disclaimer: I don’t own ‘Gundam Wing’. I also don’t own ‘Beneath’ which is a Syfy B movie I just watched and this story really doesn’t go with that one much. Monster in the water... it’s a common B movie trope. Corvis is mine though. He gets a copyright date of 2018
Note 1: So it’s a get together. There are elements of 1/R, 3/4, and 1/2, there might even be a 2/R kiss in there, but in the end it’s 1/2, cuz that’s where my heart is.
Note: If you want to see my original stuff, it’s at www.themoonspermission.com
“This isn’t a ship,” Duo said, staring down at the rowboat. “It’s more like one of Q’s tea service bullshit things.”
It was dawn, just barely. It was just barely enough dawn for the sky to be Duo’s eye color. His face twisted up as he stared out over the lake, or rather at the fluffy layer of fog over the lake. Fingertips tucked under his arms, he looked like a rebellious teenager.
Relena smiled at him, her rosy lips protected by some innocent pink lip protectant. She pointed at him with an elegant white leather gloved finger. “You’d be happier if you’d have worn the cold weather gear I set out for you rather than a hoodie when it’s 35 degrees out.”
Heero had his own gear and he wasn’t paying attention to either of them as he moved their ‘cooler’ and other party supplies into the thing that Wufei claimed was a ‘boat’.
Duo huffed, his breath going to join the blanket of fog over the lake like a ghost leaving the body. His eyes though watched Heero’s shoulders move under the black microfiber coat that clung to his form. Heero seemed to be big on form-fitting shit. At least he didn’t look like a fucking marshmallow like Relena.
“Oh Duo,” Quatre said, hurrying down the little path towards them. “Trowa, see, I told you!”
Quatre seemed to favor the same puffy marshmallow bullshit that Relena did, but at least his was some kind gray camo colored. Suddenly he had a billowy coat in his hands, maybe the same microfiber that Heero was wearing. “Put this on! You’re going to die out here!”
“Don’t make predictions,” Trowa bite out.
Duo didn’t have the energy to fight Quatre’s jolly goodwill and put the coat on, let Quatre pull up the hood and adjust the temperature on it. It was much better than a hoodie. Miles better than wearing Relena’s gifts. His eyes settled on her, noted that she was looking at Heero’s shoulders too, and he had a sharp and vivid image of pushing her into the water. ‘Oh Well! Too wet, must try again tomorrow!’ Maybe if she broke a nail, she’d give up trying to help.
“Now don’t be like that,” Quatre said sweetly, angelic smile. It was an unsettling lie, because Duo knew that Q would gank an enemy while still smiling prettily. “You’ll do better if you’re only pretending to be cold and miserable.”
“I’m a bad liar,” Duo grumbled.
“Bullshit,” Trowa grumbled back. “You’re an excellent liar when you need to be. This is a boat, not a ship, get in.”
Heero already had point and Duo thought he looked like some kind of obsidian dragon, crouched tight, ready to spring out and fight the fog, the enemy, evil itself.
Speaking of dragons, Wufei came out from the cover of the trees, dressed like Heero, but slightly greener, slightly more elegant like some vengeful spirit made of ink and green tea.
Fingers working into his sleeves, which were considerably warmer than just his hoodie, Duo took stock of his teammates. A princess, a prince, a president (if Heero wasn’t now, he would be someday), and a king, but then there was him and he was a rat. Trowa had to be a king. He was Quatre’s boyfriend and clearly the king of the pair. Maybe. Duo put his boot on the edge of the little wooden thing that Trowa called a boat and rocked it disdainfully. “She shouldn’t come.”
“We’ve been over this, Duo,” Relena said, settling down on the wooden bench in the center of the boat and positioning a fluffy gray blanket over her lap. “This is the best plan. We can’t allow them to keep toxin. They may well use it as a bioweapon. I’m not afraid.”
He twisted up his face, silently echoing her disavowal of fear. “And what’chu think we’re gon do with the fucks on that station?”
“We have an excellent plan. I’m here to help it work well. Together, we will get the toxin, destroy the records of it, and make it back to the school in time for class. It is a splendid plan.”
“It’s a shit plan. This planet is a shit planet. Who the fuck designed these enviro-controls. This is shit all the way around.” His soliloquy was given in a thick L2 accent, punctuated by snarls.
“Then stay here,” Heero said, emotionless.
“Everything will be fine,” Quatre said, smiling.
Duo hated the insane that showed up in Q’s eyes sometimes. In that moment, he really considered it, just staying. That would leave Heero with these huffers though. He knew the princess didn’t know what she was getting into. When they’d discussed the plan, he’d imagined her panicking and getting her rich ass killed dead like a martyr, which in the warmth of their dorm room, far from it actually happening, hadn’t seemed like such a bad idea. His second thought in that moment was to just tell her what the fuck was going to go down, actually going to go down.
Maybe it was her innocence and idealism that Heero liked. Duo held his breath, cheeks puffing out. Internal conflict between wanting Heero to be happy and wanting Heero to like him better than the marshmallow princess clawed around at what was left of his fifteen-year-old soul. “Look, R. This is a military operation, not a fuckin’ tea party.”
Then there were the millions of lives this gangster faction could do if someone didn’t put a boot up their ass far enough. He really didn’t know another way to get onto the station at the center of the lake without Her Majesty. They couldn’t just drop kick it with a gundam either. That would just spread the toxin for the assholes. This forest was full of strange lives, deer and frogs and hippies and shit. Earth was full of shit, so much shit.
What’s worse, in misty fog, the early morning light, Relena lifted her chin, those blue eyes so normal and beautiful, her lips soft and kissable in a way that no shit ought to be, but she was beautiful. “I am not afraid,” she said. Her voice was beautiful. Her hands holding the blanket were beautiful. She probably had Heero’s and everyone else’s heart on a fucking chain already, like a ... a ... charm bracelet. A gundam pilot for almost every day of the week. Except Friday. Duo decided he was Friday and Friday always got fucking lost. Probably made of cheap ass dangerous petroleum plastic anyway.
Quatre took Trowa’s hand as he stepped into the boat. “Sit here, by me, Duo,” Quatre said, patting the wooden bench.
‘Steal a Gundam, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.’ “Fuck my life,” Duo growled. He avoided Quatre’s hand and moved to sit behind Heero, knelt down on the floorboards of the shitty over sized fucking teacup. He glared at Relena, daring her to complain that he was blocking her view of Prince Heero. He was thinking that rats bite, they could give a fancy bitch a nasty bit.
Wufei and Trowa pushed at the boat, shoving it off the gravel beach and into the mist. The mist rolled over the edges of the boat, filling it like premonition. He curled in on himself, one bare hand resting on the chill wood of the boat’s floor. Water was like a living thing, it seemed to him, huge and intelligent, dark depths that held a hunger that Duo could identify with. It moved them, lifting, shifting them.
Once they were away from the edge enough, Wufei gripped the back of the boat, some black slink of a thing swirling around his wrist, making it look small and somehow more dangerous for it. The darkness formed into something that acted like an engine, sending the wood bullshit forward across the grey lake.
Heero sank down to the most narrow bench, at the very front. Heero was Heero and made no sound as he moved. Perfect stealth, perfect all that bullshit, but Duo found himself smiling up at him anyway. Heero’s face still had the face paint from the football game the day before. His hair, too long and spikey for someone trying to fit in, still had a bit of green and yellow paint in it too. Heero was not good at football. The point of aggression for fun seemed completely lost on him.
The movement of Heero’s hand was so subtle, Duo almost missed it, but there between Heero’s fingers was Duo’s favorite candy, a little mint thing covered in dark mint. Heero’s smile was almost stealth too, so small, that you had to know it to find it.
If there was anything Duo was good at, it was hiding the food he was eating. He could be Heero’s pet rat. That’d work okay.
The lake was big. The boat was small. In a gundam, the lake would be passed over before one had time to look from one screen to the next. Traveling by wood, Duo was sure the mist was trying to climb into his coat. It made him wonder just how much of Earth was sentient. Did it hate colonists too? Did the rabbits resent not being able to go beyond the sky?
“So,” Quatre said, opening a thermos, a stack of cups held between his knees. “Who believes in eternal love?”
For just a moment, everyone turned to look at him, faces rosy from the cold, eyes confused.
“Love is a lie of neurotransmitters,” Heero said softly. “Now be quiet.”
“Nonsense,” Quatre said, turning to offer Wufei a cup of something steaming warm. “Are we not a boat of lost, and drunk teenagers? We mustn’t be quiet. Heero, who are you taking to prom?”
Heero’s lips froze mid-reply. The image of those rosy lips pursed like that held Duo like he’d fallen down a gravity well. Those lips were way more kissable, and like muscular. Could lips be muscular? They weren’t soft like Relena’s, but harder, honest-er, somehow, and Duo’s stomach flopped around like he was a fish on a hook.
“Well,” Relena asked, turning to accept her cup from Quatre. “It’s you and I together, right? Prom king and queen?”
“Uh,” Heero said, the right side of his upper lip twitching, eyebrow rising in synchronicity. It was like he’d fallen down a hill and his brain hadn’t caught up yet.
Duo sat up then, not hiding the bit of dark mint as he rubbed it off his lower lip. He smirked, a crooked grin, and said with no for sure meaning, “I thought we were going together.” He watched Heero as he said it. It was a very small moment of looking at Heero meaningfully, watching the color brighten his Japanese cheeks before Duo turned to give Relena an overly flirty wink.
She sat up straighter, those pink glossy lips parting in surprise. That girl had no expression, no angle, no lighting that didn’t make her out to be the fucking most beautiful person ever born.
Behind Duo’s smile he was wondering if there was such a thing as water deer and if he shoved her fancy ass into the lake, if maybe one of them would eat her.
“Are you asking me to the prom, Duo?” Her smile never faltered, but there was an edge of charity in it.
The charity he thought he saw made his teeth itch. “Yeah,” he said, nose wrinkling.
Wrinkles were never going to touch her face, but she drew in maybe more breath than she actually needed. “Heero? I thought you had asked me first.”
“Nope,” Heero said, eyes narrowing.
Duo knew that look. Someone was going to get his ass murdered.
“Idiots,” Wufei hissed, pointing ahead to what might have been some kind of oil rig at some point, but was now a bio-research facility. “Focus.”
“Yeah,” Duo said, voice taunting.
Then Relena flipped him off, subtle, pretty white leather clad finger lifted just for him. “Time to do my part?”
She pulled diamond drop earrings from her pocket, slipping them easily into her ears. She smiled at Duo like he should watch how it’s done, as she slipped out of her long coat and pulled her hat off, tossing it at him.
It hit him in the face, scented like roses and fluffy like some bunny that would never see space. He crunched it in his fist as she stood up. Dressed in a cheerleader skirt and top, goosebumps all over her smooth creamy skin, pretty blond hair in pigtails curls that brushed and clung to her cheeks, she rubbed her arms, but when the station’s spotlight hit her, she waved with every bit of privilege and power she’d ever had. She just about outshone the spotlight. She held out both hands beseechingly to the light, to the person behind it. “Please! Help us!”
Duo turned to look at Heero, but he was already gone, over the side. It was like a sliver of his heart had gone overboard without saying goodbye. From where he was hunched, Duo slipped out of his coat and stood up too, waving his hands. “Help!”
Trowa and Wufei had gone over at some point, leaving Quatre to stand up as well, hands up, looking like a frostbitten ball-joint doll. Two dolls and a rat, but you gotta watch what you bring aboard.