Fire Mated Part 12

There was that strange roaring again. The sound of interference filled his ears, but it was far away and he could still hear other things around him. His eyes were shut and all beneath him he felt warmth... a person's body.

Someone was holding him.

Feelings of peace and contentment filled Duo's mind and he decided against his original thought of opening his eyes. This was too good; it felt too wonderful to let sight take away anything. Sight often took away the fantasy, but this time he wouldn't let it. Instead he just lay there as the warm body held him and he could smell the sweet scent of spring on the breeze. Fresh grass just growing, the air smelled a couple hours away from a soft spring shower and he could just faintly hear an owl hooting in the distance.

It was night.

Gentle hands moved through his hair, running through it like a human brush, absent-mindedly. Duo smiled and sighed.

"I could lay like this forever," he murmured softly. And just like before the words rang familiar to his clouded mind. He could have sworn he'd said the exact words in a place like this before.

"So could I."

Duo opened his eyes to find he was lying in the lap of the boy who he normally found in the cabin. He blinked and gasped as he found that they weren't in the cabin at all this time. Instead they lay in a clearing, the sky above them full of thousands of twinkling stars along with a moon that was merely a sliver in the sky. Duo caught his breath and just stared. He'd never seen so many stars in his entire life!

It was amazing what the lack of city lights could reveal in the midnight sky.

Tilting his head slightly he glanced at the boy and found him leaning back against the boulder in front of the cabin, gazing up at the sky as his hands moved lightly through Duo's hair. His eyes were fixed on the sky with a look of child-like amazement and wonder.

"I'm remembering again, aren't I?" Duo whispered softly. The entire scene around him seemed so familiar... just like the last time.

The boy nodded and looked down at him, the love showing plainly in his eyes. Leaning forward he lightly kissed Duo's forehead. "I'd almost forgotten this night... it happened so long ago."

"Another memory," Duo murmured, glancing back to the sky and the clearing around them. "It's beautiful." Moving just slightly he sat up in the boy's lap and leaned back against him so their heads were almost the same height now. "And you live in that cabin?" Duo asked softly.

The boy nodded.

"And down that path?" Duo gestured down the path he'd found himself on once before.

The boy shook his head. "I can't answer... not until you remember or figure it out. I'm only a visitor in this world."

"This world... you mean my dreams, my memories?"

The boy nodded once more.

"It leads to the town doesn't it."

The boy smiled. "Yes."

Duo relaxed and closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the haze and roaring coming closer. The drugs were working much faster this time...

"It feel so safe here, I don't want to leave. Can't I just stay here with you..."

He took a gamble and spit the word out before the boy could answer.

"Heero?"

The body under him stiffened and he heard the boy catch his breath and almost whimper softly. Duo's eyes shot open to see the boy staring at him in amazement, a tear slipping down his cheek. Duo sat up and moved so he was no longer in the boy's lap, but now they were facing each other.

The boy was trembling quietly, tears slipping down his face as he just watched Duo. "What did you say?" He whispered softly, his voice strained with tears and a tone of hope that only the most saddened dare have.

"Heero," Duo repeated softly, not sure what else to do.

The boy swallowed and blinked away a few of the tears, then he slowly nodded.

Realization dawned on Duo just as the roaring seemed to sneak up behind him. "I remembered your name!" He said softly, then repeated it louder, trying to yell over the static noise growing up around him.

All around him the word seemed to fade, like a watercolor painting which was dripping away, everything bleeding together. Duo shook his head wildly and dove forward into the boy's arms, holding on to him tightly.

"No! I want to remember more! I want to remember more about you... more about here... more about us!!"

The boy wrapped his arms around Duo fiercely and held him as if his life depended on it. A single word drifted from his lips before the roaring overtook Duo and pulled him into a deep sleep.

"Koibito."

And though Duo had never heard that word before, nor did he know a single bit of Japanese he remembered what it meant. He remembered what it meant!

My love.

~*~

He starred down at the notebook before him, the pages filled with ink in every possible line. Before him lay pages upon pages of a story... a story he'd had for a very long time. A story he'd written many many times, always editing, always rewriting. But the main parts of the story were always the same, always the same theme and characters.

And now...

Was it all real?

Duo's hands shook and he carefully set down his pen, trying not to draw attention to himself as he sat there out in the schoolyard just looking down at his notebook. He was surrounded by students eating, chatting and playing games but he didn't hear any of them. Instead he just sat there, staring at his notebook and trying to understand.

NO! His mind screamed.

None of this was possible! It couldn't be possible!

Grabbing his notebook he stood up and walked at a quick pace around the school building until he was out of sight from most of the students. Leaning back against the school building wall he dropped the notebook and watched it land in the grass before him. He felt his eyes burn as he slid down the wall and hugged his knees, trying to hold the tears back.

This was ridiculous, why was he crying?

Emotions whirled in his mind that he couldn't explain, emotions that made no sense. He felt lonely, empty, incomplete as if part of him were missing and yet at the same time it wasn't. He didn't understand anything... except for one small fact.

He was in love with the boy from his dreams.

The boy from his dreams... the boy who burned...

Heero.

Heero was...

He'd known the boy in his dreams for a long time. The first time the boy and his burning cabin had appeared in Duo's dreams was the night after his parents had died. The night he'd spent at Trowa's house crying himself into unconsciousness because of what had happened. The fire wasn't his fault, it wasn't his parents' fault, it was just an accident. But however it started they ended up locked in the basement, crying out and pounding on the door as Trowa's father pulled a screaming Duo from the house and held him outside as the house crumbled in front of his eyes.

His parents weren't so much killed by the fire as they were by the building collapsing on top of them. It all crumbled and they were buried, killed long before the firemen could get rid of the rubble or even attempt to get them out.

One would think that after seeing the entire house burn down around your parents and seeing their burnt corpses being pulled from the rubble... one would think that those horrid images would appear in a child's dreams. But no, Duo never had nightmares about his parents. It was always the boy; always the boy locked in his burning cabin as everything burnt down around him.

Once upon a time, not long after the accident, a psychologist had told him the boy in his dream was a creation of his imagination... he'd supposedly created another child which the same thing happened to, a kindred spirit in his mind. And Duo had accepted that explanation, sort of.

But now he knew it wasn't true.

The boy in his dreams was a real person. Had to be! He knew it.

And even more amazing was the fact that the boy in his dreams was most likely the exact same one Quatre and Treize were searching for, which just boggled his mind.

As if on cue he heard footsteps near him. Duo quickly wiped the tears from his eyes and took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself.

"Duo? Are you- what happened?"

Quatre dropped down before him with an expression of concern.

Duo chuckled lightly to himself. Of all the people to find him...

Quatre blinked at his chuckling. "Did something... happen?"

Duo nodded slowly, still chuckling to himself. All of a sudden he found this all very funny. Too funny. Hilarious. He could die of laughter... almost.

"Yeah, I found your Heero Yuy."

Quatre's eyes widened. "What? How? Where?"

Duo picked up his notebook from where it'd fallen on the ground and handed it to Quatre. "He's right there, he's been there the whole time. In my story!"

Quatre sat down in front of Duo and glanced down at the notebook. He read a bit from the page and glanced up. "Did you write this today?"

Duo shook his head. "A couple days ago, before you guys explained all that greek myth stuff." He took a deep breath. "I know who Heero Yuy is... the one you keep mentioning from the 1800's. I know who he is. He's in my head."

Quatre opened his mouth to make a comment but Duo shook his head. "Let me explain. When my parents died I started having this dream about a boy in a cabin who burned... nearly every single night. And I didn't understand the dream so I started writing about it, you know, wanting to put a story to why he burned. Well, I did, and that's the story. I've been working on it on and off for most of my life -- the most recent version being a romance story, which just isn't my style at all -- and now I finally know what's going on.

"See, I figured that someone started the fire at the cabin and so I wrote the story. I gave him two females that liked him, both from richer families. Both were friends and then they fell in love with the same man. And it escalated until the two girls were so angry with him and with each other that they burned the cabin down around him to spite the other. In the end they killed him from their jealousy."

Duo shook his head and rubbed his eyes. "And you want to know the real funny part? His name was Heero Yuy. In the dream, I asked him last night and he said his name was Heero Yuy. His name has always been Heero in the stories, but I honestly couldn't tell you how I guessed the right name. I guess I was just lucky or something." Duo opened his eyes and looked at Quatre, only to find the blonde's eyes quite wide with disbelief.

"How did you know...?" Quatre murmured softly.

"How did I know? Know what?"

Quatre frowned. "My uncle didn't tell you, mostly because I told him not to. The real Heero Yuy died when his cabin was burnt down. He died when it was burnt down around him."

Duo groaned and buried his head in his arms and knees.

"Stay here! I'm going to go call my uncle, he needs to hear this..." Quatre paused and glanced back at Duo. "I'm sorry, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself."

Duo shook his head and rubbed his eyes, standing up. "No, go call him and get him over here. I want to get this figured out. I want to know who he was and why I'm in all of this. I mean, I have to have some connection to him right?"

Quatre nodded and took off around the corner of the school building, racing as fast as he could. Meanwhile Duo leaned back against the wall and smiled softly. Closing his eyes he remembered the dream from the night before and sighed. He was going to figure all of this out, even if his sanity died in the process.

~*~

Treize arrived on the scene a few minutes later after a quick call from Quatre. By the time he arrived and Quatre had given him the condensed version of Duo's little revelation Duo had calmed down. His face showed no more signs of his tears or frustration, and instead he'd taken to pacing around in the small area behind the school with them, looking deep in thought.

"You've been writing this story for how long?" Treize asked him, leafing through the notebook with a look of glee on his face.

"Nearly all my life, since I was about ten or so." Duo stopped and glanced up at the school building.

"And these dreams of yours, what are they like? I want to know every detail... it may help us discover more about Heero and your connection to all this."

Duo frowned and leaned against the brick wall, closing his eyes. "They all are pretty much the same, at least until recently. There's this cabin, centered in a small clearing in the woods, with a path leading off in one direction. The boy - no Heero - said it led to town. But I would always find him in the cabin, usually sleeping. Then I would smell smoke and I would try to wake him up. But he would never wake up, and instead the cabin just burnt down around us while we were trapped inside."

Duo paused and opened his eyes, eyeing the row of trees which lay past them, the small forest that surrounded the school building. "Recently, though, the dreams have changed. It started on my 18th birthday. He was awake in the dreams after that, either sitting in the bed or sitting in the corner of the cabin carving something. And then he talked with me a few times. Then, thanks to your sleeping pills, the scenes have changed completely.

"The first night I stayed in the hotel with you guys he spoke with me and I swear I'd heard the words before. Then I tried the pills again and this time we were outside the cabin sitting under the stars and I... it was like déjà vu. I remembered it but knew it had never happened. And then he said something to me in Japanese and I knew what it meant! I don't know Japanese."

Treize rubbed his chin. "Well, there are some things that do fit very well. For one, we know that Heero did die in a fire, and he most likely did live in a log cabin outside of the main town. We also know that he carved things out of wood on a fairly regular basis. Also, I did mention the name originated from Japan, so his speaking Japanese is no surprise. What about this path? Do you possibly know where it is?"

Duo shook his head.

Quatre then smiled. "I saw some paths today while I was out for lunch." Quatre glanced at his watch and smirked when he realized his class had started a long time ago. "Dang, guess I'll have to retake that test," he murmured softly. "But anyway while I was looking for you I walked along the edge of the forest and noticed a few beaten foot paths. Should we look at those?"

Duo grinned back. "Sure... unless you have the burning urge to go take that test."

Treize chuckled. "Normally I wouldn't approve of missing a class, but then I would be a liar if I said I'd never entertained and followed the notion when I was your age."

With that decided Quatre nodded and the trio headed for the footpaths he'd seen earlier. They were going to figure this out, and perhaps they finally had the right leads to follow.

The path itself was quite small, plants and trees having grown in close enough to make travel slow and frustrating. However it still showed signs of recent wear and neither the two boys nor Treize would have been surprised if it was used as a popular escape route for students to skip school. Duo stepped forward and took the lead down the path, since they were forced to walk in a single file line. The idea was Duo would go first and tell them if he recognized anything, though the chances of that were thin since tree and plant growth changed so much in over a hundred years time. And that was still assuming that the braided boy's dreams were accurate.

As Duo walked he listened to the sounds around him and couldn't help but smile. He'd always loved the woods. The soft sounds were so soothing and everything about the tall trees and musty timber smell was calming to his senses. He remembered times when he and Trowa would play among the trees as kids with Mariemeia, hiding behind large trunks. Trowa yelling at them both to be careful as they would race up the branches and see who could climb the highest.

Without realizing it he found his pace quickening as he moved down the path, but he had to stop as his vision flashed for a moment. Was it just his imagination or had he seen a well-worn and wide path in front of him? Duo shook his head slightly, no that wasn't right. The path was still small and over grown.

The trees around them became thinner as they walked, curving down a hill. At one point, as they moved forward, the trees cleared away to reveal a murky old lake with vines and over grown reeds on one side. At this point Duo staggered and his hand blinding reached out to grasp onto a nearby tree. Quatre quickly raced to his side.

"Duo? What happened?"

Duo didn't answer, but merely watched the lake, blinking his eyes rapidly like someone who had just stepped out into blinding sunlight. He knew the lake was murky and muddy, but his mind told him at one time it had been clear, clean enough to swim in. And he could recall his own voice in his mind, calling out.

::Come on Heero! It's not that cold! Just jump in already!::

Duo's eyes widened. This had to be the right path!

Shoving past Quatre he raced down the path, running as fast as he could. He couldn't explain it but he knew exactly what he would find at the end of this path. He knew it would end in a clearing and he knew that Heero would be there, waiting.

So he ran. He forgot about Quatre and his uncle, calling after him in worried voices. He forgot about the close trees that caught his clothing and tore at him as he ran. He forgot about the roots which caught his feet and made him stumble and almost lose balance too many times to count. All he cared about was what would be at the end of the path. He needed to get there.

Because he knew when he reached it he would see Heero again.

TBC...

 

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