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"Friends "Written By: Karina
Series: Friends Pairings: 2+6 Ratings: M 15+ [In Australia] Rated in the event of bad language and violence. Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing or the characters. That’s the way it is. Warnings: Not a death fic despite how it starts.
Aussie spelling and unbetaed. Summary: When Milliardo Peacecraft is abducted
and left to die a solitary death Duo Maxwell decides to take a hand
in the proceedings.
Chapter 4 He chanced one trip to the helicopter in an attempt to send word to Quatre. The level of static screaming from the radio suggested his message had not gone through, but he had sent it three times in hope Quatre would receive the assurance he was alive. Meteorological readings on the choppers instrument panel had reached the point where he knew to attempt to fly would be sheerest folly. His only means of communication and transport was not to be placed at further risk. He had already pushed his luck on simply reaching this place alive. Locking the chopper down as best he could he stumbled back to the hut, breath sobbing in his aching lungs. Shadows danced in the eerie light filtering through the storm. He supposed the odd radiance sending shudders up his spine had something to do with the full moon hidden by the cloud cover. He might have preferred pitch darkness to this eerie glow. Was that something moving through the trees near the cabin? The beam of his torch was next to useless given the snowfall. Everything looked surreal, otherworldly. It was stupid but his skin crawled and it was not the cold that sent his eyes flashing to every dark shadow. Colony bred child that he was, this blizzard was beyond his knowledge. He fought his way forward, keyed and hyper-aware of every creak, groan and moan from the forest. The wind hurled him to his knees more than once, and it was a relief when he stumbled into the relative safety of the hut. Placing the equipment garnered from the helicopter he felt might best serve his enforced stay in the hut on the floor, he grasped the hammer and began to break the ice encasing the door. The work was physically demanding enough to induce sweating and he huffed as he leaned on the door, resting a moment before doggedly resuming. He continued to hack at the thick ice sealing the door to the floor, until he had broken and cleared sufficient to drag the door shut. For a long minute he stood panting, gasping in relief from the shelter afforded by closing out much of the wind. Cracked and warped as the door was it saved him from seeing movement in every shadow amid the moaning trees. There was too much to do for him to rest. Dragging his carefully chosen equipment into the back room he crawled into the survival tent erected in the centre of the smaller room, and focused his attention on his patient. He had not expected Marquise to have moved, but he could not help the flash of disappointment and worry at finding the man exactly as he had left him. A quick tug at a heavy glove and he pressed fingers to his throat and Duo was assured there was still life. He had forced himself not to release Marquise immediately. Precious seconds had been used to find the digital camera in his packs and snap a few graphic shots. There would be an investigation and he needed evidence of the crime. He had checked the slashed wrist to ensure there was no bleeding and decided Marquise owed his life to the cold slowing down his heart rate. Bundling the man up in a thermal blanket he had turned to make his preparations before releasing Marquise from his bonds. Duo had hastily erected the tent, blessing the wonders of modern technology that made it a simple task. It almost erected itself and he unpacked the sleeping bag, spreading it open ready to receive Marquise. He had tested for a pulse again, to be certain it was not merely wishful thinking on his part and had found it, thready and ragged, but definitely present. With a breath of relief he settled down to free Marquise of his restraints. His knife had made short work of the ropes and with care, in case the blood soaked trousers hid some other injury, Duo had eased him onto the sleeping bag. Kicking aside the last of the ropes he had cut the clothing from the still body and finally rolled him into the centre of the sleeping bag after a second, more thorough examination. Spreading the thermal blanket over him Duo had zipped up the sleeping bag and taken the chance to rest for a few minutes. He had needed to warm Marquise and clean and bind his slashed wrist, but he opted to first set up an intravenous drip. Dragging Marquise, sleeping bag and all, into the tent had not been easy; the man outweighed him by at least his own weight again. He had set the intravenous drip up and tied the bag to a support strut of the tent to keep it elevated. Duo was a fair field medic and knew the basics of what needed doing. Provided Marquise had not been bled dry, which he obviously had been spared by the cold, it would be the cold itself that was the primary danger. He needed to raise the man’s body temperature slowly but steadily, and the sleeping bag and thermal blanket would begin to do just that. Using a saline solution he had washed out the slashed wrist, noting the depth of the wound before carefully salving it with antiseptic cream and binding it firmly. Who ever had cut him had intended it to be a slow bleed out, but the cold had saved Marquise that fate. All Duo had been able to do was firmly bind the wound until a doctor could attend to him and then Duo had tackled a return trip to the helicopter in a bid to remove more supplies and send word of the success of his mission. Now, after returning from securing the helicopter supplies in hand, he could only shake his head at the unconscious man who stubbornly refused to die. “You are one tough bastard.” He dragged the packs into the tent, listening to the protesting creaks of the hut blasted by the wind. He had had enough wind and snow to last him a lifetime, but at least he did not need to return to the helicopter. He had everything he needed with him to survive. Provided the hut remained standing. “Well, you’ll do for the moment. Long enough for me to get some hot soup into me.” The ration packs were military issue and in sealed bags containing heating units. A vigorous shake and crack of the heating pack initiated the chemical reaction and in seconds he had the pack open and was savouring a healthy fog of aromatic steam. “Vegetable and beef soup.” He commented, pouring the contents into a mug and wrapped his hands, now free of both gloves, around the welcome heat. “Yummy. Probably tastes like liquid cardboard.” He rested the torch on Marquise’s chest along with the empty bag and his gloves as he breathed in the aroma and slurped noisily, relishing the heat. “Taste ain’t everything.” He considered the mug and sighed. “But it sure as hell would help.” Taking his time savouring the heat, if not the flavour, he flicked his eyes to the man he was using as a table and sighed. //Now what?// Tough though Marquise had proven himself, Duo was uncertain he could bring him through this crisis period. The pressure beating at him to act, which had brought him out here into the foothills of Sanc, had subsided as he had struggled to get the man into the tent. He had done what he could, as speedily as he could, and he could only hope the man had the will to survive. There was not much else he could do to assist him. //Surviving this long I guess he has to have one hell of a survival instinct. Damn strong bastard too.// Deciding he needed more light and every bit of heat would be a comfort, he reached for the oil lantern, primed and lit it. After a moments consideration he hung it over his patient from a roof stay, hoping escaping heat would be of benefit and flicked the battery torch off. Better to save that for excursions beyond the tent. He sighed and rubbed at his cold nose, watching the eerie play of light and darkness. He might have shut the door, but the cabin was full of draughts, and the tent shuddered and rippled about him. What to do, he mused, listening to the wind howl, and his eyes drifted to his patient. Though he had fought against Marquise in the war, and with him at the end of the Barton Invasion, Duo had not met Marquise on a personal basis before. While working to save his life Marquise had been a body requiring attention, not a living breathing person, and Duo, purely in the interests of occupying his time studied the pale face, brushing aside heavy locks of moonlight hair. //Handsome devil.// Marquise was probably the best looking man he had had the pleasure of viewing. He had had occasion during the war to see that face plastered on view screens and public televisions, and the vulnerability he saw now made the man more human. The nobility was still there, though the diamond hardness present when Marquise had served White Fang was gone. Once the golden boy of Oz, Kushrenada’s right hand man… or was that left hand? Une had been right up there, thick as thieves with the pair of them. As Prince he had died as a child; died later for Oz and then a third time with White Fang, only to be resurrected to serve Preventers. “You are sure one hard bastard to kill.” He was not pretty, Duo decided and he prided himself on being a connoisseur of beauty, be it male or female. Marquise was neither pretty nor handsome in the conventional sense. Even unconscious there was no softness about that face, but there was a strength and firmness which made him remarkable. He was striking to look at and his current lack of awareness did noting to detract from his good looks. “I guess Alexander the Great must have looked like you.” Awake and aware, in an unguarded moment when his defences were down, he would undoubtedly shine. “I’d say you got the bulk of the good looks in the family. Relena’s pretty enough, but you’re a little more than just pretty.” Sighing Duo pulled his braid from the protection of his jacket and ran the tip over his chilled cheek. He was talking to a man barely alive, and given the subject matter it was as well he was unconscious. Duo sipped his soup and blew on his hands, deciding he would be pulling on those gloves again as soon as possible. It was going to be a long night and if the storm did not let up, it was going to be an even longer day. “Don’t you go dying on me. Not after I’ve
come all this way to pull your sorry butt out of the ice.”
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