And He Doth Descended Into the Depths of Heaven
-Part Fourteen-
Kuriyamimizu

© The same as always

Okay, atashi-chan, I've done all the editing I could. If I missed anything, blame it on stylistics.
Jita
(My editor, all bow before her)

Kuri holds up a new sign: Okay, by now you have come to expect, weird shit, shonen ai and Gundam boy torture, but now, something new, exiting and titillating : ANGST!!! MAAAAAJOR ANGST WARNING AHEAD!!!

Warning: The time period in the flashback is very shaky. Don't try to place it, just try to follow along with the story and ignore the historical inaccuracy… ;;^o^  

< >= past remembrance, flashback type things.

 Quatre stepped into Duo's mindscape carefully, trying not to force his way into Duo's already wounded mind. He didn't see much around, a black expanse with a single light shining down on a shattered pillar with red glass all around it and red blood dripping slowly. The coppery scent filled his nose and made him cough, and yet he stepped forward. Lying in a heap was Duo, what was left of his original personality. Quatre gasped at the state he was in. He had literally torn himself apart, insuring that the other boy would never fully recover from what had happened. The little gasping mewls coming from his general direction indicated that he still had enough life in him to suffer, but do nothing more. Quatre kneeled down next to the boy, using long latent powers that had been long dormant to restore his failing psyche.

 The scene shifted. Duo was lying in a large bed and Quatre was sitting next to him. When Duo's violet eyes fluttered open he looked at Quatre quizzically.

"Where are we?"

 Quatre smiled, his face almost seeming to shine like something divine. "We're in your mind Duo no baka."

 Duo smiled at his pet name and leaned back into the pillows that held him up, thoroughly exhausted by his ordeals. "You changed my mind. I'd be laying in black, the void, y'know?"

 Quatre nodded and laid down on the bed, sinking down into comfortable material. "Yeah, I know it, but you're more comfortable this way and so am I."

 Duo sighed and closed his eyes again, his face still as gaunt as it was in life. What Quatre saw here was a real representation of what was going on inside Duo's body and mind at the time. He spoke and his voice was old.

"Let's cut the crap and get straight to business Q man. You're here for some reason, otherwise you wouldn't be paying a nice visit to me here, you'd be talking with the dominant personality and be learning to hate me for the bastard that I am."

 Quatre sighed and stretched out, getting comfortable. "I have some things to tell you, to convince you to live through this one too."

"Whoever told you that I was going to give up?"  Duo's voice was soft and far away from their current location. Quatre frowned and put a hand on Duo's.

"Just listen, don't speak, you're very tired."

"You got that right."

*Heero POV*

 I couldn't quite follow just what was going on inside of me. I knew that someone else was using my voice, accessing my thoughts and talking to my companions, dare I say friends. And I was angry, and yet I wanted to make sure that Duo was okay. The other me let me piggyback on his sensations, feeling, seeing, hearing and touching what he did. He was kinder than the person in Duo was. I knew that at a certainty rather than a guess.

(You okay in there?)

 I growled, standing in a felt of long and rushing grass, eventually taking a seat and drawing my knees to me. "I'm not okay. Another aspect of me has control of my body and is forcing me down."

(It's just what has to be done. I'm sorry that you had to be here to witness the carnage.  And I'm extremely sorry that Duo get entangled in it all over again.)

 I sighed once again. "Just don't hurt him please?"

 I watched myself, with wings, appear in our mind. He looked just as tired and agitated as I was. He looked at me with startlingly warm blue eyes and spoke earnestly.

(God forbid that anything would happen to Duo on our account.) Once he looked down, staring at the grass and then brought his head up once again to face me. (However, it's rather unavoidable. I'd really prefer it if you slept through this, let yourself find ease and it'll all be over soon.)

 Once again I sighed. "I don't suppose I really have a choice do I?"

 The other me smiled, a foreign expression on our collective face. (You could fight me the whole way through.)

 I sighed, a long keening rush that flew through my lips like a whispered sob. "Do as you like, just let me see him sometime."

(Of course )

 I was faced with my own smiling visage for a moment more before blackness crept through the edges of my vision and pulled me down.

 Quatre sighed, letting himself get comfortable next to Duo. Even though they were only in Duo's mind, Quatre could interact with things within as if they were physically there. He smiled a little bit as he curled into a comfortable position with finality.

"Well Duo, I'm gonna tell you something that's going to make you firmly believe that I'm on acid or something similar."

 Duo smiled with gentle grace and spoke, his violet eyes still hiding from everyone in general. "Are you going to tell me about the past?"

 Quatre blinked. "How did you know that?"

 Duo sighed, his chest heaving under the silk sheets of the imagined bed that was real only in a sense that two peoples consciousness' were sitting on it. He still didn't open his eyes, showing that he was truly tired. Under any other circumstances he would have at very least put out the effort to open his eyes and look at Quatre. With another little sigh he spoke, shifting slightly.

"Lets just say that the boss man bellow gave me a hint before I overthrew myself for my own mind."

 Quatre nodded demurely, as was his trademark response to anything that he didn't have experience with. He closed his eyes as well, shifting the scene as memories of the past flooded back into the forward parts of his mind. The Quatre of old came forward, replacing the slight little teen that everyone knew.

 Out in the hallway Dorthy was struck dumb as images, sounds, feelings, and memories of things that she had never done or seen flooded through her mind in a torrential outpouring. She blinked once and then closed her eyes, leaning against the wall. Wufei and Trowa were in similar states, each lying where they had come to rest, their eyes closed. And then the journey began.

< Quatre squinted out at the golden sands of his home. Finally after many months' journey he was back home in the golden dunes where he came from. His robes flipped about his ankles playfully and his fingers stung slightly from sand that was carried along with the breeze as easily as the buzzards overhead flew through the skies. Behind him the sounds of his bodyguards and caravan prevailed. He turned his golden-haired-head back once, staring back with amusement at those subservient to him. One man strolled up, confidant that he was indeed worthy to approach the master. The person came up a pace behind Quatre and kneeled down on one knee.

 The golden haired master stood for a moment and then turned, bidding with but a gesture for the man to rise. His depthless blue eyes sparkled with hidden love and amusement at this new arrival. The other man did not meet the master's eyes. Only his peers were allowed such a liberty, and a seldom one at that. No one locked eyes with Quatre without two things granted first, tolerance and rank, in that order.

 The small master turned and walked toward his tent, motioning for the runner to follow his footsteps. The taller man followed the shorter, out of the scalding rays of the sun and the biting fingers of the wind. When the tent flap closed behind them the young master turned, walking deliberately up the man who stood ridged and still, not moving. His face was hidden by a cowl and the only hint of who he was came in a stay bit of brown hair that peeked out of the cloth hiding his face. With delicate hands unused to work of any sort save that of the court the young master moved the cowl away to show a boy his age, tall and lanky with jade eyes that glittered in the faint interior lighting of the tent.  The young master leaned up and kissed the boy's lips, starting a sultry kiss. Trowa was obligated to continue it, for, whatever the master wanted the master was free to have.

 After the brief moment occurred Trowa looped his arms loosely about Quatre's waist and leaned his forehead down to meet the little Arab masters'.

"How are you master?"

 Quatre smiled, the little jewel resting in the middle of his forehead glittering. His eyes were gentle and sweet, not at all what others gazed upon. He smiled again and wrapped his arms about the taller man.  

"As I have always been lover. And you?"

 Trowa hesitated a moment and then spoke. "I am as you would wish me to be."

 Quatre frowned in a cute fashion. "I do wish that you would not be so formal with me in private."

 Trowa smiled at him sadly. "I must be Little One. If someone were to find us together, you would suffer from it. That in itself makes my heart heavy."

 Quatre sighed, leaning his bejeweled head against the sun-warmed tunic of his lover and bodyguard. His other bodyguard, holding the guise of a dancer was unavailable in the moment. He walked over to find one of his cushions and watched with a smiling mouth as Trowa walked over slowly to kneel at his side, guarding him in more ways than one. The little blond master and mage looked over a scroll written in neat angelic. The handwriting was loose and slightly awry. It was from a Duo Maxwell, the lord of a house in the isles to the west.

 With some interest Quatre read the parchment aloud:

Master Winner, we have come in need of some assistance. Lord Maxwell
will be coming to meet with you personally. By the time this reaches you, 
our beloved lord will not be far behind you.

Scribe to Lord Duo Maxwell
Of the house of Maxwell

 Quatre looked over to Trowa. His heavenly eyes suddenly clouded and a crease of worry appeared in his forehead.

"Trowa, my vision proves to be astute. They come."

 Trowa stared ahead of him impassively, flicking a dagger into the air to once again catch it then repeat the process.  "Your visions are always correct master…"

 Three blazing days passed with idle events before a lone man on horseback came riding in the distance. Everything about him screamed that he was foreign to the heated sands of the desert, indeed his very manner suggested that he was better suited to the ocean from whence he came. When he came in and dismounted he was nearly delirious with heat. He was escorted to a tent and given a while to take his ease as he regained some semblance of normality from his excursion. After he had recovered from his long ride over the dunes he was led to the tent of the master.

 The stranger stood almost as tall as the master was, slightly higher. His very demeanor seemed to scream out royalty, but he had presented nothing to state that he was. As he came into the presence of the Arab, the man finally removed his cowl. As he did so everyone in the tent fell silent. The man before him was as beautiful as any had ever seen before.

 His violet eyes glittered in the sun, daring anyone to speak and break the crystalline silence that had fallen. His hair was of a chestnut with other hues interwoven and spun in gold and browns, wrapped with a black satin ribbon into a braid that fell down his back. His clothing was tasteful and appropriate to his venture and fit him well, showing off a lean and muscular build. His lips quirked into an almost-grin, smiling at the whole world. He took a small bow to Quatre directly, locking eyes with the little Arab and smiling.

"Master Quatre."

 Equally as courteously Quatre returned the mock-bow, his glittering azure eyes laughing as he greeted his old Anglican friend.

"Lord Maxwell. It's a pleasure that our destinies have interwoven once again and so chosen to bring you to us."

 The servants were banished from the room, save Trowa, who was instructed to take his ease on one of the many cushions littering the floor of the tent.  He did so, still flipping his little dagger around. He was known to be more than deadly with the small blade. It had the tendency to snap out like a scorpion, finding it's target with a stinging pain and then bringing a black eternity of death shortly thereafter.

 Duo took a seat, his cool and aloof face melting into something more human, much warmer. He smiled at the Arab master, sitting at ease, leaning against the pillows and watching with his deep and wide azure eyes.

"Quatre, seeing you again…" he paused for a moment, his eyes, before cold and assured of what he was and what he was doing; now were darting around as if he were searching for the elusive answer to a puzzling question. After a moment of staring at the interior of the tent, he continued.

"seeing you again, warms my heart and brings ease to my troubled mind."

 Quatre smiled at him, easing him through his gentle face. "What troubles you?"

 Duo stared ahead, a few stray locks of chestnut hair falling from their confines to frame his face. His eyes held a hallow quality and his voice permeated the air as a harsh whisper.

"Oh the things that I have seen in these night-visions. Things that touch the very core of myself like chill hands of demons. Only, it appears that I am the demon."

 With a high-pitched and rather unnatural sounding laugh he sunk his face into his hands, his bangs falling toward the floor and hiding his eyes. Quatre knew that he hadn't slept in almost a month. Most times had been black moments filled with hellish images which Duo endured only for the sake of remaining awake for a longer period of time.

"Take ease my friend, take ease. The troubling visions will not touch you here…" Quatre spread his hands out to either side of him, indicating the cloth walls that surrounded and encompassed them. "Here you are in my walls, and you are safe."

 Duo nodded, slowly bringing his head up once again. He looked at Quatre levelly.

"I take it you have insight into this mater as always my friend?"

 Quatre laughed, a dry, humorless laugh. "Would they call me mage if I didn't?"

 Duo smiled, acquiescing the point. Quatre patted the cushion next to him and Duo laid his head there, knowing the strange, but by now familiar ritual. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, shifting around for the space of moments to get comfortable. He felt Quatre's cool palm touch his forehead and then a shock run through his body. All of the lingering terror was purged from his consciousness in the wake of Quatre's mind. He slipped into the black abyss of dreamless sleep.

 Later that evening another person was brought into camp. A messenger of Lord Maxwell's, a short haired boy with cobalt blue eyes and the temperament of ice. He said nothing and didn't react to any sort or provocation. He was brought to Lord Maxwell's tent and left there to sleep off the effects of the desert until his master returned from his time with the Mage. He hadn't said a word since entering the camp and would continue to remain silent until in the company of the one that he searched for.

 Quatre stroked a hand once through Duo's errant bangs, bringing him around from the haze that he had fallen into. Duo blinked his eyes twice, clearing the last bits of sleep from his eyes. Quatre smiled down at the other boy and spoke, his tone soft and reassuring.

"What did you dream?"

 At first Duo was going to say nothing, but that wasn't the truth and he was not inclined to lie to the mage, in any sort of an event.

"I dreamt that I was dead."

 Quatre remained impassive, his face completely blank of any sort of an emotion at all. "Anything else?"

 Duo looked thoughtful. "My friend was dead too. He had the countenance of one of God's own."

 Again Duo was met by a blank wall where usually feeling and emotion were painted out for all to see. He spoke, leaning up and resting the weight of his torso on his knees.

"What is it that's troubling you Quatre."

 Quatre sighed. "Nothing that concerns you my friend. Trowa will take you to this evening's accommodations. I believe the same friend that you spoke of is waiting for you there."

 Duo blinked rapidly. "Heero? What would Heero Yuy be doing out here?"

 Quatre smiled quietly. "Looking for you, I would believe."

 Duo excused himself and rushed off in the direction that Trowa led. After the other two had departed, Quatre nodded to the seemingly empty air. Someone appeared out of it, a woman, from her step and poise. She was shrouded in a cloak which she brought from her face after a moment. Her sweet and clear voice rang through the air of the tent.

"You see how it is Quatre? Already my master and the other are conspiring to join them physically and then it will complete the process."

 Quatre nodded. "And yet why do you bring me this news Alexandria. What stirs you to disobey?"

 The woman stood level with Quatre, gazing at him with her depthless purple eyes. "I think it an unjust pursuit of frivolous wants.  I think it not fair to place the burden on these two souls. Even as you watch them you see that they are forever twined together by the red threads of fate itself; do you not?"

 Quatre looked into the distance where the two would probably be kissing their hellos even now. "I know it just as well as you angel. What is the purpose?"

"Simply, they are bored with the way that human events move now. They want a radical change. Because these two souls are repositories for psychic energies and other energies as well, they make good channels for the warriors that live in possibility in their souls.

 The powers that be have chosen either one of them as pieces in a game. They will fight and whomever wins determines which power will get to remake the path of human events in the years to come. All of you mortals will blame it on the coming millennium and there will be no more speculation about it."

 Alexandria paused, readjusting her long white wings, her golden hair flowing freely about her face and dancing in front of her eyes. A celestial being she was and gorgeous she was also.

"Yet the game is not so simple. There are other players to be figured in. You, for one. And the Chinese lord Cheng Wufei. The powers thought it fair to give the people a voice in all of this. When the time comes he will act in the interest of the people, most likely trying to get either of the main warriors, and thus abating the determining factors all together. If he does so then there will be no change. And then there is you, my dear Quatre.

 You have the most mobility of them all. You can stop the events completely, stop everything and reset it for another time and place. However, be wary with that information because it will not serve you as readily as you might at first expect. As for me, I must go now. There are tolls to be paid for the transgression that I have committed. Most likely this will be the last time that we speak."

 In a flurry of shadows and several white feathers she was gone, and Quatre knew that he had no recourse. Things had already been set off. They were in the process of rolling even as he stood there. Trowa came in and Quatre looked at him, his azure eyes sorrowful.

"Tonight we love; my Trowa. For tomorrow we die."

 Trowa's eyes widened to the point that it was amusing. "What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I spoke."  The earnest sadness in Quatre's tone struck Trowa to the core. "You can't mean…."

"But I do. Now come to me my lover, tonight is the last time that we may do this."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Quatre sat on his knees, the desert sand blowing his hair out of any semblance of order. His clothing was torn, blood ran freely down his face in rivulets. All around him things clashed and screamed, locked into mortal combat, not of their own free wills. Things from nightmares and fond dreams alike flew around him in a deadly dance of death, each fighting for a side and a purpose. And in the middle of the fray somewhere were Duo and Heero, the Anglican lord and his Japanese lover.

 Silently the little mage cursed them, his hate flowing through his bleeding and wounded heart. In the background he heard a blood curdling roar and the heat of flames hit his back. He paid it no mind, staring ahead with dull eyes. Every power, every ability, every sense of anything had deserted him. There was a ground-shaking thump as the Eastern Dragon hit the ground, shortly followed by another, a small angel with flowing ebony hair and sad red eyes.

 None of them were of consequence. It all hurt too much, his fingers were tangled in material. He looked down and confirmed what his aching heart all ready knew to be truer than the fact that he still continued to live in torment. Trowa was dead. He had been dead for a while. He had been gutted like common hunting game by a beast with the head of a bird and the body of a lion. Trowa had taken the beast with him but in so doing left the little mage to his own devices. Tears were intermingling with the blood and sand that slid down his face.

"Why did you go and do that? Why did you fight it? You're always one to fight against odds that you cannot win against. I'd told you a thousand times that one of these days you'll get yourself killed."

 Quatre paused, staring down into the lifeless jade eyes of his lover. "And look, just as I said: you did."

 He stared around at the things fighting with new awareness. He cursed the little demon that had told him what he hadn't needed to know. It would have hurt in a different way if he hadn't known what was coming before hand.

"Damn you Alexandria, wherever you are, I hope you rot in the depths of the thirteen hells you whore!!"

 He growled out the words vengefully, unaware that higher powers were listening and getting ideas. He hated the angel for the information that she had given him. She had said that he could stop it all, yet he had tried and tried and nothing had come of it.

"How am I supposed to abate this? What do I do to stop it?"

 He stared into the unyielding gray sky, asking for an answer. It came in nothing verbal but rather a compulsion. He let Trowa's cloak go and stood, staring straight ahead of him and seeing nothing at all. He started chanting the languages that almost no one knew save he. His eyes glazed over completely and time itself froze. He kept chanting, his tattered robes whipping around his legs.

"Let nothing deter us in our cause
Chronos abate and move forward
What cannot be amended
Take from this channel
The cost of our transgression
And save for another time
The pain that is not right for this one"

 The black enfolded and surrounded everything, wiping the time and place out of the time flow completely. The protector of time was not happy with this transgression and Quatre would pay for it. Images flashed through the blackness; of people disappearing, of others resurrected, of punishments rendered and wrongs righted. And then it folded over him, stealing the payment for the operation from his flesh and soul.
<<You, Quatre, dare you pay the full price for this, and do the correct thing when the time comes only three lifetimes away from you>>

 His head bowed the superior power that he faced, his strength sapped, his powers muted and his soul humbled, Quatre nodded.

"I accede to your will and agree to the terms that you set."

 There was an agreement forged in that time and Quatre was sent back into the sway of things, always aware in his subconscious of the smugly ticking clock. >

 Heero sucked in a deep breath, blinking his eyes rapidly, trying to return the moisture to them. His chest ached, his throat was dry and it felt as if he had been stuck in that vision for days on end. When he looked at the clock he noted that approximately two minutes had passed as an entire lifetime flew through his mind. He stared down at Duo and Quatre, both who were still unconscious. Alex stared angrily at them all, old memories resurfaced and once again brought to life. Dorthy stuck her head around the corner, raising one of her exotic eyebrows and saying nothing at all.

 In the room where Trowa had been lying Wufei now sat, blinking his large onyx eyes slowly. The Heavyarms pilot sat up and looked at Wufei who slowly shook his head, not knowing what else to do or say.

 Quatre opened his troubled azure eyes and looked at Duo, who still laid there listening. "now do you see what I mean?"

 Duo sighed. "Whole situation looks pretty damn hopeless to me. I'm stuck in a sub-conscious nook, and Heero is most likely in about the same position. You can't do anything this time around and events are shaping up to be exactly the way that they were. What can we do?"

 Quatre looked at Duo with sad eyes. "Right now, I'm not sure."

 Duo let out a longwinded sigh, his spiritual muscles going lax as he sunk deeper into himself.

"There's nothing else we can do Q-man. This time we sit back and watch."

 Quatre frowned, suddenly saddened and unsure of the reason behind it. He looked at Duo, already knowing the answer to the question resting on his lips.

"You're going to sleep now?"

 Duo hummed his affirmative sleepily. "Tell everyone God-bless, or Goddamn in this case."

 Both boys giggled slightly at the morose joke. Duo continued, his lips barely moving as the bed around them wavered and faded.

"You know Q-man, I have three angels…"

 Quatre blinked, ever so slightly confused by Duo's statement. To his knowledge Duo had a demon watching his back and nothing more. Duo continued in the same, faded, whispering voice.

"There's one angel with a sweet voice, and a smile that could charm the birds out of the trees. That angel had golden hair and blue eyes that can see straight into your soul. The second one has eyes like mine and tattered wings. She's seen too much for her age, whatever that is. And the third one I love with all my heart. He's the other angel in flesh, with blue eyes…."

 Duo faded completely out of his own mind, regressing into the comforting dark that he had embraced. That left only the new Duo in the mind that the Deathscythe pilot had just vacated. Quatre got out of the new boy's mind in a hurry. It was a dark and cold place, not at all like the mind of the cheerful teen that Quatre knew. When he came back into consciousness Duo hadn't moved at his side. Heero sat there looking as if he had been suddenly stripped out of every ability to communicate at all. He sat stock still, staring at Quatre with slightly confused and befuddled cobalt eyes.

 Quatre smiled at him, leaning on the hospital bed, trying to regain his equilibrium. Dorthy stuck her head in, raising an eyebrow at Quatre and then looking at Heero with an odd expression. Quatre looked over to the wing pilot as well and then smiled at Dorthy.

"Overload."

 Dorthy nodded, her blonde hair creeping over her shoulders as she stepped into the room.

"So I'd noticed."

 She came to stand at Quatre's side, resting a hand lightly on his shoulder. "I know about everyone else, but how are you holding up Quatre Reberba Winner?"

 Quatre looked over his shoulder at her, amused by her never ending formality. "I'm fine."

 One of her strange eyebrows arched downward, along with the corners of her mouth, betraying her disapproval at what he had said.

"I don't think you're telling me the truth Mr. Winner."

 He smiled again. "We'll have time to talk in a moment. I have to do something first."

 As Dorthy watched Quatre rose to his feet and walked around the bed, circumnavigating to avoid having to crawl over Duo or dodge wires. When he was face to face with Heero he looked the perfect soldier apologetically in the face, brought his palm back and cracked it across Heero's face.

 Heero responded with a growl, drawing his fist back to hit Quatre for all he was worth. At the amused look in the Arab's eyes Heero's temper boiled.

"What was that for?"

 Quatre looked VERY apologetic. "Heero, you were so zoned that I think Treize Kushrenada and Zechs Marquise could have walked in here right now and started making out and you would have only given them a passing glance."

 Heero slowly acceded that he had been a little zoned. The sting was beginning to fade from the blow and the logic behind it finally peeked it's way out into the forefront of his mind. He nodded to Quatre once.

"Ariagto."

 Quatre shrugged and walked out, flanked by Catalonia and an angel with long blonde hair and worried blue eyes that looked like Quatre's. Trowa walked out of the adjoining room in time to join the leaving party. Heero's sensitive ears caught a strain of the conversation.

"Before we go back home I need to pick up a few things."

"Such as?"

"Well, just stuff. You know, tampons, shampoo, a broad sword…"

"That's fine, we'll go to the grocery store first, it's closer."

 Heero found his lips curving up in a smile at that. The thought of Dorthy Catalonia, on her period and wielding a broadsword was hysterically funny and amazingly frightening all in the same breath. He watched as Alex floated closer, her bright purple eyes slightly unfocused.

"What are you doing?"

<I'm going to amend what's wrong with him.>

"How?"

<Watch>

 Alex slipped onto the bed next to Duo, the tips of her wings almost grazing the floor. She faded to stand `in' the bed and wrapped her wings protectively around Duo's battered and thin form. A gentle purple light was let through her wings and then she let her wings fan back out. Heero gaped at the sight that came to his eyes. Duo looked much better than he had previously.

 His thin and hallowed cheeks were filled out much more than they had previously been. His arms were also more filled out and the general feeling of `not well' that had hovered over him was muted. Tentitively Heero laced his fingers into Duo's.

"C'mon koi, wake up, talk to me."

Notes: That would be the end of this chapter. From now on, readers beware, bastardized Duo's on the horizon...*wink*

-End Part Fourteen

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