Title: Be-twitched

Author: Caer (caerfreeREMOVETHIS@tde.com)

Author's Note: This is my contribution to Halloween! All Hallow’s eve! I love this time of year. This is alternate universe and really just a loose adaptation of a popular old scary tale

Rating: R

Warnings: Implied Lemon,

Pairings: 1x3x4

Status: Complete (Part 4)

Disclaimer: Don’t own the Gundam boys, not making money. Blah de blah blah....

~~

The large library door slammed shut, the lingering sound of the brewing storm outside echoing ominously throughout the large edifice. A pale blond boy ran in, looking here and there frantically, dropping his heavy woolen coat to lie in a heap at the entrance. Thunder clapped outside and the youth whirled at the sound in fright, such was the state of his disquietude. He quickly turned back though and ran up the large staircase that led up to the second story balcony that surrounded the main chamber. With shaking hands, he pulled the unique velvet book from its neighboring tomes. As before, the keyless lock slid easily from its clasp and Quatre opened the book and almost mockingly, the book lay itself easily open to the first of the three pages that were of a different grain than the rest.

He whimpered and hurled the book away from him as he saw what it held. The book ended up landing on the lower floor, while Quatre tried to contain his horror, though unstoppable tears tracked his pale cheeks and his stomach turned violently. He held onto the balcony railing for support and shook his head violently.

"No, no, no, no... it can not be. This can not be."

He looked down at the offending book, which had landed open on the floor below, the same terrible page tearing into his guilty soul. His eyes traced the writing again, an illogical hope of having read the words wrong, but he hadn’t. The words were burned into the page with the added horror was that it was mockingly in his own handwriting, though he had never set quill to the faded parchment.

‘I wish I did have 200 pounds’

"But why?"

He fell to his knees roughly, still clutching the railing. He could not remove his disbelieving eyes from the written attestation of Heero’s death at his wish. His hands slipped down and clutched at the cornered iron bars of the railing and he gasped, his face pressed into the cold metal so hard that when he came away, his forehead was bruised. He looked hard at the book trying to sort his thoughts.

"No... No, Shinigami said three wishes, two more pages to be filled. I can change this. I CAN change this... please."

He numbly made his way back down the stairs to the book, though his legs threatened to give out. He bent over and picked it up. The shaking of his hands had stilled now and he felt a calm claim him as he lifted the book and moved to the nearby desk.

"I see my mistake now..." He said as he sat down and turned to the next blank page. He uncapped the ink well and dipped a quill in.

"The book found the most logical way to provide the money I wished for. I understand. You can’t just create something out of nothing. It killed Heero to fulfill my wish, but I can fix this."

He poised to write.

"As long as I’m not asking for a tangible thing, this can work. There are no circumstances to be altered for such a thing, therefore there should be no consequences. I don’t care about the money. I just want Heero back." Quatre tried not to choke as he said his late lover’s name, proclaiming his grief to the churning night.

He lowered the quill, then stopped.

"I wish..." He said.

Almost instantly, the two uttered words appeared slowly on the page. Quatre could detect a faint scent of burnt parchment. He steeled himself and went on, setting the quill

down."I wish Heero to be alive again."

The thunder clapped and rumbled, causing the more fragile items of decor in the large library to tinkle in riposte. The words burned into the book and Quatre began to feel a faint fear that he may have committed a grave error. He backed away from the book as it slowly shut itself and glowed a fiery red. Quatre shook his head.

"This book is evil itself. Lord, what have I done?"

He jumped when the door to the library opened and shivered as the wind from outside slid icy fingers around his body as if to claim him for his condemnation. He looked down to see the cloaked figure of Wufei Chang.

"He was here!" The Chinese boy said toward the open door as he picked up the discarded coat and looked around. Then he looked up at the upper balcony and met Quatre’s terrified eyes.

Heero entered after Wufei and looked up at the shivering blond. He cursed, closed the door quickly and, grabbing the coat from Wufei, made his way quickly up the stairs to wrap Quatre in the coat and his arms.

"Why did you run out like that Quatre? You’ll catch your death."

Quatre reached up shakily and touched Heero’s warm cheek with his own ice cold fingers. He was now in deep shock as he tried to comprehend what was happening. His eyebrows furrowed a bit, even as his eyes grew wider when he looked up into Heero’s intense, reprimanding gaze, though there was confusion in the cobalt depths at Quatre’s

expression."Heero?"

Heero stared, perplexed at the stunned boy. He slid his fingers into the silky blond hair and pressed the flaxen head into his shoulder, holding Quatre tightly against him.

"Why did you run out like that?"

Quatre looked at nothing and held Heero a little tighter. Where was Trowa? His thoughts were racing, but he couldn’t seem to get his mouth to work properly. He managed to force a hint of resonance through his tightened throat as he tried to ask his desperate

question."Trowa?"

Heero held the boy tighter. His own eyes burnished with tears.

"I know Quatre, but there’s nothing we can do. All we can do is be thankful he didn’t suffer."

Didn’t suffer...

The roaring in his ears drowned out everything else as Quatre listened to the impossible words. Trowa was... Trowa was dead? He stared at the book on the desk, mortified as he tried to figure out what could have gone wrong.

Heero looked at Wufei in desperation. Quatre was limp and silent in his arms.

"What’s wrong with him?" Wufei asked. He looked into Quatre’s glassy eyes, but concluded that the stupefied boy was staring right through him.

Heero held him close. He had never seen Quatre so vulnerable. Was it Trowa’s death, or something else?

"This was a shock. Trowa was..." Heero’s eyes darkened with emotion, though his face did not change. "I don’t know if Quatre’s ever lost somebody this close before."

Wufei nodded... "Strange that he came here."

Heero shrugged and lay the comatose blond against the wall, rubbing the icy arms, trying to coax some warmth into them.

"He’s a bit odd, yes." Heero said lovingly as he vainly tried to capture Quatre’s lifeless eyes with his. "Quatre loves books. Maybe he came here for comfort, or to be alone."

"Still..." Wufei stared at Quatre perplexed. "It’s almost too completely

propitious."Heero wiped his eyes angrily. "Enough. Let’s just find the damn book. Quatre and I have had no time to mourn. Were your father not a pitiless bastard, I would not even be here."

Wufei held his anger in check. "I’m sorry." He replied, looking down, his fists clenched.

Heero looked up, gazing at the Chinese boy carefully and then shaking his head.

"No. I’m sorry. I’m taking this out on you. You’re not to blame. Let’s just find the book."

Wufei nodded and both boys spread out and began their search. Heero started in the Biography section and Wufei combed the History archives. Every now and then, Heero would steal a glance at his comatose lover.

Quatre studiously attempted to pull his scattered thoughts back together. He realized that he had sort of lost track of himself when Heero had embraced him. His eyes were open, but everything seemed to be detached and cloudy. It was as if there was no time within which everything happened. It was all just one indecipherable image of all events on top of each other. Heero’s embrace coincided with the two boys setting Quatre down, then two of them standing at the desk looking at an old book Heero had pulled from some dusty corner of the library. Yet, time passed in which Quatre’s mind tried to pull these events back into some semblance of reasonable temporal order.

‘What’s going on? Is this what it feels like to go mad I wonder?’

After a while, things seemed to pull apart and make sense again and Quatre could make out Heero and Wufei’s voices as they stood over the book.

"We didn’t come to stay originally. Trowa’s grandfather called us here. He knew he was dying. We stayed because your father offered us lodging. At the time, he thought we were just fellow schoolmates and nothing more."

"But he never said anything about the will?"

"No. He was pretty much gone by the time we got here. Senile. Most of the time, he spent yelling at Trowa. All he really ever did when he was lucid, was to ask us if we were warm enough. We would say yes and he would laugh until he passed out. Then he died."

"The bastard."

"Sorry?"

"It says here that he hid the money underneath the fire grate. Almost 2 hundred

pounds."Heero’s eyes hardened. "You’re kidding."

They felt the chill air as the door was opened and closed. Heero looked up at the door, then at the rumpled coat by the wall where his lover had just been.

"Damn it all! Where did he go now?"

* * *

Shinigami made his way in the darkness of night along the road out of town, humming to himself and playing cheerfully with his braid, despite the violent storm that surrounded him. A voice in the distance behind him caught his attention and he turned to see the blond from this morning running toward him.

"Mr. Maxwell! Wait. Please!"

Duo stopped. He turned to wait for the boy, an wicked smile playing across his

lips."What can I do for you?" He purred.

Quatre stopped a few feet away and leaned over, his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. He looked up.

Duo examined his nails.

"Can I help you?"

Quatre straightened.

"Yes. I need your help. That wishing book worked."

Duo’s eyes gleamed.

"Good. You got your money’s worth then. I shoulda’ charged more." He turned to

go."No!" Quatre grabbed the white of Shinigami’s sleeve. "Please. I need your

help."Duo turned and waited, crossing his arms. Quatre swallowed and continued.

"That book... it’s evil. I didn’t expect it to work."

Duo raised an eyebrow at this, but remained silent.

"I wished for money. I got it, but somebody ended up dying."

"So. What do you expect me to do about it?"

Quatre gasped. "Don’t you get it? Somebody died. I only have one more wish. I have to get them back. I need you to tell me what to wish for to make it stop."

Quatre bowed his head.

"I never wanted any of this."

"Well, what did you expect rich boy?" Duo snapped, his eyes glittering as he advanced on Quatre. "Did you want your dreams all handed to you on a silver platter little prince? Too bad. Life doesn’t work that way."

Quatre backed away, then fell to his knees. "But... I didn’t know. I didn’t even think the book was real. I never wanted the money that badly."

"But badly enough didn’t you? You humans are never content with what you have. Always need to have even more."

Quatre squinted through his tears. "We... what?"

Duo snorted.

"Try to be intelligent for a minute kid. You wanted something for nothing, but it doesn’t work that way does it? That’s life. That’s truth. If you can’t handle it, then go back home to your daddy and your money. I gave you what you wanted, and you weren’t satisfied. Well, that’s just tough."

Quatre fell to his knees. "Who are you? Why are you doing this?" Quatre whispered."Please. I just want things to be the way they were."

Shinigami looked down at the pathetic figure in the road. He used the toe of his boot to draw the boy’s chin up so that he could look into those innocent blue eyes.

"You’re a clever lad. You have one more wish. Will you use it?"

Quatre shivered as he shook his head violently.

"I’m afraid to."

He looked miserably at Duo Maxwell.

"I want Trowa back, but it would only make things worse"

He buried his face in his hands, letting things fade away in his mind again as they had in the library when he had seen Heero again.

"I wish I had never laid eyes on that cursed book."

Vaguely, he realized he had made another wish, but he didn’t care. He could almost see the book in his minds eye, flaring to life upon the desk Heero and Wufei stood at. He laughed brokenly. Having resigned himself to fate, he curled up on the ground in the mud and willed everything to go away. He vaguely felt fingers stroke his hair.

"Don’t worry little prince. I’m done with you now. Wake up."

"Wake up."

"Quatre, can you hear me? Wake up."

Quatre slowly came to himself and realized he was struggling weakly against a pair of solid arms. He felt absolutely soaked and his mouth was dry. He stilled and tried to open his eyes, but they were crusted with mucous and his vision was blurry. The person who was holding him shifted and he suddenly felt a cool wet rag on his face. The person in question washed the muck out of his eyes and he looked around to find himself in his own bed.

"Quatre."

Heero looked down at him with smiling eyes. Though his face was as cold as ever.

"You’re back with me."

Heero gathered the weak, sweating body into his arms and Quatre melted, laying his head against Heero’s chest.

"I had the worst dream Heero. We couldn’t pay the rent and Shinigami came. There was a book and Trowa died."

Heero stroked the damp blond hair and rocked back and forth.

"It’s ok. You’re ok now Quatre."

Quatre sighed and buried his head further in Heero’s chest as he felt relief wash over him. It was all a dream.

"Yes." He said sleepily. "Nothing needs to change. Everything’s just fine."

* * *

Quatre sat in the main living room of the small cottage, reading "The Picture of Dorian Gray." And generally recovering from his relapse. He found himself reading over the same paragraph several times, but he couldn’t stop looking over at the fireplace where a friendly blaze crackled merrily. Pieces of Quatre’s dream kept leaking into his conscious thoughts until finally he gave into them. Grabbing a bucket and going outside he dipped some water from the rain barrel and used it to douse the fire inside. Using a poker, he pulled the grate out and lifted the ash catcher to look underneath. His heart jumped when he saw an outline of a small box underneath the gray ash.

He found a pair of gloves and pulled the box out, opening it and falling hard on his rear end as he saw what was inside.

A fortune’s worth of raw emerald lay encased in cloth within the box. Much of it was flawless. Quatre stared it for quite a while before he remembered to breath. He let out his breath in a gasp and began to pant, feeling a bit feverish again. He turned as he heard the door open. Heero’s eyes widened as he dropped his coat and strode angrily toward Quatre.Wufei followed.

"Baka! Do you want to freeze to..."

Heero stopped, staring down at the box of emerald, speechless.

"Would you look at that." Wufei moved to stare with Heero. After an uncomfortably prolonged and shocked silence, Heero snapped out of his stupor enough to move the grate back inside the fireplace, rebuilding the fire and letting it re-warm the cabin as Quatre told them what he could about why he looked under the fireplace. Eventually they settled on the divan.

Wufei nodded. "Old man Barton was crazy. I knew he had sailed before he came here, but this... Who would have thought he would have a stash of precious stone? The man lived like a pauper. He was notoriously stingy. More so than my own father."

Heero looked up, his one-track mind, working a mile a minute behind those cold cobalt eyes.

"We would be willing to split half with you if you will hold off your father until such time as I can go to town to sell some of this. I don’t want him to know what we’ve

found."Wufei glared at him, though he nodded. "He would try to take it from you. I agree, but don’t insult me Yui. I need not be bribed. I will do what you ask, however. I’m tired of listening to my father rant about you to be honest. He will wait. I will make sure of that."

Heero nodded. Wufei examined the raw stone in his hand.

"You two are lucky. Perhaps this was meant to be. It seems fate has blessed you with this small fortune."

Quatre lay his head on Heero’s shoulder and smiled.

"All because of Trowa."

Heero cocked his head to look down at his blond lover.

"That’s the second time I’ve heard that. Who is Trowa?"

* * *

Two boys walked along the empty road toward the edge of town. Had anyone been able to see them in passing, they would not have appeared as though they belonged to this world. However they remained invisible to the mortal eye. One boy had once upon a time been forever shut off from the pleasures of the tangible while the other was born of an ancient power. He was only seen when he wished to be.

"Thank you." Trowa said.

Duo laughed. "It was no trouble. It’s what I do. I serve the dead and I go where I’m needed."

"Are you sure about what you promised? They won’t leave now will they?"

Duo raised an eyebrow and looked askance at his companion.

"I promised you didn’t I? I never tell a lie."

Trowa smiled. "I only wish I was still alive to be with them in the flesh. Still, I think it is enough, if Quatre and Heero will stay here with me forever."

"Forever is innacurate. They will be with you until I come back to take them of

course.""I understand."

Duo looked him in the eye.

"Be sure that you do." He warned.

At the outskirts of town, Trowa stopped.

"I can’t go any further. Again, I am eternally grateful."

Duo nodded, looking up at the breaking dawn. "My time is nearly up as well. It’s been a pleasure."

He turned and tipped his black hat at the brown haired boy. Trowa nodded back. He watched the figure in black walk away, eventually fading into nothing. The sun began to rise, driving All Hallows Eve into oblivion and forcing the dark spirits to flee to return next year. Then the green eyed ghost turned and headed back toward town to bask in the company of his hard earned prizes.

Owari

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