Well, I was kinda inspired by a Yu Yu Hakusho fic based on the same song... so I decided to write my own, except I'm using GW...
WARNINGS: A smidge of straight lime/lemon (het) and some dark scary stuff (I'm serious this time, this is not for the weak of heart, or stomach. Contains semi-rape), strong language... I'd give this a rated NC-17 for all the stuff I mention... This is kind of a Duo-centric fic, by the way. (I couldn't think of anyone else who would fit the bill...) Ooh yah, shonen ai & OOC.
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Oh yeah, and all characters belong to their original owners, blah blah blah, disclaimers and that kind of crap apply, yada, yada...
~On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night~
"Shit."
Duo had been driving down an ancient highway, one that was practically deserted. No one was anywhere within fifty miles of this place, and the sun had already set beyond the reaches of the human eye. A light breeze played with his hair as he got out of his convertible and checked the engine. He turned on the engine lamp and looked around. Just a few blown fuses. I can fix that, he thought to himself.
A soft scent of flowers wafted through the air, and a glimmering light caught his eye. His head became heavy with fatigue. Duo shook his head, determined to fix his engine so he could get back home, but the image before him started to dim. "Damn," he muttered to himself. He looked towards the light to see what was there. A building had suddenly appeared, looking for all the world like an old church.
~There she stood in the doorway;
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself,
'This could be Heaven or this could be Hell'
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say...~
A lone figure stood on the porch, holding a lantern in her hand. Duo squinted, and walked towards it. As he got closer, his eyes widened in shock and recognition.
"Sister... Helen?"
She didn't say anything, she merely turned and walked back into the church. Duo sprinted the rest of the way to catch up to her. He entered the building, and looked around. It looked like a rusty old motel, not the warm atmosphere of a church like he had expected. There were two hallways, and the one on the right had a soft bluish glow coming from it. A bright light to his left attracted his attention. The light from the lantern that the woman was holding had brightened, and she walked down the left hallway. Duo followed her out of pure curiosity.
Stay...
Stay with us...
Duo whirled around to confront the voices, but saw nothing except the darkness that was behind him, the shadowed hands reaching for him. He quickly caught up to the woman, staying close behind her. He took another look back, and saw that the shadowed hands had regressed. For now.
~Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year, you can find it here~
The woman led Duo to a single room in the back, near the glass doorway that led to the outside. He looked out the glass of that door to see a courtyard with a large fountain. The fountain was in the shaped of a curled dragon, with water coming from its mouth. He eyed it for a moment more before walking back into his room and searching his pockets. "Crap, I left my wallet in the car." He turned to leave, but the woman grabbed his arm. Without saying a word, she stared into his eyes, and he understood, without knowing how. She caressed his cheek slowly, and Duo noted the coldness of her hand. She gave him a small smile. Duo nodded weakly as she left.
He looked around at his room for the night. The bed was a normal twin size bed, and there was a small dresser and nightstand on the sides of the bed. There wasn't any other pieces of furniture in the room. There was a window facing the courtyard, with its eerie fountain and shrubs planted in random areas. He could see a spiral path of white marble making up the surface of the courtyard.
Then suddenly, lights from within the fountain began to glow, and a green light was cast over the area.
"Man, this has been one creepy night..."
~Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget~
Out of sheer speculativeness, he walked out of his room, opened the glass door and stepped outside. To his amazement, at least twenty people had managed to step outside between the time that he had looked out the window and when he had stepped outside. He was too shocked to notice their hungry gaze.
A soft rhythmic tune started playing from who knows where, and they all started dancing, swaying their bodies like a ripple across the water. It was a hypnotic dance that caught Duo in its grasp. Duo started dancing as well, drawn in by the primal rhythm of the music. The mysterious crowd was made up of good looking young men, all wearing skin tight clothes. Duo was starting to enjoy himself.
Then the music stopped. They all looked towards the glass door. Standing there was the woman, who no longer looked like Sister Helen. She still looked physically like her, with the golden hair and blue eyes, but there was something different. Duo looked at her pale skin and the black dress she was wearing. It looked as if it had been painted on her, covering only what needed to be covered. It looked like a pair of hands were clutched around her, covering her special spots, and as she moved, the moonlight caught her every motion like a spotlight.
Duo felt himself attracted to this woman, the one who had graciously let his stay the night. He walked towards her, but he failed to see the predatory glint in her eyes. The music started once again, and they danced with the grace of two bodies finely tuned to the other, their bodies twisting and bending together, touching and caressing each other, but like they weren't touching at all. Moving like water, they managed to affect the whole congregation with their erotic dance. They all moved with the pair in the center, their bodies glistened with a light sheen of sweat.
~So I called up the Captain,
'Please bring me my wine'
He said,'We haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine'
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say...~
"I don't suppose you have some red wine?" Duo asked his dance partner. She shook her head, and spoke to Duo for the first time that night. "No, there hasn't been any wine here for a long time..."
Duo became slightly suspicious, but decided that maybe they hadn't ordered any wine for a long time.
Then the voices started again.
Stay...
Stay with us...
Duo looked around, and the all the young men had surrounded him, enclosing him in a tight circle. They chanted...
Stay...
Stay with us...
Duo panicked, feeling claustrophobic, and pushed his way back to the building. As Duo walked, no, ran, they groped him, their hands running across his body, sparking pleasurable feelings within him. The woman smiled ferally and parted a way for him to escape, and followed him quietly back into the building.
~Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
They livin' it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise, bring your alibis~
Duo ran back into his room and shut the door. "Don't hyperventilate, Duo. Just calm down," he told himself. A soft knock on the door made him jump. "AH! Uh, who is it?"
Without answering, the woman entered his room. She was wearing nun clothes again, looking like sweet, innocent Sister Helen. Duo felt like he wanted to run into her arms, and be safe from everything in the world again.
"Why didn't you save us?"
Duo was taken aback by the sudden question. He looked into her eyes, which were brimming with tears, and swallowed his sudden urge to vomit. "I... I was... I tried... I'm sorry," Duo managed to choke out, but he still felt empty inside, so very empty. "I wanted to save you, really!"
Sister Helen looked at him with the same stern expression she had used when he had done something wrong. "Duo, where were you?"
"I was stealing a mobile suit... for the colonies..."
"You know stealing is wrong. You should have stayed, stayed with us. Then you wouldn't have been so lonely."
Duo thought about the consequences if he had stayed and died with them. He wouldn't have met the others. Relena would be dead. Heero would have killed himself long ago. He shook his head. No, he was fated to live. There was no other path for him to follow. "No, I'm not really lonely. I have the other pilots."
There was silence as they looked at each other, one an image from the past, the other the image of the future. "Come with me," she said finally. Duo started to say he wanted to sleep, but she insisted. "Please," she said again, with that stern tone in her voice. Well, he was staying for free, might as well do what the nice lady said, right?
~Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice
And she said 'We are all just prisoners here, of our own device'
And in the master's chambers,
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast~
The woman led Duo back to the front lobby, then down the right hallway. They walked through the strangely lit corridor to a large dining room. It was lit in a soft white light. Glasses of champagne with ice were set on a nearby table. He looked up to see himself looking back. The entire ceiling was giant mirror. He looked around at the white walls, at the black door across from him, and at the cheap decor of the large room. There were only a few other tables besides the one with the champagne on ice. She picked up one of the glasses and handed it to Duo. The second Duo placed his hand around the cold glass, the champagne turned a strange of tint of pink, as if a drop of blood had been dropped into it.
Duo dropped the glass. The champagne sunk into the hardwood floor, and he staggered back. "What the hell is this place?!", he said with a hint of terror in his voice. The woman walked back towards him and placed her hands on his. Her hands were cold like ice.
"We are all just prisoners here, of our own device."
Duo blinked, trying to decode the phrase, but was distracted when the woman's clothes once again morphed to form the body-fitting dress she had been wearing before. "This way," she said kindly, pointing towards the black door. Duo hesitantly walked towards it, and, turning back to her one more time, he opened the door.
The blue glow he had saw last time he looked down this hallway had its origins here in this room. The woman walked in behind him, and the door shut. Duo looked back at her, and jumped back. Her features had turned into a vile grin, and she hissed, "Join usssss..."
Duo turned around to see the main area of the room. There was a round table, surrounded by five young men wearing cloaks. Four of them looked familiar to Duo. "Wufei, Quatre, Trowa... Heero..." They all looked up hungrily at Duo, their eyes glowing with an unholy light. The fifth man sat directly opposite the door, a hood covering his features. That man pulled out a long sword, and pointed at the shivering pile on the table underneath a tablecloth. The hooded figure removed the cloth with a flourish of his arm. It was the body of a young woman. A girl with blond hair and innocent blue eyes, wearing a pretty spring dress. Her eyes were wide with terror.
Duo looked on in horror, then shouted, "Hey, wait!"
The figure finally removed his hood. Duo gasped. It looked like him! His clone's eyes glowed an evil dark red before he plunged his sword into the heart of the girl. Blood splattered all over the table.
But the girl still lived. She twitched, her eyes revealing the fear in her now mutilated heart. Duo ran towards the table, and the others smiled. "Join us, in this feast of innocence," the evil Duo said. Then the others all grasped their knives and crawled onto the table, licking the blood from the body of the girl. They ripped her dress, the blood spilling further from her wound. She lay naked and bleeding on the table, a sword sticking out of her heart. They licked every inch of her body, caressing her with gentle hands, but they had a maniacal frenzy in their eyes as they lapped up her blood. They were slicing small cuts into her, licking the wounds and sucking them for more blood.
The evil Duo pulled the sword out, and licked the blood from the blade. "This is what you want, isn't it? Death needs his blood..."
Duo staggered back, feeling the need to run away. "No... No... This can't be... what I want..."
The girl moaned, still alive somehow. Duo watched, unable to turn away. She was being touched in the most intimate of ways, the boys fondling her body, running their hands and down her sides. One of them stuck a bloody finger into her cunt, fingering her clit with his thumb. She moaned and lifted her hips towards the touch. Her innocence was being stripped away.
Duo covered his ears in a vain effort to drown out the passioned cries. "No... I want to protect innocence, not destroy it! NOOOOO!" Duo screamed his terror, while his eyes still took in the horrible scene before him. Then the woman behind him pounced. With an inhuman strength, she pushed him towards the table until he was standing before it, with a first hand view of the damage. She was writhing, the boys licking up her blood and sucking her pale skin. The remains of her heart beat quickly because of her fear, and because of the forbidden pleasure that she was feeling. Duo took in the scene with a sinking feeling in his stomach.
"This is what you've been doing," the evil Duo said with a malicious tone. "Ripping the innocence from young people like her." He caressed the girl's cheek with bloody hand. Then he bent down and licked the blood off, sending forth a giggle from the girl. "You know you enjoy it," he added, "Look, here she is. Take her, take her innocence like you've been doing with the rest of the world."
The girl spread her legs, and looked at Duo, a crazed gleam in her eyes. Duo fought off another urge to throw up as he looked at the bloody victim. He shook his head repeatedly. "No... no..." he chanted like a mantra, his hold on sanity slowly slipping.
~Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
'Relax,'said the night man,
We are programmed to receive.
You can checkout any time you like,
but you can never leave~
"Noooooo!" Duo finally snapped, and turned to run away. He was getting the hell out of here, and nothing short of death was going to stop him. But the woman stood in his way. "You can't leave..."
Duo pushed her out of the way. "I wanna go back, to my car, to my house, to my friends..." He ran all the way out, back to the front door. Just as he was about to open the door to his freedom, the woman appeared before him to block his way. "Out of my way, bitch," he spat, ushering a soft laugh from her.
"You can't leave. This is your world Duo. Your world."
The others had followed him somehow, and they were now surrounding him. "Join us... You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave..." Their hands reached out and touched him, caressing his body. Duo just hugged his arms around his body, and kneeled down into a fetal postion, trying to ignore them. "No... no... this isn't my world... please... no..." He shut his eyes, and willed himself to ignore their incessant chanting...
"Duo. Duo... DUO!"
Heero finally grabbed Duo's shoulders and shook him awake. "Godammit, wake up!"
Duo awoke, feeling a body close to his and immediately struck out at it. His fist was caught however, and he looked up. Heero's blue eyes stared at him, questioning; and maybe, a little worried?
"Oi... It's just you, Heero. Thanks for waking me."
"Wanna talk about it?"
He looked at Heero, surprised. He smiled tiredly. "Maybe in the morning."
"Hai," Heero said before leaving. "Oh, and Duo?"
"Yes?"
"...Glad you're okay."
Duo could detect a trace of a smile in Heero's suddenly softened features before he left.
"Am I really okay?" Duo asked himself as he lay back on the bed, staring at his white ceiling. He turned his head and looked out the window, and stared for a long time at the moon.
I... I want to protect innocence, not destroy it...
~You can checkout any time you like,
but you can never leave~
Duo shuddered at their words, and fell back into a restless, but fortunately dreamless, sleep.