|
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing is not mine. Duh.
After they finished trussing up Duo's lug of a captive, they all hid in a large cave that had once stored Sandrock and Deathscythe.
There were multiple exits and no insulation.
Duo shivered for the eighty millionth time and touched the quick bandage Heero had made for him. He was curled on the side
of the cave, trying to hide himself from the night air. He thought about all he'd been told.
A big-time ammunition and drugs ring. They were selling banned weapons and drugs, pimping others out (both men and women),
and were more than likely building mobile suits. If they weren't planning an attack, they were certainly helping whoever was.
The leader was Jocker, who loved playing with someone of any sex as long as he could torture them. He learned that Diana had
scars all along her torso and middle from what he had done to her.
He also learned that Jocker had a superiority complex that couldn't be easily thwarted. Apparently, he needed to cut off his
enemies' dicks as trophies... and sometimes as fuck toys. Good God.
The Preventors were also apparently trying to follow this through diplomatically – with evidence and lawyers and jails.
Duo didn't think it would work.
But Heero and Wufei were trapped within the laws they had sworn to protect. Duo wasn't.
Unfortunately, he also knew he couldn't do this alone.
Heero had just gotten on the comm link about four miles out and had informed Commander Une that they were working on their
own. Commander Une, demanding an explanation, merely received a terse “mission failure”. Duo heard Heero order
her to warn Trowa and Quatre of possible danger. Heero had then broken the device. They were officially on their own now.
So what were they going to do? Would they leave Diana to her fate? Maybe the old Heero would have, but... no. If he'd been
“changed” by Quatre and Relena, then he valued life. Even during the war Heero wouldn't kill him despite how much
he obviously wanted to – and for more reasons than his constant liability. Heero just didn't really like him. No, Heero
wouldn't like that option. And it went against Wufei's code.
That didn't answer the question of just what the hell they were going to do. Dammit!
“I thought I was the one who was standing watch,” Wufei called softly, and Duo jumped. He turned sheepishly to
the man. “Oops,” he murmured, and Wufei rolled his eyes. Then he moved from his perch against the opposite wall
and came and stooped beside Duo, balancing on the balls of his feet. This action did not fail to shock the hell out of Duo.
It was difficult to see Wufei in the blackness of the cave, impossible to read his face. They didn't dare make a fire.
“Your eyes still look a bit glazed,” Wufei commented. Duo wondered if he imagined the worry in Wufei's voice.
“I'm fine,” Duo stated, but his words were obviously a bit too defensive.
Wufei, for his part, snorted. “Yeah, you're just peachy.”
And that was a word Duo had never expected to hear from Wufei. It made his mind go momentarily blank. “What?”
Wufei chuckled. Then, without warning, he sat down on Duo's right. Duo was left blinking while Wufei leaned against the wall
and drew his right knee up to his chest. Wufei stared across the cave. “We... have not seen a lot of you since the war,
Maxwell.”
Oh, hell. Were they really going to have this conversation?
“Heero disappeared for a while after Maremaia,” Wufei continued. “And then you disappeared, as well.”
Because I couldn't take anymore, Duo thought, but he said nothing aloud.
Wufei glanced sidelong at him, and he was close enough for Duo to see an intensity in his eyes. “When Heero returned,
you were still gone. And you never came back.”
Duo had to look away. He couldn't say anything that belonged to the happy-go-lucky jester they had known, and everything else
seemed a bit too self-deprecating.
Wufei sighed. “Yuy looked you up and found that you'd begun a business with Hilde Schbeiker. When he went to her, she'd
told him that the two of you had split up. When he tried to find you again, the files after Hilde were completely empty.”
Duo shrugged. It was true that he'd deleted the files in case someone wanted to find him. Too bad Fate had had other plans,
despite everything. Too bad he'd been found again.
“Why did you run away from us?” Wufei finally asked, no longer skirting around the issue.
Duo closed his eyes. “Because I run and I hide,” he whispered finally. He felt the urge to do the same right then
and squelched it.
Wufei's brow furrowed... Duo could tell because he sounded confused. “Why?”
“Are you saying that you actually wante-” Duo broke off what he was saying, frustrated. He stood suddenly,
stepping away from Wufei. He put his arms around his shoulders, hugging himself. He told himself it was because he was cold,
but he knew it was a lie. He turned back around to Wufei and made himself speak the words. “You guys...” He stopped,
then tried again. How it hurt to open up these wounds. “It was time I left,” he said finally.
Wufei stood then, as well, and when he did Duo saw in his eyes that he had heard more than what Duo had said. Wufei came forward
until he stood in front of Duo – he was an inch or two taller. He placed his hands on Duo's shoulders, and Duo's arms
fell in surprise. Wufei's eyes were full of sadness. “I believe I understand,” the Chinese man murmured quietly,
searching Duo's eyes. “You were the one who had originally tried to give us everything, and we shoved it back in your
face. We did not understand what you were offering... but that is no excuse. You wanted to give us kindness, companionship...
and in return received nothing but scorn.”
Duo found himself in an increasingly uncomfortable situation. Was this even Wufei? Was this another clone? The attack of the
evil pod people? What the hell?
“After the war we began to understand,” Wufei continued. “We finally realized what you had been offering
all that time, but you were no longer there to reap the rewards.”
“'Fei, I didn't-”
“You did,” Wufei said simply. “We owe you, Maxwell.”
“You – what?” Duo was even more shocked by this. “You owe me nothing. I-”
Wufei merely shook his head. “We never even accepted who you were,” he continued sadly.
Okay, if Wufei was going to get emotional, Duo was going to run screaming from this cave. “Look, Wufei,” Duo said,
and his voice when he spoke was firm, “it's the past. And I'll admit, I was pretty unprofessional. Just drop this, okay?”
Duo's got kind of creeped out when Wufei's eyes saddened in understanding once again. What the hell – did the man learn
ESP or something? Thankfully, the Chinese warrior nodded slightly and dropped his arms. There was an awkward moment in which
Wufei stared intensely into Duo's eyes. Then Wufei again took up his spot on the opposite wall. “Get some sleep, Maxwell,”
he called out. “We have a long day ahead of us.”
Duo nodded, thankful for the respite from the Land of Weird and even more grateful for Heero's uninterrupted breathing. He
tried to find a position in which he could comfortably lie down. It took him a long time to finally get to sleep, his pains
and thoughts making it take longer than it should.
<::>
Wufei watched Duo sleep for a long time, both worried and concerned. While the four of them had managed to find something
together after the war, Duo had not. What shamed Chang Wufei was the realization that the only reason he'd been able to accept
his friendship with the other pilots was the memory of Duo Maxwell and all that he had been for them during the war. They
had given him nothing in return, and so he had suffered on his own.
No more. Wufei swore on his honor that he would stick with Maxwell as Maxwell had once stuck with him, and hope that the braided
man would see that they would scorn his friendship no more.
<::>
Dawn never touched the deep recesses of the cave, but they were all up when it cracked the sky nevertheless. Heero had stood
watch to this point and was already checking his gun by the time Duo made his way back to the land of the aware. He quickly
got up... but there wasn't much else for him to do.
Note, of course, that the “quickly” hurt like a son-of-a-bitch and the bruises he'd been too tired to feel last
night were more than a little obvious now.
He checked himself over once he was standing and grimaced at what he saw. His entire body seemed to be caked in bruises and
cuts. While he had managed to save his face – from heavy damage, at least – the bruises on his arms made them
difficult to move. His bad left arm was in even more pain, since he had hardly begun recovering from the bullet wound he'd
received. No one had bothered to put it in a sling, however, since they all knew that they would be fighting again and the
sling would be a hindrance.
“Commander Une sent us a land vehicle,” Heero said, disrupting Duo's thoughts. The way he said it made the true
meaning obvious – she's sent someone to figure out what happened here, and Heero took care of them. Duo wondered where
he'd stashed them and how long he'd knocked them out for. Heero wouldn't have killed them, of course. Duo didn't doubt that.
“It was left in front of the house three oh-eight this morning.”
Duo and Wufei both nodded shortly in confirmation. Did Duo imagine the quick look of concern he thought he saw Heero send
his way?
“We need to assess the vehicle,” Heero continued, and Duo decided that his delusional mind was producing illusions.
He easily recognized Heero's next look to be that of annoyance. “I will do that.”
“Not alone, you won't,” Duo declared.
“I will go with you.” Chang sent Heero a sharp look, and then silent radio waves seemed to come off their bodies.
Duo watched in confusion and awe. The two had this... silent-messaging thing that they did, where they spoke to each other
without words.
Stupid to envy that.
“Yuy,” Chang warned finally, and Heero finally capitulated and nodded. They both secreted out of the cave, leaving
Duo momentarily alone.
Okay... so what in the hell had that been?
Had Heero seriously wanted to go out there unassisted? Heero – the practically obsessive-compulsive tactician?
What the hell for?
Duo ran his mind in tiny little circles and nursed his wounds in silence.
Speaking of what-the-hell, why had he been left unconscious? Why didn't those three finish him off? Didn't they say that they
wanted to kill all of the Gundam pilots? So what gives? It would have taken them all of... what? Two seconds? To pin down
Diana and then quickly and simply finish him off and said “to hell with him.” Literally.
And that brought up the memory of his clone and he was left to shudder in remembrance. That guy's humanity had been sliced
away, leaving only Shinigami. Only what he had been during the battles and the fighting – his own natural defense kicking
in, sparing his own humanity from the carnage.
What the hell had those doctors done?
A pitiful groan sounded from their captive in the corner. Duo was amazed that the guy had slept through the entire night.
The man couldn't have been a very strong soldier in this army or else he would have woken up sooner. That would make it easier
to get information from the guy, but it would also limit the knowledge they could glean from him.
Duo looked at the exit Heero and Wufei had left through, but didn't see either of them. Duo looked around and quickly spotted
his hunting knife by Heero's things – cleaned and ready to be used, too. That was Heero for you.
In less than four seconds Duo had his hunting knife pressed against their captive's throat and his Shinigami smile firmly
in place. The man froze as soon as his eyes flickered open.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Duo said breezily, lightly tapping the edge of the blade against the man's neck. “You
look like shit, did you know that?”
“I-It's you,” the man croaked. Duo wondered if the man had had nightmares.
“That's right,” he said, voice both cheery and menacing. Shinigami was deadly – and, Duo had once thought,
no longer necessary. He'd been perfectly content with that theory, but he'd been wrong. The world was still fucked over, and
Shinigami still lived. Duo found himself feeling a little... disheartened by it all.
“Wh-What do you want from me?”
Duo's eyes hardened. “You life,” he answered, playing his knife slowly against the man's neck until a thin line
of blood appeared. “I want to cut you,” he continued, then gave a bored sigh. “Unfortunately, we have a
little game we have to play first, you and I.”
The man looked like he wanted to melt in the sun before he played any games with Shinigami.
“See, you're going to tell me everything I want to know, aren't you?”
The man's eyes went wild. “I-I won't tell you anything!”
Duo wanted to growl in annoyance, but instead he smiled in wild glee. “Ah, you're gonna make this last a while, aren't
you?” He slid the knife down the man's neck, then his chest and stomach, then stopped right at the man's crotch. “I
wonder if you're dear boss would like a fuck present from you...” His voice was low and contemplative – curious.
He was sick with the realization that he could still do this without batting an eye.
“N-No! Don't... please...” And the guy started crying.
“Hey, don't you know that men don't cry?” Shinigami was a conversationalist – he worked mostly by scaring
the enemy half to fucking death. Then he finished the job.
He cut a line down the man's pants.
“Don't! They'll kill me... they'll kill me...”
Duo hoped the man got quiet, lest the two goody-two-shoes Preventors heard. He had a feeling his interrogation methods would
not be appreciated, even if they did get the job done.
“That would be lucky.” The man looked at him in confusion and shock. “Buddy,” Shinigami breathed,
and Duo's face pushed itself forward until their noses were touching. “You'll be wishing for that death once I'm done
with you.” He gave his captive a grin that didn't even begin to touch his eyes.
The man whimpered.
<::>
By the time Heero and Wufei returned – about ten minutes later – with an 'okay' on the car, the captive was crying
uncontrollably and Duo was sitting beside the man, having successfully gotten all the information they could possibly glean
from him.
“Duo, what the hell happened here?” Heero demanded in that icy undertone that made strong men shrink back and
mumble like babies.
Duo, of course, had long since learned how to hide the pain that tone and look gave him and waved cheerily at them as they
came to stand before the man. He had put his hunting knife away in its sheath on his leg. He also managed to swallow his more
sarcastic comments. “Welcome back. This guy was nice enough to tell me where the enemy camp is, and will gladly go to
Preventors HQ. Won't you, bud?” The guy's sobbing only got louder. Duo jumped up and clapped his hands together. “Okay!
Who's ready to go?”
“Duo...” Heero warned.
“Oh, quit your crying,” Duo told him... and froze when the captive was suddenly silent. He blushed at the looks
on Heero's and Wufei's faces. “Well, come on, then!” he said briskly. He walked to the exit that Heero and Wufei
had used.
Return to Gundam Wing Fanfiction
Previous Chapter
Next Chapter
|
