Newtype - chapter 4 scene 1

[askerian]

Is Duo Maxwell behind those heists and murders? Preventers Chang and Yuy want to find out, but the backlash from the Newtypes' sudden coming out quickly throws a wrench in their investigation.

I'm not sure I balanced Wufei's understandably chaotic emotions right, or whether I managed to keep them both IC, or who knows, whether they're still IC but the angst is still way too harped on. Also, there might be plotholes. If you have crit, don't hesitate, it's just the first draft.

First
Previous



Heero's cell phone rang as they were still waiting in line to register for the flight; Wufei was wired enough that his hand jumped to his holster before he could think twice.

"At the spaceport."

Heero's face was blank and expressionless; Wufei tensed up.

"He's beside me. Do you want to talk to him?"

Ah. So the Preventers had finally gotten around to checking on him. Wufei was honestly surprised it had taken so long. He moved discreetly so he could see the rest of the huge room, making sure there were no agents sneaking up on them. No one in sight seemed to be paying them any kind of attention.

But as long as the shuttle wasn't in the sky, they could still be pulled aside and arrested.

"No, I picked him up. We took the bus. Why?"

Wufei kept an eye on Heero's face as he talked, but he looked as cryptic as ever -- slightly bored, for someone who didn't know him enough to notice the intense watchfulness of his gaze. It wasn't hard to guess who he was talking with -- either Une or Sally.

"We're boarding in ten minutes. Should we take a later flight?"

That wasn't an option -- Meiran was already on board, strapped as carefully as possible inside a solid crate marked Preventers Equipment, Fragile, This Side Up, and a dozen other stickers. Wufei was already sick from being unable to keep an eye on her -- but to see her flying away to some distant colony while he was hunted down on Earth? No. He'd take that flight no matter what, but he knew going against orders would mean having to fight his way through L2 Preventers when they landed, no ifs or buts about it.

"Alright. I'll call you when we get there." Heero hung up.

"Yuy?"

Heero took in his tense shoulders and shook his head just a little bit. "It's fine." Stand down.

Wufei's shoulders sagged a little. No orders. No arrest.

They only needed another three and a half hours of confusion, and then the communication delay between Earth and the far side of the moon would give them enough of a lag to slip away before the local Preventers knew to pick them up. If they were lucky. If the shuttle wasn't late.

In the meantime, they could get busted any second. Heero had been right; it was a risky gamble. But it was better than nothing. If they stayed on Earth, nothing they could get their hands on would go faster than the Preventers' planes. Unless Heero and Wufei stole one of those -- but it wasn't like there were a lot of places to park them discreetly.

More news broke when they were walking toward the space shuttle, scrolling up on someone's widescreen cellphone. A newly-familiar word caught his eye. The site had an article called "The Newtype Cuckoo Plan!" and contained a joint release of statement from the Health Ministry's Director Madison and Director Une of the Preventers. Something about "poor abused women" and "die with dignity." The girl reading the news clicked away then, and he couldn't see more -- but then he'd seen enough, enough to make Heero elbow him and nudge his head down, a hand heavy on the back of his neck.

It looked like a friendly grab but it was hard and uncompromising; he couldn't have bucked it if he'd wanted to. Wufei's unbound hair fell around his face like a curtain, and he breathed slowly and stared at the floor, trying to erase the fury from his face before someone noticed.

If there hadn't been that leak, he would have been in transit when the Earth Sphere learned the truth, learned about his dead wife's not-quite-corpse being used to cook up mutant children. And Une would have decided without him -- let the Health Ministry and the collective paranoia decide what to do with his Nataku.

And Meiran would never have breathed on her own ever again because it was more convenient for everyone to let her die a second time.

Perhaps Wufei would have never known.

Heero bumped against him. "Your ID," he said, handing in both their tickets.

Wufei made himself look up, and nodded with empty politeness, and tried not to look murderous. From the looks he was given, he hadn't succeeded.

They handed their Preventers badges and their guns and went through the metal detector; nothing beeped, no carrying permit came up wrong and invalid. They walked to the shuttle, and none of the other passengers talked to them. They strapped themselves in launch seats; no one burst in at the last minute to arrest them, and then the shuttle took off and that was that. Free for the next eight hours.

Free to wonder when the heads-up about two renegade agents would pass them and reach the L2 Preventers branch and how much time they would have to prepare. Free to wonder how long it would take for his wife to suffocate in that X-ray-proof crate where no one could find her.

She wasn't breathing a lot at the moment, he thought with cynicism. She'd last a while. Unless her body just stopped. Who knew?

Heero's foot bumped his ankle, hooked around it to get his attention. Wufei's knuckles were white on the armrest.

"Air sickness," he heard Heero tell someone, probably about him. He closed his eyes and turned his head away. Waste of a window, someone commented with a laugh.

"Shut up," he hissed between clenched teeth.

Heero's elbow found his ribs -- be polite, damn it. "Migraine?"

"...Yes. My apologies."

Voices fell to a murmur around him as he waited for takeoff to be over, for the shuttle to break atmo.

It was a night flight, sort of; they'd arrive at L2 at around five AM local hour, and some people liked to nap beforehand to reset their inner clocks. The tickets gave them access to a narrow cabin with two bunk beds inserted into the wall; the second they were allowed to unbuckle their seatbelts Heero was taking his arm and herding him away from the launch seats.

Heero locked the door behind them, sat on the bottom bunk. Wufei wanted to pace, but he couldn't even take three whole steps, and that defeated the purpose. He sank on the seat that protruded from the opposite wall, only noticing that his hand was toying with the Preventers badge attached to his belt when he caught Heero staring at it.

"What?" he snapped, and pulled his hand away.

Heero leaned against the head of the bed, face neutral. "... I'm going to sleep. There's nothing else to do, and we need to rest when we still can."

Wufei glared at his partner. He knew that, did Heero think he didn't? But it was easy for him.

The second the thought came to him he felt ashamed. Heero was throwing away his career to help him do something that might ultimately be pointless.

Something that was, to be frank, crazy to the point of being stupid.

Wufei hadn't set off thinking he was going to save Meiran. He'd set off thinking he would take her body back and let her die where she ought to -- with someone who knew and respected her. She was part of his clan. She was his wife. The government had no right to decide anything about her -- health care, time of death, burial, nothing.

He hadn't set off thinking she was still somewhere in that useless, broken body. But it was her body, and she had been his wife, and he didn't care if what made her Nataku had fled away a long time ago.

It was ridiculous to take so many risks for an empty shell, something that would bring nothing good to anyone, something that would never let him be of help to the Preventers' cause ever again.

But now that broken body was breathing again. And some ridiculous part of him was starting to think in terms of 'she could wake up.' And if she woke up of course she would be herself and she would be fine and no, no she wouldn't; nothing would be fine. Her body had wasted away, her brain damaged by lack of oxygen, her other organs -- who knew. Her personality might be irreparably excised of everything that made her Nataku. She wasn't going to just open her eyes one day and start demanding to know what he'd done to her Gundam.

He would have given anything to make it happen.

Wufei's fingers found the Preventers badge again, rubbed against the hard edge. He couldn't start driving himself crazy with all the things that could go wrong and prevent her from getting better. It wasn't a matter of things not going wrong -- it was a matter of things that would need to somehow become better than neutral, than the five-year running status quo. People didn't suddenly wake up from a long-term coma for no reason.

Movement caught in the corner of his eye. He'd been staring off into space again; he jerked his head back up.

Heero was taking off his jacket; but when he did that, his button-up white shirt cracked open.

"... Show me your ribs."

Heero blinked up at him, like he couldn't feel the bruise Wufei had just seen. "Hm?"

"Show me. We might have to tape them." He didn't put it past Heero to hide or ignore the pain; the way he'd dismissed the incident you could have thought he'd just nudged the bed.

Heero sighed slightly, as if he thought Wufei was worried for nothing, and tugged up the bottom of the shirt -- but then he winced and looked surprised, and Wufei felt vindicated.

He didn't feel vindicated long, because there was a deep purple bruise the size of his wide-open hand on Heero's ribcage.

"... You're an idiot," he said, and tried not to think about the reason why Heero would fail to mention he needed some medical assistance. Damn it, damn it.

"I honestly didn't think the bruising would get that bad." Heero poked the area, grimacing faintly. "It doesn't feel broken."

"Cracked?" Wufei gave his partner a mildly exasperated look.

Heero rolled his eyes, smiling faintly like he was pleased Wufei would think to ask, would know him well enough to be aware of the ways Heero usually avoided sharing inconvenient truths. "I don't think so."

Wufei looked away, breaking eye contact. "Let me check," he said tersely. If the bruise was deep enough that Heero couldn't even tell how damaged he was, it didn't matter whether the bone was cracked; it would hinder him anyway. Except Heero wouldn't let himself be hindered, move exactly as if he was just fine, and probably end up with fully broken ribs.

"I'll be fine tomorrow."

"Don't make me hit you." Wufei glared up at him. "You're not immortal, damn it!"

"I don't think I'm immortal," Heero replied with cautious softness.

Wufei sneered. "Oh, so you're just suicidal. That's much better."

The softness disappeared; Heero threw him an unimpressed look. "Do I really have to break out the pot and kettle metaphors?"

Wufei gritted his teeth and glared, opening his mouth to snap back; but Heero wasn't done.

"I'm ready to do a lot for you, Chang, but I won't be your punching bag."

Wufei flinched, ground his teeth together. He wanted to snarl back, to yell, to push him around -- Yuy could defend himself. It wasn't fair to him. It wasn't fair, but what was Wufei supposed to do with all that rage?!

His fist hit the wall. He wasn't so far gone he damaged himself; but it hurt enough to calm him down, a little.

"Shit."

It didn't hurt that much. He flexed his hand slowly, a muscle jumping in his jaw, waited for Heero to say something. 'Calm down' or 'Try to meditate' or god forbid, 'Want to talk about it?' Heero just stayed silent, waiting.

"How can you always stay so calm," Wufei said in the end, disbelieving and still angry.

"Someone has to."

Wufei expelled a long, noisy breath, and turned to face him once again. "Let's put analgesic cream on your ribs. We might not be able to fix them but there's no reason for you to be in pain."

Wufei crouched and rummaged through Heero's backpack for his first aid kit, because it gave him an excuse to ignore his partner. Heero took off his shirt and holster dropped them on the bed, standing shirtless behind him.

Wufei's black hairtie was still wrapped around Heero's wrist like a bracelet.

Wufei pretended he hadn't noticed it. He took Heero's elbow and propped it on his own shoulder, to get his arm out of the way without strain, and he started rubbing the cream in. He was quick, thorough, professional. Impersonal. Heero deserved better, but Wufei just couldn't deal with it right now.

"... You're so stupid," he said quietly, and it wasn't only anger. Wasn't really anger.

"Yeah, I am." Heero's voice was calm, thoughtful. "Because I'd do it all over again."

"Tell me that after we have to shoot our way through our coworkers," Wufei replied harshly. "After we spend ten years running and hiding, and having facial surgery after facial surgery and --" she dies anyway "--you can never see Darlian again--"

"Wufei. I'd do it all over again."

Wufei stared frozen at the dark bruises under his hand, and the sticky cream on his fingers. No, he wanted to say, take it back, don't mean it -- idiot, idiot, idiot.

But then Heero snorted and smirked down at him. "But I'd really like to see what could keep me from Relena."

Wufei closed his eyes, and chuckled despite himself as the moment broke. "Ridiculous." He sighed, looked up at his partner. "Nothing on Earth could stop you, huh."

Heero smiled faintly. "If she called? Nothing in the Colonies either."

"Braggart."

"It's not bragging if it's true."

Wufei laughed a little. "You're insufferable."

"You're just jealous."

There was something disturbingly tender in Heero's eyes, and Wufei's laughter died away. "Yes... I suppose I'm just jealous." He let his hands fall, straightened up. "There. I'm done. We should get some sleep."

Wufei turned away and cleaned his hands of the excess cream on a handkerchief.

"... Yeah. Goodnight, Chang."

Wufei waited until the rustles of cloth told him Heero was done arranging himself on his bunk, then he turned off the ceiling light and climbed up to his own bed without looking at him again.

And then he spent a hour or two not sleeping.

The shuttle purred quietly, motors thrumming on a not-quite-sub-hearing level. Wufei couldn't hear anything else. In the bunk underneath his, Heero was still and quiet. Wufei strained to listen to his breathing, but the sounds didn't get that far.

Maybe he was dead, ribs broken, drowned in his own blood.

The thought was ridiculous.

Maybe Meiran was dead too, and that thought wasn't. He couldn't hear her either, alone and stuck in a crate like so much luggage, tumbled up and down and around, suffocated under her own weight. He knew they'd secured her as much as possible, but the restrains might break.

He knew better than to break into the hold and check on her. They couldn't afford to behave in a suspicious way. He could act cold-bloodedly. His nerves would hold.

His sanity, he didn't know. He couldn't hear her breathe.

He slipped off his bunk, landed cat-light beside Heero's. Blue eyes cracked open, fuzzy with sleep. Looking at him.

Looking at him.

Meiran's eyes never looked at anything.

He crouched beside the bed slowly, felt the vibrations of the motors tremble up his bare feet. Heero looked at him still, waiting. His hand rested on the blankets and Wufei's hair band was still around his wrist.

"Did you mean it?" Wufei asked, could ask, because right now it was the most important thing and yet the most pointless, the most irrelevant.

Heero just gave him a shrug, and an almost imperceptible nod.

"Sorry," Wufei said quietly.

"Shut up," Heero answered just as quietly. He pulled Wufei under the blankets, and Wufei allowed it.

Their legs tangled in short, nervous twitches. Wufei's hands were clumsy, clenching too hard in between aborted attempts at petting. He just wanted to -- he didn't know. Think about other things. Not think at all.

Heero pushed him down on his back on the thin mattress and let the blankets cocoon them. He tensed and dug his fingers into hard muscles; and then there was a face against his and eyelashes brushing his cheek and a kiss, long and slow and intense, one that picked up speed and tongue and then teeth. He could feel Heero breathing in his mouth and pressing down on him.

At the end he went from release to sleep without having to think at all.




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