for Madam Blue
He hurt. A lot. That was the first thing he became aware of. His lungs were on fire. His leg ached. His shoulder throbbed with pain. His tongue was dry like a bone, sticking to the roof of his mouth. He tried to open his eyes, only to encounter darkness. It felt like there was something over his eyes, perhaps cloth.
When he tried to reach up to pull at the fabric, his hand was brought short after only a few inches. Metal rang on metal; more metal dug into his wrist. He yanked again, another clang.
Adrenalin jolted through his system, clearing the last of the cobwebs from his mind. A little more cautious because of his injured shoulder, he tried the other wrist. Just the small movement made him hiss with pain. That wrist was handcuffed as well.
Not good. Very not good.
Where the hell was he? What had happened? He forced himself to relax and pay attention to the senses he still had.
He wasn't wearing his normal clothes, that was certain. A cautious sniff of air stung the back of his throat. Cold, air conditioned, acrid with disinfectant and gummy with plastic. Soft mechanical murmurs and muffled beeps were the only things he could hear. It didn't take a rocket scientist to add those into a hospital. Considering how he felt, that was no surprise.
He tried opening his eyes again, but there was still only darkness. He imagined that he could see a quality to it, maybe a sort of pattern of light and dark that could be the fabric. He shook his head, frowning. There was no way to tell. Perhaps we was blind and his mind was playing tricks. Perhaps he was only blindfolded. There was no way of knowing, and his stomach twisted at that prospect.
He was not by nature patient, but it was a skill he'd learned at great cost. He needed to stay calm; he needed to listen and feel to find a way out. It would be much harder to escape if he truly were blind, but he would find a way. Strength overcomes. That had been another lesson learned harshly, and not one he was ever going to forget.
The only question still burning was what had happened. The memory didn't come when bidden. Wufei forced himself to relax, one muscle at a time, and allowed his mind to drift in the darkness. Slowly, he escaped the haze of pain and hospital narcotics.
He woke a timeless instant later, the afterimage of fire burning in his mind and the sound of Duo shouting in his ears, half obscured with static. His breath was coming hard and fast; he forced it to slow quickly.
There had been an explosion - he remembered that now. Duo had been there... it must have been a mission. He tried to follow the rapidly fading shreds of memory, tried to find a few more details. It did no good.
It was then that Wufei realized that he wasn't alone. A shock of adrenalin ran through his veins again, but he kept his muscles relaxed. He hadn't heard anyone come in, but he'd been more concerned with his own thoughts then. Careless and stupid. There was no way of knowing how long he'd been watched.
"Don't bother pretending," the watcher said. The voice was male, deep and calm. "I saw you wake up."
He didn't recognize the voice; there was no way of knowing if it was a doctor of an Oz operative. He had nothing to say, and no reason not to remain silent. Duo was the one that used words as weapons. Wufei had long learned the uses of silence.
Duo... he hoped that Duo was alright.
"Don't feel like talking?" the watcher asked. There was a creak - the sound of him shifting in his seat. "I suppose the offer of creature comforts would be useless. A cool drink of water, or perhaps some food not fed into your arm as a liquid would only cause your pride to sneer."
Whoever this watcher was, he'd done his research. He didn't bother to acknowledge the words.
The watcher only seemed to find this amusing. He chuckled, a warm sound, but not a comforting one in the slightest. "I would expect no less from the last of the Dragon Clan."
Wufei throttled his feeling of surprise. It was possible that could be guessed of him; the Dragons had once been well known, and he had the eyes of the clan. Now, with him the last, his identity was probably not as great of a secret as he could have wished. Still, maybe his less than savory activities were still unknown.
That hope was quickly dashed. "Still nothing, Chang Wufei, fifth pilot of the Gundams?" The watcher chuckled again.
Wufei gritted his teeth. He had discipline and patience, but he also had the considerable temper of a Dragon. His elements were out of balance; he was full of fire. Hearing this watcher, so smug in talking to a trapped man who couldn't even see... it made him burn.
...fire. What had caused the fire?
In spite of his will, his good arm tightened. The handcuff clanged against the metal bed railing. One finger at a time, he forced his fist to relax. He needed to be water, to be wood, not fire.
Fire. It had been an explosion. Suddenly, he knew that. The heat of the flames had seared his skin. The blast had thrown him back, through a wall, then a window. He hadn't been in his Nataku - why?
"Your silence buys you nothing, Mr. Chang. I already know everything that is important," the watcher said.
The fire in his blood wouldn't allow him to be silent any longer. "For a man that knows all," he said, keeping his voice very even, "you talk a great deal."
"Ah, at last the dragon speaks. I know what is important. But you can fill in a few small... details."
At last, it began to make sense. It seemed that the watcher knew as little about his last mission as he did. That was a small comfort. It was turn to chuckle. "My talking will buy you nothing."
"We will see." The watcher's voice was still pleasant, but Wufei thought he heard a not of annoyance. There was the creak again, what he could imagine as a polished wooden chair, and the sound of cloth whispering and shoes on tiled floor. The watcher had stood and stepped toward the door. "I hope you find the darkness relaxing, Mr. Chang."
The door opened, then shut.
Wufei jerked at the handcuff again. What had the watcher meant? Was it a threat? Was it an implication? He bared his teeth with frustration.
But he could almost imagine the watcher standing, just outside the door, looking into the room, and smiling at his discomfort. The thought, true or no, helped him take in a deep breath and loosen his muscles one by one.
There was nothing for him to do other than bit by bit examine the shreds of memory and try to weave them back together into a coherent picture.
The door opened and shut many more times; doctors and nurses, he guessed from the way they spoke and what they did. They hung new IVs for him, they changed his bandages. His other needs were taken care of, to his great shame. The handcuffs were never loosened. Not one word more than was necessary was spoken to him. He even tried to speak, to one of the women, but she gave him only silence in return.
He wished that Duo was there. Not in his place, but with him. Quatre had once said that Duo could charm the red out of a rose and birds from the sky. Duo would know what to do; he cursed the pride that had prevented him from learning how to convince strangers to aide him.
His thoughts still running in defeated circles, he drifted away into hazy sleep.
He didn't recognize the face at first, nor the surroundings. It was rich and colorful; the floors tiled in marble and jade and heavy hanging full of lions and unicorns on the walls. Shining blades hung along the walls as well, and carved wooden furniture was arranged in artful patterns on the floor. He stalked along the hallways, silent and grim. Duo whispered direction into his ears, though he was nowhere to be seen. His steps lead him down hallways and up stairs to... to his target.
He caught a flash of pale face, its features plastic and doughy and... wrong. Then the fire, the shattering window, the pain.
Duo? Where was Duo?
Wufei jerked his arm against the handcuff again and again. Clang! Clang! His wrist ached, stung, and bled.
An instant later, the door slammed open, and hands held his arms and shoulders down. Someone dug fingers into the wound in his shoulder, and the pain overwhelmed him for a moment, tearing a raw cry from his throat. A moment later, cold flooded his veins. His muscles loosened, becoming like water, and he went limp.
Over the chatter of the doctors, he heard a familiar chuckle - the watcher. The sound made him want to fight even more, but his body wouldn't obey.
"Your concern for you criminal partner is touching, Mr. Chang," the watcher said once the doctors had cleared out. "I am afraid to inform you that he is not in the land of the living any longer."
Wufei gritted his teeth, but said nothing. It had to be a lie.
"Silent as always, I see. Then I shall leave you to your dark solitude. Please, if you think of anything you wish to share, don't hesitate to speak."
It seemed most appropriate in this case to take his cue from Duo. "Eat shit and die," he ground out.
"Colorful," the watcher said, and he was gone.
Whatever drugs the doctors had given him prevented even his fingers from flexing. Paralyzed and in the dark, now with only the soft hiss of the ventilation system to show he was not floating off into the void itself. His mind ran in confused circles. The watcher had said that Duo was dead - but why should he listen to that? What had happened? Where was Duo if he wasn't dead? In hiding? Captured, handcuffed in to a bed in the room next to his own?
"Duo..." he whispered. To his great shame and confusion, the bandages over his eyes grew damp with warm tears.
He gritted his teeth, mentally. He could imagine the watcher standing outside the door, examining his every breath, looking for a crack to aim his next attack at. It was masterful.
Duo had to be alive. He couldn't believe otherwise. He would recover. He would escape. He would find Duo. And then he would find the watcher and ask a few questions of his own. Very pointed questions. As Duo had once put it, pointed sword-shaped questions.
The watcher came and went a few more times, always probing, always poking. Wufei no longer rose to the bait. He made himself stone, silent and immovable.
When he dropped into his uneasy rest, the memory of the last mission began again. The hallway, Duo's instructions... whispered into his ears via a microphone. He ghosted up the stairs, into the office where his target was. His target... military, a commander with information that they needed. Information about mobile dolls. And something about the death of the Dragon Clan, making him incautious and eager. He slipped into the target's office, his hand itching to grasp the hilt of his sword. He saw the man, his back turned, and kicked the chair, spinning it to face him.
A doll. An empty, soulless thing of plastic, its mouth shaped into a rictus smile. It had been lovingly dressed in a white silk shirt, embroidered with dragons. For an instant, he was caught in shock and fury.
Then the world exploded around him.
He came awake in a gasp, his hands clenched into fists, his wrists straining against the handcuffs.
The door clicked shut.
"Sleep changes nothing," he said coldly. "I will still tell you nothing."
Instead of the watcher's normal chuckle, he heard only soft footsteps coming to his bedside. Something was different; even the feel of the air had changed. Suddenly, warm lips were against his own. He froze with shock for a moment, then gentle hands touched his face and he gave in. It was familiar, perhaps he was still dreaming.
The kiss lasted only a moment, ending with a laugh. "Wufei, did I ever mention that I think you're dead fucking sexy when you're being stubborn?"
Wufei allowed himself a moment to grin in relief. This couldn't be a dream, not like this. "Get me out of here, you idiot! What took you so long?"
"My, my, we are impatient," Duo said. There was a soft click and suddenly one of the handcuffs was gone. "I mean, really, what kind of self control do they think I have? Leaving you trussed up on a bed..."
Wufei flexed his hand and sat up as the sound of Duo went to the other side the bed. An instant later, his injured arm was free. He felt around on his head, trying to find the tail of the bandage.
"What's going on?" Duo asked.
"Someone keeping me locked up, asking me questions while I lay helpless. Oh yes, and claiming that you were no longer with us."
Duo gently pushed Wufei's hand down. A moment later, the tail of the bandage came free. Wufei sat quietly as Duo began to unwind the bandage. "Wishful thinking, eh?"
"Apparently, your fan club is expanding," Wufei said. It was hard to resist the urge to help with the bandage. His stomach churned.
"And what's this for, anyway?" Duo asked, unwinding the last piece. "I mean, seems like a shame to keep such a nice body on display without the face it came with."
Wufei opened his mouth, then shut it. He couldn't find any clever words to continue the game. "The watcher said I was blinded."
Duo was silent for a moment, and then Wufei felt the brush of lips against his forehead as Duo peeled away the bits of fabric from his eyes. "Considering he's a liar once now, let's go for twice."
Slowly, almost afraid of what he might not see, Wufei opened his eyes. For a moment, all he saw was darkness. Then slowly, the darkness resolved into shadows and the shadows became more and more distinct, until he could see Duo. Blurry, but it was Duo.
"How many fingers am I holding up?" Duo asked, waving his middle finger in front of Wufei's face.
Wufei grabbed Duo's wrist and then kissed him roughly. He bit Duo's lip hard enough to draw blood. Duo dove into the kiss, tangling his fingers in Wufei's hair.
When they came up for air, he was smiling crookedly. "I mean, I know you haven't gotten laid in a couple days, but you're being awful affectionate..."
"Shut up. I thought you were dead," Wufei said.
"That'll teach you not to believe the evil military assholes that have you handcuffed to a bed." Duo pulled the IVs out of Wufei's arm, using the hospital sheet to stop the blood. He smiled. "I was worried about you too. You're still my favorite Chinese asshole."
Wufei punched him in the arm, a tap really, out of habit. "Let's go. I want the watcher. It's my turn to ask questions."
"I have just the place to start. Come on," Duo said, giving Wufei a hand up out of the bed.
Wufei almost refused the help; he was glad he didn't. His leg was still hurting, and several days confined in a bed had done him no good. He was shaky, and that only helped fuel his anger. As he stood, a draft of cold air hit his behind, and he froze.
"What?" Duo asked.
Wufei grimaced. "Please tell me that you were thoughtful enough to bring a spare change of clothes along with your lock picks."
"Huh... oh!" Duo laughed. "What, don't feel like meting out justice while wearing a dress with no ass? I suppose that spoils the thunder..."
"Duo..."
"Sad to say, I don't have your cute little white PJs with me, but I got my won spares stashed. Hope you don't have a problem with black."
Much relieved, Wufei smiled. "As long as you brought my sword as well, I think I can handle black."
"Good." Duo picked up a bag, pulling out a roll of black clothing and tossing it to Wufei. He managed to catch it one-handed. "Get back in the saddle. Think you can handle dressing yourself?"
Wufei took a page out of Duo's book and gave him the one-fingered salute. Back in the saddle indeed.