Title: Maximum Pulse
Author: Switchblade003 Sanyu-Kumiko (Collaboration)
Chapter: Crash and Burn (Heh heh heh...)
Status: Completed

Fast fast he's gaining on me I've got to speed up got to make the jump what the hell was Duo talking about don't jump it turn around he doesn't make any sense he never makes sense he sounded so worried why what's the significance of him coming over the line to tell me that I'm cold it's windy outside and this helmet's too tight and I want my fucking bike back this Katana's too slow not going fast enough need some more speed how close am I to this damn jump I wonder why Duo didn't want me to take it it had to have been serious I trust him do I I want to trust him he wouldn't lie to me would he I hope not too tight need to go faster that BMW is a lot better than I thought it'd be I wonder who this guy is I've never seen him before secret weapon maybe no he has to be new this course is long where's the jump I hope I'm going fast enough when I get home I'll talk to Duo I need to thank him again there's the damned ditch it's fucking huge holy shit I can't do this I can't do this I have to jump it or I forfeit what if I crash what if I die Duo couldn't handle it I have to stop I have to STOP...
"He stopped."

Chad rushed over to the blonde huddled around the scanners and laptop on the billboard, and Quatre swore loudly. "Why did he just stop? Did the GPS malfunction?" The radio tech typed furiously at the keys, pulling up one screen after another in rapid succession, until Chad couldn't follow it anymore, and he turned to Duo. The boy wasn't where he had left him; he was standing on the edge of the narrow platform, squinting out at the desert's horizon. Beside him, Quatre growled in anger and slapped his computer's screen. "It's working fine! I don't understand why he would chicken out like this right before the jump!"

"He didn't chicken out."

Both youths looked up from the GPS monitors to Duo, who was still facing away from them, and the boy was shaking. Chad's gut clenched painfully, and he had the most morbid sense of deja vu. He followed the mechanic's line of vision out into the dark purple of the distance and saw a thin line of smoke rising from the abandoned highway. He looked back at the GPS display, noting that the other racer was on the other side of the break, and he buried his face in his hands. "He crashed."

"Great job, rookie. I guess you're our new leader, though, so I can't call you an ametuer anymore, huh?"

Trowa pulled his helmet off, toeing down the kickstand on his bike and dismounting, and he nodded to his new teammates. They were standing by with the van, and they seemed pretty impressed. "Too bad Rice didn't make it," the blonde laughed, nodding in the general direction of the jump. Frowning, Trowa turned and looked over his shoulder at the break in the highway, and his eyes widened. On the other side of the fifteen foot gap in the asphault, the black and white Katana that he'd been racing lay on its side on the street, a twisted wreck of metal and fiberglass, and pinned underneath it was the body of the guy that had been driving it. His blood ran cold in his veins as he stood there, shocked, and the blonde clapped a hand onto his shoulder. "Guess that means that we can keep his bike, after all."

With an angry sigh, Trowa threw the man's hand away and ran towards the downed bike. He struggled up and over the other side of the ditch, and when he got to the pavement on the other side he could hear his new teammates shouting for him to come back. He couldn't. His conscience wouldn't allow him to leave this guy stuck to the tarmac with no way of getting help. He stopped running when he got to the Katana. It was a mangled heap of steel, smoke billowing from the ass-end of it, and he realized that if he didn't move that damned thing off of the other man before the gas tank ignited then there would be no hope of saving him. He grappled with twisted shrapnel and hot fiberglass, broken and jagged glass, until the bike gave a little and he pushed it to one side. The man under it didn't look any better off than his vehicle, though.

His helmet was cracked, which was definately not a good thing, and the left side of his jeans was shredded. His entire left side was lacerated, upon closer inspection. Carefully, Trowa rolled him onto his back, and he pulled the youth's helmet off. There was a considerable amount of blood running down the guy's forehead, into his eyes, and his sweat-matted bangs were caked with the stuff, but he seemed to be breathing, if not shakily. The taller of the two pressed his fingers against the boy's neck, checking for a pulse, and he felt a wave of relief take him when he found one. He sat back on his haunches and studied the youth. When he brushed aside those stubborn brown bangs, he almost laughed.

"Hiirou."

It had been at least two years since he'd seen this kid. To meet up with him again here...

"Get the fuck away from him!" Trowa had virtually no time to react as he was roughly shoved aside, and he stumbled forward. Someone pushed past him, and when he turned to find out who it had been, he saw a young man kneeling down beside the Japanese boy, long braid trailing behind him. Sometime in the last few minutes a Celica had pulled up behind him, and its driver rushed over towards Hiirou. A blonde and another brunette were hot on his heels, and he recognized one of them. Chad had referreed all of his past races. Right now, the guy seemed more concerned with the racer lying face-up on the highway, however. "What the fuck happened?!"

When the braided youth turned, shouting, Trowa froze. He'd found himself under the scrutiny of those violent, bruise-colored eyes before, and it had been under the worst of circumstances. Suddenly he was standing on this highway almost five years ago, watching this same kid scream over the body of his brother. I've killed you before... Trowa shook the thought from his head and took a step back. Recognition flared in Duo's gaze and he jumped to his feet, stalking towards the older boy. Even with his somewhat shorter, more slender build, the youth was intimidating. "You..." Something silver glinted in the headlights of the Celica, and Trowa threw his arms up in defense as the mechanic wielded the blade with a blind fury.

"Duo, no!"

Chad all but tackled the younger boy, twisting his arms behind his back. The switchblade clattered to the pavement, and Duo struggled to get loose. The referee glared at Trowa from over the bucking youth's shoulder. "Get the fuck out of here," he ordered, and the boy nodded dumbly. He stared at the mechanic as he backed away, captivated by the raw pain and malice in his violet eyes. "Go!" On Chad's command, he turned and ran, almost tripping on his way over the ditch, and his teammates took off in the van after him.

"I'm gonna kill 'em!" The American was spouting off death threats and curses as he continued to try to evade Chad's vice grip on him. "Let me go!"

It took a sharp slap across the face to bring Duo around, but the person who finally delivered it was enough to shock the whole team into silence. "Get ahold of yourself, damn it!" Chad blinked, and the mechanic looked up to find a not-so-pleased Quatre Winner standing before him, fists at his sides. His blue eyes promised another hit if the boy chose to continue his ranting. "Your best friend needs to get to the hospital ASAP, so quit this childish bullshit and help Wufei get him into the car!"

The Irishman released his arms, and he rubbed the abused side of his face gingerly as he made his way over to the Japanese youth's prone form. As Duo and Wufei hefted the boy up and into the back seat of the Celica, Chad gave a heavy sigh and rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm gonna have to talk to that damned garage about this. This whole race was bullshit, and it won't happen again."

0837PMEST04Nov04

He could hear doctors shouting over him, heard Wufei attempting to give some type of description of just what had happened to him, Quatre shouting into his cell phone in some indecipherable language...

Lights were flashing overhead, and his left side was on fire. He assumed that the guys had taken him to an emergeny room of some type, and through the barrage of noises, the medical terms and concocted explanations, the one thing that he couldn't hear was what he needed the most. Where's Duo?

His head was pounding, and he couldn't focus on the sounds of his friends' voices. It was getting harder to keep his eyes open, and when they finally slammed shut, he lost consciousness, again.

"...Multiple lacerations on his leg are going to require stitches. His left wrist is fractured in two places, and his fingers are all broken. We might have to cast it. He suffered a concussion upon impact, and he about cracked his skull open. If he hadn't been wearing that helmet, God only knows what might have happened. We put a few butterfly stitches in the back to help hold the wound closed. It's just a laceration, though. The good news is that his arm is pretty much okay. The padding in his jacket helped. He's going to have to stay in bed for at least the next two weeks..."

Wufei nods to the doctor and walks down the hallway a bit, talking. Quatre left hours ago, to attend to business with his company, and Chad went "take care of a few things" earlier, or whatever that's supposed to mean. That leaves me, of course, straddlin' a chair at Hiirou's bedside and waitin' for him to wake the hell up. They pumped him full of so many drugs that I lost count of the IV bags after six, so I guess he'll be out for a while longer. I don't know why, but I just don't like seein' him like this. Maybe its the antiseptic reek of the hospital around us, or maybe it's just the knowledge of exactly what happened tonight, but something's just not sittin' well with me.

I had a gut feelin' that this might happen. I'm not claiming to be a psychic or what have you, but it's all just too convenient. Hiirou on Highway 17, on my bro's Katana, wearing his helmet? Too easy. God takes yet another pot-shot at Maxwell. Fine, you win. Just leave Hiirou alone?

I've never really gotten a chance to look at him this closely before. If it weren't for the fact that he'd almost died four hours ago, I'd be greatful. He's really a good-lookin' guy. The piercings are a nice touch, too, I suppose. He's got more metal in him than I really noticed. There's a barbell through the cartlige in his left ear, two through his right eyebrow, a ring through the right corner of his lower lip... When the doctors down in Trauma cut through his shirt, I found out that he has tattoos, too. I didn't get a good look at them, though, what with the blood and all. I hope he wakes up soon; I want to go home.

"Hiirou?" I try pokin' him a little, around the bandages and bruises, but he's out like a light. It's all that asshole's fault! This is what happened to Solo! If I see him again I'll kill him. I can't afford to lose someone else this close to me...

I love him. I realized that a while ago. At first I was angry about it, because he really is a jackass. He's condescending, rude, arrogant, and violent, and I know that I shouldn't care about him as much as I do, but there's just somethin' about this guy... He's charismatic. People are drawn to him, and try as he might to be Mr. Anti-Social, he can't escape that fact. Wufei looks to him for support, Quatre idolizes him, hell even the girls love him. He's a genuinely good person, but for some reason he's afraid of everyone. He won't let himself get close enough to anyone to get hurt.

I'm not sure what happened to him before he wandered into first my garage and then my heart, but he's got some serious trust issues. I guess I do, too, but I learned a long time ago that you can't let one bad experience ruin your relationships with other people. I probably sound a little hypocritical, because I hold that grudge against the BMW for what he did, but that's different! Solo was all that I had for so long, and if it hadn't been for that asshole starting trouble, then I'd still have my brother, today...

Now, I've just got the guys and Hiirou, if he'll stop tryin' to push me away. The nurses are herding people out of the rooms up and down the hall, but I'm not leavin'. They'll have to call the cops on me, first. I want this bastard to know that I stayed with him the whole time he was here. He might not accept my feelings, hell he might even hate me for all that I know, but he's my responsibility, now.

"What are you doin' to me?"

I know that he can't hear me, and I'm almost thankful for it. I'm fairly certain that he can't stand me, and I can't really blame him. I have started a lot of unnecessary trouble recently, but still... I tried to help him. I really did. Maybe I am just a pain in the ass... I reach out and take his good hand in mine, turning it over and scribbling random letters into his palm. If this is the only chance that I get to be close to him, again, I'm gonna take advantage of it. Am I not good enough for him? Does he not trust me? How the hell are we gonna get his damned bike back?

I groan in frustration, letting my head fall to the mattress face-first, and it reeks of antiseptic. And then his hand twitches in mine and I bolt upright. "Hiirou?!"

He recoils at the volume of my voice, wincing visibly. "Yeah, chill out." He raises his injured hand to his forehead, groaning. "I feel like I lost a fight with a freight train."

His voice is raspy, probably from the drugs, and his eyes close again. "You did," I smile, whispering now, watching him carefully. He looks completely drained, and I guess it's no wonder. We sit in silence for a few minutes before he speaks again, sighing around the words.

"I'm sorry about Solo's bike."

Wow, he apologized. Score one for me, I s'pose. He squeezes my hand in his, giving me a sideways glance, and I shrug. I care about that Katana, but I realized that I care about him more. "It's all right. I can always fix that thing." I hesitate before I continue, holding his Prussian gaze, and I feel pretty corny when I finish. "I can't replace you."

Then the damnedest thing happens. Hiirou smiles at me, a pain-laced half-grin, and I have to chalk that one up to the drugs. Either way, it's sure as hell pleasant to look at. "C'mon. Let's go home."

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