A/N: WOOHOO! Wufei's specially special! Ohhh, I'm too excited to write more at the top! Woo! This goes from his cadet days to Misadventures with Meiran. Oh joy!!
Warnings: the usual. Ruthless Bastard Wufei, Profanity, 5x2 (but it's in the past! 1x2 FOREVER!!!!), 5xMeiran. Kinda Ender-ish, too. (Shrug) Oops.
x---x
Sea of Silence
SPECIAL 5
Wufei
x---x
"I met her a year ago, when Duo and I were still partners. Trowa wasn't in the picture yet; he'd been off looking for his sister. I decided to take my ship off by myself, and we captured Meiran. She's the only person who's ever actually...hurt me. ANYWAY, I was livid and threw her overboard as soon as I was better. But, then the ship mutinied and I got thrown over too, so we swam to a nearby island. What happened happened, and we ended up getting married."
x---x
Sunlight slipped in through the boy's curtains, and he turned to the side, swatting the curtain with a quick strand of curses. But, before his hand could reach the shade, the door burst open with a deep, loud thuck.
"Alllright, ladies! On your feet," Heller roared, and the young boy snapped to attention, looking pathetically small compared to the other recruits. Then again, he was three years younger than them, and the only five-year-old in the whole complex. His clothes hung loosely on his body, the cuffs rolled up on both his pants and sleeves, and the only thing that fit him were the white socks which matched his uniform exactly. White pants, white undershirt, white shirt, white coat...
They said it was white because you could see blood easier. Wufei Chang, however, knew it was white because soon, you didn't notice the colors anymore. They all just faded into black and white...uniform, or weapon. Black was anything useful; knives, hats, belts...basically, if you could possibly kill someone with it, the Academy painted it black. If not, it was white.
Wufei held back a grim smirk. There was more than one way to kill someone with your socks.
"CHANG! What the hell are you smiling at," Heller snapped, and Wufei cursed his stupidity again. Apparently, his smirk hadn't been very well held back.
"Nothing, sir! Just thinking about my dream, sir," Wufei snapped, saluting the man, who laughed contemptuously at the younger boy.
"It's your first week here, right, Chang," he smirked.
"Yes, sir," Wufei stated, and Heller nodded.
"So, you don't know about what happens to kids with dreams, do you," he asked, almost snake-like in his hiss. When Wufei didn't respond, Heller grabbed him by the collar of his undershirt and dragged him down the barracks, the shocked eyes of the other recruits blatantly staring. With one quick heave, Wufei went sailing into the door, hitting it with a resounding crack as his inertia made them fall in on themselves. Heller mounted the wreckage to grab him by his short black hair, sneering. "Dreams get you killed, kid. Now get out of my sight for the rest of the month."
The boy's survival instincts kicked in, and he bolted out of the barracks building, taking the man's words as literally as he'd meant them. The nearby forest called to the cadet, and without hesitation, he soared beneath the canopy of trees.
Deep within, he found a hut, a man standing in front of it, seemingly waiting for him. "You're late," he stated. Wufei glared at him.
"No, I'm right on time," he snapped, before realizing he had no idea what the tall, bald man meant. "Who are you?" The man's face remained blank.
"Your teacher, for the month," he stated, and opened the door to the cottage. "You may call me O." Wufei stepped in.
x---x
"Justice, Chang! Always consider the right and wrong of an action," the man yelled, and the whip came down again. Wufei didn't even flinch, his black eyes staring mistily out to sea. Even at seven years old, he knew everything the Academy could teach him, save the art of navigation. It was the one thing he was staying for. All he needed was a little more-
"Thirteen!" the whip came down again. "Do you know what integrity means, kid? Do you even care?" He bit down harder on the gag as the air stung his new wound. It was always the same justice lecture, always the same rant about integrity and honor and obedience and answering to a higher authority-
"Fourteen!" again, the whip hit him. "Chang! Your pride will get you killed one day! You'll answer to a higher authority than us, one day!" Wufei couldn't help but roll his eyes, doing his best to ignore the pain. And next came his favorite part. Whip fifteen, the final whip, the "thank you sir may I have another" statement.
"Fifteen!" the leather came down again, and Wufei barely kept back a scream as it whipped across his side, and the tips hit his chest. "Someday, you'll thank us for this, Chang." The ties were loosened, and he fell to the ground with a thud, his brain repeating ow ow ow ow ow ow ow. Usually it didn't hurt that bad; clearly, they'd gotten a new, more skilled torturer for the difficult person he was.
His black eyes glinted. Difficult, and dangerous. He was always whipped, always fifteen times, whenever he nearly killed another of the older kids. It was his fourth time, and he couldn't be prouder.
Those socks really should have been black.
Sometimes, the pain was worth it.
x---x
He stood on the stage, indifference shining on him just like the silver metal they were placing on his white jacket.
"...and for extraordinary valor in the Broadmount Fire, we award the title of First Cadet to Cadet Wufei Chang," the Instructor droned on. Inside, he was sneering. A metal for saving an Instructor from his own stupidity. 'Oh, no, a campfire in a dry building won't cause any harm!' Idiots, all of them. He was ten, and nearly done with his naval training, thank whatever deity was up there.
Wufei was about to die from utter boredom, when the clapping and cheering expected began. And, as expected, he smiled and bowed, and when everyone was waiting for a speech, he walked over to the podium.
It had taken him a very long time to think of what to say, since his opinions on the Academy ranged from "useless" to "a waste of a good hell dimension". So, he said his speech.
"Thank you," he stated in the dry tone he'd developed. "Anyone else would have saved the Instructor and his barrack. I was merely in the right place at the right time." Damn, he'd just remembered he had to meet O that night. "Thank you again." Wufei stepped down, and hesitant applause followed him out the door.
As soon as the adults were out of sight, Wufei unbuttoned the white dress coat, leaving him in the dark blue shirt he'd smuggled in via O's random benevolence. Students in the halls stared at him, but he was used to it. As he'd been the only Cadet, which was the highest regular rank in the whole of the Academy, at age nine when most boys didn't reach it until eleven at least, he was used to it. And now, with that annoyingly shiny piece of shit on his uniform proclaiming, "I'm the best of the best", he'd be ripped apart by the Cadets, not to mention the First Cadets, of which there were only twenty of. Sadly, one of them had died in the fire.
Wufei smirked. Oops.
O was a puzzle Wufei saw no reason to solve. The bizarre man had tutored him, trained him, and taught him for the past four or five years (it was hard to keep track, after a while), and all he required in return was that Wufei take what he gave, and that his pupil be the best, with no doubts about his standing.
Inwardly, he shrugged. So Wufei was ruthless to get where he needed to be. It was the only way to survive in Academy. Besides, Darwin had been a pitiful excuse for a First Cadet, and had only managed to get there because he was thirteen and if you were thirteen and still at the Academy, you were either an idiot or irreplaceable. Darwin had been an idiot.
So, Wufei had taken his place. He'd had to let a boy die for it. Again, a mental shrug. The strong always replaced the weak. It was the true way of life.
It was justice.
x---x
"Hands on deck! I said HANDS ON DECK, you bastards! Get the fuck up," the first mate was screaming, and Wufei's eyes opened, blurry inside the military-issued white hammock. Hell, everything was military issue, from his green and blue uniform to his pathetic sword. He doubted the thing could cut through butter.
The twelve-year-old hopped out of the cloth hammock in a graceful way the other men could only dream of.
"Chang! Get to the helm," the first mate yelled, frantic. Wufei frowned, but the older man was quickly bustling him up onto the deck. This time, the black-haired boy didn't bother to disguise rolling his eyes. These idiots didn't know a damn thing about seamanship.
They bustled him over to the helm, and he grabbed it familiarly. O had taught him everything expertly; from how to walk the plank and survive to how to successfully scuttle your ship into another one (a tactic used commonly among pirates). The strange, quiet, bald old man had also been the reason Wufei was on a ship instead of on a pedestal back at the Academy.
As soon as his eyes cleared, he began to regret that decision. A trainee ship, just like his own, was aiming straight for the Shenlong.
"Shit, you people are stupid," Wufei grumbled. There was no way they could avoid the collision. "Brace for impact!" The crew obliged readily, and Wufei steeled himself for the break, planting his feet firmly in front of the ship's wheel.
At the screaming faces of children on the other boat, a wry smile came onto his lips. Maybe twelve isn't that bad of a life expectancy, after all...
The ship tore into him.
x---x
"...You okay, Duo," Wufei asked hesitantly. The younger boy jerked up, nearly falling out of the crow's nest, but caught himself.
"Holy shit, 'Fei! Don't sneak up on a guy like that," Duo yelled, shaking his head and propping himself up on the side of the barrel. Wufei smirked.
"Thought you were the experienced First Mate," he said, and Duo frowned.
"Shut up. I am, and you know it," he snapped. "What's with the 'Duo'? No 'Maxwell! We're going to talk, NOW!'" Wufei shrugged, smugly impressed at the imitation. Then again, they'd been living together for two years. It wasn't very surprising.
"I heard your fight with Solo about Trowa," he admitted. Duo snorted.
"Yeah, you and every other thing with ears for twenty miles around," he grumbled, and sighed, dropping his back down the side of the barrel. "So, what? You want the shitty story of my life, or just to say I'm loud?" Obviously, this was Duo Defense Mechanism # 4: Sarcasm. (Mechanism #1: Run. Mechanism #2: Hide. Mechanism #3: Kill.)
"I want to know if you're okay, damn it! Just get over the fact I'm your friend, and treat me that way," Wufei snapped, and Duo blinked at him. "You're a pirate! Act like it for once!"
"What the fuck does that mean? 'Act like a pirate'?! What, you want me to walk around with an eye patch and say 'Arrgh, matey! Thar be a wind a'blowin in me bones!'" He frowned. "Yeah, sure. And let's not forget YOUR profession, Pirate First Mate Wufei!" The black-haired boy sighed, shaking his head.
"I meant grow up, Maxwell," he grumbled, and began to climb back down, but stopped when his head was the only thing visible. "If you want to talk, I'm always here." Duo sighed, nodding.
"Thanks, 'Fei," he said, a smile tugging at his lips. Wufei gave him a quick smile, one of the secret ones only Duo (and Trowa once) could ever coax out of him.
"Maxwell," he said just for the satisfaction of the braided boy's pissed-off expression, and before Duo could throw something at him, he zipped down the rope to the deck.
x---x
Wufei glared at the girl, then at the retreating ship, and then back at the girl. She glared right back, face caught in a perpetual grimace. Clad only in her underwear and a red robe, her dark brown hair was pulled back into two low pigtails.
"Well, now that you've gotten rid of my only form of transportation, we're STUCK HERE," she yelled, hands going above her head in a burst of anger. Wufei was about to scream back at her, but the lack of hands let the robe fall to the side. Instead, his hands tugged the robe around her.
"DAMN IT, WOMAN! Restrain yourself," Wufei snapped. First Duo went to find Hilde a few months ago, dumping him in the process, and then Trowa went off to find Catherine the Circus Goddess... and now this...this...annoyingly rebellious, scantily clad, loud, beautiful, venomous spawn of Satan! He was tempted to pull his hair out-AND hers! "Take care of your own clothes! I do NOT want to look at that!"
She gaped at him, seething. "You insufferable bastard! I'm GORGEOUS, and you KNOW IT," she screamed, but took hold of her own robe. Glaring, Wufei marched back up the beach. In all his years, he'd never been more tempted to commit suicide, and that was saying A LOT. "Don't you walk away from me, you...! You...! COWARD!" He whirled back towards her.
"Listen," he hissed, holding his index finger up threateningly. "I could literally pull out your throat and feed it to you right now, I want to kill you so bad. It's because of you that my crew has mutinied, took the Deviant from me, AND TURNED NOBLE! You turned a fucking pirate crew into decent sailors, you're so annoying! Even DUO couldn't do that!" He clenched his teeth. "And compared to Maxwell, you make the OCEAN look like a PUDDLE!" Her dark eyes scowled at him.
"Is that supposed to be some sort of indirect compliment," she snapped, eyes glinting dangerously.
"NO! IT'S AN INSULT!" Wufei screamed, and suddenly screamed at the top of his lungs. Then, he turned back up the beach and walked into the island's forest of palm trees.
"HEY! You get back here," she yelled, and ran after him. Wufei didn't stop, though. He just continued walking, until he reached a sandy clearing in the wood. Without a moment's hesitation, he started gathering the fallen leaves together and throwing them in a pile. "What are you doing?" He sighed.
"Making a fire, and shelter," he grumbled, throwing more leaves on. "Help, or get ready to sleep outside the rest of your life." She scoffed at him.
"Do you have ANY idea who my father is? Who I am?!"
"No! I don't! And I don't care, either! I'm Wufei the castaway, and you're the red underwear fairy, as far as I care," he snapped, and she glared at him.
"Well, if SOMEONE hadn't destroyed my ship and clothes, I'd be wearing something different!" He rolled his eyes.
"Like what? A GREEN robe?" The girl made an exasperated sound, and a rock flew at his head. A shocked look on his face, he fell headfirst into the pile of brush he'd been collecting.
---
He woke up surprisingly warm, considering it was night now...oh, shit. He looked around, and spotted the girl curled around her legs in front of the fire. Immediately, he realized his mistake. The girl knew how to make a fire, so she couldn't be all that useless.
It was only the muted sniffling that told him she was crying. Her eyes looked just as intense as they had that late afternoon, and the rest of her face was the same, but her nose randomly twitched, and a tear would roll down her cheek.
Wufei couldn't help but feel a twinge of remorse. She was probably just as scared as he was, if not more, and...he didn't even know her name.
"What's your name," Wufei asked quietly, and immediately the sniffling stopped. Her chocolate eyes were seemingly dripping venom instead of tears. "I'm Wufei Chang." Her eyes drifted back to the fire.
"...Meiran," she said simply, and pulled her robe tighter. "Sorry for hitting you with the rock." He couldn't help but smirk.
"I'm used to it," he chuckled. "I apologize for insulting you." Now, Meiran chuckled.
"I'm used to it, too," she smiled at him, and his heart fluttered a bit. From demon to angel in one throw of a rock...damn. He shook his head. No, it was just because he was stuck on an island with her. Nothing else. Just...island fever. Hell, it'd struck with him and Duo, so obviously it wasn't unheard of.
"Did you sleep," Wufei suddenly asked, and Meiran shrugged.
"I might have nodded off. It's sort of boring to watch you twitch in your sleep," she smirked, and he gave her a cool glare.
"I don't twitch," he snapped, and Meiran rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, and I don't have hands," she said sarcastically. Wufei sighed.
"Shelter. We need to make something to sleep on, with a roof, until Duo comes," he said, and started to gather more leaves. Meiran frowned.
"Who's this Duo person? Some sort of saint," she snapped, and Wufei laughed.
"No, he's a pirate, and my...he's my brother," he decided. Hell, it'd been over for almost six months anyway, and Duo had always been his brother and best friend first, so it seemed like an accurate description. Wufei couldn't help but smirk. "Ever heard of Shinigami?"
"I DO have ears, you know. I think anyone who's ever been to the coast has heard of Shinigami the pirate," she grumbled, and then looked him over. "You're not Shinigami, are you?" Chuckling, he shook his head.
"No. That's Duo," he said.
All he heard was a muted "shit", and all he saw was the puff of sand that came with Meiran's sudden, girly faint.
---
It was five days more until Duo Maxwell showed up to save the couple.
And yes, couple. One thing had led to another...Meiran's robe had to be used for a tourniquet, a signal flag, and a roof for their little shelter, the shelter itself required them to sleep on top of each other, Meiran was just too astonishingly gorgeous...island fever had struck again.
Plus, living on an island for six days with the same person was really boring, and they had to find ways to entertain themselves. Most of these involved sex (after all, they ARE teenagers). And somewhere in the middle of all that stupidity, they'd managed to do the stupidest thing imaginable and fall madly, hopelessly in love with each other.
When Duo stepped off his ship, the first thing he heard was a girl's giggling, and the first thing he saw was a long red woman's robe stuck up on a pole as a signal flag. He frowned, Hilde at his side.
"OI! 'FEI! We're here," Duo yelled out, almost afraid to walk into a forest with giggling trees. But, the giggling stopped rather quickly, and a rather unkempt Wufei walked out of the forest, grinning. The pole with the robe suddenly disappeared, and both Hilde and Duo yelped and jumped back. "Holy shit! The forest's haunted!" Wufei shook his head.
"Shut up, Maxwell. The forest is NOT haunted. That's just Meiran," he explained, and Duo's eyebrow twitched up.
"Eh? You got a new imaginary friend," he asked, just as a disheveled woman walked out, grinning and decked out in red lingerie and a matching, ripped silk robe. She gaped at the sight of Duo.
"THIS is Shinigami?" Her gaze immediately slipped to Wufei. "THIS is the pirate who's going to save us?" Her hand immediately snapped to point at Duo, and Wufei was barely fast enough to restrain her robe.
"Mei...shut up," Wufei pleaded quietly with her, while the other two pirates were staring at the couple. Meiran slapped him across the face.
"HELL no! All this time, we've been waiting for HIM?!"
"DAMN IT, WOMAN! SHUT UP!" Meiran glared at him.
"YOU SHUT UP!" She tackled him, and they immediately started making out. Duo backed away.
"Ehm...that's nice..." He leaned over to whisper in Hilde's ear. "I thought he was my boyfriend?" Hilde shrugged.
"You did leave him for half a year." Duo shrugged, as well, and finally sighed.
"Alright, alright, break it up! So when's the wedding," he joked, and the two immediately stopped, staring at him with wide eyes. Slowly, their almost scared expressions turned to each other.
Hilde slapped a hand to her forehead. "Oh, crap."
x---x
A/N: I'm stopping there, 'cuz I figure you get the rest, and I have to go write a couple papers right now, so...yeah. Next chapter's the FINAL chapter! Oh no!
READER/REVIEWER RESPONSES/REPLIES:
Silver Cateyes: Ohh, I can't give anything away! That'd just be wrong! Hmmm...I wonder if there's such a thing as thumbscrews that pour boiling oil out of them? Now THAT would be cool!
Mlaine: Wow, that IS weird. I NEVER wear shorts. Hate 'em; make me look like...well, like I'm a skinny pale redhead. We get a blizzard here at least once every year, but I hadn't seen snow 'til I was about eight and we moved to CO. It's funny, I've lived all over, and the people who panic most about snow aren't those who've never seen it before, but Oregonians. They put chains on their tires if there's ANY snow. It's actually pretty funny. And isn't pregnancy ALWAYS a great excuse?
Windy River: I try! I really do!
Magical-flyingdragon: See? I did the Wufei special! No worries! And isn't the Mage just a downright bastard? Ugh! HATE him! Poor widdle Quatre...
TrenchcoatMan: I'd just like to say, you made me laugh so hard (at two AM), that I had a coughing fit and my mom WOKE UP, came into my room to see if I was okay, and made me laugh even harder. And I do NOT want to think of my parents...shudder oh god that's wrong. But hey, maybe I'll put up some of my good ol' fashioned smut for the heck of it.
The Rogue Prince: It's coming! I'm glad you're so excited!
THANKS FOR READING, PLEASE REVIEW! IT MAKES ME HAPPY, AND THUS YOU TOO! (AKA it makes me write faster...)