Warnings: Angst, violence, language, drug use, abuse, supernatural things, sex, yaoi, yuri, het. If you desperately need to know who is paired with who send me a message and I can tell you, but I'd rather you get to experience the evolution of the characters first.
A/N: Based on Misfits, but draws from X-Men, Smallville, and Heroes as well. These kids aren't the complete burnouts that the Misfits are, but they are NOT perfect angels. Be warned.
A/N #2: Thanks to the always amazing Cuzo, more than a beta and no less than a friend.
A/N#3: A special thanks to Snowdragonct, who has been so encouraging and supportive since I first started writing here. Thank you for your advice, conversation, and general brilliance. Also, you are a badass AND a classy lady.
A/N#4: I want to give credit to Cuzo for suggesting Heero's powers be Storm-like. It saved me from the terrible mistake of giving him super lame powers, and I'm glad that so many of you have enjoyed her recommendation as well. Thank you for saving Heero!
Deviant
Chapter Five
Saturdays were the bane of Wufei's existence.
For the past month he had suffered through the menial physical labor assigned to him and somehow managed to put up with the rude attitudes of his fellow reprobates.
At least Heero was sharing this burden – his silent, sullen self was almost comforting.
When he woke up for the fourth of his court mandated eight days of community service, Wufei had to fight the urge to bury himself under the blankets and sleep for another hour.
Normally he kept to a routine and was able to wake up early and face whatever obstacles the day had in store. But today, something just felt wrong.
He forced himself to finally get up at seven-thirty and took a shower.
The stream of hot water did little to alleviate his tension, and by the time he was dressed he had succeeded in reminding himself of every minor and major annoyance of the past three Saturdays – starting with getting struck by lightning and continuing up to the point where he learned that he was doing community service with a prostitute.
The knowledge that anyone would willing and unashamedly choose to sell their body disgusted Wufei, and his already low opinion of the townie who claimed that crime hit rock bottom.
Wufei wandered out to the kitchen and was surprised to see Meilin awake and cooking breakfast.
"Morning," she greeted him brightly.
Immediately suspicious, Wufei sat down at the counter.
"Why are you awake?" he asked her. "And why are you… happy?"
She shrugged and offered him a smirk.
"I'm awake because I've volunteering at the library in an hour – I'm doing that reading tutor program, remember? – and maybe I'm just happy because I love knowing that you're going to spend the day being completely miserable."
"You're all heart."
"Mm." She set a plate of bacon and pancakes in front of him.
"And cooking? Since when do you cook?"
Meilin, much like Wufei, hated to be anywhere near a kitchen. Ever since moving into the apartment and off campus they had invested considerable time and effort in finding all of the decent take out restaurants in town, and had finally mastered the art of microwaving frozen meals.
This was, Wufei realized, the first time he had even seen Meilin use a frying pan.
"Well, there was an interesting discussion in my Gender and Global Health class about the concept of domesticity as a sphere of power instead of diminishment."
"That sounds completely boring," Wufei told her honestly.
She glared.
"That's because you are a misogynist."
Wufei shrugged, knowing that while it was an exaggeration, she wasn't completely off base in her accusation.
"Anyway, I don't agree with that at all, but it was pointed out to me that certain privileged Western women are unable to look past their own preconceptions about domesticity. And, since I'm one of those women and I view cooking as the lowest form of servitude that I refuse to subject myself to on a daily basis, I decided to try it."
"I stopped listening as soon as you gave me food," Wufei told her after taking a bite of the pancakes. He instantly regretted it. "What IS this?" He grabbed a paper towel from the counter and spit out his mouthful into it before throwing it away.
"Pancakes?" She said and then smiled sweetly at him. "Of course, I added a tablespoon of salt to yours… so they probably didn't turn out as well as mine."
"Thanks." He looked warily at the strips of bacon for a moment before deciding not to risk it. The day would be bad enough without having to battle food poisoning.
He scraped the plate off into the trash.
"Thai tonight?" he asked her on his way to the front door. "Or will you be continuing this experiment in new ways to be a complete bitch?"
"Thai," she confirmed. "Have a great day!" She waved at him and he glared at her before slamming the door behind him.
It had seemed like such a good idea, last spring, to move in with her. They both hated living on campus, and both of their parents were over the moon about the idea of their children finding a Chinese partner at college.
The reality was, however, that Meilin and Wufei could barely tolerate each other. At least they made good roommates – they were both obsessive about laundry and keeping the apartment free of trash and clutter, and they hated cooking in equal measure – but it became more and more difficult to be nice to each other in front of their parents when they came to visit, and even their friends had started to question why they dated.
But as bad as it was, it still beat the alternative – campus housing and nagging from their parents to bring home a nice Chinese girlfriend or boyfriend – so they each suffered through. Typically by making the other suffer as much as possible.
When Wufei arrived at the police station he headed for the dressing room, hoping to be early enough to be able to change in privacy and silence.
No such luck. The room was bustling with activity as everyone it seemed, except for Quatre, were already present and changing.
The townie, Duo, seemed to have targeted Heero and Trowa Barton - Wufei still felt guilty for not recognizing him last week, and even guiltier when he realized that they were in Russian History together - with his attentions. Wufei was grateful that the incredibly irritating man hadn't decided to annoy him yet, and even more grateful that Duo and Trant seemed to have put a little distance between themselves.
"Morning Heero!" the man called brightly as he took his place at the locker between Heero and Trowa.
Heero, predictably, was silent, but Wufei saw him look over at Duo, and instead of looking irritated or disgusted - as Wufei would have been to have the man address him so familiarly - he looked merely...resigned.
"Morning Trowa."
The silent man also offered no verbal response to the townie's greeting, but he smiled, slightly, and that had Duo grinning from ear to ear.
Wufei shook his head and turned away.
As Wufei changed, he caught sight of Trant sneering at Duo as the other man stripped down to his boxers, and Wufei couldn't help but feel a spurt of aggravation at the other man's blatant sexuality. Just because he sold his body - a body that was clearly very fit and eye catching - he didn't have to rub it in everyone else's faces, or encourage Trant's fixation with him by stripping down to just his underwear.
"Do you have no decency?" Wufei growled at him when he seemed in no hurry to pull on his orange coveralls.
Duo looked up and arched an eyebrow at him before smirking.
"See something you like?"
Wufei felt his face flush at the implication and he fought down any emotion the question brought up.
"We all know you're a filthy whore," Trant spoke up, "maybe you -"
Duo rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, yeah. I know. I'm a whore, you hate me just as much as you want to fuck me... we've been over this. A couple of times. It's getting old."
Duo turned away from them and pulled on his coveralls, taking his sweet time zipping them up, and smirking at Wufei when he caught him following the upwards progress of the zipper.
"Anyway, get a move on fellas, we've got a hot date with Sergeant Crazy Face," Duo called out and slammed his locker closed.
Wufei reluctantly took his lead and followed him from the locker room, Trant, Heero, and Trowa not far behind.
When they arrived in the briefing room, Quatre, Relena, and the other girl - Wufei thought her name was Hilde - were already seated.
Duo took his customary seat beside Hilde and even slung an arm around the back of her chair.
Wufei couldn't figure out what Duo's sexual orientation was, and it annoyed him that the man seemed to casually flirt with any warm body he came into contact with - male and female alike.
Of course, as a prostitute, he had probably learned to be less than picky when it came to choosing partners, and doing that - selling his body - implied a certain level of appreciation for physical contact. So maybe he was, as Trant so pedantically put it, a filthy whore.
"There will not be a repeat of last week," Une barked as she stormed into the room, clearly in a foul mood.
Wufei couldn't help his natural instinct to sit up straighter when she started to yell - and he was relieved that most of the others in the room had the same instinct.
"You will complete the full day of time and you will behave. There will be no dawdling, no snooping through the private and confidential files of members of this staff. You are all criminals and clearly have no desire to atone for your crimes, and I am finished babysitting the lot of you. Today you will work to earn society's forgiveness. Now get up and get on the bus."
Wufei saw the others exchange wary glances, and he fell into step with Quatre as they all started for the back of the station and the parking lot that Une had ushered them towards the first day of their restitution.
"You were early today," he said to the blonde man.
Quatre sighed.
"Yeah. My father thought it would do me good to sit here, like the pathetic excuse I am, and appreciate my sentence."
Wufei frowned, but refrained from saying anything. He knew that Meilin worried about Quatre, and he also felt concerned for his friend, but Wufei hated to interfere in the lives of others.
He buried his own emotions about the subject - he too had an uneasy relationship with his parents - and sought about for a change of subject.
"How do you do that?" Quatre asked him suddenly, as they took their seats at the front of the bus.
"Do what?"
"Just - um. Never mind. You just seem very centered, like you can just push your emotions aside and clear your mind."
Wufei shrugged.
"Years of practice. Emotions don't help you deal with issues - they cloud them and make you forget what's really important."
Quatre looked doubtful.
"You really feel that way?"
"Yes."
"So even your feelings for Meilin - you don't let those cloud your judgment when the two of you fight, or if she was in danger -"
"I think Meilin and I fight so often because both of us set aside our feelings for each other. And she can take care of herself. Obviously I would want to help her, if she was in danger, but she doesn't need me to hold her hand."
Not to mention the fact that she would sooner cut off her hand than rely on Wufei - or anyone - for anything if she didn't absolutely have to.
Quatre sighed.
"I really don't understand your relationship at all."
"Most people don't," Wufei assured him. He sighed, remembering Meilin's request. "Speaking of relationships, how are things with you and Relena?"
Quatre shook his head.
"She still insists that I'm gay! We've started having lunch together on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the caf, and she keeps pointing out guys I should ask out. She even," Quatre twisted back in his seat to see if anyone was looking at them, "she even suggested I ask out Trowa."
Wufei was amused by the disgust in Quatre's voice.
"He is good looking," Wufei pointed out the obvious.
"He's also a guy. I'm really, really not gay. But he's troubled - I should talk to him. But now if I do, Relena will think I'm giving in or whatever."
"Troubled?"
Quatre nodded and then looked sheepish.
"Troubled how?"
"I don't think he's very happy."
Wufei snorted.
"Who is?"
It was clearly the wrong thing to say. Quatre looked at him with wide eyes, and Wufei could practically feel the blonde man trying to read into his words.
"Are you -"
"Leave it, Quatre." Wufei sighed and closed his eyes before leaning back on their shared bench.
He was grateful that the blonde man did, in fact, leave it, and Wufei, alone for the rest of the bus ride.
It was almost half an hour later that the bus stopped, and Wufei opened his eyes to take in his surroundings.
Une had driven the bus to a field in the middle of nowhere. The only signs of life were a burnt shell of a high rise building situated on a stretch of pavement that looked as big as a box store parking lot, a collection of fire hydrants arrayed around the building, an empty dumpster, and a cargo container.
Everyone filed off the bus, looking irritated and cautious.
"This is the high rise used by the county firefighters for practice. You will spend today removing all of the furniture from the building, breaking it down into small pieces, and loading it into the dumpster, and then placing new furniture into each of the rooms, on all five stories."
"What? That's -"
Une silenced Duo with a glare.
"There will be no lunch break today." She threw a box of medical masks in Quatre's direction and then set a large cooler down by his feet. "Winner will provide you with sandwiches, chips and beverages at noon. Use the medical masks so that you don't inhale too much soot, or any lingering gases and particles from the last fire."
"You can't make us do something unsafe!" Relena shrieked. "You can't expose us to chemicals or -"
"Yes, I can. I've provided you with the proper safety equipment."
"I'm going to tell my father about this!"
Une arched an eyebrow.
"Perhaps, if we were in the state of Vermont, then your father the governor would be an intimidating threat, but since he has no pull in the state of North Carolina, or the town of Clarkson, I think I'll take my chances." She glared at each of them in turn. "Now get to work!"
They watched her board the bus and drive off.
"This is such bullshit!" Duo shouted after the bus.
"Community service isn't supposed to be fun," Wufei couldn't help but point out. He took a mask from the box in Quatre's hands. "And if we don't actually do the work today, she seems pissed enough to report us."
Duo grumbled, and looked ready to argue, but then he sighed and grabbed two masks from the box as well, passing one over to Hilde.
"Fuck that," Trant said and grabbed the cooler at Quatre's feet. "You idiots do what you want." He started to walk towards the cargo container.
Heero, Trowa, and eventually Relena took masks from Quatre, and the seven of them approached the tower.
As they entered, Wufei looked over his shoulder to see that Trant had pulled a couch from the container and was now stretched out, eating a bag of chips, and listening to his iPod.
He felt anger start to grow inside of him and he worked quickly to calm himself down. Trant was a tool and a complete waste of oxygen. Wufei had known this since last year. There was no point in getting worked up over it now.
"You have got to be kidding me," Relena said, drawing his attention back to the building.
For once, Wufei completely sympathized with the spoiled girl.
On the first floor there were three rooms, and each room had a variety of heavy, charred furniture. And there were five floors.
"This is going to take forever!" She stamped her foot, and Wufei's brief moment of sympathy evaporated.
"Chill, princess," Duo muttered, he turned to look at the others. "How are we going to do this?"
Wufei was shocked that Duo even bothered to talk to the rest of them before taking his girlfriend and vanishing.
"We should start at the top," Heero said. "Work our way down."
Duo nodded, immediately, and without argument accepting the plan. It went against everything Wufei had come to expect from the other man after their month of Saturdays together.
"You're actually going to help?" he couldn't stop himself from asking.
Duo arched an eyebrow at him.
"Unless you're volunteering to do it all yourself?"
"No, of course not. But you're lazy and -"
"Oh, fuck you." Without another word, Duo started up the stairs, and the others started to follow a moment later.
"I think he's trying to be nice," Quatre said, when he and Wufei were the last ones on the first floor. Above them, Wufei could hear Duo loudly complaining about 'tight asses' and 'jerks.' He looked at Quatre.
"Yes, and what a treat it is."
Quatre rolled his eyes.
"You could try being a little less judgmental with him."
Wufei snorted.
"It's not as if I'm the only one judging him. What he did - it should be a felony, not a misdemeanor."
"He said it was just a joke that went wrong," Quatre pointed out.
"Clearly a lie. The cops around here aren't very open minded, but I'm sure they can tell the difference between someone being an annoying idiot and someone actually selling themselves."
"Maybe," Quatre said, and the sadness in his voice irritated Wufei, "but he's not... evil incarnate."
"He's rude, he is lazy, he has no respect for others, he flirts like it's going out of style, and clearly has no value for his own body or life. He doesn't have to be evil incarnate to not be worth my time."
Not willing to wait for Quatre to continue the argument, Wufei stormed past him and went into one of the bedrooms on the first floor. If the others wanted to start from the top and work their way down - they were welcome to do so. Wufei worked better on his own anyway.
By noon it sounded like the others had reached the third floor. They seemed to be shoving all of the furniture from one level down to the next, and had clearly accumulated more than they thought logical - if Duo, Hilde, and Relena's protests were anything to go by.
Wufei had succeeded in clearly out the entire first floor on his own, taking each piece of furniture to the dumpster and breaking it down into the smallest possible parts before throwing it in.
Each of the eighteen trips he made to the dumpster earned him jeers and mocking applause from Trant, who seemed perfectly content to just sit on his ass all day and eat everyone else's food.
When the others stomped down the stairs to take their lunch break, Wufei was dragging the last piece of furniture, a battered and barely recognizable couch, out to the dumpster.
He struggled a bit under the weight, and wasn't surprised when Quatre jumped in to help him.
"You're kind of an idiot," Quatre told him conversationally as they heft it into the dumpster together. "It's actually been... nice working with the others."
Wufei didn't doubt it.
While he had heard the faint, distant stream of cussing from Duo and whinging from Relena, he had also heard several bursts of laughter from Quatre, Hilde, Relena, Duo, and even, he thought, Heero and Trowa at one point. He refused to feel jealous or left out, however, and just shrugged it off.
"Okay, Trant, I need the cooler," Quatre said to his fellow soccer player.
Trant made a show of removing his earbuds.
"I'm sorry, what was that, Princess?"
Trant had seemingly decided to only refer to Quatre by that nickname, and each time he said it Quatre seemed to take more and more offense to it.
"Dude, stop being such a jack ass and just give Junior Deputy the cooler," Duo growled. He had pulled his mask off and he shoved it into a pocket before approaching Trant. "You've been out here getting a tan for your pasty ass while we've been working. So give over the damn food."
He reached to take the cooler, but Trant lashed out and kicked Duo in the gut, sending the other man stumbling backwards with a wince.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Duo staggered upright.
"Trant! Stop it!" Quatre shouted when the soccer player rose from the couch and started towards Duo.
Wufei had to admire the townie, just a little, when he refused to back down from the other man, who had at least fifty pounds and six inches on him.
"Besides, I think you need to earn it," Trant told Duo, completely ignoring Quatre and the others.
Duo's eyes narrowed.
"You -"
"Duo, don't!" Hilde suddenly called out, and Duo looked away from Trant.
Trant took the momentary distraction and picked up the cooler. Instead of stalking off with it, he swung it against the side of Duo's head.
Wufei winced at the sound of the impact, and he heard Relena shriek. Duo crumpled to the ground.
"Take it, then,"Trant said and walked away, into the high rise.
Hilde and Quatre were almost instantly at Duo's side, and even Heero and Trowa stepped closer.
"Fucking hell, Duo! Are you okay? Duo!"
"Stop yelling at me," the man on the ground muttered and blinked open dazed, indigo eyes. He rubbed the side of his head, and Wufei wasn't surprised to see his hand come away bloody.
After a moment, Duo struggled to stand, and accepted the hand that Trowa offered to help get him to his feet.
He staggered over to the couch and sat down.
"Fuck, Hilde, why did you tell me to stop? I was just going to punch him."
"It would have been worse," she said, and joined him on the couch, tucking one leg under her body and sitting as close as she could.
"Worse than getting brained by a fucking cooler?" Duo groused.
"There's a metal bar - the lock bar for the container, over there on the ground. He -" she abruptly stopped talking and looked around, as if just remembering that they weren't alone.
"Are you seriously suggesting that Trant would have used a metal bar on him?" Wufei scoffed. "He's annoying, but even Trant knows we can't kill him."
Everyone, even Relena, turned to glare at him.
"Here's some water. It's not ice, but it's still pretty cool, it should feel good against your head," Quatre spoke up into the tense, angry silence. He handed Duo a bottle of water.
"Thanks." Duo accepted it and held it against the side of his head with a wince of pain.
Quatre looked into the cooler and sighed.
"He ate all of the chips... and there are only three sandwiches left..."
"I'm not hungry," Trowa spoke up.
"Bullshit. You've been moving just as much shit as the rest of us. We can split them - if that's okay with you?" Duo added the last with a sneer in Wufei's direction. "Or, because I think it's a good idea, are you going to go on a hunger strike?"
"We can split one- Hilde, you and I, right?" Relena spoke up before Wufei could respond.
Hilde nodded emphatically. "She and I can have half, you can have the other half - the rest of the guys can split the other two."
"Actually I'm not hungry," Duo said.
"Do you feel nauseous? Can you focus on my fingers?" Hilde jumped in front of Duo and guided two fingers in front of his face. "You could have a concussion."
"I'm fine. Just - you two share the damn sandwich. I'll eat when we get home tonight. We aren't stranded on a desert island, fighting over the last of the coconuts or some shit."
She looked ready to protest, but after a moment sighed and shrugged.
"Okay."
Quatre passed out the remaining sandwiches, giving one to Hilde, one to Heero, and one to Wufei.
Relena sat down on the other side of Hilde on the couch, and after a moment and a look of silent communication, Heero and Trowa pulled another sofa out of the container.
Quatre took his half of the sandwich from Wufei and sat with the two men.
He fought down his resentment at there being no room for him on either couch, and instead sat on the pavement, mentally assuring himself that the couches were no doubt infested with lice or some other parasite.
"Have you picked a topic for the Humanities essay yet?" Quatre spoke up after a few minutes of silence, directing his question to Trowa.
The quiet man frowned and then shrugged one shoulder.
"I'm thinking the unsustainable economic practices of the Roman Empire," he said when Quatre continued to look expectant.
Quatre nodded.
"I've started researching the Almoravid Empire in Spain. I don't know what I'm going to go with for a thesis yet, but it's interesting so far." He turned to Relena. "Aren't you taking Cook's section?"
She nodded and then gave a dramatic sigh.
"He is so boring - right Heero?"
The other man frowned, clearly put out at being addressed by Relena.
"I don't think so," he said. "He just has a very materialistic view of history."
And suddenly, somehow, the four of them started discussing classes, completely excluding Wufei - despite the fact that he had history with Trowa, Chemistry with Quatre, and Western Political Philosophy with Relena. For all that they addressed him, he might as well have been one of the townies.
Both Hilde and Duo looked strangely content, sitting practically on top of each other, as the others conversed about something they clearly had no interest or connection to.
The fact that Duo, who seemed keen to be the center of attention at all times, was actually sitting there silently and not making snide remarks was too much for Wufei.
It was as if the rest of them had entered into some conspiracy against him.
He finished his sandwich and threw the wrapper into the dumpster before snapping his mask back in place and stalking into the fire house.
Let them pretend to be friends if they wanted. He just wanted this day - and the four more Saturdays he had remaining - to end as soon as possible.
After half an hour of working by himself, the others filtered in and started to haul furniture down, working around Wufei, and still chatting with each other.
Relena and Hilde passed him, carrying a dresser, debating the merits of red versus black nail polish.
Quatre and Heero carried down a mattress while discussing math homework.
Duo and Trowa walked past, a couch balanced between them, smiling at each other.
Trant was still nowhere to be seen, and Wufei was finding it difficult to move furniture on his own with the others constantly moving past him, so he decided to go back outside and haul furniture out of the container, since the next step would be putting it into the now nearly empty high rise.
It was two-thirty when the others finished loading furniture into the now overflowing dumpster, and Wufei had managed to empty the container and spread furniture across the pavement, out of the way of their path to the dumpster.
Relena and Hilde flopped down on the original couch.
"God, I'm exhausted!" Relena groaned.
The others reached into the cooler and pulled out the last of the water bottles, quickly emptying them, and Wufei was grateful that he had thought to grab one for himself earlier. It was clear the others weren't thinking about him at all.
"So, what now?" Duo sat down on the other couch, joined by Trowa a moment later, summoned by a tired wink from Duo.
Wufei had no idea what was going on there - it didn't seem as if Duo was putting any effort into flirting with him, not like he put into flirting with Hilde at least - but Trowa seemed to be responding to him as if he actually enjoyed the townie's attention.
"I don't think we're going to finish this today," Quatre said with a sigh. "There's just no way we can get all this furniture situated in ALL of the rooms."
"Une will kill us if we don't," Relena pointed out.
"Look, she never gave us a blue print for interior decorating," Hilde pointed out. "And since not all of us are geniuses, maybe we figured that each room needed a lot of furniture, and somehow we only made it to the second or third floor… totally not our fault."
"I like the way you think," Relena said, smiling at the other girl.
Hilde smirked back and then looked at the others to comment on her plan.
"Better than just leaving it out here," Duo agreed. "And who knows – maybe she won't be bitchy when she gets here. Maybe she'll be in her 'oh please let's be kind' mood."
"Which is way creepier," Hilde muttered.
Silently, Wufei agreed. Two weeks ago, when Une had slapped Duo, he had felt both satisfaction and shock, but when she had transformed into some strange, delicate version of herself afterwards it had been more than a little scary.
"So… teams of two?" Duo suggested and rose to his feet.
"There are seven of us," Wufei pointed out.
Duo turned to him, and then did a double take.
"Holy shit – are you – are you communicating with me?"
Wufei rolled his eyes at Duo's dramatics.
"Get over yourself."
"Me? You get over yourself. Seriously, all day – every day we've been in community service – you've had a huge stick up your ass."
Wufei sneered and then picked up the nearest piece of furniture he could move and carried it into the house, deciding to just ignore everyone for the rest of the day.
It was easier said than done – he continually had to walk past the others on his treks back outside to get new furniture as they did the same, and even Heero shot him a look of disappointment at one point.
Heero wasn't friendly to anyone! Where did he get off being disappointed in Wufei for calling Duo out on being self-absorbed and a general pain in the ass? It was ridiculous, and the more he thought about it, the angrier he became.
It was just after four when they hauled the last of the furniture – the couch that Trant had pulled out – up to the third floor and situated it in one of the rooms.
"I guess we could have done the entire five floors," Quatre mused, looking guiltily at his watch.
"Too late now," Duo said and sat down on the floor across from the couch. Trowa sat down near him, and Heero and Quatre stretched out side by side on the bed.
Relena and Hilde wasted no time climbing on to the couch, propping their feet in each other's laps, and proceeded to start painting each other's toenails.
Wufei thought about going into another room to sit by himself, but there was an easy chair in one corner of the room – and he had carried it up by himself.
He sat down in it, expecting Duo to unleash a stream of insults at his presence, but the braided man had his eyes closed and appeared to be taking a nap while leaning against the wall.
Wufei could feel the burn of exercise and exhaustion in his muscles, and as thoroughly unpleasant as the day had been, it was nice to feel this physically drained. He tried to focus on getting rid of his negative emotions and just let go of his anger at Duo, the others, and the world in general.
He didn't know how much time had passed, but he must have nodded off.
When he woke it was to the sound of raised voices.
Trant had finally reappeared, and was lounging in the doorway, making snide comments about Duo getting in line to get HIS nails painted, and the townie had predictably risen to the bait and was in the middle of a colorful string of obscenities.
"Shut up," Wufei groaned. "The two of you should just get it over with and screw each other."
Both men turned red.
"I'm not gay!" Trant shouted at the same time that Duo launched into a tirade opposing bestiality.
" –because he's clearly not a sentient being," Duo finished after several graphic descriptions of sexual acts that Wufei could have done without.
"Deny it all you want, but it's clear that there is something between you. I'm not sure I can take another month of you two doing this."
"I can't take another month of it," Duo assured him. "But apparently throwing a fucking cooler at my head and punching me in the face is just foreplay, according to you, so maybe I just haven't warmed up to him yet."
"Fuck you," Trant said. "As if I would ever–"
"Get over it. We both know what you said and did last –"
"What is going on here?"
Everyone froze at the sound of Une's voice.
She seemed to have materialized out of thin air and was standing just beyond Trant's shoulder, glaring at all of them.
"We finished," Relena said brightly and added another stroke of red to Hilde's toes.
Une's eyes widened and then narrowed and she stormed into the room.
"This is not a slumber party!" She grabbed the nail polish from first Relena and then Hilde and threw them against the wall, narrowly missing Wufei's head, and they shattered against the burnt, soot covered walls.
"Jesus Christ!" Duo shouted. "What the hell is your problem? Old furniture is out, new furniture is in!"
He stood up, and Une advanced on him.
"You!" She shouted.
"Yeah, me!" He shouted back. "Me who, for those of you who missed it, was hit in the fucking head with a cooler today and still did my fucking work."
"Stop making excuses for your criminal behavior."
"I'm not making excuses! And for fuck's sake, you need to calm down. Seriously. Take a yoga class or –"
He stopped talking when Une drew her gun on him.
Once again, everyone in the room seemed to freeze.
"Sergeant Une, what are you doing?" Quatre slowly got off the bed and walked into Une's line of sight.
"Don't interfere, Winner. Just go back to being a disappointment to your father and everyone who has ever met you," Une barked.
Quatre paled.
"I think you're overreacting, Sergeant Une. Why don't we all just go back to the station and –"
"You all think this is just a game, don't you?" Une snarled, turning and waving the gun at the room. "It isn't! I've spent my career babysitting pathetic idiots like you, and I am done with it. DO you hear me? Done. None of you are worth my time. There's a murderer on the loose, a disgusting, depraved creature who has killed ten people and I have to leave the scene of the crime to pick you delinquents up and take you back to the station!"
"There was another murder?" Quatre asked.
"That's what I said, Winner! Four more people murdered, ripped to shreds and left in the woods."
"So… the sooner you put up the fucking gun and take us back to the station, the sooner you can go commune with the bloody bodies," Duo pointed out.
Une focused back on him, directing her gun at his head.
"You disgust me. Do you have any idea how –"
"Don't do it!" Hilde screamed suddenly, lunging up from the couch and throwing herself at Une's back.
Duo threw himself to the ground just as the deafening sound of gunfire echoed in the room.
Wufei jumped out of his chair, with no idea what to do, but a desire to be on his feet and moving forcing him to act.
"You attacked me!" Une yelled and slapped Hilde across the face with the butt of her gun.
"You crazy bitch!" Duo, cleared unharmed, threw himself on top of Une and pulled her away from his girlfriend.
Several more gunshots rang out, and Relena shrieked as a bullet buried itself in the couch beside her leg.
"Do something!" Hilde screamed, looking at Wufei.
"Me? What the hell am I supposed to do?" He screamed back at her.
"You know what to do, you asshole!" She shouted.
Une rose to her feet, kicking free of Duo and Hilde, and pointed the gun down at them.
Her glasses were askew and there was a trickle of blood running down the side of her face.
"Well. I could take you back and bring you up on charges," she said in her quiet, scarily passive voice. "But why go through the hassle of paperwork for something so unsatisfying? Especially when I can instead tell everyone that two of you… let's see… Trant and Heero. Yes. I can tell everyone that Trant and Heero jumped me, took my gun, and decided to kill the two of you," she waved the gun between Duo and Hilde. "It isn't like anyone would miss the two of you. And with their convictions, it would be easy enough to believe."
"Except that the rest of us would tell the truth!" Relena pointed out.
"Then I might as well kill you all. The world would certainly be a better place."
She smiled and aimed the gun back at Duo's head.
"You first. You've already wasted too much of my time with your prattling."
"Wufei!" Hilde shouted again. "You have to do it!"
He had a sudden understanding of what she was talking about. He looked at her, and her wide, dark gaze met his. She knew. She knew.
"Please!"
Almost without conscious thought, he summoned all of his anger and rage, every negative emotion that had been brewing all day, and he screamed, releasing his fury.
Jets of fire erupted from his hands and he aimed at Une before forcing all of it – his anger, his hate, his fire– at her.
It took only seconds for the flames to reach her, and they immediately engulfed her.
Une screamed. Relena screamed. Trant started shouting.
Hilde and Duo scrambled out of the way as Une started flailing about the room, still screaming, as the fire consumed her.
She suddenly tumbled towards Relena, and Quatre dove forward and shoved Une out of the door with enough force to send her careening backwards. She stumbled against the stairway railing and then flipped over, disappearing from their sight.
A moment later there was a wail and then a faint, decidedly fatal sounding THUMP.
"What the fuck just happened?" Duo demanded.
Wufei ignored him and walked out of the room to look over the railing.
Une had fallen to the first floor landing, and her body, still burning, was at such an unnatural angle that she had to be dead.
"We… we just killed Sergeant Une." Quatre looked like he was going to be sick.
"Uh, you just killed her," Trant pointed out, and then turned on Wufei. "And you, you crazy fucking freak. You lit that bitch on fucking fire!"
Which reminded Wufei…
"How did you know?" he asked Hilde. "How did you know what I can do?"
She looked sheepish.
"You can see the future," Quatre said as he came back into the room. "Can't you?"
She nodded uneasily.
"I can hear people thoughts," Quatre confided with a relieved sigh.
"No you can't," Trant scoffed.
Quatre glared at him.
"I'm not even going to say what you're thinking about right now. No one needs to hear it. Just know that I know exactly how disgusting you are."
"I can… convince people to do what I want," Relena said hesitantly. "If I touch them."
Duo sighed.
"Yeah, I can move really fast. And hear things. And feel things. And smell things. So, Trant, please take a fucking shower, k?"
"What about you?" Wufei asked Heero.
He shrugged.
"I can't do anything."
"Loser," Trant said with a smirk.
"So I'm a freak for being able to control fire but he's a loser for not being able to do anything?" Wufei demanded.
"Well, yeah."
"Can you do anything?" Quatre asked Trant.
The larger man smirked.
"Yeah. Ever since we were struck with lightning I've been really, really strong. I can bench press something like ten times my body weight like it's nothing."
The thought that Trant, practically a Neanderthal, had that kind of strength was far from comforting to Wufei.
"Wait, you've got super strength and we've spent all day moving furniture while you sat on your ass?" Hilde demanded.
He smirked at her.
"Maybe if you didn't suck so much as seeing the future you'd have known earlier."
"What are we going to do about Une?" Trowa spoke up.
"Shit. What are we going to do about her?" Duo echoed and rose to his feet. He helped Hilde up.
"Not my problem," Trant said. "I didn't touch the bitch."
"We're all in this," Quatre told him sternly.
"No, we aren't. I –"
Relena abruptly reached out and grabbed his hand.
"Trant, why don't we walk downstairs and move Une's body?"
"Yeah," he agreed, his voice slightly dreamy.
"Fucking scary," Duo muttered as Trant and Relena walked from the room, Relena still holding his hand.
Silently, Wufei agreed.
"We should just tell the cops that she went crazy and attacked us," Quatre said when they all crowded around her body, now just a charred shell.
"Right. What, exactly, do you plan on telling them?" Duo demanded.
"That it was all an accident?"
"So, Crazy Face accidentally shot at us a couple of time. Tight Ass over there accidentally torched her with his magic fire. And you, Junior Deputy, accidentally shoved her over an open stairwell and she accidentally fell three storeys to her death. Plus, we're all criminals. Yeah. We're going to need a plan B."
"In this state, her body is still identifiable," Trowa offered. "If we're going to hide it, she needs to be… burned more." He looked over at Wufei.
Wufei sighed.
"Fine. Let's put her in the dumpster with the burnt furniture and I can light the whole thing."
"So we need to… pick her up?" Duo asked with a look of disgust.
"Or get arrested for murder," Wufei growled.
"But she's… gross."
Relena rolled her eyes.
"Trant, pick her up and take her to the dumpster," she commanded the other man.
Robotically, he followed her commands, and the others trailed after them.
"What happens when you let go?" Hilde asked Relena.
The blonde girl shrugged.
"He won't do what I tell him anymore, but he also won't question having followed my commands. It's kind of neat."
"Yeah," Hilde agreed, but edged away from her.
Wufei doubted Hilde would be inviting Relena to paint her toenails again in the future.
Trant threw Une's body into the dumpster and Wufei once again summoned his anger and used it to start a fire that soon had the entire dumpster alight.
"So… how do we explain Une vanishing but the bus being here?" Relena asked after several minutes of silence as they watched the fire burn.
"She went crazy and ran off, leaving it here?" Duo hazarded.
"That's idiotic," Wufei assured him.
"Then what do you suggest?" Duo snapped back at him.
"We should drive it somewhere secluded and abandon it," Heero suggested. "Then walk back."
Wufei found it odd, and more than a little unsettling, that both Heero and Trowa – normally so quiet they bordered on being mute – were speaking up and offering the most logical suggestions for how to dispose of the evidence of a murder.
"Okay, let's hop on board the magical fucked up murder bus," Duo said. "I think I know just the place we can ditch it."
Just the place turned out to involve off-roading in a vehicle designed to have difficulty going over speed bumps. By the time Duo parked the bus, deep in the woods near the lake, it was dusk and the sky was streaked with vibrant colors.
"Maybe you should light it up, just to be safe," Duo suggested to Wufei.
"It could start a forest fire," Wufei snapped.
Duo shrugged.
"With as much rain as we've been getting over the past month? It's not like we're in drought conditions. Damn, wouldn't it be handy if one of us could make it rain? You could light that baby up… let it burn for a while and then presto!"
"Presto?" Wufei echoed in disgust.
"Fuck off. Are you going to light it or what?"
Wufei sighed.
"No. Our finger prints are all over it – but they're supposed to be. She did drive us to the building, after all. We don't need to burn it."
Duo shrugged.
"Whatever. Well, we'd better start walking back now… if we're lucky we'll make it back to Clarkson by eight."
"I'll just call my father and tell him that Une never showed and we started walking back," Quatre suggested. "We can keep heading towards town, and he'll pick us up."
"Sure he won't make us walk the whole way just because?" Wufei countered, remembering Quatre's words that morning.
The blonde man frowned.
"Just call him," Relena said.
Quatre pulled out his cellphone.
"Damnit. I don't have a signal."
"Fucking perfect," Duo muttered. "Let's start walking."
-0-
It was closer to nine by the time they made it back to the police station. By the time any of their phones had service they were almost to the city limits, so Wufei texted Meilin that he would be home in half an hour, but they decided not to bother calling Quatre's father.
When they arrived at the station it was nearly empty.
"You guys just change and go, I'll tell my Dad what happened," Quatre said, sounding just as exhausted as Wufei felt.
"You sure?" Duo asked, frowning. "We could stay. Back you up."
"Fuck it. I'm leaving." Trant announced.
Relena had eventually, during their hike back to town, decided to release him. He had been his usual surly self ever since, but strangely seemed to accept the fact that he had helped dispose of Une's body and didn't question it.
"It's fine," Quatre assured them.
Wufei gratefully took the out and wasted no time changing back into his street clothes.
He didn't bother telling the others goodbye, but simply left the station and walked the two blocks to his apartment.
"So, how was your torture today?" Meilin called out when he walked in.
Wufei toed off his shoes and drew a deep breath, catching the scent of the Thai food filling his nostrils and pushing his exhaustion, anger and resentment to the back of his mind.
"The worst day of my entire life," he assured her and walked into the kitchen.
She looked up from dishing out Pad Thai from a to-go box onto two plates and frowned when she realized how tired he no doubt looked.
"What happened?"
"Two of us almost died - one of them twice - and then we killed our probation officer and had to destroy her body. And," he drew in a deep breath and met her dark, wide gaze, "you and I aren't the only ones."