10
It was one thing to promise to give something a go in the heat of the moment. It was quite another thing to spend a good hour contemplating just what you'd agreed to while you wandered through the Valley back to your own damn ship. Duo scowled, smiled, laughed, smirked, mourned, panicked and every emotion in between as he mislead anyone daring to follow on a wild goose chase more inside his own head than reality. By the time he actually reached the Reincarnation, he was no closer to answers about anything than he had been when he left. Hell, he wasn't even sure what questions he was supposed to be asking himself.
The ship was not quiet. Duo followed the sound into the mess and stared at Hilde and Wufei, dinner on the table between them, drinks in hand, bantering. Hilde looked outraged by whatever Wufei had said and Wufei just looked smug. It was a familiar look, but one Duo hadn't seen in quite some time. He found himself staring and was just glad Wufei couldn't see him doing so.
"Welcome back, intrepid explorer!"
"Are you drunk?" Seriously? She was supposed to be working!
"I prefer to think of it as sensoraly disencumbered," Wufei smirked and Duo just stared. He hadn't realised they were both drinking, and surely that was a stupid idea? But both seemed happy and he was enamoured enough with the look on Wufei's face to admit Hilde had likely made the right call.
"Cheapest and oldest pain medication in the world," Hilde pointed out, seeing his confusion and Duo just sighed and went to sit at the table with them. He had to admit Wufei did seem in better spirits.
"Whatever keeps you sane, man," Duo muttered under his breath, only slightly surprised when Wufei didn't bother to snap in reply. The truth often hurt, that didn't mean you needed to harp on about it. It did, however, remind him that Wufei had not been 'sensoraly disencumbered' when he had first opened that stupid crate. He still had the bruises to prove it.
"Why did you attack me when I opened the crate?"
"I just got sold," Wufei was glaring at him. His eyes were hidden, but Duo could tell by the set of his mouth and the peevish set of his jaw. He thought the answer was obvious and Duo had to admit it made more sense than 'my previous owner told me to', which had been Duo's first guess.
"So you thought you would kill the bastard who bought you and what...hijack his ship?" Did the man really even understand the concept of being blind? How the hell did he think he would dock the ship? Did he think he could land it? Because that was quite possibly the dumbest idea ever, but Wufei was glaring at him again, as though he could hear his thoughts and Duo scratched that idea.
"Will you stop thinking? Just listening to you breathe that hard hurts my head." Right, because he breathed funny when he thought. It was definitely Duo's turn to glare.
"It's the Valley," Wufei muttered. "Not exactly hard for a Haze addict to sneak around unnoticed."
"Sweetie, that's because you don't know what you look like right now," Hilde interrupted and Duo found himself looking from her to Wufei and realising she found the other man attractive. He had to agree, Wufei was sexy. He'd turned enough heads to make it feasible for someone to make him a billion dollar piece of merchandise, and being in the hands of another billionaire had only seen Wufei become...visually slutty. But it still disturbed Duo that Hilde, of all people, thought the man was hot. Far too many porn scenarios involving nurses were running through his head to make it in any way comfortable.
"Excuse me?" Even Wufei seemed to be struggling with it, but Duo doubted for the same reasons. He doubted Wufei even knew nurse porn existed. Though, considering his recent occupation Duo thought he should possibly rethink what Wufei did and didn't know about the porn industry.
"You might feel like crap, but you're doing a damn good job of looking like a walking wet dream," Hilde clarified and Duo just grinned, watching the blush creep up Wufei's throat and colour the visible portion of his face. It was really rather cute that the comment still had any effect on the man at all. Then again, strangers were not the same as friends at all, and Duo doubted Wufei really had any idea what he'd looked like the past few years.
"You would be noticed," Duo had to agree, but his amusement was clear in is voice. Hilde was right, in the Valley Wufei wouldn't have been able to take five steps without someone noticing clean skin and expensive cloths and ridiculous hair. Wufei would have been a captive again in a heartbeat, or there would have been a mysterious killing spree sweeping through in his wake.
"Maybe being noticed wouldn't have been such a bad thing, in the right area," Wufei ground out and it made Duo pause and really look at him. He was serious and it was the first hint Duo had that Wufei knew his way around the Valley. Perhaps had friends here. Perhaps hadn't been as much a captive as they had all assumed.
"You mean by Barton?"
The name animated Wufei in a way nothing had yet. Not in a Wufei leapt out of his chair or jerked like a monkey response, but small, subtle changes that Duo noticed immediately. He shifted subtlety in his chair, his beads tinkled by his ear, the bandage shifted on his nose when Wufei blinked under the pads, pushing the gauze about. His fingers stroked the cool glass of his beer bottle as though recalling the feel of warm skin. Wufei looked like Duo felt when he sprawled in the sun on Howard's deck.
"Is he..." Wufei actually cleared his throat before continuing. Duo had never seen him do such a thing. "Is he here?"
"No." How much did Wufei know, or at least suspect? He had to have known the original plan, but how much had it changed since his capture? How much had Trowa and Quatre altered to allow for Wufei's retrieval? Had they altered it or had Wufei's capture been part of the plan all along?
"We're not sure where he is," and that much at least was truth. Right now he could have been several stations away with the circus or hiding on the ship in the next berth over, and Duo would be none the wiser. He was fascinated by the slight slump in Wufei's shoulders and the lack of interest he suddenly showed in the bottle.
"Duo," Heero admonished from the doorway and Duo wondered, not for the first time, how the hell the man kept getting on his ship without setting off a single alarm. Wufei had sat up, ram rod straight in his chair, head tilted slightly, listening and Heero actually grinned.
"Chang."
"Yuy..." The hint of embarrassment in his tone hurt, not least of all because it hadn't been there when Wufei's heard Duo. He'd felt no need to feel chagrined at being caught at playing whore in Maxwells company, just Yuy's. Duo wasn't sure that was an insult, but it wasn't likely to be a compliment.
"Seriously? That's the conversation you're going to have?" Duo sat back, exasperated and sighed while Heero came in and took a seat but Wufei was still sitting up straight, lips parted as if he had meant to say something else and Duo just signed because Mariemaia didn't stride into the room with her usual confidence. She slunk, like the guilty teenager she was, and looked everywhere else but at Wufei while he was the whole centre of her attention. It was almost painful, only it was hilarious and predictable which made it boring to Duo.
"Mae?"
Had he had to swear otherwise in a statement, Duo would not have been able to say she hadn't flown or spontaneously transported across the room. One minute she was on his side of the table, the next she was wrapped around Wufei so hard he seemed to be struggling with it and she was bawling her eyes out like a child. No one seemed to have the faintest clue what to do about it.
Finally it was Hilde who dared to clear her throat. Three times, with increasing volume and then she actually had to reach out and try to pry Mariemaia's hands loose.
"Sweetness, even Haze addicts need to breathe."
Mariemaia gasped and whirled on the other woman, clearly outraged anyone would dare to say such a thing in Wufei's presence, until a split second later when she realised Hilde had done it specifically to get her attention. Then she just sort of deflated and sat down heavily beside Wufei on the bench seat, still pressed close to his side but no longer suffocating him like a human octopus.
"How...you...are you...um..." Duo hadn't known she was even capable of being lost for words. It was a far cry from her usual brazen tough girl act and he had to wonder which was the real girl. Perhaps a bastard mix of both.
"I'm fine," Wufei said sternly, reaching out and running a soothing hand over her hair. It looked a familiar move and she bit her lip and barely restrained yet more tears.
"If I hear that F word from your mouth one more time, I'm going to..."
Wufei held up his hands in defeat and grinned. He looked relaxed and happier than he had seemed...ever, really. Well, since coming on board at the very least. He looked young, and reckless, and as though nothing bad had ever happened to him. It wasn't hard to see then how Marie had fallen in love with the usually stiff idiot. Duo had been wondering.
"Would someone like to explain what Mariemaia is doing in the Valley?" Wufei was serious. If he'd had a sword in his hand Duo would have been more than concerned and he found himself checking just how close the nearest frying pan was and if it would really work as a shield, despite Wufei's hands being empty. Ninjas were real. Really.
"She requested I bring her here," Heero replied immediately, and Duo had to admit honestly. Sure, it wasn't the whole truth, but it was the bare bones truth of it all and even Wufei seemed to realise it. He did look thoroughly confused by it at the same time though, which meant that at least had not been part of whatever the three musketeers original plan was.
"And you just thought a joyride in the Valley was just the thing for a teenage girl?" At least the guy didn't sound completely pissed. And surely Hilde hadn't let him near the knives, so he couldn't have anything on hand to throw at anyone's head. But Ninjas...you couldn't be too careful with Ninjas.
"She was very convincing." Even Duo had to admit he wished he'd been a fly on the wall for that conversation. Just how had Mariemaia even gone about approaching the subject? And how had she even gotten Heero alone to ask? And then the actual convincing, that couldn't have been easy? Did she have a red headed crazy streak to match her red headed angry streak? It was possible. She was, after all, friends with a Ninja.
Neither seemed prepared to divulge exactly what had happened and Heero was saved by Marie clearing her throat.
"Trowa told me to get Heero to come."
Again those subtle changes to Wufei's expression, but this time it seemed to forgive and forget whatever had possessed Heero to allow himself to be convinced to bring Mariemaia to the Valley. Apparently if Trowa said so, it was okay. Duo wondered just how far that trust went. He wasn't sure he could have trusted Heero in the same way, or he could but that was because he wasn't quite convinced Heero was entirely human and when the bastard said he was going to do something it really was already concrete, done, dusted.
Still, if Heero told him to go be a haze addict and whore to some random rich guy Duo was certain he would have clocked him on his stone fucking jaw, and then kicked him in the Crown Jewels for good measure. But Trowa seemed to be able to walk just fine. Maybe his testa less had been Ninja'd away?
"You really don't know where he is?"
"We have some theories," Heero put in, and Duo knew he wanted to pester Wufei until he burst for answers but couldn't bring himself to do it. Maybe it was Hilde's glare, but Duo suspected it was that Heero had actually come to realise people had feelings. That you could hurt them if you said or did the wrong thing. It was a pretty huge step in his 'rehabilitation' and Duo didn't want to mess with it, so he just sat back and watched it play out however it wanted to. Besides, he liked his testicles and didn't want them in the Ninja's collection, thank you very much.
"Then they found the cure," Wufei sighed, relief clear in the way he sat, the way he cupped his glass and let his chin rest a little closer to his chest. That he had jumped immediately to that assertion at least confirmed their suspicions that Wufei had been in on it, and that they were indeed making a cure. It still annoyed the hell out of Duo that no one had trusted him enough to let him in on the whole mess, but he had to admit he hadn't done a damn thing to make anyone think he would have lifted a finger to do anything for anyone but himself. Hindsight was such a strange beast. With teeth. And Ninja friends. Don't forget the Ninja!
"Hilde works for the company of the man who owned you..." Heero pointed out, the question clear in his voice.
"I know." Wufei just shrugged, as if that was obvious and they should have known he knew. Duo didn't see how that was obvious at all, and it annoyed him that glaring at Wufei didn't help to convey his displeasure at all.
"You do?" It only made Duo feel marginally better that Heero was apparently as surprised as he was to hear it.
"Hilde told me," Wufei shrugged and Marie laughed but Duo knew better. Could see the cover in it; the false truth. Hilde had mentioned it, of that Duo had no doubt, but Wufei had already known. What Duo didn't understand was why he didn't just say so. Why hide it at all? What did Wufei have to hide? Was it just that he was holding back anything until he could tell Trowa, or was it deeper than that? You couldn't trust Ninjas, their secrets had secrets.
He was getting way too paranoid. He needed to get out of the Valley. And away from freaking Ninjas. And Heero because he was pretty sure he was avoiding thinking about Yuy's by distracting himself with things like masked assassins and that was just weird.
Hilde's watch went off, the alarm tinny and annoying in the metal room. No one flinched, just stared and blinked lazily because she must have set it for a reason. Then Wufei sighed and nodded, getting up and waiting patiently as Marie got up with him as if he would need help just to stand. Duo didn't bother trying to point out the man had almost kicked his ass blind and high on Haze and could only have improved his faculties since then. He could be that drunk, for all Duo knew, after all. Lightweight. Or Ninja!
"Good boy," Hilde grinned approvingly and even Heero smirked at the grunt she got from Wufei. None of them were good patients, Quatre was perhaps better than the rest, but Wufei was doing a good show of at least attempting to be civil about being told what to do. Duo couldn't have managed the same.
Duo didn't miss the way Heero's gaze followed them all the way out the door, not dropping until they heard Marie close the door to the second room and their own fell into silence.
"You aren't going to follow them? What if they're plotting something together?" Hilde looked dubious about the entire affair and Duo had to admit he would have been in her position as well. Marie wasn't exactly one of the most trusted people in the Earth Sphere. She had been under house arrest since the Incident for a reason.
"I'm not worried." And yet Heero had felt the need to point it out. Even Duo raised a brow at him and his surprise didn't fade at all when Heero just shrugged and smirked at him.
"Duo has the room bugged." As if it were that obvious.
"He does." Clearly Hilde didn't see how Heero knew that, which was nice since aduo didn't know either. Only he did. Just like he knew Heero had a gun on him somewhere. It was just the way they were.
"I do," he agreed at last but his chest felt tighter than it should have as he said it and his face felt hot. Hilde was looking between them as if an invisible line were sending readable text on a neon line between their heads. That or there really was a giant stamp on each of their heads that read.
"You're together! Oh my god, you actually listened to me!" did she need to gape like that? That was rude, right? Gaping?
"It's none of your business," Heero cut in immediately and Hilde actually looked ready to argue, had her mouth open to do it and everything before some corner of her brain remembered she as talking to Heero Yuy's and her gob suddenly slammed shut, a contrite appearance on her face.
"Definitely none of my business." Yeah, right could not have been any plainer but Heero let it drop, for which Duo was thankful. He would come up with a way to handle her later, when he had time to think for himself.
"Something about all of this isn't right," Heero muttered and Duo just grunted because really, nothing about this had been right since Howard demand he go and take a Gig. Should have told the old man where to shove it and taken an extended vacation in the Seychelles.
"Damn straight it isn't right, Duo's love life is completely my business!" Foot, mouth and all that. Even Hilde could figure it out when Heero was glaring at her. It just left a very satisfied smirk plastered on Duo's face. Things that annoyed Heero generally had that effect on him.
"Wufei's knows more than he's telling us."
"Of course he does," Duo had to laugh because talk about stating the obvious. He rolled his eyes when Heero simply repositioned his glare in Duo's direction and made some vague effort to elaborate. "The man has been a slave, and is still coming down off the worst drug in human history. I would assume he had lost his mind if he just started spurting secrets first chance he got. He's where he is for a reason and he's not about to tell anyone other than his co-conspirators what he learnt."
"He can trust us," Heero scowled, clearly affronted by Wufei's lack of trust in his obvious awesomeness.
"Ninjas don't trust anyone." They were both looking at him as if he had suddenly sprouted a second head, of cabbage no less. It just made him is and roll his eyes, wondering where his brain had come up with the Ninja thing to begin with. Only that was exactly what he was trying to avoid by thinking of Ninjas.
"Trowa is the key to this mess. We find Trowa we get our answers."
"Or we ask Quatre."
"Right, because fort obnoxious is going to take our request for information seriously and not badger us about our personal lives at all." It was hard to tell, these days, if Quatre was genuinely concerned by whatever his weird mutant space heart was telling him, or if he used it as a mask to hide what he himself was feeling. And up to. Definitely up to things, Quatre Winner. By the expressions around the table he wasn't the only one who had trouble maintaining, let alone enjoying, a conversation with Winner.
"So we find Barton," Hilde nodded in agreement and Duo just laughed because they were not exactly the dream team of detectives. Heero, sure, but he tended to locate and destroy, and Duo... liked to infiltrate and destroy and Hilde...Hilde liked to be a damn copy cat which in this case mean locate, infiltrate and destroy... Duo wasn't liking the odds of Trowa surviving being found, which while not personally devastating, could still have huge ramifications for them finding out if all their guesses about the terrible trio were correct.
"I've got a program running logging the movements of circuses through the colonies and any smaller ships arriving or leaving within two days of each circuses movements, trying to see if anything overlaps, but if I was Barton I would have a ship that separates from the main one once in space so there was no need for docking procedures." Heero had started the party without him. Duo supposed he'd had to do something while Duo was roaming the colony with a mental meltdown because Yuy had decided to kiss him. Sitting it through and thinking about it himself just wasn't the Yuy way.
"If he designed it, it's possible it just looks like part of the ships hull, probably doesn't even get inspected." Which would make drug running so much easier. He really was onto something with the whole Circus Freedom of Movement thing. Smart bastard.
"I think we can safely say he had financial backing to build whatever the hell he needed," Hilde put in and Duo had to agree. Trowa snapped his fingers and Quatre handed out green lollipops. Until Winner factories invaded the lands of obscure dolphins in the Amazon...how had they all fallen for that, seriously? It sounded ridiculous in his head now. Hindsight. Seriously. It was like a Ninja.
"So we know they've made a cure for Haze and they're ready to distribute it as Haze."
"We'll, really you just hope it's a cure for Haze and not something even worse," Hilde cut in, looking at the ceiling as if it were interesting until she apparently noticed they were both staring at her and then she just shrugged. "You're both now working under the assumption Trowa's still a good guy."
"You think he's a good guy," Duo countered, sullen because he sure as hell hadn't been the one trying to make out that Trowa still had anything resembling basic human morals, it was everyone else trying to prove that to him, and in his opinion they still had a long way to go.
"I think he was a good guy and that he should be given the benefit of the doubt, but we are making assumptions based on the idea that he's a good guy. It's just as easy to make assumptions that he's playing for the nasty team." And Duo suspected she was secretly in love with the few bad boy Trowa images they had. Pervert.
"Does it matter either way?" Heero sat back in his chair and crossed him arms in what Duo liked to think of as his 'if I look intelligent I might fool people into listening to me' pose. Heero used that pose a lot when he didn't think shooting people was an option, if memory served.
"Good or bad, we are certain Quatre is going to distribute this drug."
"So if Trowa's bad, does that make Quatre bad as well? I mean they're working together, right?"
"Okay thinking of Barton in leathers and shirtless is one thing, but Winner? Really?" Duo was confident he could say he had never found Quatre Winner in any way shape or form sexually attractive, and he really wished Hilde was stop thinking of his acquaintances that way. Did she thinks about Zechs like that? Seriously...gross.
"Can you two focus?" Temper, temper Heero. Duo was pleased Hilde's grin matched his own and sufficiently said 'eat shit Yuy'.
"Yes, we can safely say Winner, good or bad, is going to distribute the drug."
"We can test it," Duo pointed out curiously and he knew immediately by the shift in Heero's shoulders that it was not something that he had thought of.
"How?"
"We have a drug trafficker," Duo nodded to Hilde and saw her roll her eyes. Clearly it wasn't the job desscription she was accustomed to. "And we have an addict. If its really a cure, we take Wufei's and Hilde, pick up a batch and between pick up and drop off we try it out."
"Wufei's detoxed!" Hilde protested immediately. "We would have to give him the cure, and then shoot him full of Haze again!" It didn't sit we'll with her, and Duo understood why, but the part of him that didn't care was cold and calculating and realised this was the way to be sure. To know first hand what the drug would do. If it was really a cure, or something worse. To know for certain if Quatre, at least, was good or evil. Trowa he was reserving judgement for on principle.
"That could work."
"Heero! You cannot agree to this! Wufei's has been through enough!"
"What if its what he's here for?" Heero countered and it shut them both up.
"Huh?" That, Duo had not considered.
"Trowa just happened to arrange for Hilde, who happens to ran sport Ceuron products, to get on your ship, with Wufei. You assumed as a nurse, but Wufei could probably have managed on his own, no offence Hilde."
"None taken, the guy may as well not be human anyway." That, Duo didn't bother to point out, was because he was a Ninja.
"So what if they're here so we can do precisely what we're thinking? Test it. Make sure it works."
"They would have tested it before trying to release it," Hilde pointed out reasonably. "Drugs have to pass all sorts of procedures and crap before being released to the public. Years of trials and stuff."
"They know it works, but we don't," Duo realised where Heero was coming from with it. "They're giving us the chance to test it, so that we know it works."
"To prove they're on our side," Heero agreed but Duo was still frowning darkly, not liking it one bit.
"S we have to shoot Chang up to prove they're not shit humans? That makes us shit humans!" How dare they make him have to stoop to their level just to prove they weren't monsters. That made them all monsters in his book. But if they didn't try it, if Quatre and Trowa were bad and were relying on him to not shoot Wufei up because they knew he thought it was wrong...
There were greater evils. Was that the lesson in it all? How terrifying did the end have to be to justify the means? Duo wasn't sure he liked where this was headed.
"We test it," they all decided at once, and Hilde just looked wry.
"Testing it doesn't find us Trowa," Heero reminded them and Duo just shrugged. Again.
"Once we know what it is, we know if we even need to help him. If we do, then it's simple." And it really was, if you were willing to use any means. In that case the answer had been there all along. If you were willing to be really evil. But they were both staring at him and the guilt was thick in his gut, lacing his tongue. H could taste it rising in him, the same bitterness he'd felt when he woke in that hospital bed alone and something in his heart had closed, leaving him able to think clearly. So very, very clearly. Because at some point something in you breaks and people become little more than an abstraction. A piece of something viewed through a stained glass window, discoloured and other. Beyond self.
"If the drug works, we've got a cure," he clarified. "If you want to find Trowa just shoot Mariemaia up with some Haze and ask her where he is." Because Duo suspected she knew, even if she didn't know she did. Duo thought she knew a lot of Trowa's secrets, and that her role in Trowa's little masterpiece was one she was never supposed to realise. That was just the way Trowa liked to play. By manipulating people into doing things they would never want to do.
They were looking at him as if another cabbage head had sprouted. Hilde's cheeks were colouring with anger, mouth moving as she struggled to think of an adequate response. Heero was just glaring, looking for all the world like he had swallowed something very sour. He didn't like it, but he wasn't saying anything which meant he thought Duo might be right.
Duo was quiet, still disconnected in his own headspace, quietly content because it had finally clicked, why Heero thought he was similar to Trowa. The way they fought in battle, not identical but at the core a similar resolve.
It all came down to means. When you had nothing, you didn't mind using everything to get to the end. Duo understood that all too well, had made sure after that one time of having something and losing it for the greater good that he kept it back to nothing. That's how he always came back from the impossible job, because the means were all at his disposal.
But he looked at Heero and that little something in his chest that had cracked wide open felt like a gaping hole inside him. What if something replaced that nothing? What did means become if the end wasn't just for the rest of the world anymore? What if means were for selfish reasons, to keep them with you and safe and...
It was all about means, and Trowa had two very solid and real reasons to make sure he got the end he wanted.
"You want to give Marie Haze. Over my dead fucking body!" As if it would ever come to that. Duo just let Hilde vent because he could see Heero seriously considering it. Seeing him perhaps coming to similar hard conclusions about just who they were dealing with.
"Might not even come to that," Duo said softly. "Heero' super secret little program might figure out where Trowa is, or the drug might not even be a cure, or Trowa might magically appear between now and then." Or a thousand other scenarios.
"But the option is there."