The silence is deafening in the absence of the gunfire. It makes everything else that much louder, more noticeable. The harsh rasp of our breaths. The hard press of the ground beneath us. The hiss of the air in our ears. The rough beat of our hearts. It's too much noise. I'm paranoid that whoever is shooting at us will hear one or more of them and find us before I can figure out where Wufei is hurt. And it's so damn dark, I can barely see my own hand in front of my face, much less any part of Wufei's body.
As I roll away from him, reach out, my movements seem too slow, like they were when he got shot. I grasp the edge of his clothing, feel along the curve of his ribs, seeking his sight of injury, hoping it isn't bad. Our situation isn't exactly great right now. We're cornered rats, with no clear notion as to where our enemy is and when the next shot will be coming. This is frightening, but I haven't got time for fear right now. I'm too busy being pissed. Pissed at Relena for leading this bastard to us, and pissed because said bastard had the gall to miss me and take a cheap shot at Wufei.
My hands drop lower, find the flare of his hip and the warmth of his upper thigh. No blood yet. Only the blood already staining my hands. Wherever the hell this injury is, I at least know it isn't near any areas that could be potentially fatal. Nothing along his leg, so I navigate my way blindly still, coming across something round, yet strong. It only occurs to me after Wufei suddenly jerks away, that I was essentially feeling up his behind. Amazing, too, how I have the time to feel embarrassed enough about that I flush. Of all the stupid things to do in the middle of a life threatening situation... I have to think about how nice of a butt Wufei has.
"Stop it!" Wufei hisses, shoving me away.
"Keep still," I snap back, my tone a little more than strained. It's not everyday you get shot at, and notice one of your friends in a completely different way. "We can't be seen, or the next place we'll be is six feet under, pushing up daises."
"I'm well aware of that," he returns, his words oddly hitched.
My anxiety softens some. The guy's obviously in pain. He's just man enough not to show it. Sometimes, I could just pound Wufei and Heero's heads together. They're such macho Neanderthals with brains. Let me tell you, that right there, is more dangerous than a Neanderthal without two brain cells to rub together.
"Where're you hit?" I ask, my voice still at a whisper, but loud enough to hear since we're so close.
"My arm... I'll be fine," he answers, his voice lacking the usual bite.
"We need to at least stop the bleeding. I don't know how long we'll be out here. I don't want you bleeding to death."
Lord no. After all Wufei's done for me in the last few days, I hardly want to repay him by letting him die. Though, something tells me he's too stubborn to die. Wufei is a fighter, and he isn't going to let anything bring him low, least of all some measly bullet. At least he better not. I'm not going to be happy if he lets himself waste away out here. But I wonder, as I hear a tearing sound that signifies the destruction of clothing, whether it's for him, or me.
"No time to think about that now, Maxwell..." I mutter.
"What?" Wufei asks.
"Nothing. Need help?"
"No."
I roll my eyes. No, of course not. Why would Mr. 'I-have-to-do-everything-alone' need _my_ help? He's obviously quite capable. I'm certain he can find the sniper, fix Deathscythe, heal his own wound, and get out of here without any aid from me. I might as well just sit back and let Superman take care of it all for us.
He doesn't cry out, but the sudden sharp intake of breath tells me he's in pain. Something falls from his hand and hits the ground next to me. He snatches it back up, the gesture appearing angry even in the dark. Lying next to him, I wonder how long I'll let him suffer before I take it from him. At the rate he's going, he'll be lucky _to_ get it on before he bleeds to death.
He drops it again. My patience runs out. Not that I ever had much to begin with. And being shot at has pretty much sucked my reserve dry.
"Give me that," I say irritably, snatching it from him.
Rising carefully to a sitting position, I take the arm that he has out in front of him, and quickly wrap the piece of cloth around his wound. There's a lot of blood. But I don't want to concentrate on that right now. There's nothing I can do for it, other than this. I just hope Wufei stays with me and doesn't pass out.
"I could have managed myself," he says quietly.
"Yeah, right. I saw you doing real well there."
Ignoring that, he looks past me and out into the small clearing where our Gundams sit. I know he's looking for the sniper, but I also know he isn't going to find anything. Snipers are notoriously patient. They're trained to stay in the same position, no matter what the weather, until their targets get tired and venture into their line of sight. Too bad for this particular one, he (or she, as the case may be) doesn't happen to be dealing with ordinary people. We've had some pretty intense training ourselves, and both of us are as stubborn as Satan with a handful of souls. We aren't moving. Not until we can figure out exactly where we're moving _to_.
Now that I know Wufei isn't going to die on me, I'm feeling much calmer. Not the calm that comes with security. Rather, the calm that steals over me when I'm piloting Deathscythe. Shinigami. I need him here, to keep me steady, to keep me alive. I know I'm going to need his ruthlessness. We aren't going to get out of here until one of us dies. If I have my way, it'll be whoever was chicken shit enough to refuse to face us in our Gundams. No, instead, he chose to hunt us down from afar, where he could remain safe. The most underhanded way of fighting, and the most deadly.
Wufei seems calm. But then, Wufei is always calm. Unless he's in Nataku. I wonder if he can summon up the fighting spirit we're going to need to survive, but then I remember the way he disposed of Dumb and Dumber, and the carefully controlled expression on his face, while his eyes silently burned, as he was doing so. Aside from Heero, I don't think I could have found a better person to get hunted with.
Putting it that way, it sounds pretty damn amusing.
Wufei shifts, and I catch a brief glimpse of his face now that my eyes have adjusted to the dark again.
"Did the bullet pass through?"
He looks at me. His eyes are darker than the shadows.
"Yes. Through bone."
I wince. He _is_ something else. He's got a broken arm and a nice wound, and he hasn't complained or cried out once. It makes my little scratch, and the fact that I'm missing the lower half of my ear, seem insignificant in comparison. So, no complaining from me. Chances are, I'll get my moment to get shot again sometime before the night ends. Or my life ends. Either way, I can take it if Wufei can. There's no way he's going to see me in pain. I'll never live it down. If I live at all, that is.
I keep talking about death here quite carelessly, as if I'm either not frightened to die, or want to die. Neither is the case. I'm just using some humor to keep the gravity of the situation from wearing down on me. I decided a long time ago, after trying to take my own life, that I'm living. Obviously, I want to if I'm fighting to make the world a better place and all that shit. Or outer space, I should say. I just know I _could_ die at any time, and I've accepted that. It makes it easier for me to fight.
"We need to move back," Wufei voices suddenly, interrupting my thoughts.
"You sure you're up to moving?" I ask him, fingering my bloody ear and managing not to flinch at the sting.
"I told you, I am fine. It's not as if we have any choice."
Fine. Right. He's just bleeding profusely and nursing a broken bone. Nothing wrong there.
"Slowly then. The forest gets more dense behind me. We can hole up between those trees, making it more difficult to get an accurate shot."
Wufei looks at me again, as if he's surprised something as logical as that came out of my mouth. I have been known to use my brain from time to time. I find it's useful for thinking, not just for filling the space between my ears. I just tend to keep most of my more intellectual revelations to myself. Enough of the five of us are heavy and serious, I'm simply trying to round the group out so Quatre doesn't have to feel like being cheerful is his job only.
"Fine."
Great, he agrees. That makes my entire day. As a matter of fact, it makes up for all that I'm going through at the moment. Seriously though, I don't know what it is about Wufei and Heero, that they think we need their permission to do something. If I want to do something, I'm not going to wait around for their approval. I'm just going to do it. They're apparently under the mistaken assumption that only they're allowed to make any major decisions. Last I checked, we weren't even a team with a set leader. We were sent down here to accomplish our missions separately. That we met up with each other was inevitable, yes, but not a necessity.
We pull out slowly, moving backward with our eyes to the front. I'm not overly concerned about getting shot while we're moving. Like I said, snipers are very patient people. Still, I do know that our hunter has to be somewhere close by. I don't care how good he is. You can't get decent visibility in the darkness, even if the scope on the gun has night vision capabilities. The amount of area a scope covers isn't much. You have to know where your target is to even get a decent focus. I think that's part of the reason why the only thing that saved Wufei from getting hurt worse was that he was moving. For once, I salute Heero. We screwed up the sniper's plans by leaving in the night, making his job all the more difficult.
Settling down between a mess of trees, I pretend not to notice that Wufei winces as he rests against the trunk of one. I wonder if the sniper thinks the silence will lure us into a false sense of security, so we'll go charging for our Gundams. Or, maybe he thinks Wufei has been wounded badly enough, we'll make the same mistake. I've got news for him. I can go days without food or water. I've done it before. I can stay in an uncomfortable position for a long time. I've done that before too. Regardless of whether Wufei has or not, I know he's strong enough, even wounded, and stubborn enough to attempt it. He could probably hold out past me.
"We could be here a long time," I note simply for the sake of conversation, though I'm not even looking at him.
"Your stomach will simply have to survive," he returns.
I turn my head away from the clearing, where I'm certain I can still make out the dark shapes of Nataku and Deathscythe. I don't want the bastard touching my Gundam. But then, given the convenient timing of the engine problems, I'm not so certain he hasn't already touched my Gundam. Maybe he was hoping I'd crash. No such luck there, you dumb son of a bitch. I'm a better pilot than that.
Shrugging, I say at length, "I can take it. It's not like I've never starved before."
Silent eyes assess me now. He doesn't comment, however, and I'm not going to offer. My past is my past. Talking about it isn't going to become a convenient way to pass time. If Wufei wants entertainment, then he can talk about his past. Because I know as much about his life before becoming a Gundam Pilot, as he does about mine. Neither of us are the type to spill our guts for the other to pick over. So I seriously doubt much reminiscing is going to go on here today.
Listening to the ruffle of the breeze through the tops of the trees, I strain my ears to hear anything that vaguely resembles footfalls. I don't expect a follow up attack so soon, but it can't hurt to be alert. Hours of perfect stillness are going to have to pass before the sniper even thinks of moving a few inches closer. Maybe even days.
Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe this one is the impatient type. If he was trained by OZ, however, then I seriously doubt it. Treize Kushrenada makes certain his soldiers learn everything there is to learn. I wonder if he gave the order for us to be killed this way. He's always struck me as the kind to have too much honor and respect for battle, to ever try something like this. Like Wufei. But then, he's the enemy, so maybe I'm wrong.
I have to wonder exactly what it is we're waiting for. I'm not the type to sit around doing nothing. I don't want to wait for the sniper to come to us, I want to go to him. The only problem with that is, he knows where we are. We don't know where he is. In the middle of that frenzied rush to preserve our lives, we didn't exactly have time to pinpoint a location. Which means we either wait for him to make a move, or we throw caution to the wind and go find him. Somehow, I don't think Wufei would agree to the latter.
"I have never starved before," Wufei says quietly, startling me.
I look at him. He's never struck me as the type to know what hunger really is, so that doesn't surprise me. Wufei's too cultured and intelligent. Whatever he came from, he's had plenty of time to become learned before taking up the job as a Gundam pilot. As a matter of fact, sometimes Wufei strikes me as the kind of person who would never have agreed to it to begin with. He holds too many ideals close to him, ideals that have no place in a messy war. I've always admired him for that.
Maybe we will talk a bit about our pasts after all. Wufei's opened the door, and I'm walking through. Something tells me I'll only get this one chance.
"Why'd you become a Gundam Pilot?" I ask, absently picking dirt, leaves, and small twigs out of my braid.
He shifts. I'm not certain he's going to answer me. Maybe I touched on something he doesn't want to talk about. Guess I'll have to go first then.
"I didn't want Deathscythe," I say, watching him carefully from under my eyelids. "I tried to blow him up."
This time, the look of surprise on his face is unmistakable. Apparently, I finally caught his attention. Enough so that I actually got him to change facial expressions. Go me.
"Why?" He finally asks, curiosity seeming to outweigh formality.
"I hated mobile suits. I thought Deathscythe was just going to be another thing to bring pain. But Doctor G talked me out of it. Told me about Operation Meteor and then told me to do with that information what I wanted. So I trained. And I decided I was going to make a difference my own way. I just started liking Deathscythe along the way. Got kinda attached to him."
Wufei inclines his head, examining me, as if looking for something. I wonder if it surprises him. None of us have ever came out and talked about how we got our Gundams. Maybe everyone else just assumed it was natural, that we were chosen, trained, and that was it. If you want my opinion, I think Heero was the only one who a Gundam was intended for from the beginning. He's the only one of us that seems like a complete soldier. Well, aside from Trowa. While I don't think his training was as intense, I'm willing to be he was involved in something militaristic somewhere.
"I didn't want Nataku either," he says finally. "My colony simply offered shelter to the engineer. My... there was someone there better suited to piloting her."
Her? Wufei thinks his Gundam is female? Weird. I never knew that. I call mine a male, but I think that's just macho reflex.
"So, how come you ended up with her then?" I probe, fingering the fringe at the end of my braid. His expression closes off. I touched on something he doesn't like.
"That someone died," he says tersely, his tone suggesting the subject is now closed.
My hand falls still. This 'someone', whoever the person is, obviously meant a great deal to Wufei given his reaction. But I'm not going to push. He wouldn't like it, and I know he wouldn't tell me. Wufei is not easily manipulated, nor is he easy to push around. Both could end up causing _you_ a great deal of pain. He has a low tolerance threshold.
"So," I reply then, drawing the word out, "we've established we didn't want our suits to begin with. I'm sure our Gundams really love us for that."
"They are just machines, Maxwell."
"Don't give me that, Wufei. You call your Gundam Nataku. Don't think I don't know what that means. You also think it's a female. And I _know_ you think it has personality."
He has nothing to say to that. If it wouldn't endanger us further, I'd get up and dance around. I finally zinged Wufei. It took me long enough. And in case it wasn't obvious, I'm damn proud of myself.
We fall back into that tense, not so comfortable silence, where we're both listening for something and waiting for something. I steal a glance at him, eyes tracing the angles of his face, the displeased curve of his lips, and the unreadable slant of his own eyes. Whatever he's thinking, he isn't sharing. That isn't anything new, however.
Wufei is very stingy with himself. It's taken a great deal of persistence on my part to even get to this point in our friendship. There are moments I wonder why I bother, and then he opens up just a little, reminding me. I think I've always known there was something special inside of Wufei, something he keeps from us. As much as he tries to pretend, I know he's not unfeeling inside, as Heero is.
He's just hard to reach.
Yet, for all my perceived openness, I'm no better. Any of them can think they know me, when they only know the part of me I want them to. Are we all like that? Holding some of ourselves back for protection, for reasons only known to us? You would think, of all the people on the planet, in the colonies, we ought to be able to trust each other. But trust is not something given lightly. It's earned. Funny, but I would trust these guys to cover my back in the midst of battle, yet I won't trust them with my past and all the things that make up me. How ridiculous is that anyway? It's in battle I could be killed; but it's in my heart I could be hurt. Like Wufei said, humans aren't known for making much sense.
Wufei looks directly at me. "What do you fight for?"
What do I fight for? The colonies. Don't we all have to have something to fight for? Otherwise, there isn't any purpose. We need a place to come back to, a reason to keep pressing on no matter the odds.
"The colonies. So they can be free. So no one has to live like..." I trail off. I almost said, 'like me'. I don't want to talk about my past.
Resting his head against the tree, Wufei closes his eyes. I think the loss of blood is starting to get to him. Dammit. This is frustrating. If we wait too long, who's to say Wufei won't die out here? I'll be damned if another person dies because of me.
"I fight for that someone who died," Wufei admits, his tone subdued.
"Not the colonies?"
"That too... But... her first..."
A woman? Of course Wufei would be straight. Not that it should matter to me. I'm through with anything vaguely resembling a relationship. I learned my lesson with Heero, and I just want to concentrate on this war. This war, that is fast morphing into something else every time we turn around. I'll say one thing for OZ, they like to keep us on our toes.
Still, as I look at him, I get the impression that it's more than that. Wufei values so many things dead to others. His honor, his justice, and his truth. Where can those things be found in war? What happens when you don't find them? Do you keep fighting, even though you've lost the belief? Maybe I'm lucky. I believe in truth. Maybe I even believe in honor. But I've seen too much to ever believe there is such a thing as justice. Justice wasn't there when the orphans suffered, when Solo died, and when the church was burned. So I don't fight for those things.
I fight for living, breathing humans, and I don't become disillusioned because of it. After all, I already know just how selfish, cruel, and petty they can be.
He opens his eyes again, and that tired expression is gone. What does he have, an endless inner well of strength to draw from? But he doesn't look at me. He looks out into the clearing again.
I frown faintly. "You won't see the sniper. He's holed up somewhere, waiting for us to make a mistake."
"I'm not looking for the sniper," he tells me.
"Oh yeah? Then what?"
"I am trying to determine exactly where the shots came from by the places we were standing. I am fairly certain I have it narrowed down to a small area. Considering it is night, the sniper will not be that far away. It would be impossible to take such shots from a great distance."
I stare at him for a moment, half wishing all this talking would have brought the sniper closer. But, as I've said many times already, snipers are patient creatures. And while I'm impressed, I wonder what we're going to use this information for exactly. Unless Wufei is entertaining the same thought I was earlier.
"Do you still have your gun?" He asks, looking at me now.
That pretty much confirms it.
"Yeah. I didn't even bother drawing it. I was more concerned with keeping us from dying."
He nods. "Good."
"You aren't thinking we're going to hunt this guy down and kill him ourselves, are you?" I ask, trying not to sound as enthusiastic as I am. I mean, this would mean we get to do something! No sitting around, having these nice, overly civil conversations.
"That is exactly what I am thinking. If we pull back farther, and circle around, we might stand a chance of coming up behind him."
And if we don't, we die.
Hell, sign me up. I never pay any attention to the odds anyhow.
"You sure you're up to this?"
He eyes me balefully. "If you ask me that one more time, Maxwell, I'm going to loop your braid around your neck and hang you from one of these trees."
I laugh. I can't help it. I know it brings out every ache I have, and is far louder than we should be, but I laugh anyway.
Wufei attempts to stare at me sternly, but I can see the slight smile that has curved his lips. I bet if he smiled all the way, he'd be one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
Whoa. Where did that thought come from?
My laughter dies, fading from my lips and my eyes, as I realize for the first time that I am attracted to Wufei. This is very bad. Right now, it's the last thing I need.
"It's not long enough," I say aloud, trying to forget.
He makes an undeterminable sound, but he's still watching me carefully, as if trying to find out what chased my laughter away. Well, he'll never know.
"Anyway, I'm for it. I'd rather die trying, than sit here waiting to die."
He inclines his head. "There is a chance this won't work."
I shrug. "So what. There's a chance everything won't work. Imagine where we'd be if no one ever tried."
"Alive," he replies, pushing to his feet.
Be still my heart. Wufei just made a funny. I think the loss of blood is getting to his brain.
I want to offer help, but I don't, knowing it would be violently rejected. He manages to make it on his own anyhow. I rise after that, not wanting him to realize that his injury has slowed him down even slightly by getting to my feet faster than him. I guess this is it then. We're ready to go.
"According to the map I studied of this area while trying to locate you, the place where the sniper possibly resides is a narrow opening of flat cliffs. We have to come out on top of those cliffs, to find him below or possibly above with us."
Wufei must have a photographic memory. In this moment, I'm glad for it.
"All right then. So we give it our best shot."
He looks at me, his expression hard. "No. Our best is not good enough. We give it all we have."
Yeah, because otherwise, we die.
So be ready, you bastard, because we're coming to make sure you die first.