Warnings: Swearing, yaoi, violence, general angst, possible OOCness (ages since I've written fanfiction so may be a little bit rusty) m/m sexual relations – limey/lemony, slight sap, Duo abuse
Pairings: 1x2 , 3x4, 5+2
Beta: Ellewrites
A/N: I have completed this fic and will be posting the remaining two chapters after this over the next week… so it will be a short wait between updates!
Song for this chapter is Number City by Coheed and Cambria – yup another chapter that is inspired by a Coheed song.
Chapter Twenty Two
Honey, Release my Heart
The corridor moves. I'm kinda sure it does, it moves like fun house mirrors making my reflection weird and distorted. I lean down to take back my knife, wipe the blood against the dark material on my thigh and I feel bile and stomach acid burn the back of my throat. The smell of blood is overwhelming but I'm moving and I'm not throwing up... when you still remember the smell of burning bodies as though it clings to you, the smell of a little blood really don't seem all that bad.
I stop, I listen and the alarm is still ringing and I'm thinking someone really shoulda sorted that shit out but then I'm thankful for it – no one probably heard the shots. I can't goddamn deal with someone seeing me right now, I don't have words of protest and I'm sure I look as damn criminal as I ever have in a basement full of bodies and blood. The world keeps moving oddly as I make it through the corridors, leaning heavily on the walls for support and trying to breathe deeper to calm my body down.
My hand drifts to my neck. The cut ain't deep but it bleeds pretty steadily and I look at it on my fingers. I'm in worse shape than when I started this whole vigilante shit and I still ain't quite done. I try to remember the clues that I'd ignored that Zee was more than she said but I blanked her. My threat summary was that she wasn't one – call it male chauvinism or call it pure dumbassness and making assumptions but I'd not thought of her as anything more than a chick who didn't know how to hold her gun right. I'd been blinded by Dallas and his swagger and his cocky attitude and just assumed he was the one I had to worry about. Didn't think about the chick. Geez, I was as bad as Wufei, thinking girls ain't capable even though I damn well knew that they are – I knew how badass girls had to be in gangs and I'd ignored all of Solo's goddamn lessons. Forgotten his hand on my shoulder and telling me how shit was.
Christ, I remembered telling Heero we had to watch out for the girl – the hierarchies of gangs and shit. I fucking told him she could be Dallas' second. I felt like I could hear Solo's voice in my head – the smirk on his face as he told me I was a dumb kid for forgetting his lessons. For ignoring my own instincts and being distracted by a poor sweet little girl act. Damn.
And that thought just made me more determined – it's all or nothing now. I reach in for the baggy of pills and shit if I am ODing and it's the moments leading up to a heart attack or death then, damnit, I'm gonna go down swinging. And I'll take her down with me. The pill goes down and I think – one last ride, Shinigami, old buddy? One more fight, one more moment of doing this and then some kinda eternal rest or whatever.
But first, I need to get out of the basement. And I need to know where the hell Quat is and where Zee might be.
I wonder if the other pill will do anything – wonder if it will increase my already erratic heart rate – give me another high, another shot of adrenalin and I'm outta the basement and I'm walking into the light of the atrium and I have my hands raised in surrender as a gun ends up in my face and I see that this is something I am not getting out of. I can start running my mouth – explain that I am an undercover Preventer, hell, use the good old fashioned "do you know who I am" crap and see if being a former Gundam pilot impresses anybody. Though considering there is no record of me being a Gundam pilot, I'll come off as a crazy. Hell, nobody ever said I was sane. I never have.
I look like any member of the gang and I'm covered in blood so I don't protest – well not a lot – when the cuffs are secured around my wrists but I do goddamn scream for Agent Chang. This makes them blink as I look 'round the lobby to see it dissolved to a crime scene – all glass shards and bullet casings – and they stall a little.
The demand for Chang confuses them enough and I wish that we'd developed some code word or something for me to say so that the random Preventers who are just, well, doing their job, would just let me go. Obviously, the standard Preventer agents are actually a little intimidated by yours truly as one looks at me, looks me up and down as though I am nothing more than a gangbanger, and then one goes to find someone superior. I often wonder about the bulk of the Preventer agents. They never seem the sharpest knives in the drawer – always those middle grade OZ and Alliance soldiers, and hell, probably some White Fang who have no imagination but follow some orders. Always leave the thinking to those above their pay grade. Often made me wonder why we'd not won the war quicker.
I think, ever so briefly, that I should just run for it. That I should swing my legs round and take the guys feet from him. The cuffs are thin metal, not thick and I could probably wriggle my wrists outta them with some determination. They are not tight. They obviously think I'm not too much of a threat. Considering the blood, they probably think I'm more injured than I am – I don't reveal to these agents that I'm covered in other people's blood. Dallas, the twins, hell, those poor fuckers from the surveillance room on my boots. But yeah, that makes me sound psychotic.
My heart rate is still loud in my ears but I feel calm – its like, I'm in a zone and I'm sorta having some slight outta body thing. It's still hard and squeezing and just, not, like normal but I can deal as there's a mix of endorphins and something else. I do feel invincible.
When Wufei sees me, I think he wants to kick my ass but instead he lays a hand on my arm and pretty much drags me away from the main atrium area and into a men's room that's empty. No other agent follows him. I don't know whether he's communicating with hand signals, glares or smoke signals but the agents know not to follow Chang. I think every agent I've met has experienced 'Fei's intimidation factor and they all seem to want to keep their distance from him. No one disputes that he's taken someone – someone who looks like a prisoner – into a bathroom. The alarm still sounds but it dampened here.
I know he's gonna explode but I take a second to check that the stalls are empty before I say anything. They are. He approaches me and takes my hands to release the cuffs. I meet his eyes as I flex wrists.
"It's Zee. The chick. She's Roth's daughter."
I'm walking towards the mirror and I see my pupils are dilated and my vision is ever so fucking… weird. The guy looking back at me looks kinda… sticky… a light sheen of sweat has broken out across my skin and I look... ill. In the harsh strip lighting I look like I feel as I grab paper towels to stem bleeding.
"The virus is in the weather system. They release on confirm of Q's kill."
"You can confirm this?"
"Dallas told me."
"Do you believe him?"
"Yeah."
Hell, I believed him – he had the complete upper hand in that moment and he was pretty darn positive that I was dead or dying so this information wasn't going to pass any further.
"Stay here."
I nodded at the instruction, taking a moment to stem blood and splash water on my face. I looked no better. He returned.
"Agents dispatched," he confirmed. "Where is Dallas now?"
"Dead – basement – two hollow points to the chest."
I give credit to Wufei as he barely takes a breath and nods. Just accepts. Years working together builds trust and he damn near trusts me and I him. He stands looking far too closely at me and I'm sure he can see through me, that I'm more than a little injured, it's more than a little cut would do to someone like me.
"Where's Quat?"
"There's a safe room in the Conference Centre. No windows. Winner security guarding it. Passwords to enter. Winner is quite safe."
"Who knows the passwords?"
"Myself, Barton… a few of my team."
I blink. "Your team?"
"A few of them… my best. You've met them on extractions. Prenter. Murphy. Cross."
"Any of them not reported in recently?"
"Murphy hasn't but, I assure you, Maxwell, I work with this man – I trust him."
"I don't trust anyone easily."
It was true. I could count the people I trusted on one hand and all of them except Howard piloted a Gundam. Even though I found Trowa, like, unsettling, if I needed someone to trust, I'd still damn go to him. Solidarity and shit.
"Someone told them the plan. It ain't any of us."
"I trust –"
I cut him off mid-sentence and his nostrils flare. I think he's sick of me at the moment – sick of everything I've done and all the rules that I flout on a regular basis.
"I don't. Where's Quat?"
"Top floor. There's a floor still under construction."
That's enough and I make a move but his grip is damn quick. Me and Wufei have never gotten near to fighting in all these years – he's never shown me how much stronger he is than I am – never put his hand that tight on my arm. I feel like he could bend it behind my back without trying and his fingers are taut and muscles flexed.
"You are in no condition to go out there."
"It's only a little blood."
"What did you take, Maxwell?"
"I don't know what you mean."
It ain't an outright lie – my conscience can be skewed when I want it to and this was one of those times.
"You are sweating. Your pupils are dilated. You look like hell. You took something."
"'Fei, let me go. I gotta find Zee. I know what she looks like. Hell it needs to be me."
"This isn't always about you doing everything."
"Let me get her. She'll listen to me."
"What if you don't find her?"
"I'll find her… trust me 'Fei."
The grip loosens. "I will send you with back up."
"No back up. Alone or nothing."
"You are insane."
"I've never been sane."
The door opens and he releases me entirely. Probably doesn't want to look like he's beating on a prisoner as that would violate human rights or something.
"Agent Chang – Une requests that you command the team at the weather system."
Wufei hesitates and looks back at me – knowing that he has to leave me and do as the big old boss lady commands. The agent doesn't like the hesitation and glares between both of us.
"Now Agent Chang."
"One moment."
"Une's orders –"
"One moment!"
The agent visibly paled. I snickered. "Get out, kid, if you know what's good for you."
He don't need telling twice and there's a sudden urgency to Wufei's movement. He removes his Preventer jacket, a little awkwardly, the injured shoulder obviously still causing some pain and throws it at me. I catch it but it takes me a second to get what he's doing.
"Hide your hair."
A moment later, he produces his badge and passes it over, the letters of his name inscribed in metal and his serial number on it. No one will look at it close enough to see its Chang and I'm not in the slightest bit Asian so it's a moot point what is says.
"And hide your damn tattoos."
I take off the black hoodie and put the jacket on, pushing my braid down the back and while I don't look remotely Preventer agent, I look enough like one to pass by a few people. I zip the jacket up and feel the warmth of his body heat against my skin and the slight smell that must be either cologne or just 'Fei's smell. It feels weird wearing his jacket but it ain't something I have time to dwell on.
"Go."
I don't need any more than that order but I stall, slightly reluctant, and I want to mouth thanks or something but I just make my move and this time the agents ignore me – no, they don't ignore me, they just are getting ordered around by Agent Chang as I make my way back up the fucking stairwell to the damn top floor.
The corridor on the top floor is still under construction. The glass is in place but there is no furniture. Sheets hang and hide building equipment. I take slow steady steps, hearing the duh dums of my heart loud again. The alarm doesn't function up here – probably as there is still building work and that disrupts fire alarms anyway. Not wired up yet. A sheet hangs low and I push it to the side. Hiding place in plain view. This floor wasn't on the plans. This wasn't in the goddamn plan so it had to be a Preventer that had told Zee.
I walk slowly making sure my steps are muted though I feel like my heart beat must be heard above the relative silence of the floor. I'm walking carefully but my foot suddenly meets something unexpected and I see another corpse. This time it's a Preventer – a familiar one – and he's warm as I touch his neck to check his pulse. This must've been Murphy. I tried to remember him, he was on an extraction team, hell, I remember that but I don't know anything more than that. They are hardly memorable when you see so many of them, you know. He's been shot multiple times as though a whole damn clip has been unloaded into his body at point blank range. All a sign of someone who ain't killed before – someone who doesn't truly know how to use a weapon. Total and complete overkill. I realise in the moment that I take to lean down that there's movement behind me and I hear the click of a gun at my head.
"Hand me your weapon."
"Zee."
I feel I should congratulate her. She's got this far. All in that little waitresses outfit and she thinks she's gonna make it. Thinks she'd won and got it down. I rise to standing slowly and I hand over the gun knowing that I don't really need it to get her and she blinks at it, noticing the familiar weight of Dallas' calibre weapon.
"I wondered if you'd be here," she said, a mocking hint in her tone. Nothing like the girl at the hospital. Wow, she was one cold chick. And the academy award goes to…
"Well, I don't like to keep a lady waiting, sweetheart."
She still reacts to the sweetheart comment. It makes a small grin curve at my lips. I want to know what fucked her up enough to not like being called girly names. Wondered what daddy was like. Times I am glad for being a damn orphan.
I kicked at the Preventer agent with a little gentleness considering he was corpse and couldn't feel it. A little respect for the dead or something.
"What did this guy do?"
"He would've talked – my father had him paid off but he… wasn't as committed as we needed. Least he has the password," she said, and then she gestures with her own weapon having pocketed Dallas'. "Move over there."
She gestures towards a door but instead I move a little so my back is to the glass wall as I have no plan of doing anything she instructs me to do – not outta some rebelliousness, more outta retaining some of the upper hand. I am not going to make anything easy for her.
"I don't think so, darling."
"I'm not as weak as you think I am."
"Really? Cause I kinda figure that no one can act that well, honey. You still don't know how to hold that gun properly. You shoulda got me to show you."
"Just so I can kill you."
"You won't kill me." I want to think she won't shoot me and I'm trying to be as damn charming and convincing as I can be. "You don't want to do this," I said in my most calm and reassuring voice.
The words are lame and totally irrelevant at this point. I want to think she doesn't want to do this. I want to convince myself that stalling her will work and I don't have to do what I should do. Killing her seems wrong. Preventer arrest would be better for her – the rest of her young life in a deep space prison in an orange jumpsuit might change her perspective.
"I think I do."
"What do you think you're doing sweetheart? Getting daddy's approval or some shit?"
"Don't say that!"
She looks kinda shaken by my words. She ain't all confident and I'm gonna press.
"Don't say what? Call you sweetheart or bring up daddy? Hell, it makes me glad I don't have parents if this is what your father gets you to do… let me just ask – did daddy like it that you were fucking Dallas?"
This pisses her off enough to make the gun shake in her grasp and I take a small step towards her, the glass behind me, and I know I only have to reach out and take the damn gun but not yet…
"You don't know anything."
"Then explain, Princess. Enlighten me."
The sarcasm literally drops off me and she shakes her head, the gun wavers and I'm close enough to rush her. The only thing I see as a problem is that she is so… so not used to a weapon that I figure she might just fire and get lucky. Least that wasn't one thing she was totally faking.
"I need to do this. I have to prove… I can do this."
"To who? Your dad? He ain't on the colony and hell, your honey bunny is dead."
She chokes, a small sound from her throat and the weapon loosens in her grip and I plan on taking a step forward to relieve her of the weapon but then I see something that makes my heart beat faster and it ain't the drugs. Heero walks too quietly for her notice – many men have ended up dead due to that slow and steady walk, the walk of a man who grew up knowing how to kill. I need to keep her talking.
"Dallas is dead," she said. It ain't a question and I contemplate unzipping the Preventer jacket and showing her his blood. It's a cold hearted move and I don't. Even I'm not that much of a bastard.
"Yeah… sorry."
"You killed him?"
Ah, the ice queen had a heart, she trembles a little and I realise that maybe she did have feelings for Dallas but I realise that it probably wasn't a good thing to mention it. I was trying to keep her calm – trying to let Heero get close enough to relieve her of her weapon and disable her without killing her but she wipes a hand across her face quickly and points the gun with a more firm hand.
"Then I'll kill you."
"If Dallas couldn't… you think you stand a chance?"
Her eyes harden and I see a freaking scary determination as Heero approaches slowly. I try to give him a signal, meet those cold blue eyes and tell him to apprehend her, to snap that gun from her hands and disable her. There's a glimmer of understanding between us – in tune again, I guess, knowing how to act in a mission situation. Old times.
But it don't matter as suddenly there's a sound of a small explosion somewhere in the building that rocks us and the moment of panic startles her enough to fire without either of us anticipating it. Or we did. Just a second too late.
The shots fire and there's the sound of breaking glass around us. Multiple shots fired and it's difficult to tell what's happened until a splash of red begins to cover the front of that white blouse. She looks shocked and then begins to crumple and I feel something sharp in my own arm and I can't decide whether its glass or bullet fragments. She goes down and I meet cold blue eyes over her body and Heero stands there – gun raised and posture straight. If I'd been my usual awesome, funny self I'd have said something to Zee about that's how you hold a gun but I don't feel like my brain can function to that degree right now.
There's no question that it's a killer shot, through and through, and I slowly move my hand to the pain that's radiating from my right shoulder and I realise the moisture of my own blood through the thickness of the padded Preventer jacket – I was covered in so much of other people's blood that I don't really figure it for a second and I'm thinking that it ain't anything.
I stagger backwards and I figure that it's because I'm just not balanced, you know, right now but my back goes into the glass behind me that is already cracked and fragmented and it smashes with the weight of my body and I'm falling back into it. The shards cut but I don't notice that all too well as I feel pain radiating from my shoulder and pain radiating from my chest and I'm struggling to breathe and my heart squeezes again. Duh dum. Duh dum.
I raised my hand to where the pain was radiating from and then looked at it. My fingers were covered in blood, bright blood. There was glass embedded in my hand and it looked… strange. I stared at my fingers, the redness really bright and I lowered it again. I didn't have the strongest stomach for blood, I know, I'd seen and caused enough of it but damn it, I wasn't good with injuries… I wasn't Heero who could set his own leg, or Trowa who could perform stiches on himself just for shits and giggles. I raised my hand up again to see the red. And I was confused as I lowered it again. I was damn near confused at why I was laid down and I tried to move but my head started spin and I stopped.
For a few moments, I was staring at ceiling tiles and the light strips that weren't working and then there was a face above me and the sound of him moving around me, the glass being crushed under shoes.
"Duo…" he said, softly, and I wanted to say something witty and coherent and maybe, somewhere, a damn apology but that part of my brain had been bypassed.
Instead I just blinked my blurry eyes and manage to say two words.
"Been shot."
I feel hands and firm pressure on the wound but that pain there ain't anything compared to the erratic beating of my heart and the pain that seems to radiate down half my damn body. The tingles are weird and I can't breathe. My heart feels too big for my chest and I almost feel my eyes rolling back into the back of my head. I feel myself drifting and I'm barely conscious of anything – not the glass that I'm lying on, not the pain that radiates from my chest and the firm hands covering the bloody wound. I figure that the shot wound is the shock to my system that brings it all crashing down after taking those stupid pills…
"Duo – keep talking to me."
His voice is a command and it's his old mission sounding shit but I respond as my reaction to a bullet wound isn't usual considering it's not in a place that would usually be so life threatening.
"I… took something…"
I see in blue eyes a look of something I'm not sure how to define. It could be that he's pissed and that he wants to throttle me or it could be that he's just worried about what I took. What I did.
"Pocket."
I feel his hand and the movement of glass shards, the tinkling against the floor and the movement of finding the item. The touch is not unpleasant but I don't appreciate it. The pain in my chest doubles and I hear the groan, wince as though it'd come from someone else's lips and I'm starting to lose consciousness… I can feel it, damn it.
There's a noise, a low growl thing that I want to tell him is utterly adorable but I'm not, really, here you know and I gather he's discovered what I've taken. I don't know how knowledgeable he is about street drugs but I'm guessing he knows that they ain't doing me any good. I feel a hand on my face, gripping my jaw and moving my head, I hear glass being displaced by the movement of my braid and the words that come from his lips.
"Stay with me. Keep talking."
Words seem impossible and I guess he's torn. Totally torn. Stay with me here or leave, run and get help. There are no comms. He keeps pressure on the wound but I guess he figures that he's fucked. I want to reach out but that moment has sailed…
"What's your favourite colour?"
"…black…s'pose…."
"What's your favourite curse word?"
"…motherfucker…"
If I'd been more lucid I'd have remembered something. A quiet moment during the war. Repairing Deathscythe. And for some reason I was talking about my favourite curse words. I couldn't remember exactly why but I was in my priest outfit and Heero was in goddamn spandex and that tank top. I was talking to get him to pay attention. I didn't think he had. Damn, did he remember every stupid thing I said? I tried to open my eyes to see him but all I could see were sparks…
"Shit," I heard Heero say as I slipped out of consciousness.
Another voice joins his when I come 'round again and its weird, distorted.
"You can't move him, Heero! The paramedics are coming," I heard Quatre say in a kinda blurry way. It was like listening to a bad radio. I wondered when he got here. I wondered when other people arrived. I wondered what was happening and wondered if, hell, this is dying.
"He's going into shock."
"You don't have to save him all by yourself… Heero stop it! Moving him could kill him!"
"He's dying anyway."
I mumbled something as I felt my weight, my skinny weight, being lifted gently and then I don't really remember anything apart from blackness and strong arms.