A/N: For Maevemauvaise. I hope you have a lovely, lovely birthday and I want to thank you so very much for all of the support and inspiration you give me.
I wanted to write you a collection of fairy tales, but then I remembered how many lovely and talented people there are in our fandom, so I recruited them to create lovely things for you as well. So this is just one of many.
A/N 2: I have… problems with Sleeping Beauty, but I wanted to see if I could make it into something I liked, and I hope it's something that you love.
A/N 3: So… a futuristic sci-fi retelling, with a verse similar to Firefly/Serenity/Star Wars. Obviously AU. Translations at the end.
A/N 4: A HUGE thanks to Ro for beta reading this for me.
Pairings: 3x5, background: 3x4, 1x3, 3x6, 1x6
Warnings: angst, language, dub-con, sexy times
Sleeping Beauty- Part 5
Trowa was shoved into the empty bunk none too gently, and he only had time to turn around before Chang was tossed in after him.
It seemed like the Mags were taking it rather personally that so many of their friends had died on the Nataku.
Trowa couldn't really blame them for that, but when he ended up on his back, an angry naked man braced above him and glaring down at him, Trowa could blame them for being complete assholes.
One of them muttered something under his breath, and the two Mags laughed before the bunk door closed and the lock engaged.
Slowly, furiously, Chang moved away from Trowa and stood up.
After a moment, Chang extended a hand. Trowa stared at it, unable to figure out what it meant, but then Chang sighed and grabbed Trowa's arm and hauled him up to his feet.
"Dùi bu qǐ, dōu guài wǒ," Trowa had to apologize.
Chang winced and shook his head.
"Stop- Don't- don't ever mention it again," Chang commanded in his precise English.
Trowa frowned, but he nodded. If that was how Chang wanted to deal with it, he wasn't about to interfere. Trowa just knew that he wouldn't be able to dismiss it from his mind, knew that he would be remembering the feel and taste of the other man, the way he had shuddered, the sound of his voice raw with need, for a long time.
"Tāmen wèishéme bù gěi nǐ rènhé de yīfú?" Trowa asked.
Chang shook his head and held up a hand.
"Please, speak English. You speak Mandarin like an illiterate pirate."
Trowa flushed at the insult. No one had ever derided his command of Mandarin before, but then again, Trowa spent most of his time around illiterate pirates… One of whom had first taught Trowa Mandarin. Trowa wondered if Chang had guessed at that, or if he was just trying to be insulting.
"Why didn't they offer you any clothes?"
Chang sneered. "I'm just a ji bu," he spat.
Trowa sighed. There were, he knew, some prostitutes who did go around completely naked - but there weren't many. Besides, Chang was most definitely not a ji bu.
Trowa turned and rifled through the overhead storage bins.
This bunk wasn't one that he or Duo used. There were four empty bunks on the freighter, kept open for the rare occasions Duo and Trowa transported passengers. The Mags had taken the empty bunks, though a few of them had been forced to sleep in one of the empty cargo holds. Trowa could only assume that this bunk had been assigned to two of the now-dead Mags.
His search turned up absolutely nothing valuable - a pair of pliers that Duo had been searching for for the past seven months, a tin of expired beans and an EVA helmet that had a cracked faceplate.
Trowa sighed.
"Do you want my clothes?" he asked, and gestured to himself.
Chang sneered. "Why? Does my nakedness offend you?"
Trowa took too long to answer that, stumbling over his immediate desire to assure Chang that offended was the last thing Trowa was, and Chang's eyes narrowed.
Trowa felt himself flush, like a damned teenager, and he looked away from the man's dark eyes.
"No. I thought you might be cold." They did, after all, keep the Scythe pretty chilly to conserve fuel and optimize speed. Trowa knew that Duo had cranked the atmo controls even lower for this journey, no doubt hoping to annoy the Mags who were used to the luxuriously warm atmo settings on the wealthy L4 colonies.
Chang had to be cold, but he merely lifted his chin and refused to respond.
Trowa sighed and rolled his eyes, but he lifted himself up onto one of the bunks and toed off his boots.
Chang arched an eyebrow.
"It's going to take Duo at least a day to get us back to the L4 Sector. I know that you just woke up from a two hundred year nap, but I could do with some rest before I have to face down these bastards again."
Trowa stretched out on the bunk, folded his hands under his head, and stared up at the bulkhead above.
After a moment, he heard Chang shifting around, and looked over to see him sitting on the opposite bunk, legs folded, eyes closed, and it appeared he was meditating. He looked completely at peace, his smooth features slack, no anger visible. It was almost as though he was back in stasis.
"You keep staring at me," Chang murmured, his lips barely moving.
Trowa rolled over so that he faced the opposite wall.
"Sorry."
Trowa wasn't sure how much time passed, but eventually Chang spoke up again.
"Which one of you opened the stasis capsule?"
Trowa rolled back over and saw that Chang had moved, abandoning his earlier pose and instead, he was leaning against the wall behind his bunk, knees drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped tightly around them. He looked cold.
Trowa sat up and pulled off his sweater, leaving on his thin undershirt, and tossed it to Chang.
The other man regarded it with distaste, but after a moment he pulled it on. It swallowed him, Trowa's larger frame and the sad condition of the sweater making it fall over Chang's knees. He looked very young and very, very fragile.
If Trowa hadn't seen Chang kill Hamza with nothing but his bare hands and the solid end of an exam table, he wouldn't have thought he was capable of doing it.
"Why?" he asked.
"So I know which one of you I shouldn't kill."
The words were spoken without inflection or emotion of any kind, and they sent ice down Trowa's spine.
"Planning on murdering the rest of us?"
Chang's lips twisted. "The Maganacs will all die, as will any Winner I encounter. They worked together to wipe out an entire civilization. Not just my family, not just my clan - seven billion people died because of their greed. I will not allow their crimes to pass without administering justice."
"That was two hundred years ago," Trowa had to point out, though he had no real moral qualms with Chang wanting to kill all of the Maganacs and Winners.
Chang frowned, but then he nodded.
"Yes. For you, it was. For me, it was yesterday when the last insurgent force broke through our defenses, when my wife was murdered in front of my very eyes."
Chang's anger was back in full force now, his eyes burning and his lips drawn.
"You and your pilot-"
"Duo."
"Duo. You and he might not be Maganacs, might not be Winners, but you are working for them. You helped them find me, and you-"
"Raped you, in front of them. In front of the Interdiction Force."
Chang's jaw locked, and he looked away.
"What is the Interdiction Force?"
The question took Trowa by surprise, but then he remembered that the IF hadn't been established until the destruction of the L5 Cluster.
He related the IF's history to Chang, explained how the Terran government had used the colonial instability to step in and set up administrative and military arms that controlled the colonies, controlled the Moon and Mars and the Belt. Controlled, and too often suppressed and took advantage of the colonies.
If Duo were in here, he would no doubt launch into a long-winded and very graphic list of all of the atrocities the IF had committed in the name of peace and control.
"Why didn't you tell them who you are?" Trowa had to ask. "You had to realize that the Mags didn't want to give you over to them. You could have- you could have saved yourself."
Chang sneered again. It seemed to be quite a practiced expression for him.
"The enemy lurking in the shadows is often more deadly than the one before you," Chang murmured softly. "Besides, the Maganacs had already announced their intention to take me before the Winner patriarch. I saw no need to risk a… detour."
Trowa snorted in amused appreciation. Chang certainly felt confident that he could and would exact revenge.
"It was Duo," he said.
Chang lifted an eyebrow.
"Duo was the one - he's the one you shouldn't kill."
-o-
Quatre wasn't in the Hall of Mirrors this time.
Instead, he met them in one of the lavish gardens on his property, the sound of water cascading from numerous fountains almost drowning out the sound of his laughter when he saw the Mags leading Trowa, Duo and Chang towards him.
Despite Quatre's clear amusement, his eyes were cold as he regarded them.
"I sent you to get a ship filled with treasure, and instead, there is no ship, no treasure, and half of my men are dead. Instead, you bring me a worthless batroun." He gestured to Wufei, naked once again after he had returned Trowa's sweater to him before the Mags escorted them from the Scythe.
Duo shrugged. "You know what they say - one man's trash is another man's treasure."
Everyone glared at him, but Duo, clearly exhausted and beyond caring at all, simply stared at one of the fountains beyond Quatre.
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill all of you right now, and then torture Hilde and Cathy so thoroughly they will beg me to put an end to their lives," Quatre demanded.
Duo shrugged again. "Old times' sake?"
Quatre sneered, but before he could speak up, Chang stepped forward.
"You wanted the fabled treasures of the Chang clan? The secrets to their wealth and technology?"
Quatre, a wary look on his face, nodded slowly.
"Yes. But my men report that the only thing they found on the Nataku was you." Quatre flicked his eyes over Chang's naked body, and his lips curled. "I had always heard there was a princess frozen on the ship. I suppose it is fortunate for Trowa that that was not the case."
Trowa flushed, though he wasn't surprised that Rashid had passed on everything to Quatre. Of course Quatre would take pleasure in Trowa's humiliation - in Chang's.
"And as thrilled as I am that Trowa was able to make use of your body, I certainly see no purpose for your continued existence."
Chang seemed unmoved by Quatre, and Trowa wondered if Chang was simply underestimating Quatre as an opponent or simply didn't care how dangerous he was.
Chang shrugged, the movement languid and sensual.
"Very well. Then the treasures and secrets of the Chang clan will die with me."
Quatre's eyes narrowed, both at Chang and at Duo, who let out a bark of laughter.
"Tell me," Quatre demanded.
"I could tell you where we hid them from you, but you will no doubt die in the attempt to get them. How many men did you lose on the Nataku just to retrieve me?"
It was mesmerizing, and terrifying, to watch the two men face each other down. Quatre was so collected, so cold and still, while Chang seemed to be vibrating with anger, his eyes blazing with it.
"You will take me to the cache… in exchange for what?" Trowa could see the greed in Quatre's eyes, but the blond haired man was too astute, too practiced in deceit, to know that nothing came without a price.
"I want all of your Maganacs executed."
Trowa expected Quatre to flatly deny the request, but instead, he stared at Chang and seemed to be carefully considering the proposition.
"Why?" Quatre asked eventually.
Chang sneered. "Their entire order was established to destroy my people. You might not know, might not recall, but the Maganac Corps was created on Terra as a band of assassins whose sole purpose was to wipe out the Chang clan. They failed then, but they succeeded two hundred years ago. I want them gone."
"And what about me? It was my distant relatives who provided the funds and the motivation for the Maganacs."
Chang's lips curled, and he flicked a bitter glance in Trowa's direction.
"It has been pointed out to me that you did not commit genocide. I am also not an idiot. I am the last of my line and it is my duty to live. I cannot do that if I allow you to execute me. So, a fair trade."
Rashid, judging by the dark look on his face, hardly thought it was fair. Trowa couldn't see the expression on the other Mags' faces, but he was willing to bet they didn't feel it was fair either.
"Rashid," Quatre called out, his voice soft but there was steel in it.
"Master Quatre!"
"Rashid," Quatre repeated. "Gather the men. Remind them of their oath and assure them that their families will be given a share of the treasure."
Rashid hesitated a moment longer, his face twisted in pain.
"What about them?" He gestured to Trowa and Duo.
"They aren't going anywhere," Quatre assured him with a smile. "Not while I still have Hilde and Cathy under my… protection."
Apparently out of excuses, Rashid moved away from Quatre, and the Mags that had been restraining Trowa and Duo fell into step behind him.
Duo let out a low whistle. "Gotta admire that blind obedience."
Quatre arched an eyebrow. "You admire blind obedience?"
Duo shrugged. "I didn't say that I wanted to be blindly obedient. That's a quick way to die."
Quatre smiled. "Don't worry, Duo, I can promise you now that your death will not be quick."
Trowa's partner nodded, and snapped the fingers of his left hand together. "Right back at you, Q. Right back at you."
Quatre turned from Duo and focused once again on Chang.
"After the Maganacs are dealt with, you will take me to the cache?"
Chang nodded. "I will need him," he gestured towards Duo.
Duo lifted his eyebrows in confusion. "Me?" He groaned. "Oh please don't tell me this is going to be another 'we need a pilot who can fly through a supernova without getting the paint on the ship scratched' kind of thing. Because I haven't slept in days, and I'm pretty sure I couldn't dodge a planet at this point, much less-"
"No. I don't need you as a pilot."
Chang's words offered absolutely no clarity.
"Er, well, in that case… I'm gonna need Trowa. Not that I don't trust you or anything, Q, but, well, I don't fucking trust you."
Quatre rolled his eyes. "As if I didn't know that was coming." He turned back to Chang. "Any other requests? Perhaps some clothes?"
Chang sneered and opened his mouth to retort, but Duo spoke over him.
"Actually, yeah, we need a girl - a woman."
Quatre sighed. "Oh please, Duo. If you're jealous about Trowa getting to fuck in public, deal with it later. Your libido is not-"
"No, no. Chang said we need a woman. We were talking about the cache, about how to get past the security measures - and he said some of them were coded to-"
"I am not letting Hilde free." Quatre looked at Chang. "Is this true? You really need a woman?"
Chang looked over at Duo, silent and considering, but after a moment he nodded.
"Very well. One of my sisters-"
"No," Chang and Duo spoke up at the same time.
"It cannot be a Winner," Chang explained with a sneer.
Quatre shrugged. "Very well. Relena will accompany us."
Trowa wasn't sure whether he was imagining it, but he thought he saw Duo's shoulders slump in relief.
-o-
Translations:
Dùi bu qǐ, dōu guài wǒ: I'm so sorry, this is all my fault.
Tāmen wèishéme bù gěi nǐ rènhé de yīfú: Why didn't they give you any clothes?