Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Attempted Bystanding ❯ 07 ( Chapter 8 )

Seven

Zechs wanted to kill the man, he really did. Unfortunately, no matter where Zechs looked he couldn't find an opening. He'd been watching for a way out, but aside from the one trip to some random room, he hadn't seen anything—at least not beyond the bathroom. They took him whenever he needed to go and let him shower whenever he asked, but the bathroom was just around the corner.

He had no idea how wide the building was, or how huge a complex. His room had no windows, which meant he couldn't even get his bearings. He was fairly certain he was still on the same L-2 colony, but the people hadn't told him how long he'd been knocked out. He'd be able to tell the furthest they could have gotten away in that time period, so it made sense that they hadn't said, but it was annoying.

And that man.

It was the most infuriating thing. Every time Ranger came around they ended up exchanging insults. It was tit for tat, they could usually manage to one-up each other, but it always tended to end with the man throwing the last comment over his shoulder as he left the room. Kinda hard to get a good response in there.

As if cutting off his hair and holding him hostage weren't bad enough.

It was even worse, though, when he'd turn the television on—they'd left him one. Every news channel would come up to Relena, usually in the midst of an impassioned speech. Her advocating for the colony's independence wasn't entirely sensational. It was just one of many stories, but it was the one with the least amount of explanation. There was, however, a gaining background story where someone who knew he'd been grabbed had let it out. A few of the stations had crews and investigators looking for him.

It'd been a week. It wasn't likely that those people would find him, but he did know five assholes he wouldn't mind seeing.

They'd stormed an entire colony for one boy, why weren't they storming this for him?

It meant that they couldn't find him. This also probably meant that he wasn't on the same L-2 colony he'd left.

So, until he found an opening in the security, or until one of the pilots left him a message in those news stations...he was stuck, not knowing where he was or how much longer he'd be there.

And the only person who'd even bother speaking to him was Ranger.

Zechs couldn't wait for something to happen. He was getting bored out of his fucking mind.

- -

Wufei dropped back in his seat, rubbing tiredly at his eyes as Matty watched him almost expectantly.

"Well?" Heero demanded, moving into the room with an air of self-possession that made Matty hesitate to go to him. He was in his full uniform, and as was usually the case, he was standing straight as he looked at Wufei expectantly.

"Well what?" Wufei retorted.

"What's wrong?" Heero asked, frowning at Matty. He'd been expecting to hold the guy already.

"I don't think I should jump on you, it'd mess up the uniform," Matty muttered, pursing his lips.

"Uniform?" Heero asked blankly, then looked down at himself. "Oh, yeah, huh?"

"Genius," Wufei grumbled, hitting another button on the laptop. "I can't get the damn thing to clarify."

"You've been doing this all week," Heero protested, moving to pull Matty into his arms.

"It's not that easy and you know it," Matty grumbled, pulling away.

"What's wrong?" Heero protested at him, more. He hadn't relaxed at all.

"You're in full uniform, Brigadier," Wufei retorted. "You got your shiny star showing and everything."

Heero hesitated a moment, looking down to his rank tag, then to his boyfriend.

Matty fidgeted, obviously uncomfortable.

"I could only follow their damn rig for two blocks," Wufei added, starting to rub at his eyes as he leaned forward. "The cameras don't cover the area they hit...being sure of that took me three days, and then checking the flight logs for immediate flights took a day—and it's been a couple days since I started trying for anything more I could get, but it's not that fucking easy."

"Why isn't Duo doing this?" Heero snapped, giving up on greeting his boyfriend. "He's go the patience for this shit," he started for the fridge.

"Actually, it should be you doing this shit, Yuy," Wufei snapped. "Maxwell is the people person and you're the background hacker."

"And you are trying to avoid doing anything outside this room," Heero agreed irritably, slamming the fridge closed. "You're going to have to go out sometime, Chang. And while you're at it, shouldn't you call those friends of yours? You told us you were going to."

"I will," Wufei snapped, focusing on him irritably. "Just give me a damn break, okay? It's not as easy for me as it would be for you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Heero snapped.

Wufei glowered at him, a thousand replies flicking through his mind. All of them boiled down to the notice that Heero wasn't human, and that would hurt him and piss him off.

"God," Heero added, flashing a brief glare at Matty before turning toward the room.

"It's still Heero," Wufei noted quietly to Matty when the door had shut.

"He's not acting like himself," Matty protested, shifting uncomfortably where he sat. "He's all..."

"Powerful," Wufei agreed. "I'd be doing the same thing if I'd been out interacting with people. We have a lot of power here, you know? Our rank seems pretty and flashy when it's being bandied around, but when you get down to it, it's real rank. He's upset right now," he added, gesturing toward the room. "He doesn't understand why you're reacting to him the way you are."

"If he thought about it..."

Wufei sighed, realizing it was time he made sure Matty got it. The lack of emotional understanding Heero really had to deal with was mind-boggling.

"Okay fine," the Chinese man muttered, shifting forward. "I'm going to tell you something that you're not going to understand, not right away. It's very integral to dealing with Heero, and you should probably be very happy that you have to figure it out, because it means he's serious about you. Okay?"

"Okay," Matty muttered, frowning back at him.

"When Heero was...he..." Wufei thought that out. "Heero was trained from a child to be a weapon. Part of that training was...taking away his...we had to teach him emotions."

Matty blinked.

Wufei looked toward the room, listening intently. This wasn't something he wanted Heero to walk in on. "We had to get him to recognize he even had emotions," he said quietly. "And then when we got that started we've had to show him how to deal with them. He's...you've seen it," Wufei met Matty's eyes again. "When you met him and first started hanging out with him you shouldn't have noticed a difference. Now, though...I've seen you realize that something will upset him and interrupt it. You understand at least part of it. It's just...it can be hard," he admitted, licking his lips. "It can be damn confusing and it can be embarrassing."

"I have seen, I noticed...he says some stuff," Matty looked toward the door himself. "I told him once that he wasn't human and it really bothered him."

"It does, it always has," Wufei agreed. "He knows about the difference and he hates it. Don't say stuff like that to him."

"I haven't ever again," Matty protested. "I didn't really mean it like that when I said it."

"But he doesn't get that," Wufei agreed, rubbing at his eyes. "I suppose we should have pulled you aside well before now, huh?"

Matty shrugged, looking down.

"So right now," Wufei noted, gesturing to the room. "He doesn't have the slightest clue why you didn't just jump in his arms like you do, and he understands that he won't understand it. That's why he just stormed off."

"So what should I do?"

"I dunno, go fuck him or something," he gestured toward the room.

Matty gave him a look that suggested he didn't appreciate that.

Wufei grinned and gestured again.

The teen rolled his eyes, then headed for the hall and the room Heero'd disappeared in.

"You know what, Wufei?" Matty asked, hesitating at the end of the hall.

"What?" Wufei returned.

"You need to call your friends," Matty retorted.

"I haven't talked to them in years, I don't know that I could call them friends anymore."

"You still need to call them," Matty retorted, starting away again. "You can only avoid doing it for so long. Either quit claiming you will or do it."

Wufei snorted, but the door closed. He focused back on the laptop screen, but decided to give it up. He didn't have the programs, the patience, or the skills to be doing the fine-tuning on the damn pictures.

It really was Heero's specialty. He'd have to make the man do it—and he had to find something useful to do around the base.

If he didn't, he was going to go insane.

- -

"You really believe that?" Quatre asked quietly.

He'd been sitting with a man who'd been part of Rabid's people before and had surrendered. He'd been meeting with the man all week. The man had been closed off and guarded before, but he'd grown comfortable enough with Quatre that he'd allowed himself to slip in some real emotion that had turned into a rant.

The man glared at Quatre before looking away.

"You know," Quatre muttered, shifting back in his seat as he stirred his coffee. "I always knew Rabid had visions of grandeur, but this is a bit ridiculous."

"Excuse me?" Ratdy snapped.

"He's trying to create an empire," Quatre explained, sipping at his drink. "His claim that the old war-criminals won't be tolerated should probably put half his members in shackles."

The guy started to sit up.

"Don't get all riled up," Quatre suggested, gesturing vaguely at him as he stood. "I know that he specifically had the five of us in mind with that, and probably Marquise, too."

"Pretty astute for a sex-toy," the man snapped.

Quatre focused on him instantly, studying his eyes. The guy wasn't meeting his eyes, but he had said it. "Excuse me?"

"Blond fucking bimbo," the man spat, turning away.

"Wow," Quatre muttered, blinking at him in mild amazement. "Say another one."

"What?" the man demanded, meeting his eyes.

"Say...uh," Quatre thought briefly. "Ooh. We aristocrats know what's better for the common people, and you should all just accept that. We rule you for a reason."

The man's entire manner...fluffed, like a pissed kitten.

"You all think you understand so much, but you poor uneducated imbeciles should work my fields and go home. I'm a generous man, I recognize the Sabbath."

"You self-satisfied power-blind pig!" the guy was obviously incensed.

"You can't even insult me right," Quatre muttered in disappointment, starting away again.

"We aren't your slaves!" the guy half-shrieked at him.

"We also don't have fields," Quatre noted, sipping his cup again as he gestured toward the building around them. "We're in a colony, idiot."

"You think you're such hot shit because you have money!" the guy half-shouted, moving to follow him. "You blond haired blue-eyed test-tube baby!"

Quatre's innards twisted.

"You're a worthless frop! You're not even worth the pig-egg your momma used! Fucking colony whore! I bet you fall to your knees every time your betters pass by, begging for them to take you so you're at least good for something."

Quatre raised an eyebrow very slightly.

"They keep you around because you're easy!" the guy ranted on, moving even closer to Quatre. "You can't even fight! You pretend like some warrior, but what did you do in the wars? You killed innocent civilians!"

"And what do you know about me?" Quatre returned levelly, turning to face him properly.

"I know you went off your rocker and destroyed an entire colony."

That made his guts twist again, but he couldn't focus on that. He couldn't let the man win when it had all started with him fishing for more blond-jokes.

"Oh, so the fact that I attacked your armies means nothing to you?" Quatre whispered. "The fact that I, on my own, took down base after base..."

"You killed my comrades!" the man shouted at him. "You cut them down with your damn scythes like they meant nothing to anyone! You left me there! You left me behind and uninjured!"

Quatre raised his eyebrows again.

"Why didn't you just kill me?" the man demanded, falling to his knees in front of Quatre as tears started rolling down his cheeks. "You should have just killed me!"

"Is your life really so meaningless?" Quatre demanded, kneeling down in front of the guy to meet his eyes.

"You have no idea the shame I have to bear," the guy whispered back, staring into his eyes.

"You survived when your comrades died," Quatre returned in mild disbelief. "You call that shame?"

"I hate you," the man whispered, glaring into his eyes. "I hate you."

"Then hate me," Quatre returned darkly. "I learned a long time ago that you can't please everyone and if you try you're a fool. You might not want to convince yourself that I'm some useless frop," he added, rising up. "Your supposed shame suggests that I didn't find you worth killing. Probably wouldn't be the best thing for the ego for some blond bit of fluff, some sex toy begging to get boned...some..." he met the man's eyes, "no-brained aristocrat, to have left you alive because you weren't worth killing."

The man flinched away from the last insult—but Quatre had seen the moment of recognition. Marsh tended to call him a no-brained aristocrat when other insults failed him. This man had heard it said and evidently had believed it, with the way he'd flinched.

"Instead you might think that war-rick bastard I may be, but I don't kill unless I have no other choice. You survived on dumb-luck alone. Your companions died on dumb-luck alone. Your machine fell because you weren't meant to be killed. That should mean you have something left to live for. Don't come crying to me because I spared your life," he stopped in the door to the interrogation room again. "Don't look to me for pity just so you can hate me. Your only value to me is as a man from Marsh's camp. If I left you alive or left you for dead doesn't matter to me. It was war, and I had a cause," he studied the man's stricken face a moment longer. "We won that war, you know. The five of us gained the independence for the colonies, we overthrew a tyrannical government and paved the way for peace. Yes, we did it with blood, but it was war. This bullshit with Marsh now...this isn't war. This is a petty fit. This is a spoiled child acting out to get his way—taking that shuttle hostage last month was a child stamping their foot. Taking the prince now is throwing himself on the floor to kick and scream. I'm going to count to three," Quatre added, looking in the direction he knew the earth to be in. "And if he doesn't stop his fit, I'm going to beat him."

The guy blinked at that.

"I've never had patience for spoiled nobodies," Quatre explained, smirking very slightly. "And my patience isn't what it used to be. Be aware, Ratdy, that I provoked you simply to hear you throw out the old blond jokes. Marsh always threw them at me; the sex-toy comments and the like. Think of it as a moment of nostalgia. I'm not returning here again. You have no information that my comrades and I could ever find useful."

"Bastard," the man hissed.

"Oh, and by the way?" Quatre turned to meet his eyes again. "My mother conceived me and died to give me life. If I ever hear you call her any name again, your own mother won't even recognize you."

The man's eyes went hard.

Quatre swept from the room, ignoring the people who'd been observing. He didn't appreciate being watched in a moment of pique, but there was nothing to be done about it now.

"That was interesting," Duo noted, falling into pace with him and passing him back his jacket.

"Not now, Duo," Quatre muttered, pulling the thing on. He'd taken it off so the man in the room wasn't aware of his rank.

"That makes me wonder why he surrendered," Duo mused.

"I would really rather not talk about it," Quatre snapped.

"Poor baby," Duo noted sardonically, then hesitated. "Wait...your mother gave birth to you?"

Quatre stopped, turning to give him a severely level look. It made Duo stop in his tracks.

"What are you two on about?" Trowa demanded, moving from another wing with three soldiers on his heels. They were young men, and upon noticing the pair, they stopped and saluted.

"At ease," Quatre muttered, gesturing them off and meeting Trowa's eyes.

"Winner just got Ratdy into a couple rants," Duo shrugged. "What's with the parade?"

"Parade?" Trowa looked back to the soldiers. "What are you talking about? Une assigned them to me, they're all special-ops hopefuls."

"Are you?" Quatre asked the one nearer him.

"Yes, sir," the guy returned, not meeting eyes.

"Tell me something interesting," Quatre ordered. "Something you've observed."

"Barton manipulates people of equal or greater power, sir."

Trowa snorted.

"We're his friends," Quatre retorted. "We're aware of that. I said tell me something interesting."

The guy hesitated a moment, but only a very brief one. "Brigadier Maxwell finds Cardle attractive, sir."

One of the others ducked his head even further.

"What?" Duo demanded in disbelief.

"You looked him over and licked your lips, sir," the man returned.

Duo laughed wickedly, looking to Trowa. "Was I that obvious?"

"I don't even pay attention to who you look at," Trowa retorted as the other, evidently Cardle, ducked his head even more.

"You embarrassed, private?" Quatre demanded. "I always found it easier to get in the good graces of my superiors if they thought I was hot."

Trowa guffawed and smacked at him. "Quit harassing my students."

Cardle looked up to Quatre briefly, then glanced at Duo and looked away again. His cheeks were slightly red.

"You," Quatre muttered, looking back to the man he'd been speaking to. "I don't need your rank or your unit, just your name."

"Raymond," the man returned.

"Okay, Raymond," Quatre noted. "Is Cardle embarrassed or offended?"

Raymond hesitated, looking between the pair of them briefly, then looked down. "I...uh..."

"Don't say 'uh' when you're talking to a brigadier general, soldier," Quatre snapped.

"Sorry, sir," the guy muttered, looking down even more.

"What was that?"

"Quatre, leave the man alone," Duo muttered, shoving at him.

Quatre gave Duo a look.

"He's...embarrassed, sir," Raymond muttered, still not looking up.

"See? Was that so hard?" Quatre beamed at him, then looked to the third man.

"What?" the guy asked, shifting backwards slightly. He caught himself, though, looking down. "Sir."

Quatre sniggered at that, then looked back to Trowa.

"Are ya done yet?" Trowa demanded. "We traced Ranger back to L-2," he glanced at Duo briefly. "We'd like to get on with our investigation."

"That's all the further you got?" Duo heaved a sigh, looking away.

"I think they're still there," Trowa noted, studying his face. "I think they're still on V08744."

"With all due respect," Raymond muttered, "there are too many unconfirmed flights leaving the colony for them all to be accounted for....sir."

Trowa smirked very slightly and shrugged at the others. "Whatever it ends up being, they aren't on earth and they aren't in 27."

"That narrows it down to about twenty colonies," Quatre muttered sarcastically.

"I think it narrows it down to one colony," Trowa retorted, giving the other a look. "And anyway, it's not nearly so depressing as Raymond seems to be demanding."

"Just be careful," Duo muttered. "We don't know how compromised we are."

The three men looked at him sharply.

"They're too true for me to worry about," Quatre dismissed that. "I suppose I could be fooled, but I think I'd feel that."

"Unless someone was lying to them," Duo noted clinically.

"But I'd feel the plotting," Quatre shrugged. "I feel no plotting."

"Are you a space-heart?" Raymond asked, focusing on him instantly, interested.

"Shh, don't tell," Quatre pressed a finger briefly to his lips before looking back to Trowa. "I'm going to go back to the place and see what Wufei's up to. I think Heero might be back, too. I want to find Lu, too."

"Righto," Trowa saluted him briefly—it was the sort of thing they did to each other to acknowledge intentions, but the little soldier-boys weren't aware of that. They all moved instantly to attention and saluted properly.

Quatre grinned at that as Trowa smirked at them.

"Hey, Cardle," Duo muttered as Quatre started off, "why don't you come here?"

"I'm sorry, sir?" the guy asked, looking a little flushed as he almost met Duo's eyes.

"Knock it off," Trowa muttered, smacking Duo. "He's just teasing you," he added. "Unless you wanna get laid by him just come on." He turned and started away as Duo smirked.

"And...if he wants to?" the third man asked curiously, looking Trowa over.

"Then stay and have a word with the good officer in uniform," he gave Duo a pointed look—then turned and started away.

The third guy grinned at Duo, then turned to go.

Quatre did, however, notice that Cardle hesitated the briefest of moments before following Trowa away.

"That was amusing," Duo noted, tilting his head as he watched them walk off.

"You're in uniform," Quatre smacked him in the arm. "Come with me back to the rooms..."

"I like the sound of that," Duo noted happily, following instantly. "What will we do in the rooms?"

Quatre turned and leveled him with a look.

Duo laughed delightedly, but held his tongue—and Quatre didn't see any particular point in pursuing conversation.