Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Garou ❯ Heatwave ( Chapter 25 )

Warnings for this chapter: 1x5 kind of lime, 1+/xS (yeah, S like Sally. Bwahahaha.), some violence.

There Is A Reason For Those Pairings.

Problem is, in the French version it was all in one big part. You had the explanation soon after. Here, you'll have to wait. Don't get pissy because you find that smutty or PWPish or I don't know what else. You did read the warnings, didn't you? If you didn't you should have.

And Heero doesn't love any of them anyway. You WILL have your 1x2x1 at the end ^_^

Heatwave

Howard slowly pushed the door open and walked in the darkened room without knocking, wanting to avoid waking up its occupant. He had to push his shades up to be able to see anything; the blinds were closed tight and not even a bedside lamp was turned on, so as not to disturb the boy who for once had found some respite in a pain-free sleep.

After a while, his eyes got used to the dark and he could see some shapes as furniture or people. A bed, in which a young man with his hair drenched in sweat was sleeping heavily. At the bedside, a young woman half asleep in an armchair, her head bowed low. And in the opposite corner, straddling a chair with his arms crossed over the back and chin resting on his forearms, the one the old man had been searching for.

"Duo?" Howard whispered.

Silently, the boy abandoned his vigil and walked to him.

"Let's talk outside," he advised in a whisper, pointing at the two sleeping people.

The braided pilot and the Sweeper leader got out of the room and Duo closed the door cautiously, and then turned to face his old friend.

"How is he?" the man asked, blinking against the return of the light.

Duo gave a long sigh and stretched, trying to work out the kinks in his muscles, which hurt after having been forced to stay unmoving for too long.

"For now it's good, he's between two fits. He's been sleeping for more than two hours, and we're hoping it will last a little while longer..."

Howard grimaced. They considered two hours of undisturbed sleep as big progress? It didn't presage anything good for the poor boy. Howard had never met the L3 pilot personally before today, but he had heard about it through Duo, and Duo's friends were his friends. And to know that one of those boys was suffering so much, when they had already suffered so much for the cause and in their life...

"And the young lady?"

"Cathy? She's so exhausted; I don't think she really slept since she got there. It's good for her to take a nap... she doesn't want to take turns like we do."

"And Quatre? Why isn't he looking after him too?" Howard asked after making sure that, for once, the blond wasn't sitting in the corridor.

Duo shrugged. "Trowa and him had words before Tro got ill. We're always telling Quat that he can come and help anyway, but he's forcing himself to respect Trowa's order... he's being so silly. Well..."

Biting his lip, the old man stared at his young friend. Duo looked tired; his eyes were surrounded by a large bruised-looking area.

"And you, can't you rest?"

"Not my turn yet, Howie, it's still my turn," the American answered with a tired smile.

"And the other two?"

"Wufei is sleeping in his room, he stayed up all night because Trowa went into convulsions. Heero... I dunno, but I think I heard him say that he was gonna check on the Gundams. But his turn comes after Wu's anyway..."

Howard sighed. "I suppose trying to convince you to go to bed won't be of any use?"

"Nope, not at all."

"Not even if Cathy is here?"

"Not even. She ain't strong enough to overpower him alone."

"Even if he's sleeping now?"

"He could wake up anytime, man," the braided teen objected.

The old man sighed again. "Would you see a problem in go with me to another room?"

"Why?"

"Sally suggested I ask you personally, about the illness. She was saying that it could need time. Come on, I wouldn't want to disturb Trowa's rest."

Stifling a yawn, Duo followed. They went to sit in the small TV room at the end of the corridor. Duo sat backwards in his chair again, balancing on two of its feet.

"My crew isn't at risk I hope?"

Duo snorted. "As long as they don't intend to get in a fight with him or any of the other boys and get bitten or beaten 'till they're all bloody... or to shag them rotten, no..." Duo announced, snickering at the idea of any of the Sweepers coming on to Wufei or Heero.

"Duo... This virus, what is it exactly?"

Putting the feet of his chair back on the ground, Duo looked at Howard, and all cheerfulness evaporated.

* * * * * *

The Japanese pilot swore when the drop of sweat rolled down his nose, and pulled on his tanktop to wipe it off. Then, keeping the material lifted up, he leaned against the metallic wall. A shiver of shock ran through his lower back when it came into contact with the cold metal, and he sighed. It seemed to help some.

But the wall warmed up faster than he thought, and Heero had to change places to find another section of wall that would be cool enough to be useful.

The sequence of actions lasted a good twenty minutes before Pilot 01 abandoned his futile effort to get rid of the oppressive heat and left the bay where his Gundam had been stored. The motors running in the machine rooms didn't help keep it at a bearable temperature, either.

Heero had been feeling warm since that morning. He didn't understand why; it was not really cold out, but not hot either; and some parts of the ship weren't heated and were situated below the sea level. It should have been enough to maintain the temperature at a bearable level ... Should have.

He felt slightly trapped in the ship, not really claustrophobic -- not yet, after all there was enough space and the place was immense -- but the simple thought that he wasn't free to walk away when he so desired, that there was water everywhere around him...Brrr.

But he didn't have a choice. There was plenty of space, but not enough to spend a good full moon. And on top of that there were Sweepers everywhere, which made the night of the transformation dangerous -- for the humans as much as for the Weres. But Howard had promised that they would drop anchor in a hidden bay early enough for tonight, and they could go and get lost in a forest... even if the old man didn't have a clue why. Duo had said that he would explain, but Heero didn't know if he had done that yet.

What had first only been an annoyance was progressively becoming something else entirely. Usually, heat provoked stupor, but now it was the contrary. It was not a real heat, now that he thought of it. It was more like a fever; a fire burning and frozen all at once.

He had felt energized from the moment he had awakened, so much that he had had to wisely renounce his coffee because it would only have made his situation insufferable, instead of just annoying as hell. He was slowly working himself into a frenzy, worse than Duo in his worst crises of hyperactivity. It wasn't a feeling of panic, not something negative, just... a feeling of fullness, of power, of possibilities, opened and unveiled bit by bit. But he didn't understand it and he couldn't see what was coming.

He felt something rising -- like the first time he had felt the Wolf -- a wave, powerful and ineluctable. But even the Wolf couldn't tell him what it was; it was still too dispersed. He was unable to stand still for more than a few minutes. He was full of anticipation, like a child would feel before going to a fair, maybe. Well, he had never gone to a fair, but Duo had described this kind of feeling to him. Heero was sure that he was right… it was anticipation, but he didn't have a clue as for what he was expecting with such fervor.

He felt warm, so warm that he went to the shower room with long, tense steps. Once in the shower room, he stripped out of his clothes as he walked, indifferent to the place where they fell, and fully opened the cold faucets. The ice cold water made him feel good... for five minutes. Then he got used to the temperature and the impatience reappeared. The ice-cold water, instead of refreshing him, whipped him even wider-awake and made his burning blood pump harder in his veins. No, this had been a bad idea.

Swearing and cursing, he abandoned his shower in a rage and left the shower room, his clothes in hand, as naked as the day he was born. He was too warm to put them back on and didn't want to drench them. When you were hot, wearing humid clothes only accented the unease anyway. He stalked towards the rooms the Gundam pilots had been given. As an afterthought, he snatched up a towel and tied it around his hips. He didn't want Howard to get on his case because he had flashed his men. It was a bad idea to indispose him; after all they were /on his territory/ his hosts. Bloody hell, how he wanted ...

He didn't run into anyone -- which was probably a good thing with the mood he was in -- as he stalked through the ship, reached the corridor where the rooms they had been given were, and glanced in passing through the half-opened door of the cabin which had been given to Wufei.

And felt like he had just been kicked in the guts. He stayed frozen, breathless and dazed, not understanding right away what had so surprised him.

The Chinese pilot was lying on his belly on the couch, reading a book, but that was not what had stopped him. It was a complicated cocktail, composed of the arched position of the Chinese teen's back, his white pants pulled tight on his hips, his thin reading glasses, and his dark unbound hair, floating freely on his shoulders.

There was no need to search anymore.

The cold burn had found its way out of his system.

Without thinking about what he was doing, Heero leaned against the doorframe and admired the view unabashedly. Up until now, he had never really thought that Wufei was attractive, not in that way at least. But that was due to his solitary and haughty attitude, his authoritative voice -- never soft -- always superior and sometimes frankly aggressive. But the tableau he was presenting now, unmindful of Heero's presence, suddenly brought to light a side of him Heero had never seen again since the return of his memories; a side that was... vulnerable... and attractive. Incredibly attractive.

Now that his eyebrows weren't bunched downward anymore, he could see the very dark color of Wufei's eyes, the length of his lashes, and now that he wasn't sneering contemptuously, or smirking, Heero could see the fullness of his lips.

Heero blinked. Wow. Strange reaction. He had never thought about Wufei in that light before.

He rarely took the pain of thinking about things as insignificant as his sexual orientation. But one day he had nothing better to do, so he had let his thoughts drift on the subject. Going there from Duo, of course. Who else could make him think about so frivolous and far away from his usual preoccupations?

He had compared statistics, probabilities, weighed opinions and documents, and the idea had come to him that maybe, he was not truly a homosexual… even if the only person for whom he had already felt lust happened to be a male. After all, he didn't mix with that many people with who he would have a chance to build that kind of relationship, and Duo was unique enough to make many people doubt their orientation. He was so different that a simple "boy-girl" tag wasn't enough to define him entirely. They spent so much time together in dangerous situations, it was more than enough to awaken some of the latent homosexual impulses that everyone obligatorily met at least once in their life, as straight as they usually were. Heero had stopped counting the number of times he had had to share the American's bed and had been glomped on. And if you were taking into account that Duo's nonexistent body-shyness didn't prevent him from strutting around in his boxers or even totally naked under his nose. And even if his body was definitely masculine, it was graceful and svelte in a troubling way. So, between agreeing that Duo was attractive and finding him attractive, there was barely a step.

But the simple fact of getting interested by Wufei now amply proved that he was, if not gay, at least largely bisexual. Wufei had never adopted the braided boy's flirty behavior. His face was beautiful and noble, but he definitely didn't have any physical trait that could belong on a girl, contrary to a certain other pilot who regularly despaired over it. No, Wufei was definitely all male... and a male of the dominant kind.

'Or else, I just have a particularly tenacious hair fetish,' Heero thought, smirking.

He immediately stopped those thoughts that led him nowhere and that certainly didn't help him get rid of his sudden desire, and stepped toward the other pilot. The other teen lifted his head and looked at him over the top of his glasses with an air that asked clearly: "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Wufei had felt his presence long before, of course. As long as Heero had been respecting his personal space, Wufei had acted as if the werewolf wasn't there; even if he had been wondering what the hell Heero was doing on his doorstep.

Heero stepped forward again, one hand on his hip.

Wufei pushed himself up on one arm to stare at him and frowned, but it was much less intimidating than usually, without a doubt because of the rebellious bang escaping from behind his ear to travel all over his face and the small glasses perched on his nose. Heero gave a barely-there smile, one that was appreciating and amused.

/Wufei wa kirei desu, ne/

"Did you want something, Yuy?" the black-haired pilot finally asked when he understood that his teammate wasn't intending on doing anything apart from staring at him.

"Yes," answered the Japanese teenager, leaning over the couch over where Wufei was still laying face down. Wufei's very position prevented him from moving away. Arched like that, he couldn't move higher anyway, and the only way to put some more space between them was to flatten on his belly on the couch, and for some reason he couldn't stand to even think about it.

/is he threatening me?/ wondered the Tiger. But Heero didn't seem especially aggressive, just...

/dominant/

"And what is it that you want?" asked ShenLong 's pilot quite brutally, annoyed more than he could explain.

Yuy's predator look /yes, that's the word, predator/ /I am a prey and he's a predator/ was already unnerving enough, especially when he could feel the weight of his stare travelling on his unbound hair, something that made him feel more open, frailer. But when his scent -- modified in a curious way -- invaded his nostrils, it was warm and full of nuances that made him react favorably, and Wufei felt himself blush bright red.

His unnerved state turned to apprehension.

'I'm somehow ... nearly... afraid. He won't hurt me, but still, I don't know, he's... making me worry'

/I'd be better off running away /

Slowly, deliberately, Heero let his eyes wander toward the bottom of the T-shirt, to the small of Wufei's back. The cloth there was pulling upward and a strip of skin was visible.

"What I want...?" he answered, echoing a question the boy had nearly forgotten having asked.

Wufei was feeling quite a funny tingle in his belly all of sudden.

And suddenly his jaw nearly fell on the ground, as if wanting to imitate the fall of the towel that covered 'had covered' the Japanese pilot's hips.

"You."

The book followed the towel on the ground.

* * * * * *

Tired of looming in the corridors around Trowa's room with his ears pricked up, the young Arab walked up to the deck and went to the gangway. Surrounded by mechanics, Howard was elbow-deep into a copter's guts. The boy, after having hesitated a few seconds, walked closer. He had to wait a few minutes before calling so the man wouldn't be in a position to get hurt if he took him by surprise; he remembered all too well the thousands of times one of the Gundam pilots had knocked their skull on something because someone had been come up behind them without warning.

"Mister Howard?" he finally said when the man slid out from under the motor.

The man with the goatee turned toward him, wiping his hands off in a rag, and stared at him for a few seconds. Uneasy, Quatre wondered what he was thinking about; it wasn't easy to guess behind his dark shades.

"Mister Howard, I have to go. Did... did someone explain to you?"

"Hmm..." the man in the Hawaiian shirt nodded and signaled to Quatre to wait, his face expressionless. His scent let through some unease, but nothing too serious.

"Guys?" he called. "I'm letting you continue alone two minutes, ok?"

"Ok, Howie," the mechanics answered without seeming to care about his departure.

The old man led the blond toward the gangway and turned to face him.

"Duo explained to me about the nature of the sickness. I admit I have trouble believing, but we'll know soon if I was just victim of the best prank since the last century. I wanted to know how your comrade was. Do you have any news?"

Quatre lowered his head. "Still asleep for now."

"You think he'll pull through?" Howard asked, dropping what he knew of tact.

"We don't know yet. We won't know before tonight. But I can't stand staying there and doing nothing, so..."

Howard nodded. "Yeah, maybe you're right to go run some so you can clear your head. But I wanted to know... Duo isn't contaminated?"

Quatre shook his head. "No. He's the last one not to be. We'll make sure he stays that way. You don't have to worry about him," he added when he felt the wave of relief mixed with embarrassment coming from the old man.

Howard nodded, pensive. After all, they wouldn't try to voluntarily contaminate him, but the others hadn't been contaminated by choice either. That werewolf disease looked worse than Mono on this point.

"Do you think he'd survive, if...?"

"If he's contaminated at the right time, sure. I survived and I'm not used to take pain like he does."

"Is there any way to know what he could be?"

"No...Well, there are clues, but it's a lot like trying to guess one's zodiacal sign from their personality."

"And he could be anything at all?"

"From what I understood... his inner animal can be anything. But... he will only be able to take on its shape if the animal is resilient and big enough."

"Meaning?"

"The weight of the animal has to be equal or bigger than the human body, or it doesn't work."

Howard frowned pensively and scratched his skull.

"I don't get it... how is it that one of the appearances is heavier than the other one?"

Quatre smiled tensely. Everyone thought about that first apparently.

"If it helps, Sally and the scientists all reacted the same way. No one understands how either, and some of them have a doctorate in medical science too," the boy added with a little smile.

The smile disappeared fast and he lowered his eyes. Howard frowned and stared at him. "Okay, kid. What's going on?"

"N... nothing," Quatre stammered, looking up at the old man.

"Like hell. You're walking around looking like your puppy was run over by a truck, you sigh hard enough for a windmill, and you drag your feet when you're walking! So don't tell me that there's nothing."

"How could I feel well with my comrade in such a state?" Quatre shot back, annoyed.

"True," the old man agreed, softening. "But this isn't just worry for a friend that I see," he added, brushing his thumb over the bunched up eyebrows of the teenager.

"It's guilt, sir," Quatre replied with irritation. "Okay? Guilt."

"It wasn't entirely your fault, kid, you know..."

"Ha!"

Quatre shook his head, refusing to look the old man in the eye. Couldn't Howard just let him go? He didn't need a shrink.

Sometimes the Arab dearly regretted the education that prevented him from just walking away.

"You feel guilty over Wufei's contamination, too?"

"Some, but it's not the same. It was an accident! I forgot to think that contact with my blood would be dangerous, but he had forgotten too, and he was the one to touch my wound... And his own transformation went over well, and he's adapting well to his new nature!"

"I can admit that Trowa's transformation isn't going well, but it's just bad luck... you didn't chose the date, and you contaminated him by accident, too. You didn't chose to! He didn't have any luck, that's all. It isn't only your own fault, you know, no more than with the Chinese kid."

"It's not the same at all!! You don't know what happened, how I contaminated Trowa. It's my fault, my fault, and what you can say about it won't ever change that!!!"

To hell with his education. Quatre dashed off toward the gangway, not paying attention to Howard's surprised shouting.

* * * * * *

Wufei still didn't understand why he had let Heero get away with anything when it ended; when -- after long minutes where they nearly fell in a recovering slumber, totally spent -- Heero finally succeeded in gathering some energy and slid out of him, and then let himself sprawl on Wufei's back, still panting.

They stayed in that position for a little eternity, front molded to back so tightly there wasn't a place where sweaty skin didn't meet sweaty skin, and then Yuy had hugged him briefly, hard, and slid his hands away from Wufei's body. He sat up and slid off the couch in silence, not knowing what to say, and contemplated for a few seconds the boy leaning on the couch. Wufei's eyes were closed, his breath still short, and his mussed up hair was hiding half of his flushed face. Heero nearly crawled back on the couch.

"Wufei..."

Heero fell silent. What had happened had been... so many things, a whole lot of novelties, of unexpected discoveries. Passionate, wild, nearly savage...

In fact, it had been the first time he had made something that could be called love, somewhat.

He had not been a virgin, no. Doctor J's training hadn't really left him a choice as for something that insignificant. After all, what was virginity worth? In his way of thinking -- which was finding ways to train the most efficient and obedient soldier -- absolutely nothing.

It was very simple when you looked at the problem under a tactical angle. First, Heero could have to extract information in another way than violence; maybe by proposing his body in exchange or simply by winning someone's trust to extort bedroom confessions, so he had to learn the mechanics of the thing, the ways to please a sexual partner, male or female. Second, rape was a torture method like any other, and like any other method, he had to be made as insensitive as possible toward it.

The only thing it had made him insensitive to was the possibility to appreciate one day, sexual contact where he wouldn't be in a position of control. /never again showing my belly to someone./

In fact, he had believed that this training had definitely damaged his capacity to look at sex with any other mindset other than a 'blasé and indifferent' one. If he still had some needs, it was just because of puberty and all those hormones. If sometimes he so wanted to touch Duo, it was only in search for comfort, for the simple pleasure born of human contact, and that he had neither want nor need to search for more as long as he could hold him... and kiss him, maybe.

Never had one of his trainers kissed him. What for?

And then that intense fire had spread in him without warning, and he hadn't thought about that at all; only about the fact that the Chinese teen was young and strong and graceful in a warrior's way and extremely desirable, and that he wanted him -- wanted to dominate him, wanted to capture, to captivate, to seduce him, wanted to learn his body, to make him scream and moan -- to get all the pleasure he could get from the boy, for himself as much as for his prey. Wanted...

But at any other time he knew that he wouldn't even have thought about touching Wufei in that way. And he remembered that he had felt that strange impulse long before being aware of the boy's presence. Chang had been at a good place at the good time... well, it would probably depend on the point of view. When Wufei would be able to think again, his Chinese counterpart would probably not agree with him.

Would he have taken anyone? He didn't think so. /especially not a non-were/ But still... it could have been dangerous.

He shook his head; those preoccupations weighted nothing in front of a new revelation.

He was still hungry for more.

The frozen burn had calmed down some -- nearly disappeared -- but he still felt the embers in him. And he knew that tonight, with the full moon, the animal in him would awaken them fully. And he would do it again with the first person he would manage to get his hands on that he found attractive enough...

"Hey, 'Fei...Wufei," he corrected himself, not wanting the other pilot to think he was disrespecting of him. "Domo arigato gozaimasu," he thanked, bowing formally, very serious, so that the other would know that he was not mocking him, that he didn't despise him. He didn't know if Wufei was conscious enough to even realize what he was doing but it was a gesture that -- his human side informed him -- needed to be done.

The Japanese let his fingers slide of their own will along the Chinese teen's back, forcing a shiver of sated pleasure out of his tired body, then bent forward, placing a fast kiss on the nape marked with the imprint of his own teeth. He was seized by the desire to nibble down on it again, to let his hands wander again, but Wufei wasn't in a good enough condition to fight a second round now...

/and for now I want to hunt/

* * *

The door closed slowly after the Japanese teen, and Wufei slowly turned his head toward the sound. He felt exhausted, mentally and physically.

The black-haired boy didn't understand what had just happened. He just didn't. Mostly because he hadn't recovered yet, wasn't yet able to think, and his body ground with a pleasure that had left him without any other thought than the more basic ones, reactions to the sensations that had invaded him.

His brain had refused to function the moment the werewolf had leaned over him, and he had let himself be dragged along without even having the time to think about protesting, without even remember the few reasons that would have been worthy of resisting. Well, he had protested and fought, but... it had not really been in order to escape his teammate's clutches. He had pretended that he wanted to get away, and the other had known that he was pretending. It was for dominance that he had struggled... and lost.

As soon as the scent had reached him...the scent, what had been so special about it? He wondered, his thoughts slowly wandering, nearly asleep. He tried to remind himself exactly what it had smelled like, and a spark of excitement ran up from the small of his back with the memory. It had almost been like always, but stronger... warmer, with a sharp musk-tinted side, and there had been a particularly important difference. It was something extremely perceptible, but he wasn't able to recognize it. It was a breathtaking, captivating, dizzying scent, which made him stop thinking with his brain and let his brutally awakened needs do the talking.

The only thing he was sure of was that whatever the scent was, it had put him in the mood might fast… as much as the teenager's intense eyes when he had leaned over him with that feral determination to make him his.

And then, the blissful exhaustion gave place to the slow awakening of his body... and of all the little pains that pleasure had anesthetized and transformed into a source of ecstasy.

His neck, nape and shoulders were covered in hickeys and bite marks. Not really deep enough to bleed, but most of the traces were still clearly visible and would take a long time to disappear. He glanced lower; he could feel bruises beginning to appear on his biceps, wrists and hips. And he would bet that they had the exact shape of Yuy's fingers, the ones that had pressed into his skin with a little too much enthusiasm .

True, at the moment it hadn't seemed so excessive at all. Quite the contrary, really. Just... just proof of his strength. It had been both frightening and intoxicating; an exhilarating feeling born of the knowledge that the wolf had him totally in his power and could break his bones with a single move, but he didn't, and contented himself with kisses and caresses that were brusque but never really violent.

And now, he was bearing the marks of that.

The worst-off part of him was still his poor ass, which he realized when he tried - very briefly- to sit up.

"Aow!" he yelped, executing a strange jump that repositioned him flat on his belly.

He felt his face burn, and lowered his head between his crossed arms, hiding behind his messy hair. His thoughts were a confusing jumble where the exact memory of what had happened -- and more specifically, the haste he had greeted it with -- and the remarks that could, and probably would, be made by some American person of his acquaintance when he saw how cautiously he moved around, met and mixed. He was seriously considering traveling with a cushion. He would have to be really careful about his facial expressions for a while if he wanted to sit down in public, or else his reputation would be definitely shot down.

And then, the hugeness of what had just happened truly hit him.

He had had sex with his teammate.

He had had sex with his MALE teammate.

He had had sex with YUY, amongst ANY teammate he could have had sex with, for the gods' sake! What the hell had gotten into him?!

... He groaned as the second meaning suddenly hit him, proving as true as the first.

It Was Not Wufei's Day.

* * *

A Sweeper who was walking in the corridor jumped when he heard a litany of Chinese words, mixed with the name of the Pilot 01. From the tone of the voice, they were not compliments. Then he heard sound of cushions hitting the walls, and then a yelp of pain, followed by another litany of words that he was sure hadn't even been in the first.

He shrugged and hurried past the door. Those pilots were so strange and moody.

* * * * * *

"Heero? Where are you going?"

The Were kept himself from jumping for Sally's throat by sheer reflex; distracted, he hadn't even heard her walk out of her study room. Restraining himself, he just bared his teeth in an aggressive display.

"Err, Heero? You look... ferocious, tonight," she remarked in a slightly circumspect tone.

He gave her a short bark of a laugh.

"It's the full moon tonight, Sally," he answered in a tone that subtly frowned on her ignorance.

"Oh. That why you're showing me your fangs, then?" she asked with a hint of sarcasm.

"I want to hunt," he growled without thinking.

To hunt her? She thought for a second, before firmly dismissing that idea.

The doctor stared at him in silence for a short while, noting the differences in the boy's behavior. His muscles were tense and bulging, his hands opened and closed by spasms, and he was balancing on the balls of his feet as if he was readying himself for a jump. He looked ferocious and so unstable. She felt like the littlest look would make him decide that she was totally acceptable as prey. After all, he truly was higher than a simple human in the food chain now.

Heero stared at the woman. He had intended on leaving right away, but his immediate reaction to the young doctor intrigued him. Sally wasn't really of interest to him; she wasn't able to satiate his need. She was pretty, in a way, had a toned body that curved in interesting places, had a strong personality, but she lacked something...

/her scent is too bland/

She wasn't a Were. There, that was it. She didn't smell like she should have. She didn't wear his own scent either, the scent of his packmates.

But she was caring for a member of his clan. She took care of Trowa. Therefore she was from his pack too, in a way, and he had had to accept her, since he was letting her touch a seriously sick packmate. So, she was a sort of... an honorary member?

She wore hints of Trowa's scent.

He stepped closer, silent, as if he was stalking prey, and she stepped back without thinking. He had smelled the hint of defiance in her scent from the beginning, and now he could smell fear, but it didn't surprise him. She would have been nuts not to be afraid. But being afraid of him and showing so little of it, he had to admit that he admired her guts. Not many people, male or female, had as much courage.

He leaned toward her slowly, his eyes half-closed, breathing in the smells emanating from her. For his hyperactive sense of smell, she smelled like drugs, lipstick and the black powder of her revolver, but under all that... Her hands, especially, wore Trowa's scent: the scent where the weak and suffering human mixed with the feral and wild Were. He clenched his teeth.

"He cannot die," he whispered without looking at her, his eyes still halfway closed. "He is from my pack and I can't do anything, Sally, but you can... and you will."

A threat? She tensed and stepped back once again. Sadly, apart from inside the wall, there was nowhere to step back to. The dark blue eyes in front of her were glowing with a very intense, very concentrated light. Yuy looked like a madman or an exalted, religious fanatical, and she wondered if getting out of her room and calling him was the idiocy that would cost her life. He was never really normal, but here, she was finding him singularly psychotic. But if she remarked on it out loud, he was liable to go postal on her.

He opened his eyes and realized that he was close enough to the woman that her body heat could reach him through the air that still separated them. The embers of passion warmed up slightly and he stared at her for a long time, his eyes searching hers. He lifted a hand, slowly, and brushed the doctor's face with his fingertips, staring into her slowly widening eyes with something akin to fascination.

'she's human, Heero, human ...'

/...yes, not from my pack, that's true .../

'... and it would be too dangerous for her. She's frail, and if I contaminate her, she can die... and if I am as brutal with her as I was with Wufei...'

Memories of a brief and violent encounter, bites, battles for dominance...

Wufei was a warrior on top of being a Were, resilient and strong, and full of a passionate fire. But Sally...

/can't hurt a female /

"Sally..." he hissed through his clenched teeth. "Sally, you go back to Trowa. You take care of him. You stop Catherine and... and Duo from getting out, all night long. You don't open the door to anyone. Especially not me. When Trowa begins to Change, you'll go in the other room and you'll leave him alone. I'll come to take him."

It almost physically hurt to add Duo to the list of people who had to hide from him tonight, but he knew that he didn't have a choice. Duo must NOT become a Were. Duo had to stay human. They needed at least one of them to be a full human.

But human or not, he was from his pack and he was strong and resilient and... and Heero had liked him for so long that there wasn't a need to ponder for long to see that if the American approached him now, he'd jump his bones in the second. For the moment, he was still sated from being with Wufei, but he knew that it would not keep him away for long if he could get his hands on the longhaired boy. He knew too that the urgency would only grow as the night came.

Would he have to go find Quatre, too, to dampen his thirst for... contact?

No... no, Quatre was like his little brother; not a potential mate. He would go hunt tonight, hunt and run and howl to the moon maybe, and tomorrow -- surely -- it would have left with the full moon.

"And find a way to tell the Sweepers. I'm going on the deck. I want no one to show up there. They stay in their rooms. And make sure that no one put their nose out after nightfall!"

Sally shivered when she realized that he was looking at her chest, as if he was wondering how it would feel to touch and was on the verge of testing; and she finally recognized what made the Japanese teen's eyes so intense. Desire… violent desire. She turned scarlet and wondered if she would be able to defend herself against him if ever he tried to rape her. Probably not. He'd dismember her if she dared lifting a hand against him, she knew. But in his eyes...

"Heero, what's the matter?" she asked in a totally professional tone, hoping that it would make Yuy come back to his senses. "Does the full moon always have that effect on you?"

He moved back his hand -- which had been oscillating very close to the woman's waist -- and punched the wall, making her jump. He bit his lips and pushed himself back, stepping away hastily before the compulsion pushed him toward the young woman again.

"No," he grunted back before turning away, his fists clenched to prevent himself from grabbing the woman with both hands. "It's worse tonight. And different."

"Why?"

"I don't know," he called as he was walking away. Then he added after a moment of thought, "I think I'm in heat."

Sally stayed propped up against the wall, shell-shocked.