Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ II. Mirror Maze ❯ Delusory Pursuit ( Chapter 6 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Delusory Pursuit

There was something about watching Wufei walk into the hotel with Duo that made Trowa want to laugh again. When the pair had walked into the lobby, he’d been waiting on the second level for the Chinese pilot to return, and hadn’t expected him to bring Duo.

In the end, though, his conclusion was, aside from suddenly looking like a deer in the headlights, that Duo didn’t look too bad. He looked generally healthy, not out of shape…and his hair was cut short enough that he could spike it easily, or wear it flat. He’d always had a vain streak about that, and keeping it short probably had the added bonus of being easy to maintain while keeping him from being overly noticed. Duo had loved his long hair, though, and Trowa was half expecting him to have another braid. Actually, if he hadn’t seen the cut off end himself in that hut in Natalie’s village, he wouldn’t have believed Duo would have cut it off.

He’d sort of wanted to catch Duo outside and see how terrified the guy would get, but he’d taken too long to get to and down the stairs…and out the door as it were. It was fine, though, because Wufei would realize that if he were getting out the doors at that point, then he’d probably seen who Wufei’d gone out with.

Trowa wasn’t sure if he wanted to announce to Heero that Duo was found or not, though. Heero was seriously messed up, and had as yet to understand that Quatre repeatedly saying him and adding in that they needed to find Wufei probably meant more than his ramblings. He usually had a level of consistency to what was coming out his mouth, even if what was going on in his head didn’t make sense.

Of course, now that Wufei had stormed into his own room and slammed the door, it left Trowa with nothing to really do…until he saw the spider. He watched the thing, about to squish it, then heard Quatre’s voice as he talked to Heero in their room.

The man smirked, picking the spider up by a few legs, moving back into the room.

“Hey, Tro, what’s up?” Heero muttered, looking up from the newspaper he’d been reading.

“Not much,” Trowa muttered, moving toward Quatre, who was sitting at the table under the window.

“What is that?” Heero demanded, focusing on the man’s hand and starting to rise as the small shape made sense. “Trowa…”

Trowa stopped as the blond looked to him with interest…and tossed the spider onto the table in front of the nut.

Quatre gasped and jumped back at the same time, a look of almost terror entering his eyes as he reached around and grabbed Trowa’s shirt. It was obvious that he couldn’t find his voice as the thing crawled quickly toward them and the assumed safety of the edge of the table.

Heero crossed the room and slammed his fist down onto the creature before it could actually make the blond freak out. He met the Quatre’s eyes, tilting his head slightly to indicate his action. “Squish it,” he displayed the mess on the side of his hand.

Quatre swallowed, looking to Heero’s eyes uncertainly.

Heero looked to Trowa, glowering at him as the other man just smiled. The whole thing where Trowa would purposefully scare Quatre with ideas and then bring a spider into the room was beyond the Japanese male. He couldn’t understand it at all…and adding into it that self-satisfied smirk just added to the confusion and anger. Heero straightened and wiped his hand on Trowa’s shirt as he shoved the man backwards a few steps, then started back for his newspaper.

“I found him,” Trowa noted, studying the smudge with interest.

“Really?” Quatre’s eyes widened slightly and he was obviously about to jump to his feet.

“Wufei?” Heero asked somewhat pointedly. “Where is he?”

“His room,” Trowa explained.

“Not Duo?” Quatre sounded disheartened.

“We’re not looking for Duo, Quatre,” Heero snapped irritably. “We came for Wufei.”

“No we didn’t,” Quatre muttered, frowning at him blankly.

Heero gave him a look and sighed, rising to his feet. “He’s in his room?”

“Yeah, he’s grumpy, though.”

“When isn’t Wufei grumpy?” Heero asked blankly, heading for the door. “Stay with Trowa, Quatre. I’ll be back in a while.” He left the room.

Quatre watched him leave, then looked back to Trowa in confusion.

“Don’t worry,” Trowa reassured the blond. “He’s here somewhere,” he nodded the same sort of confidential nod one would give a child and moved into the bathroom.

Quatre smiled again, turning back to his notepad…and started to sketch.

- -

“Tell him that I’m not getting very far,” I added to Hilde. I’d had to chase her all over the government compound, but had finally gotten her in an anteroom where she was supposed to be going over a speech. “I’ll figure it out, but it might take a while…and I’ll let you know.”

“If you find him you better not tell me,” she snapped back irritably. Her expression was extremely annoyed.

“Okay, fine,” I rolled my eyes. “Just tell him what I said, all right?”

“Fine…Wufei, I’m busy,” she shifted the papers in her hand.

I gave her a look and shook my head. She didn’t even tell me she’d see me later as I moved from the little room, and that was annoying enough without walking down about three halls and running into the three people I wanted to see least in the world.

“Come on,” Trowa muttered, grabbing at me. “We don’t want to miss the speech. Who knows who’ll be in there, huh?”

“Duo?” Quatre asked eagerly, looking to me.

Holy shit…

I tsked at them. “What the hell would Duo be doing in London?”

“He’s been on this kick since we left the base,” Heero muttered. “He thinks Duo’s here somewhere.”

Had he looked at my laptop? Or had this been Trowa’s doing?

The four of us moved toward the main room where people were filing in. I couldn’t break away from the lot now, and didn’t have anywhere to go anyway.

I knew where Duo lived…the search part was over.

Wading through the bureaucrats and assorted notables left much to be desired, but it was another instance of obligation.

I was obliged to deal with people I detested, obliged to serve the planet in times of war, obliged to pretend I gave a shit about what anyone else was doing when all I wanted to do was sit down with a buddy, drink a beer, and watch a damn football game.

Why did karma hate me?

Maybe I’d been a thief or something in a past life…or I’d raped some notable daughter…it had to be something stupid and petty to warrant this bullshit. I would have thought that fighting for a cause would have cleared me of my past misdemeanors, but hell, I wasn’t some cosmic being…

“Heero.”

We all looked to the not-so-pleased voice of Relena?? She was responding to Heero like that?

“Relena!” he returned, pleased, then probably realized her tone of voice because he receded slightly and looked down. “Miss Peacecraft.”

“Hello, Quatre, Trowa, Wufei,” she muttered, moving closer to us. “Sit with me?”

“Of course,” I returned, moving to follow her.

Heero hesitated behind us, then moved to join us. He hadn’t been specifically invited, but it would be assumed that he’d sit near the rest of our group.

“Why are you guys here?” she asked politely, glancing over her shoulder at us. “Last I heard you were all so deeply entrenched in Brazil that you were setting down roots.”

“Not all of us,” I noted, studying her face. “I still wander off fairly frequently.”

“You should move here,” she informed me pointedly. This was not a suggestion for the rest.

Did she realize what had happened before? Was that what this was? Did she have some sort of contact with Duo? Or did she talk to Hilde?

“I’m thinking about it.”

“No, Wufei,” Quatre moved closer to my side. “You can’t leave, too.”

“There’s nothing for me in Brazil,” I noted, meeting his eyes.

“What about me?” he asked quietly.

“Not now,” I ordered gently, refocusing. “How are you?”

“I’m all right,” she returned easily as Quatre receded. “I’ve been keeping busy.”

I nodded encouragement as she sat, sitting next to her. Quatre sat beside me, and Trowa beside him. Heero hesitated a moment, his expression back to that depression that he’d been in as he dropped down unceremoniously into his seat.

It was probably a good thing that he was as closed and internal as that, because I could see Duo on the upper level on the far left. It was a group that seemed to be made of Hilde’s closest advisors—so maybe it had been Duo leaving the office when Heero’s first call to Hilde had gone through.

At any rate, Quatre was made nervous by the crowd of people in suits, so he wasn’t making eye contact, and Heero was staring at the bench in front of him.

Relena started telling us about what she was doing as the room gradually grew fuller, and I pretended that I gave a shit more to keep Trowa’s attention than anything else. I had a feeling he might have seen Duo in the hotel, but he would never admit that to me, and evidently he hadn’t said anything to Heero.

“Relena?” Heero asked when the pair of us had fallen quiet.

“Yes?” she returned.

“Are you mad at me?” he asked, frowning as he studied her.

Relena looked his face over with a cold expression. “I’ve talked to Duo,” she informed him calmly. “He told me about living in Brazil.”

Heero blinked at her.

“He also told me about leaving Brazil.”

He started to pull himself up.

“And I will say that I’m quite disgusted to talk to you.”

That ended that right there. The way the woman said disgusted…it was a very precise pronunciation.

“What the fuck for?” Heero snapped, his hurt feelings turning to anger. “What did I do?”

“If you ever see Duo again,” she noted, meeting his eyes again, “which I doubt, you might get him to show you his back. I dare say there are some scars present that would go completely unaccounted for if the personal level of conversation were not present.”

“Tell me where he is and I’ll ask him,” Heero retorted pointedly.

Relena gave him a completely facetious smile, then focused very pointedly on the podium.

I had a very distinct feeling that she’d just made things worse.

- -

“And until he realizes that he was in the wrong, there’s no point arguing with him about it,” Hilde muttered to Relena. “You can tell him until you’re blue in the face, but that doesn’t mean he realizes that it’s morally retarded and socially offensive.”

“Morally retarded,” Relena repeated disgustedly, tossing a cherry pit into a bowl. “Spare me, Hilde. There’s no way the man can not understand that beating someone is wrong.”

“I don’t want to stand up for him or say he’s without blame,” Hilde muttered, “but he wasn’t raised right. All the psycho evaluations done on him say that his emotional state is akin to an eight year old’s.”

“Only he has the muscle to make it dangerous,” Duo agreed, moving into the room. He felt tired...beyond tired. He hadn’t slept the night before, and seeing Heero at the council was far from reassuring.

“Wufei wanted me to tell you that he’s not making any progress,” Hilde noted. “He said he’d figure it out, and he’d let me know. I told him he was stupid, because if I know he’s actually close to finding you I have to move you, but he wanted me to tell you all the same.”

“Thanks,” Duo muttered with a sigh. They were in a lounge that had closed down, sitting at the bar. “I’m shocked they didn’t see me.”

“Wufei might have,” Relena noted, not looking at the woman as she put another cherry in her mouth.

“I can’t believe he’s here,” Duo added, draping himself over the bar-top.

“I can’t believe the authorities haven’t scrambled to get you out,” Relena muttered, selecting another small treat from a small wooden bowl in front of her.

“My boy is in school,” Duo retorted. “I can’t just pick him up and drag him off because of shadows.”

“Heero said very specifically to me that if I’d tell him where you were, he’d have a talk with you, Duo,” Relena retorted. “That’s more than a shadow.”

Hilde plucked a cherry from the stem with a frown. “I have to do it, Duo…I have to move you.”

“No, you don’t,” he retorted.

“They could be waiting in the hall as we speak,” Hilde snapped, gesturing. “They’ve proven they can show up out of nowhere.”

“You’re not moving me,” Duo argued. “School is in full swing, and it would be cruel to yank Vasu out and go to…where was it? What was the next place on the list? Scotland?”

“Duo…”

“N o, I’m not doing it,” he snapped back. “You’re not the American consulate, you can’t order it, and if either of you try to I’ll end the sanctuary.”

“But then they could find you,” Relena protested.

“I’m not just picking Vasu up and moving when Wufei can still get them out of here…”

“What do you mean by that?” Hilde asked dryly.

“I mean that Wufei always tried to help, and he won’t want them to find me…”

“Don’t you mean Heero?” Hilde asked darkly. “You never say his name, you know.”

“It’s taboo,” Duo retorted snidely, taking a cherry himself as he leaned backwards against the bar and glared at the far wall. “Stop listening, Hilde,” he added, then looked to Relena. “I ran into Wufei on the way to pick Vasu up yesterday,” he informed the woman. “He came over to my house and talked to Nas, and Cam likes him…we were going to get his things from the hotel when the chick on duty told us that the other three had signed in. I was this close to meeting him eye to eye,” he measured an inch in front of himself with one hand before plucking the stem off his cherry. “I just…Wufei’s going to try to get them out of here. I don’t think the others realize he’s found me, but he knows where I am now and wants to move here with me.”

“Quite the relationship,” Hilde grumbled darkly. “You have the boyfriend with the spouse on the side, huh?”

Duo snorted at that, grinning slightly.

“You’re not gay, are you?” Relena asked, then thought with a tilt of her head. “No…it’d be bi…Cam is your biological son.”

Duo sniggered at that, rolling his eyes. “And I’m not either…neither is Wufei.”

“You sure about that?” Hilde demanded.

“I’m not talking to you about Wufei, Hilde,” Duo informed her. “I was talking to Relena about him.”

Hilde grinned slightly before glowering.

“Just give him a chance, please,” Duo muttered. “I don’t want to have to yank my poor boy out of school when he’s just starting to fit in.”

“Forty-eight hours, Duo. If they aren’t on plane out of here by,” she looked to her watch, “three pm on Sunday, I’m scrambling your safety. You have until two-fifty-nine on October tenth to put your affairs in order. That’s official.”

Duo sighed, looking away from her before nodding. “All right…all right…I’ll…can you warn Wufei? I don’t dare go near him.”

“No, I can’t,” she snapped.

“I’m going to dinner with him tonight,” Relena noted, eating another cherry.

“Relena,” Hilde warned.

“What?” Relena looked to Hilde curiously. “I’m just letting you know that I’m going to supper with Chang Wufei.”

Hilde gave her a look.

Relena shrugged at her innocently, then met Duo’s eyes. “Go home, Dugan. Try to rest.”

Duo sighed and nodded, then headed for the exit.