Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ In the City at Night ❯ Hell's Rest ( Chapter 34 )

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

Hell's Rest

Xane was in the kitchen when the door swung open, and he ducked down instantly.

"Okay," Heero's voice was slightly curious...though there was an edge to it. "Aren't we missing someone?"

"He's around," Jordan reassured him. "Where you at, mouthy?"

Xane stood straight to blink at well, first a dark bruise on Jordan's left cheek, then Yuy...and then Chai.

"Hi!" she exclaimed happily, sweeping into the apartment and bouncing to Xane to hug him. "It's too quiet without you guys around," she added, moving to the others.

"We miss you too," Judas returned, hugging her back.

"You're finding stuff out though, right?" she demanded marginally pointedly.

"Well, sort of," Riley shook her head. "Everything's sorta iffy."

"Highness," Xane gasped as Relena entered the room. He'd been born and raised in the Americas, but his parents had actually been Sanq citizens, and seeing their queen suddenly appear in his doorway...

Riley, Danielle, Judas, and Raul hopped to their feet immediately, eyes wide.

"Hi," Relena returned to the boy, smiling at him before turning to look almost incredulously to Hilde and Noin.

"Wow, you're cute," Noin noted, moving closer to him. "I love your eyes..."

Xane realized he should probably blush at that, not smirk, but what was done was done. He blinked as the little boy Zachary moved into the room, then Shin herself. Heero's girlfriend greeted the green-eyed male with as much enthusiasm as Chai before also sweeping across the room. It was somewhat obvious that she was messing around, as opposed to Chai's genuine pleasure.

"I bet it's you that Chai rolls her eyes about," Noin noted, moving even closer to him as Shin disengaged and Jordan started introducing the group around.

Xane shrugged noncommittally, then blinked as she grabbed him by the chin and studied both sides of his face.

"It is," Heero agreed, moving around her and digging into his pocket. He pulled out a simple chain with a smaller medallion on the end and offered it to the boy.

"What's this?" Xane asked, blinking as the woman settled back a step.

"That's...a tracker, isn't it?" Noin sounded confused. "Why are you giving him a..."

"Shht," Heero cut her off before she could finish, giving her a pointed look. "Later, when Jordan's not around."

"What about me?" Jordan asked, turning back to them.

Xane dropped his hand out of sight, "I've just been informed that our precious angel," he moved around the room to drape an arm across Chai's hips, "rolls her eyes when I come up in conversation." He tucked the necklace into his pocket before it could be noticed.

Chai giggled and ruffled his hair for it, though she didn't attempt to pull away.

"You better watch yourself, boy," Jordan informed him, pointing at him in warning. "And if she says anything..."

The girl broke into naughty laughter as Riley, who was tired, settled back into her seat. She sat forward to show she wasn't blocking them out, and a moment later, Raul was also sitting. Judas shrugged to Danielle then resumed his seat as well. Danielle grinned at them, rolled her eyes in Xane's general direction, then sat herself.

"Building's secure, sir," a man noted from the door before anyone could speak, saluting to Heero as he stepped into the room.

"Good," Heero nodded. "Place a guard, but only stop people trying to come this way."

"I know Angels, sir," the guy muttered.

"Good," Heero gestured a dismissal and the man disappeared.

"What's this?" Xane asked, pulling away from Chai to poke his head into the hall...there were a few soldiers in it. He pulled the necklace on, studying the medallion a moment, then tucked it away as he turned back to the room.

"We have Relena Peacecraft in the building," Heero's tone was slightly sarcastic. "The building is secure."

Xane snickered, moving back and grabbing the back of Jordan's jacket as he passed. He hadn't thought about it, of course, it was just a reaction of not seeing the man in several days. The act, though, got a pointed smirk from Chai and a confused look from the woman standing beside Heero.

"That's Lucratzia Noin," Jordan added to him, indicating her. She was shorter than Xane, but her manner was not meek in the way of some women. She was very present where she stood, and also very comfortable.

Xane stopped to stare at her in disbelief as the name connected to the trainer of special force units. She had a familiar face, but he'd just assumed she was somehow tied to Relena. Hearing who she really was made him realize he hadn't even saluted her yet. He remedied it quickly as the others in his group jumped to their feet again.

The woman smirked, winked, then moved by him to the rest. "I hear the lot of you are useful to have around," she noted. "So I'm very interested in making friends. I need good people from time to time, and I know that if one of the Gundam pilots has their claws in you, you're not going to be useless frops...'cept maybe pretty boy back there."

"Hey!" Xane protested.

Heero gestured Xane closer, and the boy pouted obviously a moment before joining the guy. "That necklace is waterproof, so don't take it off to shower...or even to fuck, I'm serious. You never know when they'll grab you, and Noin might be able to see things for what they are, but..."

"What are you whispering to him?" Jordan demanded, turning to look at them again.

"Wouldn't you like to know," Heero teased, smirking slightly predatorily at his friend.

"I can get my answers from him, Chance," Jordan half muttered to indicate it wasn't a comment for the rest. "It's just faster to ask you."

The truth in that statement made Heero wonder how the guy would react once he found out about Corringer's threat. He grinned even more at the prospect of Jordan going postal again, then wondered if that was a bad thing to find amusing. It didn't matter. He adlibbed quickly, "James had a personal message for him. I didn't think it needed to be general knowledge."

Jordan rolled his eyes slightly, turning back to the main of the room again.

"He wants you to dump him, you realize that don't you?" Heero asked quietly. "James has this way of getting on his nerves...don't know why."

Xane considered that a moment, wondering how much of Jordan's drunken rant would be appreciated. That had been why Jordan had said the things he'd said on their walk home. Xane hadn't immediately noted the man's sway, and since he'd had plenty to drink himself, he hadn't smelled the stuff on the guy's breath...but hindsight. Hindsight's twenty-twenty.

"I'm gonna go get things moving," Jordan muttered, thinking a moment before jerking his head to Xane, indicating the boy should follow. "We'll be back in a while."

Relena, Hilde, and Noin watched them leave with interest before looking around to Chai...who rolled her eyes.

Riley sniggered.

"Bonding is just so cute," Heero muttered sarcastically, moving to scoop up Zach. The three year old had been moving around the living room and looking from person to person.

"How old is he?" Relena muttered, realizing she'd never heard the child's age.

"Three," Shin replied, moving to sit next to Judas.

"How long have you two been together?" Hilde demanded, blinking between them.

"About three years," Heero noted, blinking at them.

"Is he yours?" Relena demanded in disbelief. There was enough of a resemblance in the child's face that it was entirely plausible.

Heero stared at her in utter disbelief.

"I thought the same thing," Danielle noted, then shook her head. "He swears up and down she was pregnant when they met."

"She was," Heero muttered, blinking at the girl, then looking around to Relena again as the idea fully formed in his mind. It wasn't the first time someone had thought Chip was his, but there hadn't seemed to be a lead up to the question. "Two months or so, weren't you?" he added to the Chinese girl.

She nodded, smiling slightly at him.

"Where's Wufei?" Danielle muttered before anyone could ask the woman who the father was. She had a feeling they didn't want to know, or maybe Shin herself didn't know. "He's coming, isn't he?"

"You shittin' me?" Heero teased with a grin. "He was ripping up the wallpaper last night in agitation. Unfortunately, he had to wait for the second round of trucks. They'll be here in about twenty minutes...I'd imagine."

Danielle pouted.

"Ah, so you're the daisy girl," Relena muttered with a smile, moving around to study her with interest.

Danielle smiled slightly, "He told you?"

"Trowa did, actually," Noin returned. "Tro refers to you as the daisy girl."

That got a bit of a giggle, then more of a pout.

"We've been here for about a three weeks," Raul explained with a grin. "She's only got to go back to base about once. They're both dying."

"So what's the story with green-eyes?" Hilde muttered, gesturing with her head toward the hall.

"Mouthy is a physical person," Chai explained, moving around toward the kitchen. "He touches, and that's an affection Jor can't seem to get enough of."

The girl accepted that, looking around as Raul started muttering to Shin and Judas bounced across the room to join Chai.

"You really worried about them?" he asked, "Jor said..."

"I tease him," she explained with another smile. "He's not into guys, so it's not like it's a genuine concern. I think it's funny that they're all touchy feely. Not very masculine, if you ask me."

Judas smirked and ran a hand down her face.

Chai giggled at him, then smacked him for it. "I never said you were masculine."

He laughed happily at that, pretending to pout at her.

"What food do we have?" she asked, winking as she started looking around the kitchen. "I think we're all considering being hungry."

X x X x X

"So here's the deal," Heero muttered, having finally pried Xane off of Jordan. It'd only taken him an hour or so. "I told you earlier the tracker is waterproof," he started as they moved down the street toward the building Jordan was buying. "You need to keep it on, which is a given, but I have the program for it loaded in my phone," he flicked through his menus and displayed the screen to Xane.

There was a small red light flashing in a picture that otherwise made no sense.

"You have it on, right?" the man added, zooming down so you could see the label of 'hell on earth.'

"Yeah," Xane agreed, pulling out the little thing and showing it to him.

"The chain is made of Gundanium," Heero noted, glancing at it. "I had a fuck of a time making it."

"You made this?" Xane was startled.

"Well, there's a jeweler's shop on base, and when the notion of Jor going postal again hits me I get insomniatic. I figure they can't just yank the chain off, it'd decapitate you first."

"Oh, now that is a lovely idea," the words somehow failed to reassure Xane, who lost the bit of pleasure of it being made for him. The notion of losing his head was enough to quell the bit of gratitude he'd been about to express.

Heero sniggered slightly. "I thought you might appreciate it. See?" he tilted the screen of his phone for the green-eyed male to see again.

This time, the image was obviously a map. It amused Xane somehow to see that the building they were heading toward was marked with the label "devil's rest".

"Eastland and I were fucking around before I loaded the program on my phone," the man noted with a grin, wondering how much further in the satellite photo would zoom. "I was with him when I decided to load the program."

"Eastland?" Xane asked, blinking, "You mean Duty?"

"Yeah?" Heero asked in return, frowning slightly.

"What did you tell him?"

"About what?" Heero wasn't entirely sure why his companion seemed lost, which in turn made him lost. It was almost like the conversation was going right over both their heads.

"About the program," Xane snapped. "Doesn't he have a tech degree or something?"

"Something like that," Heero agreed, then shrugged, "I still don't get..."

"Wait," Xane stopped, grabbing Heero's arm to stop him as he processed a few more ideas, "Duty knows?"

"That's how I made sure you weren't followed to your parents' house," Heero studied him. "He's...he got upset at the idea."

"And that doesn't seem wrong to you?" Xane demanded, allowing his voice to rise. He was feeling frustrated and confused, and somehow like he was doing Jordan a disfavor. "You just tell whoever the fuck you want to...and we can't tell Jordan? The one person who needs to know about it? Especially since he's figured half of it out himself?"

"It was my call to make," Heero noted, studying him. "You have a problem with it?"

"I've always had a problem with it," Xane retorted irritably. "Jor's gonna be pissed."

"But not psychotic," Heero crossed his arms. "You don't want to see what he'll do if he finds out before you're nabbed."

"Darwinian proportions?" Xane retorted, thinking to Tirone's words. "Heero," he focused again, "I don't care what he's likely or unlikely to do. We can assert some control over him..."

"Whoawhoawhoa," Heero cut him off, stepping back slightly, "Back up here, cowboy. What do you mean, we? What do you mean, assert some control?"

"We can talk to him," Xane pressed, moving closer again. "Come on, it's not like he doesn't listen..."

"Which makes it worse," Heero snapped, grabbing the guy's right upper arm and leaning closer to him. "He'll hear you out, acknowledge your opinion, and do it anyway. You don't know Duo...you don't know...shit, my comment about him being psychotic completely glanced off you! I'm not talking about him just being really pissed, here, Xane. Duo's not psychologically well."

That brought a pause as Xane connected Duo with Jordan again. He didn't think of his superior as the famed Duo Maxwell.

"And there's no we to it," Heero added, backing off again. "I'm saving us all a lot of heartache by taking care of this myself..."

"Until I get nabbed," Xane noted, not moving. "I have to pussy-out if the situation gets difficult, and that may be the point when I'm needed most...but..."

"Atrocity, Xane. A-trah-ci-ty," Heero drew the word out pointedly. "Do you need the definition here?"

"I can deal with torture!" Xane shouted at the man as the couple months of aggravation hit him again.

Heero stepped forward...and swung.

Xane reeled, falling back against the building and further onto his ass. He stared at the suddenly very close sidewalk as he tried to connect what exactly had happened, then why it had. The elbow he was leaning against was throbbing, since it'd hit the wall, he'd basically landed on it.

"Granted," Heero noted in a very low voice, "I'm stronger than all of them...but do you still honestly think you could deal with that kind of thing non-stop?"

The green eyed male pushed himself up slightly, shoving his jacket sleeve up to look at a bleeding wound on his elbow.

That had hurt...

Heero kneeled down in front of him, offering him a packet of sanitary wipes. "Sorry," the pilot added quietly, not quite meeting his eyes. "You just have to think these things through a little more."

Xane took the wipe and tore it open, starting to wipe the elbow down. Finally, he raised his eyes to study the man's face, not sure what to say, or even what he felt.

"Here," Heero added, taking the thing from him and holding it in half with a sigh. Xane flinched when he initially moved toward his face, but refrained when Heero persisted. "You don't get what people like him can do to completely innocent people," the man added, thinking to Zachary Baits...Tirone.

He focused on what he was doing again as he shook his head a bit. He hadn't meant for a backhanded blow to draw blood, or even realized he still had that particular ability. He was going to hear about this from Jordan, and the man might even start a fight, considering his reaction to the idea of hitting Xane...yeah, there was definitely gonna be a few more blows over this one.

"I'm sure your logic is fine," Xane muttered, flinching slightly at a thread of pain that was instantly apologized for. "But...come on. I was just threatened...if he can get me. If we tell Jordan that much..."

"You know that woman up there, Hilde?" Heero muttered, settling back and folding the wipe back up to shove in the packet. "She was his girlfriend back in one-nine-seven. It was late that year when she was taken. Jordan, on his very own, slaughtered twenty-seven people...all men from ages eighteen to forty-five. The place was a blood-bath...and even he was covered in blood. He had three magazines on him when he went in and no one's sure how many he ended up using since he took and used the magazines of the men there. It took him...twenty minutes," he decided as he thought back. "Twenty minutes to kill twenty-seven men."

Xane was staring at the sidewalk.

"He has no remorse, Xane. None whatsoever. I know Corringer's bunch are wrong, but they don't deserve to be murdered...not like that. There are more of them, too...and if you are taken, god-forbid...if you are taken...I'll give him my tracker."

"But why can't we tell him?" Xane hissed back, meeting his eyes. "It's just a passing threat..."

"Because atrocity makes it more than a passing threat," Heero shifted back on his heels a bit, studying the younger male seriously. "His choice of phrasing...and the idea of doing it to keep us docile...Jordan was out a long time. Angels," Heero looked the buildings they were near over, "Angels made him hard. He's not the same guy he used to be, and while he doesn't seem so fit to snap anymore...there's an entire possibility that he'd decide that the threat to the line and the threat to you were worth their lives."

"Isn't it?"

"No," Heero said firmly, still studying the younger male. "It's not worth a cold-blooded fight where he'd kill everyone unless he himself was killed...and that doesn't need to be tagged into your psyche."

Xane looked away.

"You can trust me," Heero added, extending his hand as he rose to his feet. Xane studied it like he wanted to refuse it, then sighed and accepted the hand up. "I know that it has to be hard on you. Your first loyalty is to Jordan...but we don't know him anymore, and that doesn't bode well considering what he used to do."

"Why did you hit me?" Xane muttered, realizing that if Heero'd wiped it and it stung, there'd definitely be a mark.

Heero almost reminded him of what they'd been saying, then realized the reality as well. Jordan was waiting for them at their destination, so that meant they had maybe five minutes to make up the story.

"I...said something...something about Relena," Xane decided, meeting his eyes. "Inappropriate comments concerning her person...it was a reprimand and you didn't man to hit that hard."

"I didn't mean to hit you that hard," Heero noted. "What comment would it have been?"

"Something sexual," Xane muttered, touching his cheek gingerly and flinching. "That smarts..."

"That was the point," Heero reminded him, smiling slightly and sighing. "He's gonna kick my ass."

"I hope you don't mind my saying it," Xane noted, moving slightly away to give himself more room to dodge. "But I hope he does."

X x X x X

There was something altogether amusing about Xane showing up with a gash along his cheekbone. Not because the wound itself, though, but because Jordan's reaction.

Quatre watched in amusement as the formerly-braided male turned to the two men with a smile on his face and froze completely. His emotions flicked through the entire range before finally focusing on anger as he looked to Heero.

Heero was massaging his knuckles.

"Jordan, wait..." Xane started, dodging forward...but not quite fast enough.

The anger and anticipation of the anger slammed into each other as Heero stepped back to prepare for the blow, and at the same time, Quatre swooped in and pulled Xane away. Like a pair of vicious dogs sharing the same space, Jordan and Heero lashed out at each other with snarls.

Almost in that same motion their hands met and they grappled against each other as they toppled to the floor...poor Zachary, who had been sitting at a play-station while his mother organized the toys a few feet away, darted to hide his face in his mother's skirt.

"Chance!" Shin protested. "Jordan...come on..."

Neither were phased by the words as Xane stared at them in disbelief...and Jordan broke free, punching Heero in the face hard...just the once.

Heero groaned, moving his hands to the face as Relena, Noin, and Chai spilled into the room to stare.

"He's fucking mine," Jordan snarled in French, kicking Heero's side. "Don't fucking touch him."

At least, Quatre thought that was the general meaning. His French wasn't great.

"Are you all right?" Jordan added, focusing on Xane and moving toward him. "What happened?"

"Shoot first, ask questions later," Quatre noted somewhat smugly as Shin moved in to help Heero. "Doesn't that usually get you in trouble?"

"Heh, whatever," Jordan turned past them toward a trashcan, which he spit in.

"That went past the cut," Paris noted, moving forward to look between the pair. "That was more than just Mouthy."

"They both want to be top-dog," Quatre explained, moving away from Jordan again. "You can't have two lead-dogs on the team unless they're muzzled."

"I told you we should have brought them," Trowa noted from a hall he'd come down at the fuss. "Why didn't you grab them?"

"I didn't think there'd be an issue where we needed them," Quatre admitted, frowning slightly.

"I'm still really likely to kick someone's ass," Jordan spat at his friends.

"Knock it off," Chai snapped, moving forward toward him. There was a quavering note in her voice, but she stood her ground.

Jordan focused on her in disbelief. "He hit Xane," Jordan's voice raised as he spoke, though he wasn't looking at her. "I got pissed at him for suggesting it and..."

Chai shifted slightly nervously as the rest in the room noted that her chest was heaving...not to mention the wave of almost palpable anxiety that Quatre and Paris were exposed to.

"Maybe you should ask your boy why I hit him," Heero shot at the man. "Your precious little angel has a mouth that I don't appreciate."

"I told you," Jordan wasn't quite shouting. "That's not..."

"I said knock it off," Chai snapped at him, her voice quavering very slightly.

And that was when Quatre realized she was testing her power over him.

This boded well. The blond glanced nervously to Paris.

"I'm not saying he was in the right," the girl added quickly, "I'm just saying that you need to st..." she swallowed, clenching her slightly shaking hands, "stop." Her voice had risen very slightly on the last word, and it had seriously come out more an order...which explained why she'd stumbled over it.

Jordan looked away from her, shaking his head.

Heero hadn't noticed the girl's hesitance, rising from the floor and opening his mouth.

"Don't," Chai ordered him, turning on him as the quaver became a bit more evident. There was some fear in her now. "Just leave it lie."

"He just fucking attacked me!" Heero half-shouted at her. "He didn't even ask!"

"Hey," Jordan started, moving forward, "Don't fucking raise your voice to her..."

"Stand down," Noin snapped at them both.

"But..."

"He..."

"I didn't ask," she snapped, looking between them both with narrowed eyes. "Pissing contests go outside."

They both stopped, staring at her with anger. They were pissed.

"Get away from each other now," she snapped, glowering at them in turn, then blinked at Chai. "Jordan, take your girl somewhere private before she passes out...Heero, look after the boy."

And that was the key. Distraction.

Quatre smirked at Noin as the guys separated in opposite directions.

Noin shook her head. "Sometimes," she muttered, shaking her head with a sigh. "Sometimes I'm glad I have to deal with you shit-heads on a regular basis."

"Hey!" Quatre protested.

X x X x X

E/N: Insomniatic is not a real word. mwhahahaha.