Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Justitia ❯ Chapter 12

Justitia 12: Panic- A sudden, overpowering terror, often affecting many people at once.

Trowa had lost track of Wufei at some point after the first half hour. He didn't immediately go looking for him, taking the time he had to speak with friends he had not seen in far too long, reminding himself Wufei would be going home with him and he would have the whole night to make sure everything was alright. His curiosity didn't get the better of him until close to midnight, at which point Une was making sounds as if she was ready to leave, looking around for an equally inconspicuous Marie. They shared a knowing look and departed from the conversation to go looking.

It wasn't until Trowa realized he had looked in every room of the house that he started to panic. He wondered if maybe Wufei had tried to walk home and wrenched the door open and check outside.

Marie and Wufei looked up at him in surprise from where they were huddled on the front step. He caught sight of a small games Compaq in Marie's fist and just stood there, trying to get his brain to function normally but all he wanted to do was laugh because he had come so close to panicking and they both looked so thoroughly innocent it was almost scary because both were anything but.

Wufei suddenly smirked at him and Trowa knew he knew but he didn't care. Rather, he opened the door a little wider and let Une out, Duo appearing at his side to thank her for coming and tossing Marie a chocolate éclair. Trowa waiting until they were gone until taking his leave as well. Duo looked more than a little disappointed and even cast a strange glance at Wufei but Trowa frowned at that so darkly he said his goodbyes and went inside. Trowa studied Wufei carefully, looking for any sign of earlier panic. It was still there, but subdued and trodden all over by Marie no doubt. Sighing heavily, he sat down on the step at Wufei's side, wondering if Wufei even realized the cement was cold.

"Interesting night."

Wufei snorted, looking down at his shoes. Trowa could already see the lines forming to match Wufei's feet and wondered what he was doing with his feet to break them in that quickly but didn't ask.

"Sorry."

Trowa just looked at Duo's filthy car parked in the small driveway and sighed, shaking his head. Wufei had nothing to be sorry for. He had wanted to show Wufei he was not alone; that there was a small network people who were there for him. But there wasn't. Wufei had been right. Even to Une he and Marie were outsiders; they were the ones who dared to break the peace and he doubted anything could ever erase that from people's minds. Still, he had noticed Heero casting sideways glances at Wufei at the beginning of the night and there had been something in his eyes, an awareness mixed with desire for something that made Trowa hope that there might yet be a way to fix things.

"Let's go home."

Wufei smiled at that, a tiny, secret thing that made Trowa want to reach out, but he had been doing quite enough of that, and yet not enough. Never enough. Still, he had the sneaking suspicion he was starting to drive Wufei up the wall, so he decided to at least wait until they were somewhere private. Home sounded like a damn good idea.

Wufei went to stand up and damn near fell flat on his arse again, Trowa barely managing to snag hold of his arm as his leg buckled. Trowa chuckled lightly at the look on Wufei's face, endlessly amused by his new housemate. Wufei snagged back his arm and managed to walk to the car without incident but Trowa thought he was justified in grabbing Wufei's meds the moment he walked through the front door of the apartment. Wufei didn't look happy, but Trowa didn't care. He just smirked and walked to the bedroom, shedding clothes all the way there, collapsing face down on the bed when he managed to get down to just his jeans. He couldn't be bothered getting changed. Duo somehow always managed to exhaust him by doing nothing except stand there talking. It was one of the great mysteries of the world, he was sure.

Wufei stood in the doorway, looking from the bed to the couch and back. Trowa lay still as he watched the indecision there, saw the internal war happening on the facial features and then hid a small smile in the quilt as Wufei came into the bedroom, tossing the jacket in the corner as if it weren't the most expensive article of clothing in the whole house. The white shirt landed somewhere out of Trowa's line of sight. He noticed Wufei had not bound the injured arm again but didn't comment, not wanting Wufei to have a sudden change of heart.

Trowa studied the slow rise and fall of Wufei's back and momentarily thought he was asleep until he realized it was too perfect; a meditated response to fool anyone watching that he was asleep. It was a field trick they had all used at some point and it hurt Trowa to see how permanently engrained it was in Wufei.

He reached out and traced the fresh wound on Wufei's arm, sensing no unnatural heat, no sing of infection. Wufei turned to watch him but it didn't deter Trowa how just let his fingers trail further down, over the elbow and onto the scar that he knew Wufei perceived was the heart of his shame. The key to his weakness. It almost made Trowa laugh, because he could imagine all too well what he would have done had their roles been reversed. Only Wufei would have arrived to take the gun off him.

If only.

"Heero doesn't hate you."

Wufei winced, pushing his legs under the blankets and squirming into a more comfortable position, trying to get Trowa to drop the subject.

"He's afraid of you."

Wufei frowned at that, finally settling down, staring at Trowa in the dark, eyes dark and filled with something darker. Trowa squirmed a little closer, closing the space between them so he could put his head on Wufei's pillow, almost nose to nose. There was a scent to Wufei that drove him mad. He wasn't even sure it was smelt, just that it was there, in the background always. Almost as if the past stank, clinging to him in thick wafts, but Trowa didn't mind it. He rather liked it because it made up the whole.

"Heero Yuy," Trowa chuckled, "follows orders. People tell him what the right thing to do is and he goes and does it."

Wufei shrugged, looking a little uncomfortable and Trowa guessed he didn't usually sleep on this side but was being forced to by his hip. He decided to eventually swap sides of the bed so he could still sleep this way, watching Wufei sleep.

"What's your point?" Wufei yawned sleepily. Trowa couldn't stop running his fingers over the scar, getting to know each raised and broken stretch of skin, mapping it out until he could reproduce it perfectly in his mind. It was beautiful, in an odd way, like the Dry Valley's in Antarctica had been beautiful; they enhanced the quality of the rest and were a reminder of the hardness underneath.

"My point is that Heero follows orders, but he can't make orders. He knows right from wrong when you tell him what it is, but he can't make that decision on his own. His scars won't let him."

Wufei inhaled more sharply than normal, eyes narrowing until they were almost shit, dark lashes stark against pale caramel skin.

"Chang Wufei," Trowa noted idly, wanting to drive the point home, "cannot take orders." Wufei snorted and Trowa chuckled, reaching out to stroke one of the bullet scars in Wufei's chest.

"I can," Wufei admonished, but it was weak and sleepy and they both knew he was only arguing because he didn't want to hear it and they both knew Trowa would argue because of that.

"No. Chang Wufei never stops thinking about right or wrong and all he can do is make the right decision." He smiled as Wufei scrunched his face up, sensing the heat radiating from Wufei's embarrassment. "And so Heero is afraid of you, because he remembers that day and knows that you were right."

Wufei curled in on himself at that, legs coming up toward his chest. Trowa smirked as he shifted so Wufei's feet were resting on his knees. He just ignored the glare he got for his efforts.

"I was wrong."

"No, you weren't. If it hadn't happened; if they were still out there, waiting for their chance, what do you think the world would be like? We wouldn't even have the Gundams to stop them. You made the right choice, Wufei, and just in time."

Wufei sighed heavily and Trowa would have given anything to know his thoughts, but all he could do was be there and be content knowing that was more than he had been a week ago. More than anyone had been.

The broken, non-meditative rise and fall of Wufei's chest eventually lulled him to sleep.

He woke with a fright, sitting up instantly and jerking off to the side of the bed, fearing the worst, but when he looked down Wufei was sound asleep and perfectly still, not a single sign of nightmare. Frowning, Trowa let the sounds around him sink in and realized the phone was ringing, muffled through the bedroom door. He had never gotten from his bed to the kitchen so quickly in his life, terrified Wufei would hear it and wake up from the first real night of sleep he had had in days.

He hit the accept button, glancing over at the clock and frowning. It was four am. Why was Une calling him at four in the morning? He looked up to see her looking like someone had just torn her out of bed, still in her pajamas, hair out and sticking up in all directions. It was the most disconcerting image of her he had ever seen and he reminded himself to either banish it from his memory of one day tell Wufei about it and order a commission.

"Trowa, get Wufei."

Trowa was instantly awake, eyes narrowing a the pile of work on Une's desk. And this was just her home desk.

"Why?"

Une just glared at him but he glared back. He wanted a damn good reason, and he wanted in. This was not normal and they both knew it.

"Trowa, get Wufei," Une ground out and it was only the way her voice wavered slightly on Wufei's name that made him go. He crawled onto the bed and didn't even bother waking him up, just lifted him off the bed and walked back out to the phone. They were halfway there when Wufei's eyes opened and he looked blearily about, trying to get his bearings. Trowa made a mental note to make Wufei eat more, figuring it wouldn't make a difference but willing to try, as he deposited him on the bench.

"Now what's going on?" Trowa demanded. Wufei was staring at the vid-screen as if he didn't know what it was, but there was slow dawning recognition there along with a desire to just roll over and go back to sleep.

"Wufei, are you fit?" Une snapped and the change was instantaneous. Wufei went rigid, eyes snapping to the screen, completely alert. Trowa watched it all with a growing knot of worry in his gut.

"Yes."

He frowned at that, thinking Wufei was anything but, yet knowing it was not his place to argue. This was Wufei's life. In a sense. Unless he could change it.

"Your plane leaves in an hour. You have twenty fours to get this done and no one is to see you. At all."

Wufei blinked and it seemed to Trowa that Wufei had heard those words before and was trying to place them. He decided he was figuring right when Wufei went pale as a sheet and damn near fell off the front of the bench.

"Wufei?" Une snapped. "Will you take the mission?"

Wufei was hanging there, every limb limp, staring at nothing. There was a muffled affirmative and Trowa turned to glare at Une, eyes demanding to know what was going on.

"Who?" Wufei suddenly choked out. He looked in pain but Trowa doubted it was kind he could take away.

Une hesitated. It was the first time Trowa had ever seen her do so, and then she leant back in her chair, pressing fingers to the pressure points at the bridge of her nose as if to banish a headache. She had obviously been up for a while.

"The Lotus Project, Wufei. Trowa's disks confirmed…Well…" She ran her hands over her face while Trowa tried to reconcile the fact that something he had found weeks ago and had considered nothing of import was making such an impact now. He almost wished he had never stolen a copy of the project, whatever it was.

"Randolph Kersh…had a twin brother. Randolph Kersh was out target in Russia, Wufei, and you killed him, but…Gods." She reached over and grabbed a glass of red wine from outside the frame of the camera, taking several long swallows. Trowa could hear his heart thundering the blood through his body, already knowing what she was going to say.

"Randolph Kersh was not in Russia when you were captured."

Wufei fell off the bench but Trowa couldn't move, couldn't process the words as he stared at Une.

"Trowa, Voyten Kirsh is selling off his brother's empire to the highest bidder. Duo found the files in the house and we only just got them decoded. The sell closes midnight tomorrow. He has to be taken out before he can close the deal. Wufei's…"

The best. The only one still in the loop. He spoke the language, knew the land, knew the house, knew everything. And he had been doing assassinations like it for a year while the rest of them could very well flinch at the very thought having been away from it.

Trowa just nodded, disconnecting the call and dropping to his knees, not sure if he should try and touch Wufei or not. He had no way to gauge his mental state nor the reaction touch might engender.

Wufei slowly pushed himself up onto his knees, folded in on himself, eyes wide in disbelief.

"He…he's…alive…"

Trowa couldn't breathe through the terror in his veins and the pain he could only pretend to share as he reached out, almost touching but not daring to close the gap that last bit. Wufei saw the movement, saw it halt and Trowa watched him consider it, watched him try and decide what to do, and then he slumped forward and Trowa let himself go; let his hands touch, pulling Wufei into his arms and trying to shelter him from the impossible.

"He's alive. He's alive. He's alive." Wufei kept repeating the words and Trowa rocked him gently back and forth, no idea what he should do and running completely on instinct. He could have happily killed Une and at the same time, he understood her reasoning.

Heero refused to kill and there was no way Une would send Duo in alone. Quatre would have said no as a matter of principle. That left Wufei and himself. They were her only options. It didn't mean he liked it.

Something occurred to Trowa. He had wished for this. Had wished for this man to be brought back to life so he could kill him all over again and something burned through him, tempting and dark and thought he finally understood the image of Wufei he had first seen on those security tapes at Morson Station.

They could kill him.

Trowa could kill the bastard. And as wrong as they seemed, it was also so very right. He hauled Wufei to his feet, forcing him to walk with him into the bedroom, letting him curl up on the bed, hoping he snapped out of the shock soon and grabbing their packs, shoving the warmest clothes he could find in. He stuffed too trenches of his own in the bags, leaving the grey velvet on the floor, not wanting it ruined in Wufei's memory. He bit his lip as he realized he had none of Wufei's weapons; they were all still in the office.

He knelt down and reached out to run his fingers over the cut on Wufei's cheek, making Wufei look at him.

"Which sword?"

Wufei blinked, shivered and Trowa could see the effort it was taking to push the memories away, to push the fear aside and let the anger reign.

"The white one."

Trowa didn't hesitate, racing into the other room and shaking the pile of weapons out of the blanket, grabbing the white ceremonial sword with Wufei's name written on it and putting it in the bad along with his own knives and every gun he owned.

Wufei was finally moving, grabbing one of the cheap shirts he had bought and pulling it on, the jumper over the top. He pulled on the boots Marie had bought him, grabbed one of the packs and headed for the door.

Wufei said nothing in the car. They kept their bags with them as they boarded the Preventers jet that would take them to Russia. It was almost empty except for them and they took seats halfway through the central cabin. Trowa ached to do something; anything even if it was just to ease his awareness of the pain and not the pain itself. Something to banish the panic that seemed to have permeated everyone.

He ended up slamming the dividing rest back into the back of the seat and pulling Wufei down into his lap, curling around his body as he felt it begin to shudder and shake, using himself as a shield between Wufei and the outside world, not caring what the damned flight crew thought.

"He's alive," Wufei finally whispered, looking up at him from behind the hair hanging in front of his face. Trowa just nodded.

"But we can kill him?"

Trowa nodded again, suddenly wanting to see the last of the scars; to know the full extent of it so he knew exactly what to get revenge for. He tapped a finger against Wufei's lips and Wufei gasped, shivering as he parted his lips and the fingers snaked in. Trowa probed the teeth, tapping his nail against the fake caps until he found one cracked and dug the tip underneath it, forcing Wufei's mouth open. The hollow casing held a sharp, pointed tooth like a wild animals, the lines from the saw still edged into the side of the tooth. Trowa released his hold on it, letting his fingers slip out, just holding Wufei's startled gaze.

"How many?"

"Nine on the top, six on the bottom," Wufei whispered and Trowa knew only whatever dentist had cleaned up his mouth had ever heard it before. He nodded, tapping his finger back against the lip and waiting for Wufei to open his mouth again. This time he drove his fingers forward, tracing the tongue, feeling the hole in the centre that had never quite healed, feeling where it had torn along the centre when it was ripped from the nail that held it down. He slowly drew his fingers out, resting them on Wufei's chest. Wufei was breathing heavily, a mixture of fear and need mingled in his gaze and Trowa knew he was taking advantage of that, but he didn't care. Because it as need, and it was want. For the both of them.

He leant over and pressed his lips to Wufei's, lightly, the barest graze of skin and that was all, but it was al that was required. A single tear welled in Wufei's eye, rolled down his cheek and dripped onto Trowa's sleeve. Another followed, and another until Trowa knew they would not stop and he wrapped himself tighter about Wufei, just holding on, making sure he broke so they could put him back together together.

"I want him dead," Wufei choked. "God, I want him dead."

Trowa had never agreed with someone so completely in his life.

They felt the landing gear extending and Trowa let Wufei up, helping his scrub the tear tracks off his face as the desperation was pushed down, forced to wait and Wufei went into mission mode. Troa didn't think there was any other way to describe it. When he stood there was no sign of injury, no sign of pain and his face was enough to make even Trowa flinch.

He marched off the plane, already raving at the men standing around in fluent Russian, leaving Trowa to just tag along, which he was more than happy to do. He did, after all, need to conserve his energy. Besides he was having a lovely time entertaining himself with dreams of exactly what he would do to Voyten Kirsh.

Their hotel room was nothing to brag about. Trowa sat in the window watching the sprawling mass of St. Petersburg spread out below and Wufei sitting in the dark corner honing the blade of his katana. Trowa had the scabbard across his knees and was running his fingers over the dark stains. He knew what they were, had even guessed when it had happened and at whose hand. He also knew it was Wufei's blood. He couldn't keep his hands off it once he figured it out.

"How did they catch you?" Has aksed quietly, not even sure if Wufei would hear him.

"I was arrogant," Wufei finally replied. I thought they had all returned to camp, but there was one behind me. He got the sword before I knew he was there and that was it. I was just arrogant."

Such an odd boy. Trowa shook his head, telling himself that now was not the time to laugh. It also wasn't the time to tell WUfei that Trowa Barton rather liked arrogant Chang Wufei, so he jeft settled for asking stupid questions.

"What about the teeth? Who capped them?"

Wufei looked at him with a look that clearly asked if he had lost his mind, but he replied.

"A man who used to live on L5 but moved to earth. He works in Shanghai."

Trowa just nodded. Guy probably did the job for free too, not that that mattered, all things considered.

"How did you get the sword back?"

Wufei sighed, exasperated, frustrated and, Trowa knew, hurting. But he didn't flinch away from the questions.

"I made Randolph Kirsh give it back to me on his hands and knees," he ground out and Trowa wondered exactly how Wufei had killed the man he thought had near tortured him to death. He'd certainly had long enough to think about it and it would be interesting to know what Wufei wanted to do differently, because he was going to get his chance.

"You're fucking nuts, Tro," Wufei noted blandly, finishing the katana's edge and walking over to put it back ints scabbard with an audible `click'.

"Coming from you I rather think that's a compliment." His fingers ached to touch, to hold, but he knew he would not be welcome until another Kirsh was dead and so he settled for shifting so Wufei could sit opposite him in the window box, watching the city together as Wufei dreamt up the plan.

"That's the house," he said eventually, pointing to a rahte rlarge mansion. It said a lot about Wufei's upbrining, in Trowa's opinion, that he considered it a house. Still, he studied it and immediately dreamt up ten different ways to get in, but he kept his mouth shut, knowing Wufei had been inside and would know the best way to manage it. There were a lot of guards.

"Same mistakes. They never learn," Wufei mumbled. "The large chimney leads to a fireplace in the main bedroom."

Wufei raised a brow at that, an image of Wufei randomly appearing over his bed, katana in hand, coming to mind. He decided not to think about that. Ever again.

Wufei's plan was sound as he outlined it and when they had it clear in their heads and they were sure their equipment was ready, they just continued to sit there, watching and waiting.

It was dark and cold and snow was falling when a can finally pulled up outside the building and a man in a plain black suit got out. It dind't take a genius to look at Wufei's face and know who the man was.

So Trowa picked up the binoculars and took a better look, memorizing every line of the face of the man known as Voyten Kirsh who would soon be Voyten Kirsh no more.