Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Rituals ❯ Part 10 ( Chapter 12 )

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or any of its characters.

In the sequel to this, I seriously need to find a better plot than this one. I have a setting, but not really a plot. =,=;; Well, to be honest, there's no plot here either, just settings. Oh well . . .

But to be honest, life usually is all settings and no plots, right? *cough*

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Rituals - Part 10 by Maaya

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The door flew open almost immediately, revealing an irate, tired-looking Wufei in the doorway. "What took you so long!?" He snapped.

I gave him a flat look and watched as he slowly took in our very . . . non-standard state of clothes and dirty skin. His face fell just a very little bit, enough to make him unusually expressive, but not really enough to be too visible, when he noticed the nasty burns in Duo's face. He stepped aside to allow us to enter.

"I take it the mission didn't go very well." He stated, not needing to make it a question since the answer was already obvious. But I answered anyway.

"You're right."

I disliked - no - *hated* to admit it. Maybe I cared more than I had first believed about what the others thought of me, because I didn't want to appear weak, least of all in Wufei's mind.

Curtly, I scanned through what would be our temporary place of residence until Duo would be well enough to move by his own power without any assistance from me.

It wasn't luxury - that was clear. Moisture had damaged parts of the ceiling and there were spots coloured sickly yellow with water.[1] At least it didn't appear as if liquid was *dropping* from above, which was always a benefit. The only grit covering the floor was plain dirt. There were two beds, a couch, a ratty television, a table and a door hopefully leading to a bathroom. Judging from what I had seen of the main room, I couldn't help not being very keen on seeing the bathroom.

Duo still had an arm around my shoulders and I now lowered him down carefully to rest on the couch. Then I turned to Wufei.

"Do you have first aid supplies?"

He looked a little surprised, but I'm not sure if it was because of the question, or the . . . *snapping* tone I had used. "Yes, but nothing that could treat burns very well . . ."

I wondered what explanation he had come up with in his mind to why Duo had been limping, but didn't ask. "His knee is worse." I told him instead.

"Knee?"

It suddenly hit me that Wufei didn't know a thing about how Duo had hurt his knee during our first fight together before arriving to the safe-house. The memory of how I had wrapped Duo's knee in that bathroom in the middle of a night came to me all of a sudden, surprising me by actually being a *good* memory. It was one of the few good ones I could recall, if not the first.

"He . . . hurt his knee during the mission." I muttered, unsure of whether or not Duo wanted me to tell Wufei about it. He had, after all, sneaked out in the bathroom in the middle of the night to wrap it alone. He had to have a reason for doing that.

He gave me a look. "You're an awful liar, Yuy."

"It's not a lie." I replied truthfully, not sure what it was that made him interested in Duo's knee. It was just a knee after all, and not in a very good shape.

"Broken?" He asked.

"No, only sprained and swollen. The running from the base didn't help much."

But Wufei had already turned to where Duo was resting on the couch. "What's the matter with you Maxwell, why have you been so quiet?"

Duo surprised me by mouthing soundlessly, and a little slowly, the words: `Miss my voice?'

I can read lips, and obviously he guessed or knew that.

"He has inhaled too much smoke from a biological bomb with . . . *something* in it." I elucidated before Wufei would retort something annoyed that would make them want to argue. I didn't want to know what would happen in a dispute between them when Duo had lost an important weapon; his voice.

My words caused Wufei to stop and think. "Bomb? Don't tell me you got hurt by your own bombs?" He frowned, irritated, as if he had already heard a positive answer. "Idiots."

It was mine and Duo's turns to frown, at him. Duo shook his head wildly and I read his lips, moving faster now that he was sure I could read them perfectly.

`Was not our bombs, found one already planted.'

"Why would someone plant a bomb in a military base on earth?" Snapped Wufei, and I learnt that our Chinese partner could read lips as well as I.

But Duo just shrugged and frowned a little more, mindful of the burns that seemed to hurt each time he moved the skin and lack of thereof on his face.

I suddenly remembered the question I had asked Wufei earlier about the first aid kit and repeated it.

With a "just a moment" reply, he disappeared into the bathroom for a couple of seconds and emerged with the standard white metal box with a red cross on the lid.

We went to field wrap Duo's knee and I was glad to see it hadn't swollen anymore than the last time I had checked. That done and over with, we went to examine his throat with some pokes and prodding and a torch. But neither Wufei nor I were experts concerning throats and how they should look as impeccable so there wasn't much use in the examination. We could only see that weren't any major blisters or anything so we left it like that for the time being.

And finally, Duo brushed away his bangs from his face to reveal the whole burn damage.

The `main part' of it was on one of his cheeks and parts of his forehead which looked . . . ugly. Not necessarily deep or even very serious but unpleasant for ones eyes to look at. `Dead' skin was beginning to fall off by itself and I couldn't tell if it was a good thing or not. The only thing we could do was to clean his face and the burns the best we could and put on large anti-bacterial band-aids, hoping it wouldn't scar too badly.

I'm not sure how long it took us, but when we were done, Duo surprised me by mouthing, `what about you?'

He was a little red in his face, embarrassed by all the attention we had spent on him. Either the silent question was spoken out of concern for my wellbeing, or just plain sadism as he wanted to see me squirm when they poked and prodded *me*.

I shrugged. "I'm okay."

He gave me a look that clearly said - no - demanded `evaluate'.

*I* gave him a look that said `would I lie?'

I'm not sure what it was in that reply that convinced him I really was okay, but he seemed to accept it. Rolling his eyes, he shrugged and stood up, mouthing a quick `I'm going to bed' and went into the bathroom, probably to clean himself up a little more, and empty his bladder.

The bathroom door closed behind him, and the lock rattled a little until it became apparent it wasn't going to work. Did anything in this place work? A perverse urge insisted on trying to turn on the television, but I resisted.

A hawking from Wufei made me look up and become aware of his eyes on me. He had one eyebrow raised in a questioning curve. "What was that?"

"What was what?"

"You conversed-" He looked irritated and tired, just as he had when he had opened the door for us the first time. When was the last time he had slept? He was probably as tired as Duo and I. "-without saying a damn word."

I blinked at him, thought about it, and realized he was right. Opened my mouth, thought a little more, and closed it again when I couldn't come up with a descent answer. Great - now I had probably ended up looking like a fish stranded on a beach too. After a while, I ended up changing the subject altogether. It felt bizarrely embarrassed.

"I'm going to bed too."

"Wait a second."

"What?" I stopped on my way to one of the beds, irritation invading my tired psyche.

He frowned and demanded. "Tell me what is going on here! What exactly happened on that mission?"

"I tell you tomorrow. Or-" I added on an afterthought, realizing it already was `tomorrow'. "- Later tonight."

"One more thing."

"*What?*"

"We'll have to toss a coin about who'll get the bed."

I lost.

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TBC

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[1] Anyone else here thinking `Dark Water'? It's a damn good movie. But I am a biased horror movie freak, and Japanese horror happens to be the best. *worships Ringu and Dark Water and The Eye, etc . . . *