Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Sex, Substances, Sin, Salvation ❯ I - C - Fate is Tripping on Drugs ( Chapter 3 )

Sex, Substances, Sin, Salvation

How these 4 `s' words are intertwined.

By Masamune Reforged

WhenShootingStarsFall.com

Disclaimer: Don't own any of the Gundam characters, they are the property of Bandai, Sunrise or someone else, but not me. I use them for no-profit whatsoever, but entertainment's gain.

Warnings: Yaoi (lots of pairings- primarily 1x2 and 3x4, lemons later but nothing more than shounen-ai for right now) cursing, drug use, violence, angst, insanity, cameos, AU, lunacy, sanity.

 

Part C of “Fate works at a 24/7 Convenience Store”, Page I in the arc.

“Fate is tripping on drugs”

Wufei's POV

 

The sickly, unnatural feeling in my stomach was gone. I heaved a sigh of relief, letting out a small belch of indigestion from my wracked and acid-burned stomach.

 

Well, actually, the substance was called 2C-I, not 9,10-Didehydro-N,N-diethyl-6-methylergoline-8ß-carboxamide, better known as LSD or Acid. The 2C-I is actually a totally different kind of chemical than Acid, belonging to a family of cellular constructs of bonded Carbons with a varied unsatisfied Iomyninome-hyboxol group on the Carbon compound's fringe. The varying element linked to the 2-C group each have a different overall effect on the human body, and the 2-C drugs are thus fairly hard to get a precise grip on, especially when you're tripping on them. So far, 2C-I was quite different from 2C-E or 2C-B, which I'd tried over the past two weeks, but I couldn't quite put my finger on exactly what made this one different. Maybe it was the Iodine?

 

But God I felt so much better! Even one of Professor Tsubarov's horribly boring lectures on thermodynamics couldn't tarnish the funny, ethereal feeling that crept into my body immediately after puking. I had just needed to get it out of my system.

 

And out of my system it was. I grinned loopily at the regurgitated muck of chemicals that I had created only a couple days before in the University lab. The pile of vomit was actually quite intriguing. It had a way of flickering in the light, the green bits and fleshy-orange swirls boogying and mixing together. A white foamy substance seemed to bubble in one section, little bubbles swelling and swelling only to burst and release the gases inside into the air. Was that the Iodine? Why was I so obsessed with Iodine?

 

But it wasn't just the puke that was moving.

 

My eyes roamed around the store's plethora of colors and textures. Bags of chips burned fiery crimson and sunny yellows into my brain; the sweat off the roasting hotdogs shimmered and rolled around, rotating the grill it was under and making the entire counter wobble. There was so much to see that I couldn't focus too hard on any one thing. I stood, shell-shocked, in the center of the room. I couldn't stop smiling. When you're feeling so alive, nothing can stop you from grinning.

 

“What the fuck are you all about?” A voice floated to me from some far away radio.

 

“Pushing the limits of the mind and soul,” I smiled in reply.

 

There was a laugh and I turned towards what I thought might have maybe been the source. There were a few people in the room, but I was feeling sort of disconnected right now from the entire human race. The thought of trying to explain myself further to a random group of strangers was impossible for my mind to handle. Very few powerful psychotropics make a person sociable, and this one was proving to be no exception.

 

I could only look the amethyst-eyed, long haired, youth in the face for a second. His face did it; it did that thing. It was like a little tic, a sudden quick rearrangement of expressions from wonder - to disdain - to neutral. And I could see in that one brief second a million parts of this one man's essence. The neutrality was fake, a forced mask. The wonder had been legitimate, but just an instinctive human reaction. The disdain was real.

 

He didn't understand me. He didn't want to ever take the time to understand me. He had a fairly warranted aversion to my sudden entry and… Wow, I had just puked my guts all over the shop's floor… I guess it was something pretty gross and unreasonable… but I could no longer look that youth with the long brown hair (like snakes eating each other!) in the eyes. The negativity seeping out from him was too much to face right now. My excellent mood was flattened a little, though the buzz was still Herculean.

 

“Put your hands in the air and don't move,” The radio-like voice came again. Only this time I noticed that the blonde whose shoes I had almost showered in spew had reacted to it also. His aquamarine eyes showed bewilderment and a bit of terror, but mostly intense frustration and misdirected blame. I followed his gaze to --- Wow. Wait now… That guy can't be wearing a mask. I mean- Is that just me?

 

I rubbed my eyes and tried again to make sense of the world. Nope, it definitely looked like a mask. And a gun. This guy was hard to read, not because of the mask, I felt, but bec-

 

2-C compounds don't make you fully free-form hallucinate. They can mess with your perception and senses, but wouldn't create totally false images all on their own-

 

Holy shit. It registered. That man has a FUCKING GUN!!

 

My brain exploded.

 

“Oh my god,” I sorta sputtered.

 

“You should have prayed earlier…” A new voice broke in. I peeked around the well-dressed blonde, whose highlighted, perfectly cut hair was shining a bit too brightly for my taste. I almost did another double-take. There was a Japanese- looking man with messy brown hair lying on his chest on the ground. His face was a blank and I could read nothing out of his tone or expression.

 

“Please tell me I'm not the only one messed up here,” I begged the crowd. I felt nervous, suddenly the center of attention. During the entire trip, the last two and a half hours or so, I had just sort of been a ghost in the living world. I just floated around and took careful mental notes on every little detail and spigot of animation -because even the frigging ground was rolling and breathing underneath my feet- I could peer into. “This is starting to freak me out.”

 

“Give me all of your money and whatever dope you have on you,” The masked man spoke again. His voice was dispatched and distant, so similar to that broadcasted emotionlessly from a radio. “And stay calm. There is no reason to freak out.”

 

“Well…. Uh, um…” What to say? I couldn't stand everyone looking at me like that! “Sure, if you say so.”

 

“Then give me your money and the dope.”

 

I sort of fumbled around in my pockets for a minute. I came up with a stick of gum in my hands and didn't feel like putting it back into my pocket. I really didn't want to eat it either… I was pretty sure the clout of cinnamon crystals would send my taste sensory system into cerebral Shangri-La, and I wasn't sure I could devote that much of my mind to chewing gum.

 

So I sort of held it out in the palm of my hand in front of the gunman, and asked, “Anybody want any?”

 

He wasn't interested. “I said to hand over the money and the dope. Come on.”

 

Oh that's right, robbery in progress. Right, OK. Christ, it was hard to concentrate on this stuff...

 

“I didn't mean-“ I struggled to stuff the gum into my back pocket, but stopped. I was wearing pants without any back pockets. I just dropped the gum on the ground. My eyes swam around the room as my hands rummaged through my pockets with alien moves, clumsy and fumbling, unused to operating a human body.

 

A pack of matches I'd swiped from the University chemistry lab fell onto the floor as I pried the wallet from my pants. I like to wear them a little tighter than most men, so I can feel the fabric against my skin constantly. Tonight I wasn't wearing any boxers or briefs either, just to give the lower region of my body a uniform tactile experience.

 

Suddenly the blonde lunged forward and snapped up the matches from the floor. The robber kept his gun trained on him, with deadly intensity flickering in his one visible eye. The green orb was deathly serious, like a smoldering emerald coal. The pleasant feeling that had crept through my body for most of the trip started to subside to a darker, soberer aura. Well, maybe not soberer. Was that even a real word?

 

“Didn't I say no sudden moves?” The gunman asked, with a tinge of frustration.

 

“Didn't I say I need a goddamn cigarette?” The blonde shot back hotly.

 

He lit the end of his cigarette and inhaled deeply. I watched the features in his face and body relax as the nicotine swirled into his bloodstream and pacified the quaking need in his brain. The blonde let out a satisfied sigh amidst a puff of smoke. The light refracted off the grayish wisps and tracked the topsy-turvy flight of the rising haze. My mouth probably fell open at the uninhibited, care-free ascent of the cloud. The sight was so simple, but completely beautiful. It symbolized the freedom that mankind could never attain-

 

“You've got yours, I need to get mine,” The robber said. “Time to cough up the dough rich boy.”

 

“Here ya go,” With a lazy flick, the blonde tossed his stuffed wallet into a black plastic bag that a scrawny looking cashier was holding. The fair skinned blonde shut his eyes to close out the world around him and focused on the blissful stimulus of his drug of choice.

“You,” The robber addressed the cashier. “Get everyone's stuff off the floor and into the bag. Leave the gun.”

 

The masked man then turned toward me. “What kind of shit you rolling on?” He asked.

 

Where to begin? With the fact that this was a rather rare chemical construct that only the gnarliest druggies and astute scientists had ever encountered? Well, I guess it started before that, with the first time I ever tripped on Acid about five years ago, in my first year of college outside my home country, far away from the smothering traditional fixation of my family.

 

After undergoing such a mind-bending, soul-searching, spiritually redefining Acid trip, I'd had to deal with the bitter displeasure I found with life once my day-long psychedelic foray ended. Or maybe it started with my family arranging whom I was going to marry way before I even weighed my interest in the opposite sex?

 

Or maybe it was because I was such a different person when I was on drugs? Normally I was uptight, short tempered and (and I could only admit it in this altered state of mind) extremely arrogant about being right all the time. I let all the small quirks bother me and people's flaws infuriated me. On drugs, and it obviously depended on what drug I was on, I laughed together with people at the general stupidity of mankind. I enjoyed the quirks for what they were. I would be intrigued and eager to discover more about them. I was also so self-conscious about myself, so completely introverted, that it was almost impossible for me to pick a fight or be an asshole to others. It was sort of hard to answer the question bec-

 

“What was the question again?” I asked honestly.

 

“What. Drugs. Are. You. On?” The masked man reiterated it so slowly that I had trouble remembering what the first word of the question had been.

 

“It's a little difficult to describe,” I started, rubbing the back of my neck. “It's from my most recent batch. There really isn't a street name or anything for it… I don't even think the government knows about it enough to have outlawed it.”

 

“You're that retarded from something legal?” The braided bum broke in. He smiled wolfishly and nodded, “I gotta find me some of that shit!”

 

“You really can't find it,” I reiterated. It was so hard for me to communicate with people. “And it's not easy to make either.”

 

“You can make drugs?” The masked man asked, surprise breaking into his monotone.

 

Then he addressed the cashier, “Give me his wallet.” He carefully took out my ID card and flipped the wallet back at my feet. The black suede folds rippled and strained to keep the few green dollar bills from squirming their way out. The glare off the plastic where my ID card had been flared like a brilliant rectangular star.

 

“Wufei Chang. You can keep your stuff,” The tall robber said. “But I'm holding on to this,” He held up my ID card, “and may pay you a visit someday. You can repay the favor then.”

 

He stuffed my ID into his pants and turned around as an ominous chuckle, like wind down a dingy back alley, floated up from the floor.

 

“So it's drugs huh?” The Japanese man was staring intently at the masked gunman. “I got one-upped by some druggie? Hahaha.” His laugh was a dark, malicious expression of disgust and arrogance. “I must be losing my edge, for some dope fiend to get the drop on me.”

 

“Everyone's got a vice,” I cut in. Such narrow-minded convictions always roused anger in me (unless they were my own). “I'm sure you've got your share of issues and weaknesses too. We're all human.”

 

“Oh he's got issues!” The braided urchin smirked. “Dude, you just nailed that bitch on the head! He's just a loony that likes to dress nice.” There was nothing nice about the bum except for his long chestnut locks.

 

“You-“ The fierce growl from the Japanese was cut off by a sudden noise.

 

BEEP BEEP BEEP

 

It came from the Japanese.

 

“I thought I told you to empty his pockets,” The gunman spoke to the one with the long brown braid. The curls of hair twisted and intertwined together like a bed of sunburned snakes.

 

“I thought I did,” The bum gave a casual shrug.

 

“It's my beeper,” The Japanese guy spoke. “Can you hurry up and get out of here so I can get to a phone? I don't take too many breaks in my line of work.”

 

“Everyone's got their important stuff to do,” The blonde added, mellow now. He was savoring his cigarette, head back, staring at the ceiling as the half-finished cancer stick burned in a corner of his mouth. “You don't think I have better things to do than hang around with you all?”

 

BEEP BEEP BEEP

 

“Where the hell do you keep that thing?” The bum always had a tinge of laughter in his tone. He slapped the leg of his pants, the impact visibly pushing the fibers away in a circular wave spreading out from the spot. The random patterns of disturbance captivated me so that I really didn't hear what the others were talking about for a minute.

 

“Why should I give you my beeper number?” The Japanese was asking.

 

“Because otherwise I'm just going to take it from you,” The masked gunman threatened, without so much as a hint of threat or anger in his tone. He was merely stating a fact. “You know they don't make those things anymore, and you don't seem like the kind of guy who'd be very good talking on the phone.”

 

“Don't expect me to do you any favors if you come calling…” The Japanese groused. Then, grudgingly, “Fine. The number is 02-777-8695”

 

“Write that down on a piece of paper and throw it in the bag,” The gunman ordered the cashier.

 

“He's lying,” The blonde interrupted. He didn't say what made him think so or how he might know; just flicked at the dwindling end of his cigarette. Flakes of grey ash sank towards the sea of linoleum, swallowed up by the waves of rolling artificial floor. For an equally unknown reason, I believed he knew what he was saying.

 

“Get me his beeper,” Now there was a threat in the gunman's voice.

 

“Ch! Fine! It's 01-777-8695. 01-three 7's- 8695. You happy now?” The Japanese guy answered from the floor, shaking his head in disbelief and irritation.

 

“Umm,” I don't know why, but I just sort of let the sound slip out of my mouth.

 

“What?” The robber asked.

 

“Um...Can I leave?”

 

“No. Just wait a little longer.”

 

I shifted uncomfortably, scratching a bug bite that was still lingering on the inside of my right shin from my shroom expedition at the Balamb Garden Zoo. It had been exhilarating, walking into a tropical climate from the blizzard that had gripped the city for the past week. But the insects had irritated the heck out of me, nearly making me bug out every time I heard their buzzing.

 

“Those drugs make you paranoid?” The gunman asked.

 

“Well, no. I don't know,” I looked from the floor to the blonde to the cashier. The latter immediately looked away and his eyes sort of bulged before he wiped nervously at his forehead. “I just don't have a good feeling about-“

 

 

 

“About what?” The thief asked.

 

 

 

“Did you hear that?” I asked.

 

“Hear what?”

 

w

 

“I- I'm not sure…”

 

“Dude, the guy is fucking wigging out on drugs,” The sloppy one with the long braid chuckled. “He's probably hearing all sorts of violin quartets and ethereal whispers right now or some shit like that.”

 

whooo

 

Something was about to happen.

 

The thief decided to shake it off, “Well, I'm about to get out of here anyway…” He asked the blonde guy, with a hint of a smile behind his mask, “Did you enjoy your smoke?”

 

I turned towards the doors looking out on the darkened streets. There seemed to be glimmering sparks of lights approaching.

 

“Yeh. … Thanks.”

 

The cashier took a nervous step towards the door. He was sweating. It was nicely air conditioned in the store. I started feeling sick in my stomach again.

 

“Don't mention it. You probably don't even need to worry about me using your credit cards. Since you're rich, you probably have some super special security service.”

 

catszsafatzs

 

The scrambled white noise from a radio started buzzing faintly in the back of my head.

 

“Umm… thanks?” The blonde said sheepishly.

 

Castzsdtaftaszsz

 

A hand gradually began to turn up the volume, louder, louder.

 

“Can you just hurry it up?” The Japanese snapped. “I gotta make that call.”

 

Whooo catszsafachszwssen

 

Louder.

Whoo Catsafatswerneover?

 

Louder. Intermittent bits of chatter and grinding of gears meshed and trampled my auditory senses. What was this? Where the hell was this coming from?

 

“Everyone can leave,” The thief announced, glancing into the bag of loot. “Except for you,” He pointed to the brown haired Japanese. “You don't move a muscle until I'm long gone, you understand?”

 

whoowhoowhoowoop Cantsfatswe'rezszpositionwerene. Over

 

None of us were going anywhere.

 

“You hear that?” The indigo eyed American looked my way.

 

The cashier flinched.

 

“Oh my god,” The gunman tensed visibly.

 

Whooowhooowhoowhoooo. Chunktinkdonk. dadadadada

 

It was right outside. The noise broke into the whine of brake pads and the metallic clink and clunk of car doors opening and closing. The patter of feet scrambling over asphalt thundered in my ears.

 

Red light danced across the ceiling. Blue light lit up the dark alleyways and shadowy corners of the street outside.

 

“Get down on the ground! Get down on the ground! No one's going anywhere, you hear me!?” The gunman yelled.

 

A blinding barrage of burning white spotlight stung my eyes as I bent over and touched my hands to the cool linoleum floor. Around me the others were doing the same. Only the cashier and the gunman remained standing.

 

“You piece of shit.” The gunman shook his head at the cashier.

 

“Please don't hurt me!” He begged in reply.

 

“Get on the fucking ground.”

 

“THIS IS THE METRO POLICE DEPARTMENT. YOU ARE SURROUNDED. THERE IS NO POINT IN RESISTING. COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP AND SURRENDER.”

 

“No one's going anywhere,” The gunman sternly commanded.

 

I managed to hold back the queasiness as my cheek touched the dirty, yet soothingly cool floor. The sense made me quiver slightly, sending a small tingle down my spine. I looked up, as best I could, at the dancing lights roving and tangoing across the ceiling in mingling patterns and paths. God, I was glad I was on drugs.

 

-end Wufei's POV.

-end part C of “Fate works at a 24/7 Convenient Store”, Page #1 in the debauchery and hedonisim arc that shall be named “Sex, Substances, Sin, Salvation”

-feedback to MasamuneEHS@hotmail.com Hope you liked.

 

Next part: “Fate is a Surrounding Police Force”

 

References:

2C-I is a real drug. I am not a professional doctor or scientist, and that chemistry babble is just what I've heard. The effects of this drug are all things I've researched, but I actually do not know that much about the chemical structure or anything like that. For information on this drug and all others go to Erowid.org

 

Wufei is married to Meiran, who is his arranged wife his parents set him up with.

 

The name of the zoo comes from the principal setting in Final Fantasy 8.