Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Way ❯ The Way ( Chapter 1 )
[ P - Pre-Teen ]
By: Manga-Chick 
Cold, tired, hungry—Wufei snapped because Duo had eaten all the peanut butter.
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): | Type: One Shot | Uploaded On: 10.29.2004 | Updated On: 10.01.2005 | Pages: 6 | Words: 8.3K | Visits: 1.1K | Status: Completed
Cold, tired, hungry—Wufei snapped because Duo had eaten all the peanut butter.
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): | Type: One Shot | Uploaded On: 10.29.2004 | Updated On: 10.01.2005 | Pages: 6 | Words: 8.3K | Visits: 1.1K | Status: Completed
ARGH!!! I got a review from this, from a reviewer that STROKED my interest---I WANT TO TALK TO YOU, WEIRD LURKER! PLEASE! (begging) EMAIL ME! LEAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS!!! You were the ONLY one that knew what this story was based on, and who wrote it---I WANNA TALK TO YOU!
To others...er...well...helpfully this person complies. I know. I'm insane.
“The Way”
Chang Wufei was tired of the war. He was tired of injustice. He was tired of life. He was tired of fighting something that continually fought against his own chaotically changing morals and values. He was tired of it all. He needed a change, a shift in motive, a shift in attitude and mind. He needed something different, something comforting, something new.
One more mission, one more battle, one more day in which he fought majestically, a fifteen year old in a heavy mecha suit, fighting against others that wanted to kill him for standing up for what he believed in. And that in itself wasn’t much at all, because his thoughts, his values, his pride changed drastically from one day to the next. The others weren’t much help at all–Heero Yuy and his combative Need To Die mode no matter the mission or its heavy contents; Duo Maxwell, happy, nearly carefree, loud, crass, and American–need he say more?; Trowa Barton, who was quiet, somewhat of a follower, somewhat mindless, unheedful of his own thoughts, preferring that someone thought for him, incredibly reliant when one needed something done and without emotion, and Quatre Rebarba Winner–the name in itself was simple madness enough.
The last mission allowed him to escape with his life. They were shacked up in a cottage high in the Cascade Range in America, a few hours away from Seattle, after a stint in Canada. Cold, tired, hungry–Wufei snapped because Duo had eaten all the peanut butter.
Everyone was sitting at the table, silent with their respective thoughts, staring at nothing as the candle light flickered and wolves gave their mourning cries just outside. Heero was busy mapping out their next attack on a set of stolen blueprints for an OZ base, Trowa was staring at the dancing candle flame from the only candle on the three legged kitchen table, Duo was counting his arm hairs within said candle light, Quatre was busy trying to patch up a hole in his left sleeve with a dull needle and thread.
The cabin whispered along the floors and the ceiling, along the creaking floorboards and peeling tile for him to make his move. To step up. To separate himself. To make himself heard and known. Because even as he fought alongside these four fine fellows, with their own nuances and weaknesses, they didn’t really know each other. They would be lying when they claimed so. And in the end, they would continue to never know each other. They would continue with lives that wouldn’t concern the other–they would continue to be strangers, brought together for a common cause that nobody wanted and everybody embraced.
So, snapping because he didn’t have any peanut butter for his stale crackers, Wufei cleared his throat, pushed his seat back, and climbed onto the table, withdrawing his gun from the back of his traditional white pants and pointed it at each stunned pilot in turn.
On the floor, and do it without question, he commanded, head held proud, fist at hip, staring at each pilot in turn. He knew he could be taken out by the suddenly frowning Heero, the contemplative Trowa, the anxious Duo, the surprising Quatre. But each pilot slowly shifted away from their chairs and settled on the floor, palms down. Still standing on top of the table, Wufei paced the unsteady surface, watching the two more dangerous pilots with authoritive ease.
This won’t take long, he said, frowning when Heero lifted his head, assessing both the boy and the table, hard muscles twitching. But I ask that you hear me out.
I have fought this fucking war for far too long! He raged. Too long! I am fifteen years old. I should be studying, not fucking around in a giant war machine, fighting others’ wars! I want to live. I want to experience. I want a chance to gripe about my minimum wage job and my cheating wife. I want to walk across the street without worrying that some Oz-fuck would stomp me flat with his Leo. I want to look at Treize Kushrenada and for once, not wish that the motherfucker was in my suit’s range of demolition. I want to live. Is that so hard to ask for?
If you wanted to be free, Wufei–Duo started, for once without the negative use of his name, and Wufei fired point blank at the braid that curled around the American’s shoulder. Missing him, of course, because Wufei wanted to finish saying what he needed to say and to give the other boy a chance in hearing him.
I am a man, damn it. Damn my age. Damn my so-called innocence. I want to live and learn like the rest of them. I do not want this responsibility. I do not want to continue living this life! I want another!
We should all be so lucky, he heard Trowa mutter, and to make sure that the silencer would keep his silence and let him continue, Wufei fired a shot into the boy’s familiar red bang. There were two holes in the floor, and another ruin to someone’s hair.
And therefore...I am leaving. I am capable of anything. I can change my own fate. I can decide my own future. I can leave this all behind to venture forth for something entirely new and different. Therefore, I leave you all. I am a desperate man, so I will let you know now, that I am changing my entire destiny. Instead of crying for justice and retribution, I am now changing my cry for something new and challenging, something...something different. I am now giving you an option: I need someone to run with me. I need someone to rely on to live this life with me. I need someone to go with me, so that we may fall in love. I have not done that before. I believe that this time is as good as any.
Duo sputtered and laughed, clutching the ruined pieces of his broken braid. Trowa looked stunned and looked over his shoulder to see if Wufei was serious. Quatre stared back at him as if unsure if he’d heard right. Heero simply blinked.
Wufei pointed the gun at all of them in turn, crying aloud, I am a desperate man! I want
different! I want something new! I need! I want! I yearn! And in turn for this, I need you all to give me at least five bucks for my journey. I am heading to California.
I’ll give you my credit card, Duo laughed, not taking this seriously at all.
Heero calculated the distance between him and the gun.
Trowa decided that this floor was in serious need of repair.
Quatre wondered what Wufei drank and wondered if he could have some, too.
But each pilot withdrew five bucks from his pocket and tossed it at the table, and as Wufei gathered twenty bucks, he clutched it tightly within his gun hand, and continued to speak, speaking with the grandeur of a madman, of a desperate man.
I am heading to California. To Oceanside. I will not enroll in the army, the marines, the navy, or the airforce. I will work at a Blockbuster Video rental and barely make rent. I will eat McDonald’s and argue with my partner over whether or not that’s an actual patty. I will buy my clothes from Wal-Mart. I will live my life on welfare and spend years paying off my college intuition after enrolling into a community college. I will do all this and more, simply because I have lived in privilege, and I need something different in order to feel different. I need someone to come with me.
Can I be the wife? Duo asked, still in mocking.
Anyone but Maxwell shall be welcome to accompany me, Wufei said, his haughty tone suggesting that there would be no argument. He pointed his gun at the other three pilots, all of whom were staring at each other in bewilderment. Well? Anyone?
Your deluded mind will compromise whatever mission we will receive, Chang, and therefore, if you run, I will hunt you down personally and make sure that you will never endanger our cause, Heero threatened, shaking his head at the loss of a great warrior.
Fine, I accept. It appears that along the way, my partner and I will have to avoid you, as well. Barton? Winner?
Trowa and Quatre stared at each other, then looked at Wufei in silence. Wufei made a small push of his head forward, expecting an answer, expecting a commitment from either.
Why choose one of us pilots? Trowa wanted to know. Why not take someone hostage along the way?
Because no one would understand. Because a civilian would never know what a line it is to cross when one man destroys another in the name of ‘peace’. And Gundam Pilots, us, we understand. We, on a level completely above the others, understand what it is to be destroyed in the process. I will relate to no other.
Wufei, can I have whatever it is you’re on? Duo asked, legs crossed at the ankles, arms bunched underneath him, the very picture of casual insolence.
I’ll go, Quatre finally said.
Three pairs of eyes shifted in incredulous dismay at the fair-haired pilot.
Wufei looked at him, and had to accept. He gestured at him to get up, and as he did so, Quatre looked sheepishly at the others.
Are you homosexual? Wufei asked, pointing the gun at him. Because I am not.
No, but I think I believe in love, Quatre answered, truthfully.
Fine. Let us go.
Q! Duo shouted in bewildered shock. The fuck?! Do you know what the fuck you’re doing?!
Because you agree to his cowardly whims and failed to accept the consequences of both your actions and your designated missions, I will hunt you both, Heero vowed. You will not be allowed to wander about with the previous knowledge of your Gundams and our missions. You will both be destroyed.
Trowa just shook his head and wished that he were just as brave, just as willing to embrace the unknown and the foolhardy.
Fretting, Quatre hesitated before turning and following Wufei out the door. The remaining pilots listened to the sound of two doors to an old Jeep Cherokee open and shut, the engine starting very shortly after that, and the vehicle leaving the driveway. The brash change in life, generated by one boy’s need for a change in destiny, had begun.
Do you think they will catch up to us? Quatre asked Wufei nearly an hour away from the cottage.
Eventually. That is why we must hurry and put distance between ourselves and them.
Are we crazy, Wufei?
No, Wufei said with a shake of his head. We are not. We are just desperate.
Oh...do you think we can do this?
Of course. I have twenty bucks.
That’s not going to get us far. We need food. We need gas.
We will survive, Wufei said on a firm nod.
And because he was the one to initiate this whole, crazy thing, because he spoke with such confidence and bravery, Quatre was going to believe him. He sat back in his seat and waited.
They found themselves on the interstate, and both had not slept in nearly twenty hours. Their twenty bucks had lasted only an hour into their drive because Heero hadn’t filled up the gas tank before they had made it to the cottage previously. And when they ran out of gas, they were near Eugene, Oregon. They abandoned their vehicle, two foreigner boys in strange clothing, and waited for a change.
Why, Wufei? Quatre finally had to ask, when his expensive leather shoes began to scuff and tear as he walked along the scarred pavement.
Because. I needed something different. I needed a new perspective. And I would never find one while continuing to fight this war. Wufei was grave in his answer, firm as he nodded, steadfast as he stared bravely ahead. And because, I am curious. I want to know what love is. I want to know what it feels like. To actually love someone and to have them love me in return. But I know that love is different from what anybody would interpret it as. I want to find answers. I will not find them fighting a war where it is impossible to actually chance.
Oh.
The two teens, one light, one dark, attracted attention simply because they were two oddities, unfamiliar sources of light on the freeway. One dressed in white and blue, the other dressed in pink and purple. They were questioned, laughed, stared, eyed, and no one ever suspected the real truth. They were two droplets of rain within a shower of sparks; they were two stars hidden within the sun.
A trucker took pity on them, and they found themselves being hauled in a small bed cabin toward Medford, unable to speak to a man that was too eager for conversation and proposition.
Strange for kids to walk so far, he’d said.
People do it all the time, Quatre said in reply.
The trucker noticed the strange accents of the pair, and figured he was safe. He looked at Wufei in the rearview mirror, and liked the golden skin, the slanted eyes, the dark and tightly bound hair. He always had a fondness for Asians, and since blond boy was simply too light and too damn limpid for his taste, he concentrated on the Chinese boy as the boy was unsuspecting of his rising desire. He grinned at the pair and suggested that one undress and the other fondle him while he drove.
The two found themselves in Medford an hour later, minus sweaty trucker. He had eighty bucks in cash that he’d left behind when Wufei kicked him out of his seat fifty miles back; it would go towards their travel money. They abandoned the truck at a Chevron station and caught a ride with a bunch of hippies heading toward Eureka, California.
They learned about marijuana and the wonders of dreads, of psychotically happy hippie girls and the desert roses they collected. Sand, fused and exploded by the touch of lightening, fragile lips straining within a rock-formation, blooming with colors of gold, white and tan, ridged with the remembrance of the lightning bolt. Quatre found great comfort in something so small, that he didn’t bother returning one when the girl asked for her collection back. And Wufei, finding himself stumped by sucking the life out of roaches made from dying blunts, discovered a new epiphany when he let his hair down and allowed one of the hippie boys to draw a badly inked Chinese character for ‘luck’ on his biceps.
This epiphany being that no matter the person, no matter their destination, no matter their company or loss of funds, this person would always find a way to stay constant, to survive in a world that demanded change. He would always have his sense of justice and pride–they may be hidden away right now, terrified behind the new presence of his new journey, but they were there. He was sure of it. And when he and Quatre sat together in the back of the badly sputtering Pinto with four deranged hippies, he found enough courage to hold the other’s hand and feel the tremulous quivering of a person discovering his own epiphany.
From the foggy coast of Eureka, they walked at least twenty miles from Arctic Circle on Interstate 101 toward Redding, and had a stranger take pity on them, a traveling salesman that carried boxes of free Claritin as he made his rounds throughout northern California. While Wufei sat in the front seat, dictating the life of killer whales and barnacles in argumentative response to the salesman’s pitch of cleaner sinuses during the spring, Quatre found an alien lighter that needed more propane on the messy floor and tucked it into his vest pocket, next to the desert rose. Loss of identity screamed for reminders of what he was willing to lose.
The salesman thought that the foreigners were just quite pitiful, and gave them twenty bucks in ones, dropping them off at a Taco Bell as they waited to find a ride out from Redding, to continue their destination to Oceanside.
Over Double-Decker Tacos and medium Pepsis, Wufei asked him, Are you falling in love yet?
I suppose so. What do we do now?
I really don’t know. I guess we just wing what we can.
Do you think they’re very far behind us?
No. They won’t find us, Wufei said in confidence.
Why?
Because, along the way, Winner, we forgot what we were.
Oh. Right.
They can’t find what they can’t identify with.
And Quatre smiled at him, figuring that he was right. After all, things had been going quite well, so far, these past four days. And in four days, were complete identities truly lost when one did something out of character? When one lost sight of their own inner vision? And had they completely changed, or was that just the funk of marijuana and old Claritin pills?
Wufei, finishing his taco, smiled right back.
They found a ride with a bunch of black teenagers that were headed toward Sacramento, and thus, the two foreigners found themselves in a race against time, speed limits and furious California Patrolmen that had been after the stolen car since it left the cooperative streets of Susanville. Along the way, listening to Snoop Dogg and E-40, with the occasional mix of old school Twista and Tech9, Quatre decided that he was glad he’d left behind his old life. Glad that he was no longer rich. Glad that he didn’t have to worry about what fork to start with first, what sock should go on last.
Because as Wufei tried meth for the first time and a teen with braces traded his expensive Shaquille O’Neals for his wingtips, Quatre knew that this life was preferable. This chaotic, unstable life, without war and without mecha, without the snarling Lightning Count and furious colonists, without the frustration of non-space equipped giants and forty plus men that worshiped the ground he walked on. He enjoyed it. And he enjoyed the prospect of falling in love, no matter the person, no matter the gender.
He enjoyed waking up with a crick in his neck from leaning too far into the back window for some support, for knowing that when he woke up, he was in a different destination and in a different situation. And he truly enjoyed knowing that Wufei, with his machismo and honor-bound duty to live his life the way that he wanted it, was actually just another scared boy, caught in the tracks of a frustrating path that led no where for his liking. They weren’t men–they weren’t filled with the experience men had for life. They weren’t old enough to realize the true wrongs from right. They weren’t old enough to realize that gray was gray no matter the tone of black or the pitch of white. They were kids–kids were meant to have fun. Kids were meant to learn. Kids were meant to live. Kids were meant to know and discover what love meant and was for as they matured.
They had left behind the war for the other pilots to fight, and for the other thousands upon thousands of determined souls that fought a maddening war of chaos. They had left behind their responsibilities and their morals, their values and their traditional teachings imposed upon them within their respective cultures, to assimilate into what would have been lost to them during the aftereffects of war. What was wrong with wanting something entirely different? What was wrong with trying something entirely new? Something that was denied to them?
Their getaway car broke down somewhere near Davis, and after a very brief escape from highly stressed state policemen, Wufei and Quatre were once again hitchhiking along the freeway toward Fresno, thumbs out and strange clothes unkempt and thin against the elements, desperate, childlike faces begging for retribution from the frantic storm of their journey. They were picked up by a carload of pretty girls that were returning home from a Sarah McLachlan concert at Arco Arena. They had taken a wrong turn at the wrong on-ramp, and were trying to get back to their right destination when they picked up the two pretty boys. While crammed next to a girl that smelled of body odor and cigarettes, Quatre found the remains of a concert bracelet and slipped that into his pants pocket.
Amid songs of “Possession” and “Adia”, Wufei turned and asked Quatre once more, Have you fallen in love yet?
I might have, the blond answered truthfully, nodding once.
What’s the real way to know for sure?
I really don’t know. Have you fallen in love?
I could have, and I just don’t know it, yet, Wufei answered honestly, nodding twice.
How would you know?
I...I wouldn’t know.
I wouldn’t either.
Maybe it’s a sort of reaction that I would feel when I look at you.
...Well? Is it working?
I...I think it just might be gas.
But somewhere along the way, between Fresno and Bakersfield, Wufei decided that Oceanside wasn’t going to cut it.
Too much ocean, Wufei said with a grimace, the girls driving away with waving arms and cheerful smiles. They stood under the brightly striped awning of an In-And-Out, with a Factory 2 U nearby. They counted their money and found that if they made good choices, they would be able to afford a packet of t-shirts and a couple of pairs of pants in place of two ‘freshly made’ meals with sodas. After a very brief stint with wailing Mexican infants and frustrated Indian women that couldn’t work the register, both boys emerged with their old clothes in their arms, and stuffed the offensive things within the nearby receptacle.
They looked across the street at the In-And-Out with some reluctance, then set off for the freeway. They found solace in a lonely woman with all her clothes in the backseat, freshly divorced from a husband that recently produced baby pictures of a set of twins that weren’t hers to begin with. She didn’t mind the strong accents of the Far East and the Middle East, and she certainly didn’t mind the determination and the plain expressions of hope within two faces that far exceeded her own naivety. She merely found a couple of souls that were just as eager as hers, and that was all she needed to know. Quatre found a broken key chain of a pair of angels and held that tightly as the woman dumped her problems on Wufei.
The two boys had shifted their original direction and headed East, heading instead toward Utah.
The woman ended up dumping them in Tonopah, Nevada, resolving to turn right back into the arms of her chiropractor husband, and the boys ended up with at least twenty dollars in quarters and five dollars in pennies. Since Nevada was the carrier of all strange people that traveled lonely highways by their lonely selves, the two didn’t have to wait long before they were picked up by a man with a thickly scarred face and a runty dog named “Gunner”. Over Happy Meals with Hello Kitty toys and pitifully watered down Hi-C Oranges, the boys shared their meal with the dog and the man, who told them stories of his high school football team and a cheerleader he never really knew, but dreamt about constantly.
I’m headed to Lovelock, actually, he confessed as they passed Hawthorne.
Do you know what love is? Wufei asked as Gunner licked his broad forehead and whined, tail slapping Quatre’s face.
Not really. The man performed a double-take on them both. You aren’t...funny...are you?
In terms of humor, not really. We don’t have all that much to joke about, Wufei said with a nod.
No, I mean...you aren’t...that way, are you? Because if you are, your rides end here. I don’t do that homo-bullshit.
So you don’t know what it is? Wufei persisted as Gunner proceeded to gnaw at his queue.
Not really, the man confessed. Mostly just lust, maybe infatuation. I love women with dimples and fat asses, mostly because that’s what my mother possessed before she went and drowned herself in the kitchen sink when I was like, three years old. I identify with what I can never have. Mostly because I never had a chance to possess it.
And you would recognize love when you saw it? Quatre asked, rubbing the bald spot of Gunner’s forehead, worn from the constant, nervous reaction of her own doggy fears. He’d already pocketed Gunner’s silver nametag that he’d found among the empty beer bottles on the floor at their feet.
Probably not. I would probably end up thinking how much I would want to fuck it, rather than appreciate it, the man confessed on a shrug.
Wufei and Quatre looked at each other, and shrugged.
And because the man hated the way Gunner liked them better than his own company, he dropped them off in Fallon, where the boys found themselves in a family friendly restaurant called Heidi’s. And because Wufei was feeling rather lucky, he gambled ten bucks in the nearby casino and won three hundred dollars. But he wasn’t allowed to claim it because he was underage. And thus, they possessed only fifteen bucks, and were in need of a place to stay.
Wandering the small town of Fallon, they bypassed cowboys with long trailers and girlfriends that wore pocket-less Wranglers, camel toes evident. They avoided the curious speculation of worn mothers with screaming toddlers in the Wal-Mart parking lot, and they certainly made extra care to avoid the small town police officers that scoured their raggedy expressions and foreign looks, nearly radioing Homeland Security because foreigners in a small town screamed trouble and terrorist assault.
They were walking aimlessly toward Fernley when a friendly young Hispanic picked them up in his four by four chevy and treated them to momma’s famous tamales, of which he wasn’t able to sell because they were soggy and because they tinted their plastic coverings with dripping grease. Because neither wanted to be rude, and food was food, both boys ate one tamale each, and listened to the non-English speaking boy sing along with music they couldn’t understand. While he spoke, Quatre picked up from the dirty floor a battered baby’s pink pacifier, and slipped that into his pocket.
So? Quatre asked Wufei.
Wufei shrugged and tossed the garbage out the open window, uncaring that he littered. I don’t know, yet. It’s kind of hard to tell. It might just be the grease disagreeing with me.
Me, too.
When they arrived in Fernley, they were dropped off at Silverado, where Wufei would gamble the single nickel he found on the sidewalk, and once again, he won over three hundred dollars in the nickel machine. But, of course, he could not claim it because he was underage. So they walked over to the nearby Chevron, and found a ride to the truck stop heading toward Reno, catching a ride with a dispirited Native American girl, one rear window of her extended cab truck broken and replaced by plastic because her ex had decided that she was better off without him.
Because she listened to music concerning the hatred for all things living, Wufei decided to speak up while Quatre flipped through the various Cosmopolitans in the back cab. Do you believe in love?
She snorted, shaking her head. Once upon a time I did, she replied. Why? You guys gay?
We believe in love, but we’re not necessarily gay, Quatre answered, while overlooking the article on ‘making men’s mind explode with pleasure’.
Oh. Well, that’s different, then. I believe that you can fall in love with someone without really taking in consideration their real motives, she said, nodding. You can love and love and love, but you can’t really expect to be loved right back.
So...a sort of...one-sided love?
But love nonetheless, the girl corrected. Your feelings are legitimate. You can’t always expect the person you’re loving to love you back in the same way.
Taking that in consideration, Wufei looked away and watched the various vehicles fly by as the girl drove, Quatre sneaking the girl’s Audioslave lyric book into his shorts pocket, where his various other things were safely kept. She dropped them both off at Pilot, another truck stop along I-80, and assured them that the truckers picked up hitchhikers all the time. And when she left, she whispered something to Quatre, who nodded once in response.
When they found their ride in a lonely old man who went by the name of Frank, they were rather happy to find that Wufei had a surprising roll of twenties in his back shorts pocket. They didn’t know where it had come from–they had been in possession of ten dollars and dipping since giving the Hispanic boy five dollars for gas from Fallon. They had a small meal at Wendy’s, and Wufei even splurged for Frosties for all three of them. As Frank drove them on I-80 West toward Lovelock, the two boys slept in the back, exhausted, but content.
An hour into the drive, Quatre curled up to Wufei, and whispered into the sleeping boy’s ear, Love means never having to accept what’s never going to be given.
When they awoke nearly ten hours later, Frank was heading towards Flagstaff, Arizona, and as he drove, he listened to Mike Savage of ‘Savage Nation’, and cursed the Republicans for being so greedy and the Democrats for being so risky.
Along the way, Quatre found a discarded movie ticket to the movie “Ghost Ship”, and pocketed that.
When Frank pulled over for a gas stop, the two boys left forty bucks in return and wandered the gas station, finding a ride into Alburquqeue, with a man named Thomas, who had just robbed a bank and was looking for someone to share it with.
Unknowing of this, Wufei asked Thomas, Would you recognize love if you saw it?
Thomas, wild eyed and shifty, was a little nervous of the question. He eyed the blond in the backseat, sitting next to the unmarked suitcases that held his thousands of unmarked bills, then looked at Wufei. I could...for a price.
What sort of price?
What kind of love are you talking about?
And Wufei realized where this was heading, and had to kick some ass. After taking the man’s car, dumping the unmarked suitcases along the freeway, Quatre drove while Wufei navigated, trying to read the worn map that Thomas had used to plan his escape route throughout the States and into Mexico.
We are going to Denver, he then decided, folding the map up correctly and setting that aside.
Why? Quatre asked, barely reaching the gas pedal.
Because...Denver would be the last place for them to look for us.
But it’s so...plain....
So has everything else, Quatre.
Along the way, Wufei had stopped calling Quatre ‘Winner’, and Quatre had stopped using Wufei’s name. The Chinese knew when Quatre was addressing him, and Quatre felt nothing when he heard his name fall from Wufei’s lips. As he wondered how they would know when they had fallen in love, he sighed heavily and shifted on the seat–all of his accumulating things were pressing uncomfortably against his behind and he really didn’t want to risk moving them, for fear of losing what he’d gained.
They didn’t make it to Denver–rather, their car gave out somewhere between Walsenburg and Pueblo. They left it with its hazards blinking every so often as they began walking again, this time Quatre taking the car’s vin number from the dash. As they walked, the wind giving them ear aches and their skin to pimple with cold, a diesel double-cab pulled over to pick them up, and they were in the company of a clean, shiny man with fake teeth and a new ten-gallon hat.
As Wufei slept on the back seat, the man, Derrick, told Quatre of his prized Palominos and a step-daughter named ‘Vicki’, whom he’d accidently gotten pregnant. Because Wufei wasn’t awake to ask, Quatre asked in his place what he would do if he recognized love.
Surprised, Derrick had to think about it as he leaned on the steering wheel, managing to steel the six ton vehicle with a Bud between his legs and a heavy ruby wedding band on his ring finger of his right hand.
Son, I’m afraid I can’t answer that, he said with a shake of his head. I wouldn’t know about the subject good enough to make you happy.
But did you love your wife?
No. I married her because she had the valuable resources I needed in order to get my stud farm up and running, the man answered truthfully. The man did a double-take on the lovely blond features and reached across their separated space, to pat one thin leg too close to the groin to be comfortable with. You look just like my daughter, Vicki, you know that? I’m a lonely man...your friend’s asleep. Why don’t you–?
And Wufei woke up, startled, because the man was screaming in fury, holding a hand to his bleeding right eye and swerving wildly on the crowded freeway. The truck hurled into the rest area space provided by State Transportation funds and roared at the both of them to get out. As the diesel sped away, Quatre shrugged at Wufei’s inquiry and replied simply, He didn’t know what love was, either.
Wufei sighed, and they wandered about the rest area, finding a ride with yet another trucker. This time, he rode in the front seat and let the other boy sleep. When he was sure Quatre was fast asleep and dead to the world, he whispered into the delicate shell of his right ear, Love means giving yourself up wholeheartedly, flaws and perfection, without fear of losing what true identity of yourself that you possess.
So, where are you headed? The trucker, Ted, asked as he found much disinterest in the Asian features of a too-skinny Asian, whose clothes were much too dirtied to be considered sanitary. He politely ignored the smell of unwashed bodies and teeth that hadn’t been brushed in days.
Denver.
Why Denver?
I need something new...
Both of you?
Yes.
Er...are you guys–?
We believe in love.
Ah. Er. Oh. O-okay...
Would you recognize love if you saw it? Wufei then asked, blinking serious onyx eyes.
Ted shrugged. Probably not. There’s no real such thing as love. I mean, you got yer life, you got yer paycheck, you got yer occasional hooker. I don’t have much family, I don’t have much friends, and I sure as hell don’t have no woman to come home to after three days of drivin’ across various States, delivering what people think they want to buy...so, no, I doubt I would.
But if you had a chance, would you take it?
Nah. Love’s overrated, methinks. Say...I gotta couple of toothbrushes in the cab back there. Go ahead and take that. Along with some other things you think you two may need. Seriously, you need it.
And Wufei wondered what it would take to finally discover the real truth and meaning of love, and did as Ted ‘asked’, pulling together various things in a small knapsack. When he returned to the front seat, he listened to Ted explain to him why he thought JFK was shot dead from the two snipers on the grassy knoll.
They reached Denver, of which proved to be disastrous. First off, it was snowing, they didn’t have the proper clothes, and Quatre had come down with a cold. They took shelter in a Grayhound bus station, where Wufei used most of their one hundred dollars for a couple of tickets to Oklahoma City.
Both of them malnourished, tired, sick, cold, and downcast about having no real destination to go, they held hands in the back seat of the bus, ignoring the glaring stares of the teenage girl in the aisle across from them. When Quatre blew his nose and complained lightly of his throat being sore, Wufei tried to soothe him by quietly relating what Ted had told him, and relating his own conclusions to their cross-country trip.
Love, he explained, is something entirely mysterious and unkempt. Unpredictable. Chaotic. Much as the war is. It is unforgiving, it is forgiving–it apologizes while it hurts, and it soothes while it strikes. Love is nothing more than an emotion that we both can’t take because we have never had that sort of love in our lives before. Therefore, there isn’t a chance for us to experience love without actually recognizing it.
What do you propose that we do, then? Quatre asked, wiping his sweaty palm against his shorts and ignoring the glare of the girl that caught their words.
I say that we continue on. Keep on looking. We’ll fall in love, eventually, Wufei sighed, leaning back in his seat.
But I’m tired.
I’m tired, too.
So why don’t we just admit it?
Do you feel love when you look at me?
Yes. I see a lot of things in you that I can love easily.
I see the same things in you, too. But do you feel it for my entire being?
Sort of. Like...when I look at you? I see the past two months and the past twenty or so people we talked to concerning love. I see desert roses and broken angel key rings–I see ugly lust and pitiful mercy reflected in eyes that have seen entirely too much of death and destruction...I see a chance that might give us both the reprieve in our journey, if we quit questioning ourselves and just open up to each other, Quatre said with a firm nod.
I see that, too. In you, I see lonely desperation and harsh aggression. I see dirty relations that hide in plain sight behind kind caring and soothing comfort. I see a future in which you and I never drop our differences, and we never fully agree on anything. I see us butting heads over everything as minimal as folded socks and hung shirts, and agreeing only because the other’s too hard to manipulate into thinking and sharing our own point of view. I see us happy one instant, gratified by our own calm the next. I see good for us, Quatre.
So...do we...like, kiss, or something?
I don’t know. How is that appropriate?
People kiss when they’re in love.
Well...if I really have to.
No, not now. Because then you’ll catch my cold.
All right. Maybe later, then.
And because the girl didn’t understand what their mission concerned, she turned away, disgusted, simply because she herself could not experience love without first experiencing forgiveness, tolerance. She would possess what she would think she could employ within her own methods of understanding, but she would never see beyond the horizon. And that was all right. There were other people in the world that knew what to look for, and what to look away from.
And now, two fifteen year old boys, running from the war and exploring themselves and their chance of falling in love, was something that most couldn’t handle. Simply because the world was cynical, angry, old. Love was the farthest thing from their minds, and upon seeing such things, their mind would automatically shut them out. What would it take to have one’s character judged without the fear of violence or hate? One would never know.
And in their journey for love, Quatre and Wufei found themselves in love despite their quest. Because they couldn’t move without the other, couldn’t speak without consulting the other, couldn’t listen or hear without knowing the other was hearing the same thing. Their love was different. Their love was unrecognizable because it wasn’t physical like most. It was more emotional, mental, verbal–physical would come later, when they settled down somewhere in Florida, in Gainesville. They went the long way around love, forcing it and coercing it, manipulating it through their hitchhiking and homelessness. It might have never happened if Duo hadn’t taken all the peanut butter–if Quatre hadn’t been feeling quite hopeful at that moment. It would have never happened at all, but it did.
Their fellow pilots, Heero Yuy, Trowa Barton and Duo Maxwell continued to fight in their place, saving the lives of millions, fighting their own inner demons and turmoil, waiting and looking forward for the day that they would finally hear of what happened to their lost comrades. Not that they were actually happy for them, still drowning in their own pools of confusion over such abruptness in their once dependable co-pilots, but because they wanted to know how they would turn out. How their life would fare. Because if those two, completely opposite and lacking in similar taste and mood, could fare together, could they? On their own separate terms and conditions? Could they survive where the other couldn’t? There was really only one way to find out, and after they won the war, after the three boys saved both Earth and the Colonies, and Relena Peacecraft began the tedious process of fixing what shouldn’t have been fixed, Heero managed to track down Wufei and Quatre, to carry out his previous order.
Because he was curious, Duo had tagged along. Because he was bored and without much to do, Trowa was there right behind them.
Wufei, true to his word, worked in a Blockbuster, restocking videos while Quatre worked across the street in the Barnes & Noble. Realizing that he had to deal with this sometime, Heero went for the most obvious and approached Wufei while he restocked children’s movies and argued with a five year old on the gender of the monkey in Dora the Explorer tapes.
At the sound of a safety being released, Wufei looked up into Heero’s exhausted face and froze, unsure of what to do as he looked his old rival in the eye.
Well? Heero asked. Did you find what you were looking for?
Actually, a while ago, yes, Wufei admitted. I am glad that you are all right.
Are you satisfied with your answer?
Not really, no. There’s still a lot I want to do.
Like...?
Go to college. Work at Burger King because I love their chicken whoppers. Actually win a chess game against Quatre. Learn to speak without raising my voice.
Heero grunted. Sounds...domesticated...
It’s different, Wufei agreed.
But back to the task at hand. I said I would kill you, for compromising our mission parameters and for threatening our cause.
But I didn’t. I avoided the war. We both did.
That’s just fine and dandy, Chang. I can live without hearing what happiness you managed to find in your stupid quest. Really.
Sarcasm, Yuy?
Some things change, wether I want them to, or not.
Are you going to kill me now, Yuy? Because my boss is calling the cops right now, Wufei indicated the frantic store manager as he and the other employees managed to evacuate the patrons of the store.
Heero glanced at them, and shrugged. What price would your death mean?
I really don’t know, Yuy. You’re the one that wants to kill me.
Tell me...what does it feel like?
What?
Love.
Warm. Soft. Reliable. Trustworthy. Sort of like...a warm blanket in the dead of winter. Like chocolatey pocky that melts in your mouth. Like...like bubbles in a soda. Wufei rolled his eyes to the ceiling. Only...not quite gassy.
Heero smirked, only slightly. Was it worth it?
Wufei nodded gravely. Every minute.
And Heero hesitated, gun locked on Wufei’s head, cobalt blue locked on firm onyx. When minutes passed, he lowered the gun. Congratulations, then.
Are you going to do the same to him?
No. You’re the leader. The cause of it all. Why should I threaten the follower for believing in things that are far beyond his comprehension?
Wufei shrugged, and finished putting the videos away. Sirens rang in the distance.
Heero put his gun away. Fine. I hope you’re happy.
More than I think you’ll ever know, Yuy. Maybe...maybe one day you can have the same thing... with another person. Some time. You won’t regret it.
Just pack up and walk away as you had?
Maybe not in the same sense, but yes. Everyone’s destined for it, Yuy. Even you.
Hm. I could try. If it could change you, then I can try.
Thanks, Yuy.
Chang.
And Wufei watched as Heero walked away, signaling to two unseen figures posted on surrounding rooftops, and watched his rival walk off. Swallowing what lump had accumulated during his initial fear that he was going to die today and never experience another one of Quatre’s brilliant smiles, Wufei relaxed.
And for the first time in his young life, smiled without the consequence of repercussion.
Owari. O_O
To others...er...well...helpfully this person complies. I know. I'm insane.
“The Way”
Chang Wufei was tired of the war. He was tired of injustice. He was tired of life. He was tired of fighting something that continually fought against his own chaotically changing morals and values. He was tired of it all. He needed a change, a shift in motive, a shift in attitude and mind. He needed something different, something comforting, something new.
One more mission, one more battle, one more day in which he fought majestically, a fifteen year old in a heavy mecha suit, fighting against others that wanted to kill him for standing up for what he believed in. And that in itself wasn’t much at all, because his thoughts, his values, his pride changed drastically from one day to the next. The others weren’t much help at all–Heero Yuy and his combative Need To Die mode no matter the mission or its heavy contents; Duo Maxwell, happy, nearly carefree, loud, crass, and American–need he say more?; Trowa Barton, who was quiet, somewhat of a follower, somewhat mindless, unheedful of his own thoughts, preferring that someone thought for him, incredibly reliant when one needed something done and without emotion, and Quatre Rebarba Winner–the name in itself was simple madness enough.
The last mission allowed him to escape with his life. They were shacked up in a cottage high in the Cascade Range in America, a few hours away from Seattle, after a stint in Canada. Cold, tired, hungry–Wufei snapped because Duo had eaten all the peanut butter.
Everyone was sitting at the table, silent with their respective thoughts, staring at nothing as the candle light flickered and wolves gave their mourning cries just outside. Heero was busy mapping out their next attack on a set of stolen blueprints for an OZ base, Trowa was staring at the dancing candle flame from the only candle on the three legged kitchen table, Duo was counting his arm hairs within said candle light, Quatre was busy trying to patch up a hole in his left sleeve with a dull needle and thread.
The cabin whispered along the floors and the ceiling, along the creaking floorboards and peeling tile for him to make his move. To step up. To separate himself. To make himself heard and known. Because even as he fought alongside these four fine fellows, with their own nuances and weaknesses, they didn’t really know each other. They would be lying when they claimed so. And in the end, they would continue to never know each other. They would continue with lives that wouldn’t concern the other–they would continue to be strangers, brought together for a common cause that nobody wanted and everybody embraced.
So, snapping because he didn’t have any peanut butter for his stale crackers, Wufei cleared his throat, pushed his seat back, and climbed onto the table, withdrawing his gun from the back of his traditional white pants and pointed it at each stunned pilot in turn.
On the floor, and do it without question, he commanded, head held proud, fist at hip, staring at each pilot in turn. He knew he could be taken out by the suddenly frowning Heero, the contemplative Trowa, the anxious Duo, the surprising Quatre. But each pilot slowly shifted away from their chairs and settled on the floor, palms down. Still standing on top of the table, Wufei paced the unsteady surface, watching the two more dangerous pilots with authoritive ease.
This won’t take long, he said, frowning when Heero lifted his head, assessing both the boy and the table, hard muscles twitching. But I ask that you hear me out.
I have fought this fucking war for far too long! He raged. Too long! I am fifteen years old. I should be studying, not fucking around in a giant war machine, fighting others’ wars! I want to live. I want to experience. I want a chance to gripe about my minimum wage job and my cheating wife. I want to walk across the street without worrying that some Oz-fuck would stomp me flat with his Leo. I want to look at Treize Kushrenada and for once, not wish that the motherfucker was in my suit’s range of demolition. I want to live. Is that so hard to ask for?
If you wanted to be free, Wufei–Duo started, for once without the negative use of his name, and Wufei fired point blank at the braid that curled around the American’s shoulder. Missing him, of course, because Wufei wanted to finish saying what he needed to say and to give the other boy a chance in hearing him.
I am a man, damn it. Damn my age. Damn my so-called innocence. I want to live and learn like the rest of them. I do not want this responsibility. I do not want to continue living this life! I want another!
We should all be so lucky, he heard Trowa mutter, and to make sure that the silencer would keep his silence and let him continue, Wufei fired a shot into the boy’s familiar red bang. There were two holes in the floor, and another ruin to someone’s hair.
And therefore...I am leaving. I am capable of anything. I can change my own fate. I can decide my own future. I can leave this all behind to venture forth for something entirely new and different. Therefore, I leave you all. I am a desperate man, so I will let you know now, that I am changing my entire destiny. Instead of crying for justice and retribution, I am now changing my cry for something new and challenging, something...something different. I am now giving you an option: I need someone to run with me. I need someone to rely on to live this life with me. I need someone to go with me, so that we may fall in love. I have not done that before. I believe that this time is as good as any.
Duo sputtered and laughed, clutching the ruined pieces of his broken braid. Trowa looked stunned and looked over his shoulder to see if Wufei was serious. Quatre stared back at him as if unsure if he’d heard right. Heero simply blinked.
Wufei pointed the gun at all of them in turn, crying aloud, I am a desperate man! I want
different! I want something new! I need! I want! I yearn! And in turn for this, I need you all to give me at least five bucks for my journey. I am heading to California.
I’ll give you my credit card, Duo laughed, not taking this seriously at all.
Heero calculated the distance between him and the gun.
Trowa decided that this floor was in serious need of repair.
Quatre wondered what Wufei drank and wondered if he could have some, too.
But each pilot withdrew five bucks from his pocket and tossed it at the table, and as Wufei gathered twenty bucks, he clutched it tightly within his gun hand, and continued to speak, speaking with the grandeur of a madman, of a desperate man.
I am heading to California. To Oceanside. I will not enroll in the army, the marines, the navy, or the airforce. I will work at a Blockbuster Video rental and barely make rent. I will eat McDonald’s and argue with my partner over whether or not that’s an actual patty. I will buy my clothes from Wal-Mart. I will live my life on welfare and spend years paying off my college intuition after enrolling into a community college. I will do all this and more, simply because I have lived in privilege, and I need something different in order to feel different. I need someone to come with me.
Can I be the wife? Duo asked, still in mocking.
Anyone but Maxwell shall be welcome to accompany me, Wufei said, his haughty tone suggesting that there would be no argument. He pointed his gun at the other three pilots, all of whom were staring at each other in bewilderment. Well? Anyone?
Your deluded mind will compromise whatever mission we will receive, Chang, and therefore, if you run, I will hunt you down personally and make sure that you will never endanger our cause, Heero threatened, shaking his head at the loss of a great warrior.
Fine, I accept. It appears that along the way, my partner and I will have to avoid you, as well. Barton? Winner?
Trowa and Quatre stared at each other, then looked at Wufei in silence. Wufei made a small push of his head forward, expecting an answer, expecting a commitment from either.
Why choose one of us pilots? Trowa wanted to know. Why not take someone hostage along the way?
Because no one would understand. Because a civilian would never know what a line it is to cross when one man destroys another in the name of ‘peace’. And Gundam Pilots, us, we understand. We, on a level completely above the others, understand what it is to be destroyed in the process. I will relate to no other.
Wufei, can I have whatever it is you’re on? Duo asked, legs crossed at the ankles, arms bunched underneath him, the very picture of casual insolence.
I’ll go, Quatre finally said.
Three pairs of eyes shifted in incredulous dismay at the fair-haired pilot.
Wufei looked at him, and had to accept. He gestured at him to get up, and as he did so, Quatre looked sheepishly at the others.
Are you homosexual? Wufei asked, pointing the gun at him. Because I am not.
No, but I think I believe in love, Quatre answered, truthfully.
Fine. Let us go.
Q! Duo shouted in bewildered shock. The fuck?! Do you know what the fuck you’re doing?!
Because you agree to his cowardly whims and failed to accept the consequences of both your actions and your designated missions, I will hunt you both, Heero vowed. You will not be allowed to wander about with the previous knowledge of your Gundams and our missions. You will both be destroyed.
Trowa just shook his head and wished that he were just as brave, just as willing to embrace the unknown and the foolhardy.
Fretting, Quatre hesitated before turning and following Wufei out the door. The remaining pilots listened to the sound of two doors to an old Jeep Cherokee open and shut, the engine starting very shortly after that, and the vehicle leaving the driveway. The brash change in life, generated by one boy’s need for a change in destiny, had begun.
Do you think they will catch up to us? Quatre asked Wufei nearly an hour away from the cottage.
Eventually. That is why we must hurry and put distance between ourselves and them.
Are we crazy, Wufei?
No, Wufei said with a shake of his head. We are not. We are just desperate.
Oh...do you think we can do this?
Of course. I have twenty bucks.
That’s not going to get us far. We need food. We need gas.
We will survive, Wufei said on a firm nod.
And because he was the one to initiate this whole, crazy thing, because he spoke with such confidence and bravery, Quatre was going to believe him. He sat back in his seat and waited.
They found themselves on the interstate, and both had not slept in nearly twenty hours. Their twenty bucks had lasted only an hour into their drive because Heero hadn’t filled up the gas tank before they had made it to the cottage previously. And when they ran out of gas, they were near Eugene, Oregon. They abandoned their vehicle, two foreigner boys in strange clothing, and waited for a change.
Why, Wufei? Quatre finally had to ask, when his expensive leather shoes began to scuff and tear as he walked along the scarred pavement.
Because. I needed something different. I needed a new perspective. And I would never find one while continuing to fight this war. Wufei was grave in his answer, firm as he nodded, steadfast as he stared bravely ahead. And because, I am curious. I want to know what love is. I want to know what it feels like. To actually love someone and to have them love me in return. But I know that love is different from what anybody would interpret it as. I want to find answers. I will not find them fighting a war where it is impossible to actually chance.
Oh.
The two teens, one light, one dark, attracted attention simply because they were two oddities, unfamiliar sources of light on the freeway. One dressed in white and blue, the other dressed in pink and purple. They were questioned, laughed, stared, eyed, and no one ever suspected the real truth. They were two droplets of rain within a shower of sparks; they were two stars hidden within the sun.
A trucker took pity on them, and they found themselves being hauled in a small bed cabin toward Medford, unable to speak to a man that was too eager for conversation and proposition.
Strange for kids to walk so far, he’d said.
People do it all the time, Quatre said in reply.
The trucker noticed the strange accents of the pair, and figured he was safe. He looked at Wufei in the rearview mirror, and liked the golden skin, the slanted eyes, the dark and tightly bound hair. He always had a fondness for Asians, and since blond boy was simply too light and too damn limpid for his taste, he concentrated on the Chinese boy as the boy was unsuspecting of his rising desire. He grinned at the pair and suggested that one undress and the other fondle him while he drove.
The two found themselves in Medford an hour later, minus sweaty trucker. He had eighty bucks in cash that he’d left behind when Wufei kicked him out of his seat fifty miles back; it would go towards their travel money. They abandoned the truck at a Chevron station and caught a ride with a bunch of hippies heading toward Eureka, California.
They learned about marijuana and the wonders of dreads, of psychotically happy hippie girls and the desert roses they collected. Sand, fused and exploded by the touch of lightening, fragile lips straining within a rock-formation, blooming with colors of gold, white and tan, ridged with the remembrance of the lightning bolt. Quatre found great comfort in something so small, that he didn’t bother returning one when the girl asked for her collection back. And Wufei, finding himself stumped by sucking the life out of roaches made from dying blunts, discovered a new epiphany when he let his hair down and allowed one of the hippie boys to draw a badly inked Chinese character for ‘luck’ on his biceps.
This epiphany being that no matter the person, no matter their destination, no matter their company or loss of funds, this person would always find a way to stay constant, to survive in a world that demanded change. He would always have his sense of justice and pride–they may be hidden away right now, terrified behind the new presence of his new journey, but they were there. He was sure of it. And when he and Quatre sat together in the back of the badly sputtering Pinto with four deranged hippies, he found enough courage to hold the other’s hand and feel the tremulous quivering of a person discovering his own epiphany.
From the foggy coast of Eureka, they walked at least twenty miles from Arctic Circle on Interstate 101 toward Redding, and had a stranger take pity on them, a traveling salesman that carried boxes of free Claritin as he made his rounds throughout northern California. While Wufei sat in the front seat, dictating the life of killer whales and barnacles in argumentative response to the salesman’s pitch of cleaner sinuses during the spring, Quatre found an alien lighter that needed more propane on the messy floor and tucked it into his vest pocket, next to the desert rose. Loss of identity screamed for reminders of what he was willing to lose.
The salesman thought that the foreigners were just quite pitiful, and gave them twenty bucks in ones, dropping them off at a Taco Bell as they waited to find a ride out from Redding, to continue their destination to Oceanside.
Over Double-Decker Tacos and medium Pepsis, Wufei asked him, Are you falling in love yet?
I suppose so. What do we do now?
I really don’t know. I guess we just wing what we can.
Do you think they’re very far behind us?
No. They won’t find us, Wufei said in confidence.
Why?
Because, along the way, Winner, we forgot what we were.
Oh. Right.
They can’t find what they can’t identify with.
And Quatre smiled at him, figuring that he was right. After all, things had been going quite well, so far, these past four days. And in four days, were complete identities truly lost when one did something out of character? When one lost sight of their own inner vision? And had they completely changed, or was that just the funk of marijuana and old Claritin pills?
Wufei, finishing his taco, smiled right back.
They found a ride with a bunch of black teenagers that were headed toward Sacramento, and thus, the two foreigners found themselves in a race against time, speed limits and furious California Patrolmen that had been after the stolen car since it left the cooperative streets of Susanville. Along the way, listening to Snoop Dogg and E-40, with the occasional mix of old school Twista and Tech9, Quatre decided that he was glad he’d left behind his old life. Glad that he was no longer rich. Glad that he didn’t have to worry about what fork to start with first, what sock should go on last.
Because as Wufei tried meth for the first time and a teen with braces traded his expensive Shaquille O’Neals for his wingtips, Quatre knew that this life was preferable. This chaotic, unstable life, without war and without mecha, without the snarling Lightning Count and furious colonists, without the frustration of non-space equipped giants and forty plus men that worshiped the ground he walked on. He enjoyed it. And he enjoyed the prospect of falling in love, no matter the person, no matter the gender.
He enjoyed waking up with a crick in his neck from leaning too far into the back window for some support, for knowing that when he woke up, he was in a different destination and in a different situation. And he truly enjoyed knowing that Wufei, with his machismo and honor-bound duty to live his life the way that he wanted it, was actually just another scared boy, caught in the tracks of a frustrating path that led no where for his liking. They weren’t men–they weren’t filled with the experience men had for life. They weren’t old enough to realize the true wrongs from right. They weren’t old enough to realize that gray was gray no matter the tone of black or the pitch of white. They were kids–kids were meant to have fun. Kids were meant to learn. Kids were meant to live. Kids were meant to know and discover what love meant and was for as they matured.
They had left behind the war for the other pilots to fight, and for the other thousands upon thousands of determined souls that fought a maddening war of chaos. They had left behind their responsibilities and their morals, their values and their traditional teachings imposed upon them within their respective cultures, to assimilate into what would have been lost to them during the aftereffects of war. What was wrong with wanting something entirely different? What was wrong with trying something entirely new? Something that was denied to them?
Their getaway car broke down somewhere near Davis, and after a very brief escape from highly stressed state policemen, Wufei and Quatre were once again hitchhiking along the freeway toward Fresno, thumbs out and strange clothes unkempt and thin against the elements, desperate, childlike faces begging for retribution from the frantic storm of their journey. They were picked up by a carload of pretty girls that were returning home from a Sarah McLachlan concert at Arco Arena. They had taken a wrong turn at the wrong on-ramp, and were trying to get back to their right destination when they picked up the two pretty boys. While crammed next to a girl that smelled of body odor and cigarettes, Quatre found the remains of a concert bracelet and slipped that into his pants pocket.
Amid songs of “Possession” and “Adia”, Wufei turned and asked Quatre once more, Have you fallen in love yet?
I might have, the blond answered truthfully, nodding once.
What’s the real way to know for sure?
I really don’t know. Have you fallen in love?
I could have, and I just don’t know it, yet, Wufei answered honestly, nodding twice.
How would you know?
I...I wouldn’t know.
I wouldn’t either.
Maybe it’s a sort of reaction that I would feel when I look at you.
...Well? Is it working?
I...I think it just might be gas.
But somewhere along the way, between Fresno and Bakersfield, Wufei decided that Oceanside wasn’t going to cut it.
Too much ocean, Wufei said with a grimace, the girls driving away with waving arms and cheerful smiles. They stood under the brightly striped awning of an In-And-Out, with a Factory 2 U nearby. They counted their money and found that if they made good choices, they would be able to afford a packet of t-shirts and a couple of pairs of pants in place of two ‘freshly made’ meals with sodas. After a very brief stint with wailing Mexican infants and frustrated Indian women that couldn’t work the register, both boys emerged with their old clothes in their arms, and stuffed the offensive things within the nearby receptacle.
They looked across the street at the In-And-Out with some reluctance, then set off for the freeway. They found solace in a lonely woman with all her clothes in the backseat, freshly divorced from a husband that recently produced baby pictures of a set of twins that weren’t hers to begin with. She didn’t mind the strong accents of the Far East and the Middle East, and she certainly didn’t mind the determination and the plain expressions of hope within two faces that far exceeded her own naivety. She merely found a couple of souls that were just as eager as hers, and that was all she needed to know. Quatre found a broken key chain of a pair of angels and held that tightly as the woman dumped her problems on Wufei.
The two boys had shifted their original direction and headed East, heading instead toward Utah.
The woman ended up dumping them in Tonopah, Nevada, resolving to turn right back into the arms of her chiropractor husband, and the boys ended up with at least twenty dollars in quarters and five dollars in pennies. Since Nevada was the carrier of all strange people that traveled lonely highways by their lonely selves, the two didn’t have to wait long before they were picked up by a man with a thickly scarred face and a runty dog named “Gunner”. Over Happy Meals with Hello Kitty toys and pitifully watered down Hi-C Oranges, the boys shared their meal with the dog and the man, who told them stories of his high school football team and a cheerleader he never really knew, but dreamt about constantly.
I’m headed to Lovelock, actually, he confessed as they passed Hawthorne.
Do you know what love is? Wufei asked as Gunner licked his broad forehead and whined, tail slapping Quatre’s face.
Not really. The man performed a double-take on them both. You aren’t...funny...are you?
In terms of humor, not really. We don’t have all that much to joke about, Wufei said with a nod.
No, I mean...you aren’t...that way, are you? Because if you are, your rides end here. I don’t do that homo-bullshit.
So you don’t know what it is? Wufei persisted as Gunner proceeded to gnaw at his queue.
Not really, the man confessed. Mostly just lust, maybe infatuation. I love women with dimples and fat asses, mostly because that’s what my mother possessed before she went and drowned herself in the kitchen sink when I was like, three years old. I identify with what I can never have. Mostly because I never had a chance to possess it.
And you would recognize love when you saw it? Quatre asked, rubbing the bald spot of Gunner’s forehead, worn from the constant, nervous reaction of her own doggy fears. He’d already pocketed Gunner’s silver nametag that he’d found among the empty beer bottles on the floor at their feet.
Probably not. I would probably end up thinking how much I would want to fuck it, rather than appreciate it, the man confessed on a shrug.
Wufei and Quatre looked at each other, and shrugged.
And because the man hated the way Gunner liked them better than his own company, he dropped them off in Fallon, where the boys found themselves in a family friendly restaurant called Heidi’s. And because Wufei was feeling rather lucky, he gambled ten bucks in the nearby casino and won three hundred dollars. But he wasn’t allowed to claim it because he was underage. And thus, they possessed only fifteen bucks, and were in need of a place to stay.
Wandering the small town of Fallon, they bypassed cowboys with long trailers and girlfriends that wore pocket-less Wranglers, camel toes evident. They avoided the curious speculation of worn mothers with screaming toddlers in the Wal-Mart parking lot, and they certainly made extra care to avoid the small town police officers that scoured their raggedy expressions and foreign looks, nearly radioing Homeland Security because foreigners in a small town screamed trouble and terrorist assault.
They were walking aimlessly toward Fernley when a friendly young Hispanic picked them up in his four by four chevy and treated them to momma’s famous tamales, of which he wasn’t able to sell because they were soggy and because they tinted their plastic coverings with dripping grease. Because neither wanted to be rude, and food was food, both boys ate one tamale each, and listened to the non-English speaking boy sing along with music they couldn’t understand. While he spoke, Quatre picked up from the dirty floor a battered baby’s pink pacifier, and slipped that into his pocket.
So? Quatre asked Wufei.
Wufei shrugged and tossed the garbage out the open window, uncaring that he littered. I don’t know, yet. It’s kind of hard to tell. It might just be the grease disagreeing with me.
Me, too.
When they arrived in Fernley, they were dropped off at Silverado, where Wufei would gamble the single nickel he found on the sidewalk, and once again, he won over three hundred dollars in the nickel machine. But, of course, he could not claim it because he was underage. So they walked over to the nearby Chevron, and found a ride to the truck stop heading toward Reno, catching a ride with a dispirited Native American girl, one rear window of her extended cab truck broken and replaced by plastic because her ex had decided that she was better off without him.
Because she listened to music concerning the hatred for all things living, Wufei decided to speak up while Quatre flipped through the various Cosmopolitans in the back cab. Do you believe in love?
She snorted, shaking her head. Once upon a time I did, she replied. Why? You guys gay?
We believe in love, but we’re not necessarily gay, Quatre answered, while overlooking the article on ‘making men’s mind explode with pleasure’.
Oh. Well, that’s different, then. I believe that you can fall in love with someone without really taking in consideration their real motives, she said, nodding. You can love and love and love, but you can’t really expect to be loved right back.
So...a sort of...one-sided love?
But love nonetheless, the girl corrected. Your feelings are legitimate. You can’t always expect the person you’re loving to love you back in the same way.
Taking that in consideration, Wufei looked away and watched the various vehicles fly by as the girl drove, Quatre sneaking the girl’s Audioslave lyric book into his shorts pocket, where his various other things were safely kept. She dropped them both off at Pilot, another truck stop along I-80, and assured them that the truckers picked up hitchhikers all the time. And when she left, she whispered something to Quatre, who nodded once in response.
When they found their ride in a lonely old man who went by the name of Frank, they were rather happy to find that Wufei had a surprising roll of twenties in his back shorts pocket. They didn’t know where it had come from–they had been in possession of ten dollars and dipping since giving the Hispanic boy five dollars for gas from Fallon. They had a small meal at Wendy’s, and Wufei even splurged for Frosties for all three of them. As Frank drove them on I-80 West toward Lovelock, the two boys slept in the back, exhausted, but content.
An hour into the drive, Quatre curled up to Wufei, and whispered into the sleeping boy’s ear, Love means never having to accept what’s never going to be given.
When they awoke nearly ten hours later, Frank was heading towards Flagstaff, Arizona, and as he drove, he listened to Mike Savage of ‘Savage Nation’, and cursed the Republicans for being so greedy and the Democrats for being so risky.
Along the way, Quatre found a discarded movie ticket to the movie “Ghost Ship”, and pocketed that.
When Frank pulled over for a gas stop, the two boys left forty bucks in return and wandered the gas station, finding a ride into Alburquqeue, with a man named Thomas, who had just robbed a bank and was looking for someone to share it with.
Unknowing of this, Wufei asked Thomas, Would you recognize love if you saw it?
Thomas, wild eyed and shifty, was a little nervous of the question. He eyed the blond in the backseat, sitting next to the unmarked suitcases that held his thousands of unmarked bills, then looked at Wufei. I could...for a price.
What sort of price?
What kind of love are you talking about?
And Wufei realized where this was heading, and had to kick some ass. After taking the man’s car, dumping the unmarked suitcases along the freeway, Quatre drove while Wufei navigated, trying to read the worn map that Thomas had used to plan his escape route throughout the States and into Mexico.
We are going to Denver, he then decided, folding the map up correctly and setting that aside.
Why? Quatre asked, barely reaching the gas pedal.
Because...Denver would be the last place for them to look for us.
But it’s so...plain....
So has everything else, Quatre.
Along the way, Wufei had stopped calling Quatre ‘Winner’, and Quatre had stopped using Wufei’s name. The Chinese knew when Quatre was addressing him, and Quatre felt nothing when he heard his name fall from Wufei’s lips. As he wondered how they would know when they had fallen in love, he sighed heavily and shifted on the seat–all of his accumulating things were pressing uncomfortably against his behind and he really didn’t want to risk moving them, for fear of losing what he’d gained.
They didn’t make it to Denver–rather, their car gave out somewhere between Walsenburg and Pueblo. They left it with its hazards blinking every so often as they began walking again, this time Quatre taking the car’s vin number from the dash. As they walked, the wind giving them ear aches and their skin to pimple with cold, a diesel double-cab pulled over to pick them up, and they were in the company of a clean, shiny man with fake teeth and a new ten-gallon hat.
As Wufei slept on the back seat, the man, Derrick, told Quatre of his prized Palominos and a step-daughter named ‘Vicki’, whom he’d accidently gotten pregnant. Because Wufei wasn’t awake to ask, Quatre asked in his place what he would do if he recognized love.
Surprised, Derrick had to think about it as he leaned on the steering wheel, managing to steel the six ton vehicle with a Bud between his legs and a heavy ruby wedding band on his ring finger of his right hand.
Son, I’m afraid I can’t answer that, he said with a shake of his head. I wouldn’t know about the subject good enough to make you happy.
But did you love your wife?
No. I married her because she had the valuable resources I needed in order to get my stud farm up and running, the man answered truthfully. The man did a double-take on the lovely blond features and reached across their separated space, to pat one thin leg too close to the groin to be comfortable with. You look just like my daughter, Vicki, you know that? I’m a lonely man...your friend’s asleep. Why don’t you–?
And Wufei woke up, startled, because the man was screaming in fury, holding a hand to his bleeding right eye and swerving wildly on the crowded freeway. The truck hurled into the rest area space provided by State Transportation funds and roared at the both of them to get out. As the diesel sped away, Quatre shrugged at Wufei’s inquiry and replied simply, He didn’t know what love was, either.
Wufei sighed, and they wandered about the rest area, finding a ride with yet another trucker. This time, he rode in the front seat and let the other boy sleep. When he was sure Quatre was fast asleep and dead to the world, he whispered into the delicate shell of his right ear, Love means giving yourself up wholeheartedly, flaws and perfection, without fear of losing what true identity of yourself that you possess.
So, where are you headed? The trucker, Ted, asked as he found much disinterest in the Asian features of a too-skinny Asian, whose clothes were much too dirtied to be considered sanitary. He politely ignored the smell of unwashed bodies and teeth that hadn’t been brushed in days.
Denver.
Why Denver?
I need something new...
Both of you?
Yes.
Er...are you guys–?
We believe in love.
Ah. Er. Oh. O-okay...
Would you recognize love if you saw it? Wufei then asked, blinking serious onyx eyes.
Ted shrugged. Probably not. There’s no real such thing as love. I mean, you got yer life, you got yer paycheck, you got yer occasional hooker. I don’t have much family, I don’t have much friends, and I sure as hell don’t have no woman to come home to after three days of drivin’ across various States, delivering what people think they want to buy...so, no, I doubt I would.
But if you had a chance, would you take it?
Nah. Love’s overrated, methinks. Say...I gotta couple of toothbrushes in the cab back there. Go ahead and take that. Along with some other things you think you two may need. Seriously, you need it.
And Wufei wondered what it would take to finally discover the real truth and meaning of love, and did as Ted ‘asked’, pulling together various things in a small knapsack. When he returned to the front seat, he listened to Ted explain to him why he thought JFK was shot dead from the two snipers on the grassy knoll.
They reached Denver, of which proved to be disastrous. First off, it was snowing, they didn’t have the proper clothes, and Quatre had come down with a cold. They took shelter in a Grayhound bus station, where Wufei used most of their one hundred dollars for a couple of tickets to Oklahoma City.
Both of them malnourished, tired, sick, cold, and downcast about having no real destination to go, they held hands in the back seat of the bus, ignoring the glaring stares of the teenage girl in the aisle across from them. When Quatre blew his nose and complained lightly of his throat being sore, Wufei tried to soothe him by quietly relating what Ted had told him, and relating his own conclusions to their cross-country trip.
Love, he explained, is something entirely mysterious and unkempt. Unpredictable. Chaotic. Much as the war is. It is unforgiving, it is forgiving–it apologizes while it hurts, and it soothes while it strikes. Love is nothing more than an emotion that we both can’t take because we have never had that sort of love in our lives before. Therefore, there isn’t a chance for us to experience love without actually recognizing it.
What do you propose that we do, then? Quatre asked, wiping his sweaty palm against his shorts and ignoring the glare of the girl that caught their words.
I say that we continue on. Keep on looking. We’ll fall in love, eventually, Wufei sighed, leaning back in his seat.
But I’m tired.
I’m tired, too.
So why don’t we just admit it?
Do you feel love when you look at me?
Yes. I see a lot of things in you that I can love easily.
I see the same things in you, too. But do you feel it for my entire being?
Sort of. Like...when I look at you? I see the past two months and the past twenty or so people we talked to concerning love. I see desert roses and broken angel key rings–I see ugly lust and pitiful mercy reflected in eyes that have seen entirely too much of death and destruction...I see a chance that might give us both the reprieve in our journey, if we quit questioning ourselves and just open up to each other, Quatre said with a firm nod.
I see that, too. In you, I see lonely desperation and harsh aggression. I see dirty relations that hide in plain sight behind kind caring and soothing comfort. I see a future in which you and I never drop our differences, and we never fully agree on anything. I see us butting heads over everything as minimal as folded socks and hung shirts, and agreeing only because the other’s too hard to manipulate into thinking and sharing our own point of view. I see us happy one instant, gratified by our own calm the next. I see good for us, Quatre.
So...do we...like, kiss, or something?
I don’t know. How is that appropriate?
People kiss when they’re in love.
Well...if I really have to.
No, not now. Because then you’ll catch my cold.
All right. Maybe later, then.
And because the girl didn’t understand what their mission concerned, she turned away, disgusted, simply because she herself could not experience love without first experiencing forgiveness, tolerance. She would possess what she would think she could employ within her own methods of understanding, but she would never see beyond the horizon. And that was all right. There were other people in the world that knew what to look for, and what to look away from.
And now, two fifteen year old boys, running from the war and exploring themselves and their chance of falling in love, was something that most couldn’t handle. Simply because the world was cynical, angry, old. Love was the farthest thing from their minds, and upon seeing such things, their mind would automatically shut them out. What would it take to have one’s character judged without the fear of violence or hate? One would never know.
And in their journey for love, Quatre and Wufei found themselves in love despite their quest. Because they couldn’t move without the other, couldn’t speak without consulting the other, couldn’t listen or hear without knowing the other was hearing the same thing. Their love was different. Their love was unrecognizable because it wasn’t physical like most. It was more emotional, mental, verbal–physical would come later, when they settled down somewhere in Florida, in Gainesville. They went the long way around love, forcing it and coercing it, manipulating it through their hitchhiking and homelessness. It might have never happened if Duo hadn’t taken all the peanut butter–if Quatre hadn’t been feeling quite hopeful at that moment. It would have never happened at all, but it did.
Their fellow pilots, Heero Yuy, Trowa Barton and Duo Maxwell continued to fight in their place, saving the lives of millions, fighting their own inner demons and turmoil, waiting and looking forward for the day that they would finally hear of what happened to their lost comrades. Not that they were actually happy for them, still drowning in their own pools of confusion over such abruptness in their once dependable co-pilots, but because they wanted to know how they would turn out. How their life would fare. Because if those two, completely opposite and lacking in similar taste and mood, could fare together, could they? On their own separate terms and conditions? Could they survive where the other couldn’t? There was really only one way to find out, and after they won the war, after the three boys saved both Earth and the Colonies, and Relena Peacecraft began the tedious process of fixing what shouldn’t have been fixed, Heero managed to track down Wufei and Quatre, to carry out his previous order.
Because he was curious, Duo had tagged along. Because he was bored and without much to do, Trowa was there right behind them.
Wufei, true to his word, worked in a Blockbuster, restocking videos while Quatre worked across the street in the Barnes & Noble. Realizing that he had to deal with this sometime, Heero went for the most obvious and approached Wufei while he restocked children’s movies and argued with a five year old on the gender of the monkey in Dora the Explorer tapes.
At the sound of a safety being released, Wufei looked up into Heero’s exhausted face and froze, unsure of what to do as he looked his old rival in the eye.
Well? Heero asked. Did you find what you were looking for?
Actually, a while ago, yes, Wufei admitted. I am glad that you are all right.
Are you satisfied with your answer?
Not really, no. There’s still a lot I want to do.
Like...?
Go to college. Work at Burger King because I love their chicken whoppers. Actually win a chess game against Quatre. Learn to speak without raising my voice.
Heero grunted. Sounds...domesticated...
It’s different, Wufei agreed.
But back to the task at hand. I said I would kill you, for compromising our mission parameters and for threatening our cause.
But I didn’t. I avoided the war. We both did.
That’s just fine and dandy, Chang. I can live without hearing what happiness you managed to find in your stupid quest. Really.
Sarcasm, Yuy?
Some things change, wether I want them to, or not.
Are you going to kill me now, Yuy? Because my boss is calling the cops right now, Wufei indicated the frantic store manager as he and the other employees managed to evacuate the patrons of the store.
Heero glanced at them, and shrugged. What price would your death mean?
I really don’t know, Yuy. You’re the one that wants to kill me.
Tell me...what does it feel like?
What?
Love.
Warm. Soft. Reliable. Trustworthy. Sort of like...a warm blanket in the dead of winter. Like chocolatey pocky that melts in your mouth. Like...like bubbles in a soda. Wufei rolled his eyes to the ceiling. Only...not quite gassy.
Heero smirked, only slightly. Was it worth it?
Wufei nodded gravely. Every minute.
And Heero hesitated, gun locked on Wufei’s head, cobalt blue locked on firm onyx. When minutes passed, he lowered the gun. Congratulations, then.
Are you going to do the same to him?
No. You’re the leader. The cause of it all. Why should I threaten the follower for believing in things that are far beyond his comprehension?
Wufei shrugged, and finished putting the videos away. Sirens rang in the distance.
Heero put his gun away. Fine. I hope you’re happy.
More than I think you’ll ever know, Yuy. Maybe...maybe one day you can have the same thing... with another person. Some time. You won’t regret it.
Just pack up and walk away as you had?
Maybe not in the same sense, but yes. Everyone’s destined for it, Yuy. Even you.
Hm. I could try. If it could change you, then I can try.
Thanks, Yuy.
Chang.
And Wufei watched as Heero walked away, signaling to two unseen figures posted on surrounding rooftops, and watched his rival walk off. Swallowing what lump had accumulated during his initial fear that he was going to die today and never experience another one of Quatre’s brilliant smiles, Wufei relaxed.
And for the first time in his young life, smiled without the consequence of repercussion.
Owari. O_O