23-September-2001
Title: An Honorable Enemy Part 4/8
Author: Enigma
Written: August - September, 2001
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: {wait and see}
Category: Angst, Mild Shonen Ai, Friendship, Morality, Squick, OOC
Enigma Story Category: G-Boys High Adventure!
Archive: GW Addiction, Sweet&Sweet
Warnings: Angst, very mild shonen ai, friendship, morality, squick, sermonizing on the treatment of prisoners of war, language, plot-related OOC, etc.
Reference Point: In case you don't recognize the OZ pilot, he appears in Episode 13 teamed with Lt. Alex and while he appears to be a real bastard there, I envision him differently here. The action in this fic fits into the series timeline between Episodes 10 and 12.
Disclaimers: I don't own any of the GW Universe. I'm not making any money off this story. It's written out of love, so please don't sue me.
Notes: When captured and badly beaten by OZ, Wufei's existence hangs in the balance. What could possibly motivate an enemy pilot to risk his own life to save him?
//thoughts//
It was well past midnight before Mueller found an acceptable way to avoid getting court-martialed and with a sigh of relief, sent a series of rather arcane messages to an old friend from the Academy that owed him some favors.
"I'm glad you wound up in security, McNeil," the OZ pilot chuckled to himself and recalled his friend, a man who liked to bet too much at poker and owed Mueller a substantial debt. [1]
"I think that if you can get this for me I'll have a way out of the grave I dug myself this morning after all," Mueller hadn't yet found a safe haven for the boy he'd rescued, but he was far too exhausted to keep working at that point.
The South African man stood and stretched, muscles tired after what had been easily one of the most eventful days of his life. The battery operated lantern he'd been using to light the laptop's keyboard in a closet of the shed they were hiding in was then turned to its lowest setting as Mueller went back into the main room to check on his patient.
Wufei still lay in the nest of blankets which had grown higher as the chill of the evening worsened, the steady rise and fall of his chest indicating that he was sleeping without significant difficulty despite his extensive injuries.
Feeling reassured by that, Mueller dug through the pile of forgotten clothing he'd spotted earlier hoping to avoid sleeping in his uniform. Success came in a rather odd form, though, and by the time he was done, the usually fashion-conscious young man was wearing two garments with a distinctly local flavor to them in colors he'd never have worn together voluntarily.
Looking down at the odd puce and chartreuse combination he had on, Mueller chuckled softly to himself, "I look like I'm going to Mardi Gras or something like this!"
Still smiling, he then went over to the remaining stack of blankets in search of warmth of his own for the night. Under other circumstances, he wouldn't have minded sharing body heat with another male, but due to Wufei's wounds he'd never allow himself to risk causing the boy further injury as they slept.
Before he lay down, though, the chocolate-eyed man took one last look at his patient and then placed a hand gently on Wufei's forehead to search for signs of fever. While grateful that there was nothing new wrong and that there had been no noticeable increase in body temperature, he was surprised when the boy mumbled something in his sleep and seemed to smile slightly.
"Huh? Did you say something, Wufei? Are you awake?" Mueller asked with concern, fearing he'd awakened him by accident. There wasn't any direct answer though and the older teen shrugged his shoulders, "Oh well, just talking in your sleep, I guess. That's okay. Sleep well and I'll see about getting us both something to eat in the morning, okay?"
Again the murmur came accompanied by the slight upturning of lips that struck him as more than a little adorable. Warning himself not to get emotionally attached to the boy, Mueller stepped away, shut off the lantern, and buried himself in his own stack of cloth, suddenly realizing that he'd gotten cold while typing. Deliberately shivering to regain body heat, the dark-skinned youth was still very much awake when Wufei's soft words came again more distinctly.
Mueller held himself still and listened, trying to hear what the other boy was saying, curious to know what dreams a Gundam pilot dreamt.
Most of what floated in the air made precious little sense to him since it was in Wufei's native language, but the one word he heard most frequently he decided had to be a name. In the few sentences in English or Japanese that Mueller barely understood, the name was mentioned repeatedly and he could almost hear that same sweet smile when it was spoken.
Coming to a rather obvious conclusion, the older teen smiled to himself and then rolled over burying his head in the blankets enough to drown out the murmurings of the sleeping boy but still able to hear should he be needed if Wufei awoke in distress.
Somehow, for Mueller at least, those whispers in the dark just added to the sense of confidence he already had about things improving and he slept much better than he might have expected to otherwise.
*****
Morning sunlight crept in through the dirty windows and slowly pried its way under Mueller's eyelids. With a groan, he stretched muscles that had stiffened during the night spent on the uncomfortable floor before forcing his head out of the blankets hoping it wasn't as chilly as he recalled it being the night before.
To his shock, he was greeted by coffee-dark eyes staring at him from a few feet away.
"Good morning, Wufei," Mueller greeted, smiling as he dragged most of his stack of blankets over to his new friend hoping to check on him without subjecting himself to the cold which was actually worse now. "How do you feel?"
"Good morning to you, Mueller," Wufei answered formally in a tired voice, the pain medication long gone from his system and agony rolling through him, but there wasn't the horrible feeling of unreality pervading everything and for that he was grateful. "How do I feel? Politely put, not well. Impolitely put, I feel like shit."
Mueller chuckled and gave him a look that told him that he understood and said, "Feel free to be as impolite as you want to, Wufei. I need to see how your wounds are doing and that'll probably not be pleasant either."
Kneeling beside the smaller teen, the OZ pilot worked as quickly as he could, pleased to see that despite the lack of professional medical help the injured boy wasn't any worse off than he had been the night before.
Biting back an urge to scream when the Ace bandage was removed from his now exquisitely painful ankle, Wufei growled from between clenched teeth, "Gods, you OZzies really know how to hurt a guy when you want to, don't you?"
An apologetic smile on his lips, Mueller nodded and activated a new ice pack putting it in place before rewrapping the bandages carefully, noting that he doubted the boy would be walking normally any time soon.
Hoping to keep things in a lighter mood, the older boy commented with a smirk, "Yeah, they kind of expect us to be good at that, but I dare say that from what I've heard about you and the other Gundam pilots you can, too, when you need to." Mueller bit back a comment about how many men Wufei himself had killed at Lake Victoria Base, the South African youth knowing that bothered him mostly because of his admiration for Lucrezia Noin.
Wufei snorted softly trying to find the inner strength to be his usual sarcastic self and failing as the handling of his abused joint sent agony lancing through him all over again. Taking a few deep breaths in the hopes of not crying out, he finally answered in a tired sigh, "That's true, but I prefer to do that at a distance. It's almost never personal the way this was." The ShenLong pilot, too, kept silent the thought which followed this statement that if he ever had the chance to challenge Khushrenada again, *that* would indeed be personal and he would be glad to take whatever negatives might come of it just to repair his damaged senses of honor and self-worth.
Mueller didn't bother to comment further as he moved on to check the myriad small injuries between the boy's feet and the gash on his head, working quietly and asking only a few questions as he went.
The contusions on the bronze chest were beginning to make themselves more evident and Mueller barely suppressed a wince as he looked at them, suddenly wishing there were enough Ace bandages for the ribs as well as the ankle, but there wasn't. For a moment he paused and considered tearing up some of the material in the pile of clothes or even one of the numerous blankets to make binding strips, but decided that could wait; as long as Wufei remained lying down it shouldn't be too bad.
Replacing the injured boy's warm covers he finally faced the injury he was most concerned about in the long term, gently peeling off the gauze and looking with anger at the line of sutures and the head wound in general. The entire area had become swollen and puffy from the inherent damage that comes from having the metal butt of a gun slammed into someone's skull. Again the fact that their supplies were limited meant he had to choose between putting an ice pack there versus saving them all for the ankle and he suddenly wondered if he'd chosen incorrectly.
Probing the injury carefully, the Aries pilot asked hesitantly, "Um, how bad does this feel, Wufei? I know it's got to be fairly rotten, but is it too much to cope with?"
"Nani?" Wufei answered, lost in the internal musings that had successfully distracted him from the pain for a few minutes. However now that his concentration was broken, he moaned piteously, and complained, "Damn, that hurts! What did they hit me with? A brick?"
"No," Mueller growled to himself even as he glanced to see where his own gun was currently stored, pleased to know that the two of them weren't totally defenseless. "It was just a standard OZ service revolver, I think, Wufei, but it certainly wasn't necessary."
Sloe eyes turned towards him with curiosity and Wufei was about to ask him to explain why the anger came and went from his voice so often, but Mueller cut that train of thought off by asking, "Are you hungry? There's a bunch of stuff in here but I'm not sure what you might be up to eating. Oh, and I want to get some more pain meds and stuff into you soon, too. It'll make you sleep all day and that's better than being awake and hurting."
Wufei seemed to consider it and then sighed, hating himself for being weak and needing the aid of chemicals just to deal with the pain. "I'll take those drugs as soon as you get the stitches rebandaged, I feel like hell. As for eating, no, I don't think that's a good idea, there's still some vertigo from the concussion bothering me."
Mueller smacked himself in the head with his hand and snapped at himself, "The concussion! Shit, I forgot all about that. Here, let me check your eyes." Not waiting for an answer he leaned over and peered closely at the boy laying on the floor and was pleased to see that the pupils, though not exactly matching, were at least much closer than they had been the night before.
The worried man never noticed the curious look from the boy beneath him as he pulled away, moving to gather another handful of the pills Wufei had described as reminding him of candy the day before. He handed them and some more water to the other boy and watched Wufei wince as he tried to swallow them since he had to hold his aching head up to do so. Mueller moved quickly to support him with a strong hand on his back then helped him lay back down in the warm pile of cloth.
The older teen smiled at him and was about to go check the computer for messages when Wufei nervously asked, "Mueller, can I ask you a question? I, uh, kinda think I ought to know something right now, okay?"
Wufei's voice was so filled with uncertainty it was almost like a physical blow to Mueller who settled back down beside him immediately, focused solely on him and wondering what could be so important that the smaller boy seemed capable of suppressing his pain to ask.
A tiny frown marred Mueller's face as he looked at Wufei and nodded slowly, sensing his nervousness. "Sure thing, Wufei, if I *can* answer it, I'll give it my best shot." A sense of foreboding ran down his spine and he added a joke trying to push the feeling away, "Um, you're not going to ask for any secret codes or anything, though, right? Because I might have a problem giving those to you, ya know."
Appreciative of the attempt at levity but not interested in joking since he knew the time until the drugs kicked in was limited, Wufei answered quietly, "No, nothing like that. What I want to know, Mueller, is why you risked your life to rescue me in the first place? And why are you going to such extremes to help me now?"
Shocked, the darker-skinned man cocked his head in thought for a moment. He felt that telling Wufei he knew it was do that or do nothing knowing full well that Tuberov intended to have him tortured, raped, or worse and then executed wouldn't help matters even if it was the truth.
As Mueller wrestled with another way to say something about his own feelings about integrity and honor, Wufei interrupted his train of thought when he hesitantly asked in a soft voice, "Is it because you, um, well, er, um…"
His voice trailed off, then he finished with the simple question, "Did you do it because you like me or something?"
"Huh?" Mueller answered, intelligence temporarily on hold.
A slight blush touched Wufei's cheeks as he asked again in a voice choked with confusion, "Did you do all of that because you're interested in me, um, well, personally?"
Shocked by the question, Mueller was suddenly silent and that alone made Wufei even more embarrassed and nervous.
End Part 4
Author's Notes:
1. Care to guess Mueller's "friend's" identity and who he is based on?
Enigma
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