9-Aug-2000
Category: Adventure, Action, Friendship, DARK DARK ANGST
Rating: PG (Mush!)
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing with them not seeking to make any sort
of money. ((Except for Shelby and Penny.. they're mine. :> ))
Pairings: Those established in my timeline (Companions of Fate).
NOTES: All right... this is going to seem to end with a lot of loose ends sticking out there but as someone noticed, this isn't a problem that would just go and get itself solved. The events in Partner's Not Lovers will be directly influencing later fics in the CoF storyline. Again, Bonne is the wonderful voice of Wufei and Heero while I keep track of the small blond, the braided wonder and bang boy. :D
Duo stood out on the cracked stoop, watching the Taurus as it flew away. Heero was taking it back where it came from. Duo allowed himself a momentary shudder at imagining what would happen if the people of the 4th got ahold of mobile suits. The noise from the suit disappeared long before Duo took his eyes off the artificial sky. Locking his hands behind his back, he looked back towards the orphanage.
Now, was as good a time as any.
His features sobering in an expression of committed purpose, he mounted the steps and headed into the building. He moved silently up the stairs, looking for Wufei. Checking in the room Quatre and Wufei shared first, not finding them he moved on through the house checking in several different rooms. He finally pinpointed his comrades in the younger children's activity room.
Quatre was stretched out on the lumpy couch, dead to the world while several small people sat around listening intently to the tale Wufei was spinning for them. A few older, more wary children, hadn't joined the circle but Duo could tell by their expressions that they were listening. Duo leaned against the edge of the doorway, unwilling to disturb Wufei, finding the scene intriguing as he got a glimpse of the young dragon's obvious fondness for youngsters and of the youngsters fondness for Wufei!
He waited till Wufei finished the story, then cleared his throat. "Wufei... can I talk to you a moment?"
Wufei looked up from where he sat at rug-rat level. He lifted up the three year old on his lap and handed the boy to an older child. "Now... see if you can make a quiet game out of finding the dragon's secret hiding place... if you make noise, the dragon will hear you and vanish!" He stood up as the kids put their heads together and came over to Duo. "Outside," he said briefly.
Duo nodded and stepped back to let Wufei lead the way. His face was pale and strained but there was a determination around the set of his lips. He'd been thinking about this choice for quite some time now. It was what he had to do... even if silence might have been wiser.
Confession time.
Wufei went out the rear door which opened to an alley. He leaned against the building, arms crossed and waited. Duo looked down at the dirty street. He scuffed some paper trash over from under the dumpster, spreading it out with his toe till it made a little mat. Then he gracefully knelt in front of Wufei. Holding his hands loosely at his sides, he bowed his head. He'd had a pretty speech prepared.. he was the master of verbiage after all... but the words fled his mind. Swallowing a couple of times to get liquid across his suddenly dry tongue, he heaved a deep breath.
"I, inflicted the bruises." He didn't whisper it.. he didn't shout it. Just spoke it.
Wufei watched and listened. His eyes flashed for a second, then his features resumed the cool set Duo was familiar with from the 'old days'. "Hmmmm," he said. "That's a very general statement. Since you are saying it to me... am I to assume that what you really mean is that you ... beat... Quatre?"
Duo didn't look up into Wufei's features. He kept his eyes trained on Wufei's shoes, watching a stray dirty ribbon as it danced on the fetid breeze that came down the alley. He nodded at... first, then remembered Father Maxwell's stern but gentle voice...
~'No, don't nod... tell me.'~
Taking another breath, Duo choked a little his voice not quite as strong as before. "Yes."
"I see." Wufei said, his voice measured. "And why are you on your knees to tell me this? Someone tough enough to beat up a friend shouldn't be kneeling."
Duo flinched beneath the words. "We... we had just come back from speaking with ... with the Alpha. I wanted to destroy the whole building. Quatre... Quatre wouldn't help me. He kept telling me that it wouldn't fix things. He's right... but at the time. So many people.. that's all they say... it won't fix things... without telling us how to fix things. I... I couldn't see *him* I just started attacking. I didn't even realize I'd gotten him down on the ground till he was able to flip me."
Wufei's mouth tightened. He looked down at the kneeling boy, covering the emotions that rose in him with the familiar strict mask he'd relied on for so many years. After a moment he said, "Get up, Maxwell. Face me... or are you hoping if you kneel, I'll have more pity for you?"
Now that he allowed himself to remember that night, he could feel the punches in his hands, the shock up his legs as he'd kicked. Duo felt sick with himself. His head snapped up at the last words Wufei spoke, fire blazing across those violet eyes before he reminded himself he had no right to that fire. Still, his jaw knotted but he didn't move to rise.
"You were on your knees the night I held a gun to your head and wanted to kill you for hurting Heero."
"I'm glad you remember that night," Wufei said softly. Then with a snap of command, "Now GET UP!"
Duo's features took on the mulish expression that meant he was really thinking about whether or not he wanted to obey a command ... but in the end he rocked and came gracefully up to his feet, his hands still held loosely at his sides as he faced Wufei directly.
Wufei straightened from the wall and walked up, very close - 'in Duo's face' - his eyes penetrating the wide violet ones. He stared into Duo's eyes for a long moment and then said quietly, "It's for Quatre to forgive you, not me. You said something like that to me once. The truth is Maxwell.... I think I know *exactly* how you feel. Strange, isn't it? Who would have thought that some of the worst acts of our lives could give us common ground."
Wufei reached up and gripped Duo's shoulders. "For hurting him... I want to beat the hell out of you. But I know... I know what it took for that to happen. You may not believe it - but I know. I... it's not for me to judge you, Duo. I have no position to do so. Understand, yes. Judge, no. Next time... if there is a next time... come to me first. I'll fight with you. I would have, if you'd've let me."
In Wufei's grip, in the face of his words, the defiance leaked out of Duo. He looked into the Chinese boy's eyes. Nodding a bit to the last part before speaking. "He's all ready forgiven me. I know him. But he won't punish me Wufei. You say it's not for you to judge me... but I say you're wrong. You're our Justice Wufei. When all the rules changed you were our Justice. I come now to you for that Justice."
Wufei scowled slightly. "Then that is what you will get, Maxwell. But you won't like it.
He interrupted quickly but quietly. "It cannot be worse then living with the feel of my little brother crumpling under the force of my blows."
Wufei gave Duo a sharp shake. "Idiot - baka. That *is* my justice. You ask me for that? The only justice I can give you is what I found within myself. The only justice you deserve is what you find within yourself. Live with it. That's justice. That's what I had to do, Maxwell. That's what you, and Heero, and Quatre and Trowa all *made* me do. It's what my clan tried to instill in me. Justice doesn't come from an outside source. You find it within. Face it. Live with it. Deal with it. Does it seem too hard? That's how you know it is right."
Softly he added, "I told you that you wouldn't like it," and dropped his hands but he did not move away, watching Duo closely.
Duo's eyes fell once more. He hadn't known what to expect when he'd called Wufei out here. He'd half expected to get the crap beaten out of him and Duo realized that he'd been wishing for that. Then he could feel as if the circle had become complete. Then he realized that nothing would really have been accomplished by such. The circle would have just been completed so the whole thing could roll over again.. never stopping. Retribution, after retribution.
"Father Maxwell always said, that you'd feel better after confessing your sins. I don't know how I feel right now. I don't like myself for what I did."
"Neither did I." Wufei said. He took a breath and let it out slowly. He'd opened himself as much to Duo in this moment as Duo had to him, though perhaps the braided boy was in too much pain to see it. "Perhaps you've forgotten this... but when I made my... 'confession'... I told you all that I... loved each of you. That includes you, Duo Maxwell. I didn't say the words lightly at the time. I don't say them lightly now. You deserve... at least some of what you are feeling. Because... you didn't trust *all* of us. Quatre... is the Heart, yes. But taking him away with you to this, alone, because you didn't trust me, or Trowa.. or Heero... that was the only real sin you committed. And the only penance you can do is to find the trust that you didn't allow yourself to have, before."
Duo's violet eyes once again found the murky ground, his pale features lost in an expression of concentration. He was taking every word Wufei spoke and weighing it, turning it over and over in his mind and feeling it out. Testing it and it's theory for soundness with what he knew.
After a time he simply nodded. Taking another breath, he looked back up and straightened his shoulders. Until this point, Wufei might not have noticed the slight hunch in the American's stance. The habitual slouch of someone braced and waiting for a blow. The slouch was gone now, replaced by the direct gaze and stance of a young man accepting his own fate.
Wufei saw the change and nodded, his eyes never leaving Duo's. "Better," he said calmly. "Quatre believes... that we all need each other. I believe... that he's rarely wrong and this isn't one of those few times. That means all of us. Even you and me."
He reached out and took Duo's right arm with his, gripping his elbow and placing the American's hand on his in a clasp of more than equals - partners. Warriors fighting side by side and back to back. Duo looked down at their clasped arms for a long moment, they'd all been loners for so long he couldn't pinpoint when that had changed but he recognized that it had. His fingers closed tightly on Wufei's elbow, returning the grasp and the meaning as he looked directly into dark, fathomless eyes.
Wufei nodded. Then quickly, almost roughly, he clasped his arms around Duo's shoulders and released him. "Let's get inside. The scenery back here isn't worth the time we're spending on it.
This time, Duo didn't get defensive to the slight on the 4th. He simply recognized the validity of Wufei's words and he nodded, still stunned a bit speechless by the quick embrace. After a moment's pause he looked up at the building. "Think the children are climbing on his small blondness yet?"
Wufei smiled. "Quite likely," he said, allowing Duo to see that, yes, he had a very soft spot where children were concerned.
Duo grinned back at the Chinese boy. "Karma payback for all the hell he probably put his sisters through. "
Wufei snorted softly. "I thought they were taking care of the payback themselves," he muttered, remembering the most recent visit.
Wufei and Duo had found a sleepy Quatre trying to explain to several small children that he was not hiding a dragon under him on the couch. The children had not looked ready to believe him and Wufei just managed to avoid a few temper tantrums as he redirected active imaginations to the task of using paper and markers to make up their own dragons.
End Part 13A
((Continued in Part B ))
Laekin
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