08-Jul-2003
Title:IDENTITY: 1/?
Rating: R for Violence
Genre: Drama/Action
Archive: GW Addiction
Pairing: 1+2 2+5 1+2+5
Warnings: OC pov that switches (Painlessly, I promise) Violence, Swearing and Gang warefare.
Blurb: these are italics/emphasis. This chapter is longer, happily so! BUT! it is much darker...violence and death and wot. Nothing extreme, but much stronger than the last two chapters.
The amount of feedback I get is directly proportional to hw quickly I write the next bit- Eg. Chapter 2 had many replies, so chapter 3 was finished yesterday. (My net went down, So I couldn't post)
~ I am the Breeze of Wisdom, I am the Wind of Insanity~
The Elemental
Duo was so frustrated he wanted to scream, but instead he pressed his back against the wall of the club and let the heavy beat burrow into his bones. He'd been here a week. A week! Not only had he found absolutely nothing to do with OZ yet, but he'd also been completely unable to mingle with much of the other gangs.
That was probably the only thing outwardly suspicious about the whole area. Everything else that was going on, Duo could understand, even rationalize with. But what on Earth could have managed to scare the piss out of every gang in a ten mile radius? That fear was his only lead, and in that case, what the hell would OZ want with a gang?
I'm missing something, some important piece, Duo thought, unconsciously shifting aside as a couple slammed into the wall next to him, pressed so firmly together he couldn't tell where one stopped and another started. There's got to be something working here. Intel says it's OZ, but I'm not sure. If it's just some rival gang, why haven't they shown their colours yet? You have to be visible for intimidation to work!
I need to report back to Quatre tonight. Then I'll just have to keep poking around some more. I'm not leaving until I know what's going on. Of course, I'm really not going to find out anything in here... I can barely hear myself think.
Duo sighed, remembering a past discussion that was almost an argument. One of his first missions with Heero and Wufei had been of the "Sneak and Seek" variety. Trying to convince them why he'd needed to go to a club, especially when he'd already admitted he probably wouldn't find out anything of real importance, hadn't been easy. It took them a bit to grasp the idea of being 'seen'. If he was supposed to play the part of a dealer or hustler, he couldn't just show up in the middle of a bar one day and expect people to come to him. You needed to be seen, people had to get used to you. And the best way to do this was to stay in their peripheral vision- school, clubs, and the street. If someone gets used to you, they almost forget you've only been here a week. Especially when they've got more important things on their minds.
At least they've improved, Duo thought. Surprisingly enough, Heero and Wufei had gotten much better at accepting his own way of doing things since they first met. And they both now trusted his advice, which was a hard won victory in its own right. And he had to admit, he enjoyed working with the two. There was definitely some chemistry, though how much remained to be seen. He'd admit he liked them in a second - lying to himself about his own feelings was dangerous at the best of times. Knowing himself was one of Duo's greatest strengths, at least in his own mind.
But what about Heero and Wufei? Sometimes, Duo felt like they were walking on glass around him, afraid they might break something. Other times, all he wanted to do was smack them with a haddock for ignoring him completely. He kind of wished one of them would get their heads out of their collected asses and do something, even if it meant only being friends. He could live with that, especially with a war going on. But this not knowing was driving him crazy.
It was midnight, and technically, he had school in the morning, but he'd quickly learned that the classes didn't even take attendance. If you came, you came. If you didn't, oh well.
Pushing up from the wall and leaving its heartbeat-like rhythm behind, Duo strolled out into the open air, meandering around the city as though he had nowhere to go, and ever so subtly heading back to his safe house.
It was one AM by the time he got in, shimmying through the fire escape on the third floor. The building was condemned, but with the exception of the rats, Duo could find no problems with it. Booting up his laptop, he waited for the scramblers to give the clear symbol before jacking the radio into the USB port.
"Hawks Nest, this is Darkchild, over." Duo waited two full minutes, then repeated the message. This time, the radio crackled to live, static laying over the reply like a thick blanket.
"Darkchild, this is Hawks Nest. Arabian here. Over."
"Arabian, Alice fell through the Rabbit Hole and met the Mad Hatter. But how did she fall into the Looking Glass? Over."
"Darkchild, Alice didn't fall, she stepped through freely. Over."
Duo reached over and the static immediately cleared, now that he knew that the signal was secure on both ends. Chuckling lightly, relaxed into a more comfortable position. "Hey 04, just a status report, nothing big. I've found jack and shit here all week. But I've got a gut feeling something's going on, so I'm staying at least another seven. What's new on your front?"
"01 and 05 are back from that last mission. You should have been here, they were practically spitting at each other. They couldn't walk on their own, so they were holding each other up, but they wouldn't admit they were hurt. Trowa took one look at them and laughed, so I think it was worth it. They're fine now, just caught the base's explosion from behind. You having problems?"
"Nah. Just annoyances. If OZ is here, they're too well hidden. But something's got the gangs running scared. I just have to keep snooping around. Did the data extract succeed?"
"Yes. As soon as those two wake up, we're going over the info. I'll pass anything relevant on to you then. When should we schedule the next contact?"
"Two days. Unless something comes up on your end. Use the Emergency frequency, or leave something with one of my drop points."
"Acknowledged. Sleep well."
Duo grinned, "You too, little bro. Darkchild out."
Duo leaned back against some packing crates and stifled a laugh as he pictured Wufei and Heero staggering into the house, each of them yelling at the other. It did make a funny mental image, and what was worse was that Duo could see it far too easily. There was some form of rivalry going on between those two, he just didn't know what.
Talking to Quatre was nice, even if they couldn't risk visual contact this far apart. OZ had a tendency to monitor radio frequencies, though much less strictly than they did the digital channels, which was why the pilots had chosen to use them in the first place.
Unplugging the computer and slipping it into his backpack, Duo froze, the small, fine hair on the back of his neck beginning to stand. Someone was in the house.
Used to this, Duo had everything back in his bag within thirty seconds, the only proof he'd even been in the room the dust he'd disturbed as he'd slept. Heading for the fire escape, he headed up, not down, planning to lose whoever it was along the rooftops. Swinging up and around, he almost vaulted onto the roof, taking a moment to look over the ledge at the base of the building, where at least ten soldiers were standing. Swearing, he took off, sprinting across the debris-strewn rooftop. Pausing at the edge, he leaped across the foot-wide gap to the next roof, landing quietly.
Shifting his backpack so it sat more securely across his shoulders, he paused to listen for pursuit, cursing quietly under his breath as a shout went up and someone spotted him. Using the raised lip of the roof as cover from the gunfire now aimed near his head, Duo ducked and headed along the side of the building, jumping as soon as he hit the edge, and rolling as he landed on the next roof, this one shingled and steepled. Sliding down the opposite side of the soldiers, Duo controlled his fall with one hand, ripping his fingernails as they scraped against the harsh surface. When his feet met the eavestrough he kicked hard, yanking it from the building even as he grabbed it with his free hand and used it to swing down to the ground, landing hard on his right ankle and rushing forward before he'd really regained his balance. The sounds behind him faded, then grew stronger as a second group joined the first. Taking a quick right through an alleyway, Duo came up to a brick wall, maybe seven feet high. Using the garbage cans and a few crates he was almost overtop when he heard pounding footsteps draw near, then stop.
Fire burned in his shoulder and he cried out, pitching forward and already twisting to lessen the impact of the fall. Something in his hand cracked loudly enough to be heard above the gunfire and shouts behind the wall, but he moved forward again. Ducking behind an old store, windows brown from dust, he grinned as he reached his target. Lifting the cover up with one hand, he shifted it aside and stepped down onto the rusting metal ladder embedded directly into the tunnel. The moment his head was underground, he reached over again and slid the cover back in place, climbing ever steadily down into the darkness of the sewer below.
"By God, that's the seventh one this week!" Someone cried, though I didn't even look to see who.
"The second one today." Another replied, but I kept my eyes towards the entrance.
I already know what they were talking about, after all. An emergency crew was loading another teen onto a stretcher just inside the Emergency Entrance. His friends stood off to the side, worried, even as his blood was drying on the front of their matching jackets. His jacket was gone, and his white shirt all Crew members wore was stained red. He was screaming, a wretched, gurgling sound the ward and I were almost beginning to get used to hearing.
Almost.
They had him strapped into the stretcher in moment, hands and legs restrained as he tried to fight off imaginary monsters that flew in front of him. As they pushed him passed, I could see that the vessels in one of his eyes had burst, making him look all the more deranged, or perhaps pitiful, as blood bubbled from his throat. The silence that followed after him was so thick I could feel it in the air, a weighted blanket that made everyone study the tiles, or the ceiling, or their nails, just to keep from making eye contact. Seeing someone their age, the two gang members inched towards me, shock still controlling most of their minds.
"Hey, is he- is Tank gonna be ok?" This one had bright red hair, obviously dyed, spiked a good three or four inches off of his head. The white and black bandanna normally worn at all times by Crew members was being twisted in his hands so tightly I expected to hear the material rip.
"You docs can fix em up, right?" This boy was younger, though less frightened. His bandanna wasn't on his head, and I suddenly remembered seeing bandannas wrapped around each of the victim's wrists, black with blood. They waited as I thought of an answer, and I paused before I could meet the first one's eyes again.
"No. He's not the first one we've had like this, you know. They all hemorrhage- they bleed inside their brain, and we can't fix it. The only thing we can do is stop the pain, for a while." I paused, "Does he have family?"
They were silent, mouths hanging open, shocked, I think, because I hadn't told them everything would be alright. The younger one nudged his friend, and he blinked rapidly, almost coming out of a dream. He shook his head, eyes staring somewhere past me, "Nah, I'm his cousin, but that's all he's got left. I guess... he was all I had left too."
I ignored the crack in his voice as I turned, heading for the triage room out of instinct. As I'd thought, he was dead before I even walked into the room, Dr. Weiss massaging her temples as another nurse began unstrapping the body. Nodding to them both, I looked at 'Tank' for a long moment, before removing the silver ring on his forefinger and collection of dog tags around his neck. True to Crew tradition, one of those tags was his own, but the rest belonged to friends and family he had lost. A kind of remembrance. And now, they would have to be passed on.
They were still waiting when I returned, the red-head collecting himself enough that he accepted the tags and ring quietly, though he failed to keep the tears at bay. When they left, Jacques, the intern who's been ribbing me for weeks now, slung an arm around my shoulder.
"Wow Dita," he squeezed my shoulder gently, "you do have a soul. I hope you realize I just lost a bet because of that."
I had a lot of comments I could have said, a thousand and one reactions, each of them scathing, but in the end, I just twisted his hand back until he let go, then walked off. When Dr. Weiss passed by, she smiled without humor. "Go home Dita, get some rest. You should have left hours ago."
I knew that myself, but nodded and checked out, grabbing my pay stub from my mailbox on the way out.
It was dark, incredibly dark. I'd smashed my watch fighting with the first gang victim of the shift, smacking my hand against the wall when he lunged forward, trying to free his secured hand. I guessed it was close to two am, so I most definitely wasn't planning on school in the morning. After a night like this, I knew I'd need the sleep.
'Tank' would have been our fourteenth victim to come in like that in the last two weeks. All gang members of various gangs, all hallucinating, all dead with hemorrhaging within the hour they would arrive.
If we included those who died before they even got to the hospital, or were found dead, that number was thirty.
What the hell was going on?
I took the longer route home preferring to stick to the better lit streets, even if it added fifteen minutes or so. Crossing on Ridge Street, I could hear sirens and gunfire, muffled, so a few blocks back, to my right. It almost seemed out of place, considering how quiet things had been, but I couldn't really expect the peace to last forever.
Ridge Street is aptly named, since it's a street that was once built directly on a ridge on a hillside. Now, God knows how much later, it's a road flanked with sidewalk, the grass rising dramatically to the right, and moving into some of the 'upper-class' housing, even as it seemed to drop straight down to the left, making it look almost as if that part of the ground just disappeared. It's an interesting area, and I remember playing on it when I was really small and we had the occasional blizzard that would close the streets. Me and dad would climb onto my carpet sled at the very top of the hill, and sled down, across the road, and drop down the hill, sometimes for almost two whole minutes before we stopped in the parking lot of a little coffee and sandwich joint. Then we'd have hot chocolate and head back, climbing all the way around just to do it all over again.
I turned down onto Pape and was startled out of my nostalgia when the lid to the sewers slid off in front of me. A figure tumbled out and lay on his back for a few seconds before wrenching around and meeting my stare with his very vibrant purple eyes. He groaned and stood, swaying a little from side to side. He was backlit, so I couldn't see him very well, though I could certainly smell him.
"What the hell were you doing in the sewers Max? Are you drunk?"
He seemed to stop swaying mid-swing, so he was standing tilted a little to the right. He grinned a little too quickly for me to be fooled as he moved closer to the sewer again. "Yeah, Deet's. I had a bit much and pissed off some punk so I'm--"
A gunshot went off and a shout replied, somewhere a little closer than the last ones I'd heard, and Duo visibly flinched. Spinning wildly, he stepped up to the sewer, missed the ladder, and slipped and fell, head hitting concrete as his arms windmilled, one catching me hard in the eye.
He wasn't moving. I looked from him to the right, where the noise was slowly but steadily growing stronger, and back to him again. I reached down to shake him awake, but yanked my hand back instinctively when his shoulder felt wet. Cursing my stupidity, since the sewer wasn't the driest place around, I wiped my hand on my scrub pants, then stared in mute horror as it left a deep, red stain across my knee and thigh.
Quickly I checked Max, finding a bullet hole under the strap of his backpack, bleeding rather profusely. I ripped several strips from the bottom of my shirt, using them to pad the wound and hopefully stop the bleeding until I got him home. Heaving Max up, I slung him over my shoulder in a fireman's carry, the only one I could manage considering how close we were in size. I was worried about the bleeding, considering his head and shoulders were now somewhere around my waist, but there wasn't anything I could do, unless I planned to leave him there.
I took the short cuts, crossing through backyards and empty lots, pausing to listen if I thought I heard pursuit. We'd almost made it home when Max groaned, and I carefully lowered him, exhaustion making every limb scream in protest. I closed my eyes, just for a second, and he was already sitting up when I opened them again.
Somehow I wasn't too surprised.
"Can you walk? We're almost at my place?"
He wet his lips and glanced around, unsure. "Where..?"
I shrugged, "They're maybe three, five minutes back, if we're lucky." I stood again, and offered him a hand up, which he took. Slinging one arm around his shoulders, and using the other to support his waist, we staggered quietly through my backdoor, hidden from prying eyes by both the darkness, and the dead bushes that surrounded the house.
I hadn't fully pulled the door behind me when mom appeared, eyes wide and cheeks rosy. She swayed a little on her feet as well, though it wasn't from being hurt. The bottle in her hand was maybe three quarters empty, which was good since she liked to swing it from side to side as she spoke.
"Oh, Dita hun, you brought a boy. He's a nice boy. Didn't I always tell you you need a nice boy?"
I sighed, "Yes mum."
"I did tell you. Good. You run along and pay dear. Shameful, bringin a boy into that mess of a room. You keep that door shut young lady." She sloshed her bottle for added effect, "I don't want to hear you two, I'm taking a bed. I mean a nap. I'm goin to nap."
Mum staggered over to the couch, putting the bottle down with almost comic care, then collapsed on the sofa, asleep before she's stopped moving.
Max just looked at me and I walked him upstairs, too embarrassed to really meet his eyes. I know I was blushing, but I was pointedly ignoring it. "Alright, mom's a drunk. At least she's a nice drunk."
He nodded in agreement and I wondered how many mean drunks he knew, but by then we'd made it upstairs and into my room. I had his shoes and bag off in an instant, taking more time as I peeled back the jacket, hoping not to disturb any blood clotting but needing to address the wound. I ended up having to cut the shirt off, though it was ruined anyway from the blood and sewer filth.
He was lucky, once the blood was washed away, the wound was clean, with a definite entry and exit point. Whoever had shot him was using .12 bullets, and for some reason that made me think they were trying to keep him alive. .12's leave much less mess as an exit wound, where the higher caliber, like a .22 or .45, would tear a bloody hold the size of a fist out your back if it hit.
I bandaged the wounds, Max uncharacteristically quiet, and I worried about infection. I had some antibiotics here, strong ones, but not many. I decided I could grab something stronger from a supply cart at work tomorrow, just to be safe.
Considering how rank he smelled and how dirty his hair was, I didn't really want him sleeping in my bed like that, so I levered him up and to the bathroom. Obviously dazed, Max did little to argue, which had me wondering if he'd been concussed in that fall, or if it was just from blood loss, another possibility. He stayed quiet until I moved to undo his belt, when he promptly jumped up, swayed, grabbed his head as if to steady the room, then spoke a little too deliberately for me to believe.
"Dita, thank you, but I can clean myself up. You just go on, and I'll do this. I'll be fine on my own, I'd done it a million times before. You just go. Ok?" He planted himself firmly, hands still to his head, and I smothered a grin, nodding solemnly and pointing out the towels, soap, and shampoo before I left. He closed and locked the door behind me, and I headed downstairs to check the locks on the doors and windows.
I went back upstairs and tossed the shirt into a garbage bag, as well as cleaning up my med box I'd torn apart minutes ago. When I figured I'd waited enough, I went to the bathroom door and called out softly, "Max? Max, you alright?"
There was silence on the other end, and I chuckled lightly, without much humor as I jimmied the door open and found Max asleep on the toilet seat, naked except for his socks.
I ran water for the bath, removed his socks, and maneuvered Max into the tub.
I've done this so often with patients that the human body, male or female, is nothing new to me. Max's, however, was probably the worst I have ever seen.
He was covered in small scars, larger scars, yellowed and green bruises all over his torso. This wasn't his first bullet wound; I found one in his upper arm, one to his side, and one clean through his calf, all long healed and scarred over.
His ankle was swelling, and I suspected he'd sprained it somehow, and I found his pinky and index finger broken on his left hand, so I put them in a splint. His right hand was a bloody mess, looking like he'd dragged it across a sander, two fingernails gone and another half torn off. I cleaned everything thoroughly with a hydrochloride-based cleanser, hoping to prevent the infection I knew was dammed likely. When he was clean, I unbound his hair, turning on the showerhead to rinse most of the gunk out before working the shampoo into his scalp.
That hair was real, not a weave. Something about that fact made me cautious, or at least respectful, though I'm not certain why, and I made sure it was thoroughly dirt free before wrapping him up in a towel and staggering with him across the hall to my bed once again. I dried him thoroughly, re-dressing the wounds already as they bled through the first bandages, and put him in a pair of my dad's old sweatpants, which swam on his tiny frame, but the elastic waist held well enough for now. I began to brush his hair, knowing full well what it would look like if he slept with it wet, and Max stirred, eyes blearily swinging around the room. "Status?" he croaked.
I thought for a second. "You're injured, but safe. You need to stay still, or you'll re-open the wound. You may be concussed, so I'll have to wake you every hour tonight. Don't worry," I repeated, "you're safe."
He nodded blankly. "Thanks H'ro. Is Fei back yet?" I paused for a second, perhaps a second too long as Max started to stir and tried to sit up. "Is he ok? Where's Fei? Is he hurt..?"
I pushed him lightly back down on the bed and crossed my fingers. "Fei is still out, but he'll be back soon... he had to go shopping."
Max chuckled at that. "Heh. Wufei hates shopping... " And then he was back asleep. I brushed and braided his hair, tying off the end with an old elastic from when my hair was longer, then looked at the clock. 3:45. I'd wake Max up at 4:45, and an hour after that, until I didn't worry about the concussion any longer.
Stepping back, my foot knocked his backpack, and I kneeled down, deciding to see just what he had inside. When I found the laptop, I grinned, curiosity gaining the better of me as I plugged it in and booted it up. Even if it had nothing on it, I could probably learn a lot about Max from the comp's memory. And heck, I was bored.
A password screen popped up before the boot program, and I took a wild stab at the answer. Then another, then another, then another. I was about to reach over and grab a crack disk, a disk programmed to run a bypass code through most computer systems, when a little figure appeared on the screen, and Max's voice floated through the speakers, slightly tinny, but as sarcastic as hell.
<<What the hell are you trying to do, dumbass? You can't crack MY child. Go ahead, keep trying. You're only going to fail. Nyah!!>>
Frowning, I popped the disk inside and heard the computer read it. It should activate automatically, and if I was lucky it'd be done in five to ten minutes.
The figure on the screen changed. Now it was a small, cartoon-ish version of Max with little batwings and a scythe. <<You're joking, right? You're trying to use a crack on MY computer? Get some imagination, here, have it back- oh, I wiped it for you too. *burp*>>
The computer spit the disk out, and that little crease between my eyebrows appeared, like it always does when I'm about to tear through a project. Cracking my fingers, I looked at the clock. 4:15. Half an hour left.
I looked back at the computer. "Alright, let's see what you've got."
Tapping the enter key I got the password screen this time, though the figure of Max had migrated to its top left corner and was spinning the scythe around lazily. The animation grinned: << Bring it on. >>
End Part 3
(:./elemental/ident3)
