25-Feb-2001
Major revision: 20-Jul-2004
Title: Of Wolf And Man
Author: Dan
Genre: epic AU
Pairings: NA
Disclaimer: not mine, don't sue.
Warnings: AU, a positive plethra of OCS, high
supernatural and yech factor, angst
Further Note: terms from such literary gems as Laurel
K. Hamilton are used and then twisted beyond all
recognition.
"You might have heard I run with a dangerous crowd
We ain't too pretty, we ain't too proud
We might be laughing a bit too loud
But that never hurt no one
Come on, Virginia show me a sign
Send up a signal, I'll throw you the line
The stained-glass curtain you're hiding behind
Never lets in the sun
And only the good die young"
--- Billie Joel "Only the Good Die Young"
I was staring at the papers for the proposed Mars colony when a sharp knock stole my attention away. I sighed and pressed two fingers against my temple. It had been a day. At this point I'd started to believe that nothing else could have gone wrong, but clearly I was wrong.
"Enter."
"Well, that's imperial," Duo remarked as he stepped into my office. I fought the desire to sneer at him. I didn't hate him. It would have been easier if I could have hated him, but instead he simply provoked a strong desire to be as petty and irritating as possible.
"What do you want?" I didn't bother with trying to sound civil. We had made it abundantly clear during the war that we disliked each other. The animosity hadn't gotten any better during the intervening years.
"You asked for a new bodyguard; what's the matter? Hilde ain't doing a good enough job?" Duo's friendship with Hilde boggled me as much as my friendship with her apparently boggled him. We were as jealous of her attention as we were of Heero's, which didn't please her any.
"Hilde has other duties and can't be called away all the time just to baby-sit me," I replied. I looked up at Duo and we frowned at each other. Neither one of us were happy, it was something that I took a small amount of solace in.
It just figured that Wufei would send Duo with the file. He kept tossing us at each other in the hopes that somehow we would find 'common ground.' So far it had been a disaster. "Just drop the file on top of the pile I'll get to it."
Duo eyed the growing stack of documents, files, and assorted paperwork with something approaching awe. "Aren't you supposed to have an assistant or something?"
"Personnel keeps promising me one, but since they don't actually work for me and last time I talked to them I was less than polite, I don't expect to see said person for another six months."
He made a humming noise in the back of his throat that could have been sympathetic or merely thoughtful sound. "Heero called them incompetent and as a result we haven't seen those three extra agents we were supposed to have in months. With your luck you could be waiting years."
I glanced up at him and shot him one of my less friendly looks. I was getting better at those. "You don't need to sound so pleased about it."
"Babe," he smirked at me. "I live to gloat at the pain of others."
"Just drop off the bloody file and leave." I really hoped that he would leave soon because I was starting to get annoyed. It makes it hard to play human when I'm pissed. Humans just don't have bright golden eyes.
"Fine, fine. No need to get your panties in a twist." He tossed the file on top of the pile.
I shuffled it to one side without looking at it. "Thank you."
It looked as if he was going to say something else when I caught familiar pine-copper-cinnamon scent. As Aidan opened the door I treated him to my best scowl, which he returned with a particularly jaunty little smirk. How he had managed to find my office in the labyrinth that makes up the government office building--a solid five to six miles of pure hellish, counter-intuitive maze-like hallways--without help was impressive. And annoying.
"How did you get in here?" I asked as he walked through the door. Duo shot me a look, surprised, I would guess, at my unusual bluntness with a stranger.
Aidan arched one brow that said he knew exactly what that tone of voice bode and was not overly concerned. Which, clearly, did not improve my mood anyway. "The usual way. I walked through the front door."
"That's not what I meant. How did you get past security, moreover, what have you done with your trainer?" I had bad mental image. "Please tell me you didn't shove him in a closet somewhere."
That made him laugh. "No, lovely, I didn't tie her up and leave her in closet--though she might like that. I simply told her that I already knew who you were, what was expected of me, that I'd like to pop down to your office to say hello, and that I'd be back before she could blink." He flashed me a quick charming smile that made cute little dimples appear. I made a mental note to tell Wufei to get him a new trainer and make sure this one either had one foot in the grave, or was a raging bull dyke, or one of our precious few straight males.
He leaned against my desk and smiled sweetly. "So hello lovely, how are you?"
"Don't call me that."
"What would prefer then? Sweetheart, beloved, darling?" His expression turned wicked. "Or should I just get to the point and call you 'mistress'?"
"I am going to kill you." I told him calmly, looking him straight in the eyes. "I will kill you very slowly and enjoy it very much." He smiled that boyish smile of glee at doing something wrong and knowing he wouldn't get punished. I pressed two fingers to my temple. Hard.
"Aidan." All the frustration that I felt went into his name. Duo was watching us like a spectator at a tennis match.
"This is your new bodyguard? Or something else?" I sneered at him and Duo chuckled. "It'd be about time."
"She doesn't have a boyfriend?" Aidan asked with more gleeful curiosity than I liked. He kept smiling down at me even though I was aiming a look at him that said I was definitely going to make good on my threats. "Can't imagine why with her sterling personality and gracious manner."
That made Duo laugh, and I had to admit the man had a nice laugh. Deep and infectious, and smooth as German milk chocolate. It made my left eye twitch. "The only lover Relena has is the job. Hell, she is the job. Periodically someone tries to set her up or at least get her to do something other than analyze negotiations, terraforming plans, and potential colony proposals, but thus far it has been a lost clause."
"So I have a clear field." Aidan made it a question rather than a statement.
"You could say that. The only back you'll have to walk all over is Relena's, and then you'll probably have to beat her head a few times." Duo shot Aidan an odd look. "Though I'd watch how you go about it."
They had one of those little male moments that, no matter how long you spend around the sex, a woman will just not going to get. I wasn't sure it was a good thing or not that the two of them had decided to get along, albeit at my expense, but it beat having them trying to redecorate my office with each other's blood.
Duo cocked his head and held out his hand. Aidan flicked his eyes to me, and once again it struck home that life was no longer as it seemed. We couldn't even touch someone who might be a little bit sensitive. And there were more 'sensitives' wandering around than I had ever imagined. Hilde, unsurprisingly, was one. She said that she always knew when I or Dorothy were around because 'the air felt different.' She has never been able to explain it more clearly than that, much to Sally's frustration. (Sally, from the very beginning, has been trying to analyze, compartmentalize, and study our 'particularly unique biology.' Hilde, out of all of us, puts up with Sally's prodding the best.)
However, as far as I knew Duo was as psychically dead as the proverbial doornail. He'd never blinked when Dorothy or I were around--even when I was pissed as all hell. I definitely wasn't expecting Duo's reaction; I would never have dreamed it possible.
Aidan reached out to shake Duo's hand, and we both jumped when Duo suddenly grasped Aidan's hand hard enough to make his knuckles turn white. "You're not human," he hissed, staring up into Aidan's startled eyes. "I'm not sure what the fuck you are, but you're not human."
Aidan's eyes started to turn that lovely amber-yellow I was so familiar with and Duo's were starting to turn an unsettling pitch black--as if his pupils had dilated until they swallowed not only his iris, but everything. And I had just one thought about Duo's little revelation:
Shit.
The males were starting to snarl at each other, and I was left remembering the janitorial staff's latest threat if I messed up my office again. "Duo," I said in my most neutral voice, "Sit down and stop growling at Aidan in case he decides to make it personal."
His eyes made shivers crawl down my spine, but he stopped glaring at Aidan, which was good. "Relena?"
I rolled my eyes before snarling at him. "Duo. Sit. Down."
Apparently the eye roll reassured him somewhat. He sat, but watched me as if he had never really seen me before. Aidan leaned against the door and laughed softly. I growled at him, letting my eyes bleed into amber. "Aidan, you are in enough trouble as it is. I will deal with you later."
"And what will you do, my lovely alpha?" His vibrant green eyes were full of curiosity and challenge.
"I will kick the shit out of you, but not now." And I meant it. I could taste the truth of those words on my tongue. I knew he could as well. Duo, to my everlasting surprise, laughed. That made both Aidan and I glower at him. He beamed up at us full of good humor and curiosity.
"Relena, darling, you've been keeping secrets," he crooned to me, his voice as soothing has milk chocolate. "I know supernatural when I feel it, and the two of you are practically vibrating with ... something."
That's when I felt something from him, a cool wind against my arms--raising goose bumps over my skin. There was a sickly sweet smell in the air, like roses starting to wither. Like death. I arched an eyebrow. As I have mentioned before, strong emotions--like fear or anger--make it harder for the supernatural to play human.
I walked around the edge of my desk and leaned against it before him. He leaned back to look up at me through bangs that had grown too long again. "I'm not the only one, sweetheart," I replied. "You don't smell human."
That made a small smile quirk at the corner of his lips. And not for the first time I wished he wasn't quite so attractive, so endearing. "I asked first."
That did make me smile, a real one, not just a twist of my lips. I think it was the first I've ever given him. "You're so immature."
"Yeah, but it's fun," he responded. I found it odd that now, of all times, we could quip at each other and be comfortable.
"You might as well tell him," Aidan said, surprising Duo and I. "He's just going to find out some other way."
I sighed because Aidan was right. Duo was stubborn and, more problematic, curious enough to not let this go until we had given him an answer that satisfied him. And, there was just no reason to lie to him--not when he was so close to my inner circle who knew anyway. Someone would tell him, probably Wufei because he had the least resistance to Duo's wheedling, and that would be the end of that. I sighed. I never liked getting boxed in by the logical consequences of things since I could normally manipulate them to my suiting, but this time I was just going to have to cave into the inevitable. "We're lycanthropes," I explained, looking down at my folded hands. "As in we turn furry once a month."
Duo pushed the chair back so he could see both of us. Aidan gave him a small playful smile and saluted him with two fingers. "Cool," was his only comment. His easy acceptance should have worried me, but sometimes I am just not as observant as I should be.
"Tit for tat, Maxwell," I reminded him. Duo gave me a calculating look from under his unfairly long eyelashes. "Don't give me that look," I told him, mildly annoyed. "I'm immune, and you smell like death, so don't tell me you're just some honest, simple, human boy."
Duo smirked at me. "You're not immune, Relena. At your heart you will always be a softie."
I snarled at him and he laughed at me. I hated that he was right. He leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees, steepling his fingers. I recognized the pose as his ‘about to impart important information' from when he had trained me in basic hand to hand combat and shut the hell up.
"I'm a necromancer. Do you know what that is?" I cocked my head to the side and thought about it. I knew what one was from horror stories and Hilde's Wednesday night D&D games but I wasn't sure of what one would be like in reality. I played it safe and shook my head. He sighed. "A necromancer is a person who can raise and control the dead, all kinds of dead. Supposedly even vampires. It's an innate ability, like being able to shoot a basketball. I don't need a ritual to do it, but it helps."
"But you can't shoot a basketball, that's why Heero always beats you," I told him.
Duo shot me a hurt look. "Hey now, no call for that."
"Have you met a vampire?" Aidan asked, his voice starting to take on a low rumbling growl. In retrospect, considering how deeply suspicious I now know Aidan to be, it shouldn't have surprised me, but it did. "Worked with one?"
Aidan pushed himself off the wall and walked behind Duo, which did not make the Preventor happy. Dropping his hands onto the back of Duo's chair, Aidan leaned down until lips nearly brushed Duo's ear. "Just how much do you know about our local vampires, lovely?"
Duo was staying very, very still, but he turned his head and meet Aidan's amber eyes without flinching. "I don't know the vampires here, and the ones I did know are very, very dead."
Aidan and I looked at each other. He was telling the truth, we could both taste it in his words, but what he said presented us with a new set of problems. It explained why Wufei was not surprised to see my wounds, explained why he knew what to do, but it meant he was holding things from me. And that made very extremely unhappy.
We both turned to scowl at Duo; who gave us a look of surprise and then deep suspicion. "What the hell did I just to piss the two of you off?" He asked carefully. "You're making it feel like ants of fire are marching over my skin."
I crossed my arms over my chest. "I was attacked by a mixed group of werewolves and vampires."
Duo blinked, and then nodded. "I can see how that would make our otherwise deep and intimate relationship somewhat tense."
"That's one way of putting it," I replied. I was amused and couldn't keep hiding it. He kept surprising me and throwing me off my stride. For so long Duo had been an annoying pain in my ass. Stubborn, unmovable, arrogant, sarcastic, and snide he had single-handedly proved that I, the Pacifist Princess, was not above trying to strangle someone. I couldn't help looking at him like he had grown a second head.
"What?" He asked, sounding tense and defensive. Of course, if I had to irritated werewolves flanking me, I'd probably defensive to.
"You're being a lot more reasonable than you normally are," I replied.
He gave me a look, which said quite a bit about what he thought of this entire business, and it definitely wasn't approving. "I haven't been chatting up any vampires to see what their opinions on taking a hit on you would be," he told me coldly. Somehow, I got the impression that I had insulted him.
Aidan walked over to lean against my desk next to me, hip comfortably pressed against mine. I resisted the urge to snarl at him to get away. It would have given him too much satisfaction. I nodded to Duo. "I know."
"It wasn't you I was trying assuage," he replied. Although he was perfectly still, his pose one of unthreatening relaxation, I had no doubt he had already seen a multitude of different ways this little confrontation could play out and figured out contingency plans for each of them.
Aidan nodded. "Alright."
Duo blinked. "Forgive me for being a little startled, but you going from homicidally inclined to just trying my word strikes me as a little odd. I don't want you harboring a suspicion of me and then knifing me in the back when I'm not looking."
Aidan laughed softly. He settled himself against my desk, sliding his arm behind my back in a manner I assume he thought was subtle; I refrained from growling at him. "I'll always know if you try to lie to me, human," he said quietly. I didn't have to look at him to know his eyes were that warm amber and that his expression had taken on that predatory cast that would never be at home on a human's face.
Duo, to his credit, managed to look vaguely amused rather than terrified even though I could smell the change in his pheromones. "Useful talent."
I could tell from Duo's sudden intake of breath that Aidan had given him a feral smile--only with us those smiles really were feral. "Among others, yes."
"Alright," I said, standing up--and consequently getting between them. "Enough of this. Maintenance recently refurbished my office and I don't want to have to explain to them why I needed them to come back and replace my carpets so soon. So if the two of you are going to continue this little male pissing match you can do it outside where no one will noticed the blood."
Aidan smirked at me. "As you wish." I shot him a squinty eyed look. There was a list of things that I was going to have to take him to task for. I didn't like the sudden ... familiarity with me one bit.
He chuckled at me and chucked me under the chin, which only increased the squintiness of the glare. "You look like a rhinoceros when you do that, lovely."
That startled a laugh out of Duo and we both looked at him. He continued to chortle in a manner that I thought was definitely not required by the situation. Pushing the chair away from us, he managed to get himself under control enough to stand up, even if he did have to support himself with one hand on the back of the chair. He grinned at me, suddenly all smiles and good humor. "I'd like the full story sometime, babe."
I looked back at him with haunted eyes. I couldn't help it. The things that were done to me that night would stay with me for the rest of my life even though the scars had healed on my body, my mind would never be able to let go. "No, you don't, Duo," I said, and my voice was very small. "No, you don't."
Wrapping my arms around myself, I looked down and away from the look on his face. I didn't want sympathy just then. I was terrified it would make me cry. I jerked when he put his hand on my head, sliding it over my hair. It was a comforting gesture. I looked up at him cautiously, but his eyes were locked on something far away and long ago. He and Aidan exchanged some male look of understanding, and then he left without a word. I looked at Aidan, confused beyond words. Aidan just smiled and patted me on the top of my head like you would a cute puppy. This time I did snarl at him.
End Part 5
(:./dan/wolf5)
