Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Devil's Due ❯ - 42 - ( Chapter 42 )

— 42 —

February 15, A.C. 205. Airport. 1 am

Xane looked up tiredly as they turned the corner, and met eyes with Jordan. A vast sense of relief washed over him as he trudged forward with Riley on his heels.

“You okay?” Jordan muttered as they bumped shoulders.

“I’m tired, Jordan,” Xane returned quietly. “I’m really tired.”

Riley met Jordan’s eyes, then looked away.

“Let’s get the luggage and get out of here,” Jor suggested.

Xane nodded, heading for the stairs to the lower level. It didn’t take them long to reach the area, but the luggage hadn’t actually been dropped yet. Xane leaned back against Jordan, realizing vaguely that he’d known the man would be there.

“That was a damn long flight,” Riley muttered with a sigh, rubbing at her neck. “You know, we thought it was gonna be harder than that to get you out,” she added, looking to Xane sidelong. “We were worried about shoot-outs.”

“Huh,” Xane returned almost distantly. “I was expecting one too, truth be told…when we all came down there…but you took them off guard. No one expected it.”

“That was the point,” Riley noted wryly. “We figured we’d have more a chance of getting you if they weren’t prepared.”

“How did you know I was there?”

“I went to your apartment and got no answer…got in and looked around and saw nothing,” she shrugged. “I ran down to your work and they said your boyfriend had picked you up when your shift was over…and that meant you two had either run off together for Valentine’s, or you were over the river.”

He nodded, turning more into Jordan.

He was still unsettled. Xane hadn’t been ready for that quick of an end. He’d been in China for…two and a half months…but he’d gotten so embroiled with Chao that it’d seemed a lifetime. He hadn’t known how he’d end it with only a few days left, and Raul showing up like he had hadn’t helped Xane in the slightest.

He never wanted to get that emotionally involved again.

It hurt.

Xane started rubbing at his shoulders, then tensed very slightly when Jordan started to rub at his upper-back. He relaxed into the touch after a moment, resting even more against his superior.

“We aren’t alone,” Riley reminded them quietly, looking between them as the alarm sounded to announce the bags were starting down.

Xane stepped away from Jordan without looking at him, focusing on the chute hopefully. Their bags would be first. Part of their set-up was the priority privileges.

He was damn ready to get back to base.

- -

February 15, A.C. 205. Base. 11 am

“So what do you think?” Jordan muttered, taking another bite as he studied Chance’s face. They were sitting in the Canteen with Xane.

“If it’s taken this long…what six months?” Chance muttered, looking between them. “Judas has been there a damn long while…and he’s only up to Holt? It’s taking too long and risking too much of his sanity…and with Shire shut-down the way he is, Raul won’t get anymore information from his cohorts.” The man glanced to Xane a moment with his eyes, then started eating again.

“Jude got damn far, damn fast,” Jordan argued.

“But he’s not getting any further,” Chance argued back, gesturing with his fork. “You got the lot numbers…you know who took the weapons and where they came from. It can’t be too hard to find the man now.”

“And how do you suggest I do that?” Jordan protested, stopping eating to study his friend’s face. “You seem to forget that I had them spun to find him.”

“Yeah, to figure out who he was,” Chance retorted.

“But Jude can’t get any further than he is,” Xane protested at the same time. “He’d have to kill off the leaders there are and then it’d be trust issues…if someone didn’t kill him instead.”

They both looked at him.

“I know Chao and them were poster-boys for this shit, but it’s not much better anywhere else…at least I can’t imagine it. It seemed that way everywhere I went.”

“So you think I should bring Raul and Judas back?” Jordan asked, considering that as he stirred his noodles again. He had a bowl of soup. “You mean it?”

“I dunno, Jor,” Xane muttered, poking his own bowl half-heartedly. “I mean…he’s getting somewhere…or he was.”

“He called me yesterday,” Jordan noted, looking back to Chance. “He said that two of his guys are going home for sure and one of them seems to be heading that way.”

“Which means his support group is disintegrating,” Chance noted, raising an eyebrow. “Doesn’t that leave him with one man?”

“Yeah…” Jordan agreed, considering that. “The one he actually called when he was here for Christmas.”

“And it’s not a death certificate to leave like that?” Chance asked, looking to Xane.

“I don’t know,” Xane admitted. “It was different with Chao and them…they were a lot more heartless than I’d have thought.”

Jordan studied him a long moment in silence before exchanging a look with Chance and going back to his food. “I’ll see what Chai thinks.”

“You’re supposed to be the leader,” Xane noted, pouring a spoonful of broth back into the bowl.

“No leader is perfect,” Jordan reminded him quietly. “I make my mistakes just like everyone else; I just work damn hard to make sure no one notices them.”

Xane grinned at that, meeting his eyes.

“Are you okay?” Jordan asked, stirring his soup as he almost met his second’s eyes. “Are you seriously all right?”

“I will be,” Xane reassured him, stirring his own bowl. “I know I’m a cloud of doom right now, but…we got damn close over the last two weeks…and even then, when he was under arrest and had all sorts of charges leveled at him, he wasn’t arguing for himself, you know? He was just insisting that I had nothing to do with any of it.”

“He probably wanted to make sure you were in the clear,” Chance suggested, “before focusing on his own defense. He was pretty powerful, wasn’t he?”

“Marginally,” Xane agreed wryly.

“That was meant as an understatement,” Jordan informed Chance happily. “Chao was a psycho tyrant.”

“He wasn’t psycho,” Xane sighed.

“At least not in the two weeks he was your boyfriend,” Jordan reminded him pointedly. “You saw his file just the same as me, you know he pulled some shit.”

Xane looked out the window.

“Listen,” Jordan said quietly, leaning over so he was at the other’s face level. “I sent you there to get me information…not to fall for the guy.”

Xane turned his head sharply to meet eyes.

“You did your job and you did it well,” Jordan reassured him, patting his leg as he sat up again. “You…just need to never do that again.”

“Like I intended to to begin with,” Xane muttered, starting to eat.

“Keep the cloud from slitting his wrists,” Jordan ordered Chance, rising to his feet. He hesitated, though, raising his bowl and draining the broth from it. “I need to go hunt down my wife and get some opinions from her and I don’t want him left alone,” he indicated Xane, then took a bite of the noodles, then another. He shook his head in a visual display of enjoyment, then pulled out his wallet and tossed a few bills by Chance before turning and leaving the building.

“I may be preaching to the choir,” Chance noted, looking back to the younger male, “but I think he’s a little annoyed with you.”

“I could care, I suppose,” Xane muttered, taking another bite.

“You gonna try running off on me?” Chance asked curiously.

“No,” Xane replied, starting to poke at his food again. “I don’t actually want to be alone right now.”

“Good, makes it easy,” Chance noted, shoving his empty bowl aside and collecting Jordan’s. “Damn I love these noodles…”

- -

February 15, A.C. 205. Base. 12 pm

Trowa was in the kitchen when Wufei moved into their apartment, and he glanced back at his friend before nodding a greeting.

“Hey,” Wufei returned, dropping into a chair at the table. “I don’t suppose there’s enough food there for me, is there?”

“I dunno, what you gonna give me if there is?” Trowa returned.

“I dunno…what do you want?”

Trowa snorted.

“What’s up, anyway?” Wufei added. “I haven’t seen you around much lately.”

“I’ve been doing my normal day job,” Trowa returned, turning his head to meet the other’s eyes. “You’re the one who’s busy all the time. What are you doing?”

“Morris is looking for a DNA link for the empathy,” Wufei returned with a shrug. “Me and Mor’ve been trying to help him with that…so we’ve been talking to the families of the empaths who were in the study. Did you know that like…seventy-five percent of those families have a younger child as a quieting?”

Trowa stopped, turning to look at him in amazement.

“About half of all of’em have stories of a relative who seemed to be an empath before it was recognized as an issue…and most of the families hail from the early colony babies.”

“That’s…how the hell, in a few months, have you figured all of that out?” Trowa turned to face him properly.

Wufei smiled at him and shrugged. “We earned a damn lot of trust by figuring out the block…” he sighed sadly, propping his head against one hand. “I just wish it’d been me who figured it out, and not Chance and his damn wedding-ring.”

“Hey,” Trowa reassured him, turning back to the food. “If you hadn’t been performing the study, we wouldn’t have been in there with empaths and Chance would have never got himself stuck like that. You get the credit.”

“Because he gives it to me,” Wufei noted with a sigh. “Oh well…that doesn’t matter. I helped Quatre, right?”

“I’m not sure if that was really for the better,” Trowa noted dryly, pulling plates from the cupboard.

Wufei smiled at that, then looked around the cupboards. The kitchen was huge compared to what he and Trowa would really need.

“Do you suppose Chai was able to make it stop because her brother, then?” Trowa added, splitting the food he’d made between the two plates. “I mean…doesn’t it figure that she’s special because he is?”

Wufei sat up, blinking at him.

“Did you even talk to him while he was here?”

“I…said hi…I mean…” Wufei was still staring at him.

“What?”

“I didn’t even think of that,” Wufei admitted, then dropped forward against the table. “Damn it…”

“What?”

“Chance fixes the problem and you suggest a better test subject…why am I doing this, again?”

“Because you care,” Trowa retorted, setting the plate down and dropping across from the man at the table. “We work as a unit for a reason, Fei.”

“I hate how big this house is,” Wufei decided, considering the substance in front of him. “What…is this?”

Trowa gave him a mildly offended look and started eating without response.

“What do you think?” he added as he also started to eat. “Maybe we can get a house for us, huh? Or do you want to live alone?”

“Fuck no!” Trowa looked up to him in offense. “Are you joking? I hate being alone! And you’re always gone!”

Wufei blinked at the vehemence behind the words.

Trowa started poking at his food, focusing on it completely.

“Are you all right?” Wufei asked, studying him seriously.

“Funny that you notice now,” Trowa retorted, starting to eat again.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing…nevermind,” Trowa shook his head, then moved to the cupboard. “You want something to drink?”

Wufei studied him warily a moment, then nodded very slightly.

He had a feeling he’d missed something important…but he wasn’t sure what it was.

- -

February 15, A.C. 205. Base. 5 pm

Xane slumped onto his bed in his empty apartment, staring at the ceiling a long moment before realizing he needed to unpack. Jordan had already set in motion bringing Judas and Raul home, so that meant he wouldn’t be sent out any time soon. He slid off his bed and stared at his duffel bag a long moment before unzipping it slowly…and remembering why he’d been avoiding opening it.

Chao had gotten him a present.

Xane studied package wrapped in royal blue with silver ribbon, then lifted it from the bag to study the other man’s handwriting.

To my love…from Chaoxiang.

He snorted slightly at that, plucking more at the ribbon.

The present wasn’t the only thing Chao had gotten for him, either. On top of the box had been two tickets to a show…a cirque du soleil that Xane had noticed posters for around town. When he and Riley had entered the apartment, the box had been sitting on the table…and in the room on the bed had been a few white roses and a clothing box…which turned out to be another pair of the slacks Chao’d tried to get him to wear more often with a shirt…

As soon as he’d gotten home, Xane had taken the one rose he’d claimed and hung it upside down under a heating vent to dry it…and in that process had realized how much more the man had meant to him than he’d even been admitting to himself.

That was why the present wasn’t opened, that was why the bag wasn’t unpacked.

That was why Xane had broken the law.

The guy swallowed slightly to himself as he pulled the ribbon off the box and studied the paper with a slight smile…he was very happy Chao hadn’t written “Chris” on the tag, because then the effect would have died entirely.

It was a fairly deep square box, whatever it was…and Xane was glad he hadn’t actually picked something up for the other…because there wasn’t much of a chance that he’d get it anyway.

He pulled the paper off the thing carefully, studying the hinged box inside it with interest. Satisfied that it wasn’t the store-bought original box, he opened it carefully…and sighed, looking to the ceiling.

Inside the lid of the box was an eight by ten picture of Chao sitting on some cement stairs in something of a butterfly position with a few white roses on the ground between his legs, extending one up to the camera with that happy smile…

Why did he have to love a fucking criminal? There was no way in hell that was fair to himself or to Chao…

Chao would have stood near him uncertainly as he opened it, and smiled abashedly at the picture while he fiddled with the various rings he wore or the sheath for his pinky-nail.

It was a necklace…a simple and clean braided gold chain…

Xane set the box on the floor in front of him and pressed his palm against his forehead.

Who would have ever thought the one Valentine’s Day that could have been perfect was one that would never happen? They would have gone to supper, then to the cirque…then back to the apartment and made love before drifting off to sleep close together…

He never wanted to do that again…that’d been damn hard…leaving Chao under arrest on Valentine’s Day, leaving China like a deported tourist…leaving behind a safe and happy relationship built on lies.

Maybe it was better that it ended that way…maybe Chao would never realize that the man ‘Chris Torwin’ was as fake as any character on the television screen. Maybe their brief time together would bring the other happiness…fond memories.

And somehow, maybe…maybe Chao would find out that there were only four roses left at the apartment when he’d bought five…and maybe he’d see that one of those tickets was missing…and maybe he’d appreciate the fact that Xane had stolen his note-book full of past jobs…and that Xane had also taken a large wad of the drug-money that would have been used in court as severe evidence of his pastimes…and maybe he’d understand that Xane had taken his unregistered pistol so they didn’t realize just how many people he’d shot.

Xane rubbed at his eyes as his stomach churned.

Those pieces of evidence in his possession would be enough to land him in jail. He needed to take the pistol to Lower Angels and sell it…he’d dropped a large portion of the money in a charity collection bin and spent some of it…and had changed the last of it to American currency before the flight. He’d smuggled the pistol on himself…and Riley hadn’t even thought twice about him digging through the notebooks to find the one he wanted…the one that would have screwed Chao over entirely.

Why had he done it? How could he do that to the police officers who wanted nothing but justice? To the government who hadn’t had the proper resources to take down a drug-lord? The questions had haunted him the entire flight home as the gun slowly warmed against his skin and Riley chattered on incessantly about pointless dribble…and then seeing Jordan standing there…Jordan, tall and proud, self confident and caring…when Jordan had started to massage his back he’d realized then and there why he’d risked his career…his mission…Jordan’s own credibility.

He’d fallen in love with Xu Chaoxiang…who knew if it would have lasted more than a month if it hadn’t been interrupted. Who knew if Chao himself wouldn’t have fallen out of the feeling in that same time…it didn’t matter, because everything had been stopped.

Xane ran his fingers along the chain, studying the picture of the man without picking the package back up.

If Jordan ever found out…if he ever knew the full extent of it…

The thought made his second shiver and go cold…how angry would Jordan become? Would he deny Xane his affection? Could he?

Xane wasn’t sure which was really worse…never seeing Chao again or disappointing Jordan.

That duplicity made his stomach churn even harder so he jumped to his feet and stumbled into his bathroom to dry heave over the toilet until the acid burned his throat and mouth…

He was going to hide that picture and that ticket with the gun and the notebook, then go to Jordan’s.

He didn’t think he could stand being alone.