Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ II. Mirror Maze ❯ Tempting Fate ( Chapter 5 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Tempting Fate

I studied the entryway to a cute café with interest a moment before deciding that I wanted coffee. I’d been busy since I’d woken up at four-thirty, and it was now going on two. I didn’t have anything solid to follow, but it was no worse than initially searching for Duo. Maybe this would take me another year, huh?

“I want a…grande caramel macchiato,” I muttered, noticing the foods case. “And a bagel with cream-cheese.”

“That’ll be ten-fifty,” she informed me cheerily, taking my money and giving me my change before turning and bouncing away.

She was cute.

I tossed a couple bills into the tip jar, turning to look the place over. It was the kind of place I could see Duo frequenting, ordering his drink and a cookie before turning loudly to sit at one of the small round tables and regaling his new listeners with some sort of corny joke or painful anecdote. It was the kind of thing he did before Heero’d worn him down.

Granted, Heero probably didn’t know better. On a superficial level he could probably be as human as the next guy, but he’d been raised as a weapon, and the only things he knew were discipline and reprimand. It didn’t give him an excuse, but it sort of explained it.

“Here’s your bagel,” the woman informed me, passing me a small plate. “Your drink will be ready in just a moment.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, taking it and setting my bag under the table, starting to spread the cream cheese.

And if Duo wasn’t feeling mouthy, he’d take his cookie and start picking at it. I couldn’t really remember him ever eating cookies. I had a feeling that growing up the way he had…in the orphanage, had kept him from getting most childish pleasures…so since he could afford it, he’d get it, but didn’t really want it because that kind of thing was way too sweet for someone who hardly ate any sweets.

A box of cookies would sneak into Leixiang’s bag if she made it to the kitchen before our daily outings…not always, but sometimes. We’d pass a fruit stand and she’d pick out whatever it was for me and explain to me how I could get the best one if I only took a moment to pay attention to it…if I saw something in a store that I really wanted, even if it took her three or four paychecks, she’d buy it for me as long as I hadn’t tried to beg for it. She’d spoiled me without spoiling me, and as I’d gotten older, I took her attentions to heart. My true mother loved me, of course, and my father, but that was more of a…great grandson sort of love. They could pay me all sorts of attention when they weren’t busy, but Leixiang would do that for me without an effort on my part.

It was really too bad they’d gotten rid of her the year before my wedding. Maybe if she’d stayed around I wouldn’t have been such an asshole about the marriage. It had been the marriage’s fault, initially, and that meant Meilan’s fault.

If they’d just let me keep her I would have coped with everything ten times better.

“Here you go,” the woman muttered with a bright smile as she set an insulated cup beside me. “Have a nice day.”

“You, too,” I muttered, passing her the plate, knife, and dish of cream cheese. I had the bagel in hand as I headed for the door.

The faster I got back to the motel, the faster I could install the program I’d picked up and get back to work.

- -

Duo moved into the café, trying to get Camden to walk instead of stopping…probably to pee, or something, actually.

The waitress looked up to him with a bagel plate in hand and smiled at him. “Hey, you.”

“Hello,” Duo returned happily. “I’ll pay as soon as I can get my sloth through the door.”

She laughed, moving behind the counter.

“Okay, fine,” Duo muttered, scooping the boy up. Yep, peed. He rolled his eyes, giving the kid a look as the boy smiled at him sweetly. “I can’t wait until we potty train you,” he noted.

Camden giggled. “I wanna cookie,” he noted. The words were almost comprehensible.

“I have to change your diaper first,” Duo noted, waving at the girl behind the counter and stopping to look down at a bag under a table. “Hey, Sammy? Someone left their bag here.”

The girl looked to it and frowned, moving around to pick it up and look inside. “A computer program. They’ll be back for that.”

“And how,” he noted. “I’ll be out in a few.”

- -

I darted back into the coffee shop, looking to the table I’d been at with wide eyes.

“Oh!” the woman muttered happily. “There you are! Here you go!” she raised my package from behind the counter.

“Thank you,” I muttered, moving to take it from her with a relieved sigh. I could hear a little kid protesting something from the bathroom, and shook my head slightly as I resituated my things.

“One of my regulars pointed it out to me,” she noted, setting a cup and a napkin with two cookies on the counter. “I wouldn’t have seen it.”

“Tell them I said thanks,” I muttered, turning toward the door again. “I appreciate it.”

“No problem,” she reassured me with another smile.

I moved back out the doors, spotting some benches. The panic of realizing I was brilliant enough to leave the bag behind had taken pretty much my last burst of pre-exhausted effort. I’d known I was tired, and really, adrenaline could only take a person so far before it let out on them.

I dropped into the thing, rubbing at my eyes. I had a brief thought to light a cigarette, but it wasn’t more than a thought. Actually, I needed to stop smoking…

I set the package on my lap and used it for a little table to set my cup on, focusing on the bagel. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I’d started eating.

Maybe I could take a bus back to the hotel.

“…and your brother is going to want a cookie.”

I froze completely as a small child goobered something in reply.

“So I got two cookies, one for you and one for him.”

I turned my head in complete disbelief…to meet eyes with Duo.

He stopped to stare at me in return.

…no fucking way…

“Hey, you,” he muttered with a grin. “Come on. I have to get my son.”

“Du…”

“…gan, 221; he noted pointedly with a grin. He moved closer to me. “Dugan.”

I grinned at him, moving to stand up and realizing I was about to drop everything.

“Come on,” Duo persisted. “I have to get my boy,” he started moving up the sidewalk watching me expectantly.

I gathered my cup, bag, and bagel up quickly, darting to follow after him.

That just wasn’t right.

- -

“So he is staying here!” Trowa shook his head, rolling his eyes as the woman at the desk smiled sweetly at him. “He’s such a doofus sometimes. He got the larger room, right?”

“No, his is a single,” she returned, looking at the screen before frowning and looking up at him. “Do you think he forgot?”

“Forgot we were meeting up in London?” Trowa asked, rolling his eyes. “No…he probably just forgot to tell us he wanted his own room. Were you working when he checked in?”

She thought a moment. “When was that?”

“Sunday or Monday,” he returned, thinking back. He realized he should have looked at the flights to London from Manaus to see if he could match up an alias, but it was too late to do that for now. He could do it later from his computer.

“No, I wasn’t working,” she refused.

“Maybe there wasn’t a larger room available?” Tro hazarded.

“Maybe,” she considered her screen. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but we’re usually fairly full…it’s not as rabid in October, but it can get pretty bad.”

He nodded. “I bet that was it…are there any rooms for two or more available now?”

She clicked through a few screens and shrugged. “There’s one with two beds…sleeps five max. Will that do?”

“That would be wonderful,” Trowa agreed smiling happily at her. “And soon. We were in Brazil.”

“Isn’t jet-lag the worst?” she agreed with that. “Name?”

The process of checking into the room took minutes as Heero and Quatre waited in the little sitting area. Quatre was asking Heero questions on general arachnid activities as he stared across the room.

No one who heard him talking would have thought he was capable of inane commentary.

Actually, Heero himself wondered how much of it was genuine. He knew that Quatre had issues, but most of the time they had normal conversations…like this about spiders. Quatre was asking what Heero knew, and understanding what he explained. It was a mature conversation on a mature level about a single topic. It didn’t have the random exclamations, or unconnected seeming backgrounds to make it odd. In all reality, the Japanese teen wondered how much of the randomness was Quatre attempting to divert his own boredom.

He didn’t figure he’d find out any time soon.

“Come on, guys,” Trowa muttered. “Let’s go up and get some sleep.”

- -

I grinned slightly at Duo’s comment as we moved into the hotel lobby.

“Mr. Chang!” the woman behind the counter exclaimed. “Mr. Chang! Your friends have arrived.”

I wasn’t the only one who stopped in my tracks to look at her.

“They showed up about an hour ago,” she added, moving around so we weren’t talking across the room. “They have room four twenty-six.”

My heart started thudding in my chest.

“Friends?” Duo asked.

“Three guys,” she agreed with a smile. “Winner, Yuy, and Trowa.”

Duo stepped away backwards, his chest starting to heave as he looked to me in disbelief.

“What the hell…why are they here?” I demanded, looking to Duo again.

“I took you to my home,” Duo hissed at me, his eyes bright with fear and anger. “I let you hold my son.”

“I didn’t do it!” I protested, turning to move at him. “I wouldn’t…Du…Dugan…”

He shook his head at me, looking me over with the type of expression that suggested he should have known better.

“Trowa was following me,” I protested, running after him. “They can’t know anything. This,” I indicated the bag with the program in it as I realized I really needed to return it and stash the new laptop. “I was trying to find you without anyone knowing!”

“Should I not have told them you were here?” the woman asked, frowning.

“No, you shouldn’t have,” I snapped back, then followed Duo out of the building. “Shit, Duo…I didn’t do it…you know…”

“He’s here,” Duo hissed, looking toward the building with his eyes.

“I know…you do need to go,” I agreed, grabbing his arm. “Don’t think I did this on purpose…please. I really…I don’t want to live with them anymore.”

He nodded at me, swallowing as he backed away more. “Wipe the cameras. If not, they’ll have the make of my car and I can’t buy a new one right now. If I tell anyone you’re all here they’ll shuffle me and we’ll have to start all over again.”

I nodded, stepping toward the building, then hesitated, looking down. “Return this!” I exclaimed, extending the bag to him. “If they see it they’ll know what I was doing…I can wing it if they don’t find proof.”

He nodded, taking it from me as I tossed a receipt at him with a shaking hand.

“We can figure this out,” I added, not sure if I was trying convince him or myself. “I can get them out of here.”

He nodded again, then turned and ran back toward his car.

“I’ll give Hilde a message next time I get the chance,” I added. “When I figure this out.”

“I’m leaving,” he retorted, moving to slide into his car. “There’s no way I’m going back to that.”

“I know…I’m sorry,” I added. “If I hadn’t gotten caught…Duo…”

He nodded once at me and peeled from the parking lot.

I wiped my hands on my jeans, taking a breath and pulling out a cigarette.

They were here…and I’d almost brought him right to them.

I had to be karma’s bitch.

“You look a little riled,” Trowa’s amused voice noted as the doors to the building slid open. “Everything okay, Wufei?”

“What the fuck you doing here?” I returned, inhaling as I looked to him. “I was trying to get away from you.”

He smiled a disgustingly knowing smile at me. “Sure you were.”

He had no idea.