|
"A Christmas Tale"Written By: Mookie
Disclaimer: I don't really need to be Captain Obvious here, do I? No ownership, no money being made. Written for fun, not profit. Rating: Let's call it NC-17 to be on the safe
side. Warnings: Some angst Spoilers: Entire series and EW. Pairings: I don't want to exactly give away pairings,
and most of it is more implied than anything, but let me just say
that it doesn't stray from my favorites. Notes: OK. Don't fall over in shock. You can thank
my daughter for this, because after we watched this movie together
on Christmas Eve, I confessed that I was a sucker for all variations
of the same story. So I decided to write my own. Summary: Wufei is not exactly the Christmas type.
The phantom did not assume the visage of anyone Wufei knew; in fact, it didn't resemble anyone human at all. He tried to peer beneath its hood, but all he could see was a vast emptiness. Just being near the ghost made him feel more despair than he'd ever felt in his entire life. Not even Meiran's or Treize's deaths came close. With the previous two spirits, he'd been able to speak with them and even lash out at them in fear or anger. The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come did not invite any sort of interaction, and that sent an even bigger chill through him. If he were to look for a silver lining, there could not be anything worse in his future than the melancholia of this moment, spent in the company of such a specter. Or could there? Wufei wasn't sure what he was to do now. He hesitated at doing anything to provoke the spirit, but his visitor was offering nothing. It was a stalemate unless one of them did something first, and it was clear just which of them it had to be. "You are the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come," he said, hating the quaver he heard in his voice. He straightened his spine and clasped his hands behind his back. "You are here to show me not what has already transpired, but what will take place in days to come." There was no reply, although he thought he might have detected a ripple in the cloak, as if the spirit had nodded. Wufei tugged on his shirt, where the missing button had created an unsightly gap at the middle of his chest, and he took a deep breath. "Lead on, then. Please." The ghost moved slowly as it turned toward the closet door. Since it did not beckon for Wufei to take hold of its robe, he followed along, keeping as much distance between them as he dared. The spirit did no more than raise its hand and the closet door opened wide, creating a wind tunnel that pulled Wufei in, making him brush right up against the flapping cloak. He shivered and hugged himself as he walked through the doorway. It was black as ink inside the space where his closet should have been. Wufei could hear nothing more than his own breathing, for the spirit made not a sound. When they finally emerged, Wufei blinked several times and raised a hand to shield his eyes. Even on a day as overcast and dismal as this, the sun was bright compared to the encompassing darkness of the passageway. The silence was broken as a dog barked. When
it ran past Wufei, he shied away, for the beast was as large as a
bull. It wasn't until he looked around the street that he realized
it wasn't that the dog was oversized, but Wufei who had shrunk down
to the size of a rat. "What was the cause of death?" the woman asked. She had wide hips and appeared middle-aged. "No one is saying just yet," the man, likely her husband, replied. "Oh! That means it was in the line of duty!" "Or," a third voice chimed in as a neighbor came out to get his paper, "it means that they only want us to think that, and that they are trying to come up with a feel good story just in time for the holidays." "Either way, it's very sad," the first voice said. "A family somewhere is mourning the loss of a loved one." "Nah," the neighbor said. "They don't much like to have agents with families. The bereaved start demanding answers and expect full investigations." The wife stuck her shovel in the snow and put her hands on her hips, obviously ready to argue further, but the husband made the cuckoo gesture near his head and she laughed, clapping her hands over her mouth to stifle it. The neighbor fanned his newspaper in their direction and went back inside. The woman's hands dropped from her face. "You are terrible," she shrieked, but she did not seem to really think so. There was nothing more to glean from that conversation, so Wufei trudged through the snow, doing his best to avoid the large puddles of slush. "Who died?" he wondered aloud, even though he had a sinking feeling that he knew the answer to that all too well. He continued along the street, soon approaching an alley where the city's homeless had constructed makeshift shelters. The evening news was audible through an open window several floors up, and he caught only the tail end of the report. "...fellow agent is in stable condition and is expected to make a full recovery." Wufei stopped, hoping to hear more on the story, but the station was now reporting the weather forecast. He was as sure as his name was Wufei Chang that it was a Preventer who had died and that the one in stable condition was the agent's partner. Wufei stopped at the end of the alley, where a long black curtain had been tacked up, probably to keep the wind from blowing through. He reached out to push it aside, but he felt the bitter coldness before his fingers ever made contact. "Spirit," he asked, bowing his head. "I do not know what you choose to show me, but please, answer me just one question." With a swish of the ghost's cloak, they were transported to a graveyard. The tombstone looked new, with no signs of erosion, but the epitaph was concealed by a thin dusting of snow. There were no footprints to show that anyone had been here, nor was there so much as a single flower. Normally Wufei cared little for those sorts of gestures; they were for the living, not for the dead. Today, however, it did mean something. Cold prickles of fear went down his spine as he approached the headstone, but the moment he reached up to brush at the inscription, a gust of wind blew the snow all about him and blocked the graveyard from sight. When the wind died down, he was in an office, much like the one he occupied now. No one was at the desk, but he'd expected that. He heard the buzzer followed by the sound of the lock disengaging, and the door opened. Commander Une, looking at least a decade older, walked in. She wasn't alone; someone was behind her. Wufei felt he should warn her, because her companion wore a hood that concealed his face. "I'm sorry," she said, "but there's nothing I can do right now. You may not agree with me, but you know why we have to keep this under wraps. If they know we're on to them, then everything that's happened will have been for nothing." Her expression softened, and she turned and patted the hooded figure on the arm. "I really am sorry, Wufei." The future Wufei threw his hood back and strode right past her to the desk, where he swept everything to the floor. "Wufei!" Une exclaimed. It did nothing to calm him. If anything, it only fueled his rage, for he stormed about the room, picking up anything within reach and hurling it to the floor or against the wall. Une sat down on the desk and crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for him to finish. When he'd made a complete circuit of the room and returned to his desk, he slammed both hands against the now vacant surface and bowed his head. Une stood up and put an arm over his shoulders, and it appeared as though Future Wufei might be crying. It dawned on Present Day Wufei then, and he shook his head. "No," he said. "No. If I'm here..." He didn't need to ask. He was no longer in
the office but right back at the headstone. Everything was in proportion,
meaning he was back to normal size, and he dropped to his knees in
front of the grave. As he used his sleeve to clear away the snow,
he prayed he was wrong, but he knew deep in his soul the name of the
slain field agent even before it was revealed. "No!" he cried out, pounding his hands against the stone. "It's supposed to be me! I was her partner! I should have had her back! It should have been me!" A shadow covered Wufei and the tombstone, and he looked up. "Spirit," he choked out. "These are things that have not yet happened, but are not destined to happen. There is no reason why this is the way things are destined to be!" The spirit did not move, and Wufei overcame his fear and grabbed the end of the sleeve, where a hand should have been. "Please, Spirit! Tell me there is still a chance to prevent this from happening!" Whatever spirit had inhabited the cloak and given it shape was there no longer, and Wufei was left to kneel over the grave, the robe clutched in his hands. He wasn't sure how long he'd spent wrenching the garment in his hands and sobbing, but when he opened his eyes, the fabric in his grip was the corner of his very own blanket.
|
