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"Witness Protection"Written By: Snowdragonct Disclaimer: Don't own any part of Gundam Wing
or the characters, more's the pity. This is for fun...no profit involved. Rating: R Warnings: Warnings: AU , yaoi, swearing (lots),
some OOC (probably), violence, drugs, sex, a naughty Duo (i.e. he
has a potty mouth and is a bit, er, slutty)…if you are wedded
to the “pure, chaste” version of Duo, he might be a bit
dark and crude for your taste…ditto for the other characters
in here…hey, Quat’s a lawyer…how much lower could he
get? Pairings: 1X2 eventually, 3X4 also eventually, (past 2X3, 6X2) A/N: I’ll apologize in advance that Zechs is, well, deceased right from the start. I like him a lot, and there’ll be mention of him…but mostly in the form of discussing/investigating his murder. Sorry. Summary: When Zechs Merquise is found murdered,
detectives Heero Yuy and Wufei Chang are tasked with the unenviable
chore of keeping the only witness to the crime alive long enough to
testify against the leader of the Oz syndicate, Treize Khushrenada. "Witness Protection" Chapter Sixty Two: Life After Duo I stood at the window of my living room, sipping coffee and gingerly rubbing at the lingering pain in my forehead. I’d been trying for over a week to decrypt the goddamned disks Merquise had left for Duo, with no luck. I’d tried all the possible combinations of Duo’s name for a password: DMaxwell, Duo, Maxwell, DM, DuoM. None of them worked. Then I’d expanded my attempts to include Shinigami, Shini, Reapers, and even indigo, chestnut, braid, and sexy. I’d used number and letter combinations, similar to the little phone number code Duo and Trowa had used. Nothing worked. I was beginning to think Zechs had outsmarted himself. Why would he leave information vital to Duo’s survival, but not use a password Duo would know? I’d been living in a self-imposed exile—fending off daily calls from Wufei, who had been given clearance to return to work, while I hadn’t. Yeah, that pissed me off. During one brief conversation he told me he’d made the obligatory visit to the department psychologist and been cleared for work. He urged me to do the same. I’d told him to go fuck himself and I’d see the shrink when I fuckin’ felt like it. I hadn’t heard a thing from Trowa or Quatre—but then, they had each other. Why would they give a shit about me, or how empty my life was without Duo? All I had to keep me going were those stupid disks, and the conviction that they’d destroy all Khushrenada had built. I wanted that very badly—to see him brought low. I wanted to be the one to do it. And I wanted to tell him it would never have happened at all if he’d just left Duo alone and let him live in peace. Funny how Duo’s thirst for revenge had rubbed off on me—wasn’t it? Not that I cared so much about getting even for Merquise’s murder; that was Duo’s passion, not mine. I was intent on striking back against Khushrenada for what had happened to Duo. Don’t they say “hate begets hate?” Damn straight. I don’t know how long I’d been staring out that window, watching but not seeing the rain run in streaks down the dirty pane, pooling on the sill and dribbling over the edge. But when a knock on the door startled me out of my daze, the coffee in my hand had gone cold, while the gun in my other hand had warmed from my white-knuckled grip. Gun? Now how did that get there? I shoved it into my shoulder holster, after making sure the safety was on. The knock sounded again—louder—so I went to the door and pulled it open the four inches the chain would allow. “Heero?” Quatre’s worried face was framed by the door and jamb. “What do you want?” I asked with a scowl, not pleased by the lawyer’s arrival at all. “Shouldn’t you be in court?” “It’s Sunday.” He paused, looking at me with a raised eyebrow. “May I come in?” “For what?” He had a bundle tucked under one arm—it looked like it was wrapped in velvet—and he patted it with his free hand. “I have something to deliver.” I bit back an impulse to tell him to go to Hell. “Just—stuff it through.” I held a hand out, but he shrugged helplessly. “It won’t fit.” Indeed, the object looked just a little too wide for the narrow opening. “Then leave it on the stoop.” He gave a frustrated sigh. “It’s valuable.” “Oh, for Christ’s sake—.” I pushed the door shut, took off the chain, and opened it to allow him entry. He beamed a smile at me as he walked in, though it faded as he looked around my living room at the scattered take-out containers and empty beer bottles. “How have you been?” he asked, turning to face me so abruptly we almost collided. I gaped for a moment and then shrugged. “Just swell,” I told him unenthusiastically. He arched an eyebrow, looking around at the mess. “It’s the maid’s week off,” I quipped mirthlessly. “Now what did you come here for?” He turned and held out the bundle. “To bring you this.” “And what is ‘this’?” I asked, reaching for it. “Duo’s ashes.” I jerked my arms back sharply, stumbling backwards a step or two. “Jesus Christ, Winner! Get the fuck out of here, and take—take that with you!” I couldn’t hide the trembling of my hands as I pointed towards the door. “Get out!” “Heero—.” I started to reach for my gun, and he hastily set the velvet bundle on the hall table. “I’ll just go then—.” “Don’t you dare leave that!” By now I had my gun out and was slipping off the safety. He put his hands on his hips, the glare from the aquamarine eyes preventing me from actually raising the weapon. “It was Duo’s request,” he said sternly. “Agent Alexander sent them to my office with a note saying that before he—died—he said you should be given the ashes. He said you’d know what to do with them.” “Well I don’t!” I snapped, feeling an irrational upwelling of panic. I didn’t want a box of ashes. I wanted Duo—alive, and warm, and in my arms. I wanted to hear his laugh and see the light dance in those gorgeous eyes. I wanted to feel his body against mine—his lips devouring my mouth—his fingers digging into my shoulders as I made love to him. I found myself sitting on the floor, Quatre’s arms wrapped around me as I sobbed helplessly against his shoulder. I wasn’t sure how I got there—only that at some point my knees gave out—kind of like my sanity. “God, Heero, I’m sorry!” he breathed into my ear. “I told Alexander how hard it would be—.” “Hard?” I gasped out, trying rather unsuccessfully to regain control of myself. “It’s fuckin’ impossible, Quatre. He’s gone and I can’t—. It’s like I can’t even get up the energy to breathe.” I shook my head. “How am I supposed to live without him?” “The same way we all will,” he replied, his own voice shaky and weak. “One day at a time.” I pushed away from him, but didn’t try to get up. I had a feeling my legs still wouldn’t support my weight. “I keep thinking about how I treated him—. How fucking cruel I was to him at first.” I blinked back more tears and used the edge of my grubby tee shirt to dry my face a bit. “He’d just lost Merquise, and all I could think about was a stupid police investigation. I didn’t give a rat’s ass how much pain he was in.” I felt my stomach clench with pain of its own. “An’ now I know how he felt—.” I looked at Quatre with a scowl. “How the hell did he bear it?” Quatre shook his head. “I have no idea. I swear, if I’d gone through all he did in his life, I’d have never made it to puberty.” The lawyer reached to smooth the hair back out of my face in a rather intimate gesture. “But Duo was made of sterner stuff. And even after losing Zechs, he didn’t give up, did he? He kept moving forward, even when it was obviously hard for him. And when you finally admitted your feelings for him, I think it gave him a new lease on life—a new reason to not give in to the pain.” I glared back at him. “Don’t try to tell me to move on with my life and find someone else. There is no one else. There never will be. Not like Duo.” “Shit, Heero—I’m not saying you should move on. Not yet.” “Not ever!” My hands were fisted in my shirt, which was probably the only thing that kept me from belting the fucking cheerleader of an attorney. “There was no one before Duo and there’ll be no one after him!” “So what do you plan to do? Lock yourself in a filthy apartment with an endless supply of beer and a box of ashes?” came the caustic response. “You’re going to go right back to burying yourself in your work and hiding away in your empty apartment?” “Why not? It worked before.” Quatre sat back and gazed at me with—disappointment. “It’s not what Duo would want for you.” “Stop doing that! Stop throwing his wishes in my face! He’s not here to give me a fucking reason to go on—so stop telling me that’s what he’d want me to do!” “He’d want you to at least keep the people you’ve learned to allow into your life. Wufei…Trowa…me…Catherine…” I glared heatedly at him. “You and Barton haven’t exactly been camped on my doorstep,” I pointed out. “No—we’ve been at the courthouse all day every day—going over testimony in the evenings.” “That’s nice,” I growled irritably. “I’m happy you have each other and something to do.” He reached out and untangled one of my hands from the fabric of my shirt, holding it between his. “Don’t shut us out, Heero. Let us help, even if there’s not much we can do. Just—go through the motions with us for awhile. You think we’re all not hurting as much as you are? Do you think just because he loved you that you’re the only one who feels his loss?” “I—don’t know—,” I admitted. “Yeah, well, it’s time you found out,” he replied sadly. “Trowa’s been a wreck. Going to court every day is the only way I can get him to move. But it’s taking a toll; I can barely get him to eat, let alone sleep. Even Wufei and Catherine are just—crushed. They put on brave faces and do their jobs and try to act like everything’s okay. But it’s obvious that they feel a vital light has gone out of their lives. And so do I.” That was a fine way to put it—a vital light had gone out. It almost had me sobbing on Quatre’s shoulder again, except that enough of my self-respect had kicked in that I would be damned if I’d break down that much. “What do you want from me, Winner?” I sighed, wanting him out of my apartment—with his box of ashes, his sympathy, and those fucking accusing blue eyes. “I just want you to keep in touch,” he said firmly. “If I picked you up, would you come to court with us tomorrow?” “No. Not that,” I said quickly. His face fell in disappointment. “Look—if I had to sit there and listen to Khushrenada lie—or his bastard of an attorney make accusations against Duo—you know there’d be bloodshed.” A faint smile twitched his lips. I pulled away from him and got to my feet, carefully skirting the table with the velvet-wrapped bundle on it, and heading for my kitchen for another beer. He tagged along and out of habit, I offered him one, which he took with a slightly wider smile, reading the brand on the label and immediately catching its significance. “Look—it’s not as bad as—.” I gestured around my squalid apartment. “—as it seems. I’ve been working on a—project.” His keen eyes went to my laptop, which was on a singularly tidy desk in a corner of my living room. It was still running a decryption program that was failing miserably to decode Merquise’s disks. “I’m not saying that means I’m okay with—what happened. But—I’m functional,” I pointed out. “Marginally,” he conceded, his expression critical. “Well that’s as good as it’s going to get for now,” I said flatly. “You talk about going through the motions? Well I am. I’m doing the only thing I can do to occupy my mind so that once in a while I forget how much I hate life.” He sighed, finishing his beer in a few long swallows and then setting down the bottle. “I should be getting back to Trowa,” he said wearily. “He wouldn’t come with me for this.” “Do you blame him?” “No.” He ran a hand through his blonde bangs. “Just—can I get you to agree to come to dinner with us one day next week? At my house. Nothing fancy. Just you, me, and Trowa.” I rolled my eyes. “Yes. Fine. Call me.” I gestured him towards the door with my own bottle of beer, and he finally gave ground and headed that way. But he paused in the hallway, turning around to fix a worried gaze on me. “Will you call me if you think of anything you need? Promise?” “If I can ever think of something I need that you can provide—I will.” All I needed was Duo—and no one could give him back to me.
In retrospect, I should not have been surprised when Wufei showed up late the next afternoon. Winner had probably advised him of the mess my apartment was, and that I needed to be dragged out of my shell again. Damned lawyers! My partner arrived right after his shift at work, and when I tried keeping the door chain on so he couldn’t enter, he threatened to go get the super and some bolt cutters. So I finally let him in. “Why are you here, Chang?” I asked wearily, walking to the laptop and closing the screen before he got an eyeful of a less-than-legal program I’d stooped to using. Did I mention my ill-spent youth, and the hacking skills I’d perfected? Yeah, well, there were plenty of underground sites where you could find all sorts of topnotch hacking programs. And I’d been to all of them…still with no luck. “I’ve come to take you to dinner,” he said firmly. “You will shower and change, and we will leave.” I crossed my arms stubbornly, and he began gathering up the trash on my coffee table. “I have no intention of leaving or being dissuaded,” he commented matter-of-factly. “So you may as well just resign yourself to the inevitable.” Thus, less than an hour later, I found myself sitting at a pleasant restaurant in the downtown area, with Wufei across from me, nattering on about the wine selection and the rave reviews the place got. In spite of my lack of appetite, I let him coerce me into ordering a meal, and then resumed peeling the label off the dark imported beer I’d insisted on. “It pains me to see you like this,” he said with a heavy sigh. “Then don’t look,” I muttered sullenly. “Yuy—.” “Don’t!” He was silent for awhile, carefully nibbling on a bread stick and looking anywhere but at me. But eventually guilt started pricking at my conscience, and I gave a sigh of my own. “You can’t make this any easier for me, Chang. I know you understand; I know you care. But since you have been through it, you must know that at this point there’s nothing you can do to help.” He gave a quiet sigh. “I know that, Yuy. I’m not stupid. But at least I can make sure you eat now and then.” I grudgingly shrugged one shoulder. “And I can remind you that you’re not alone.” “Winner already tried that.” I grimaced at the memory of breaking down in front of the blonde. “He brought the—ashes.” “Fuck,” mumbled my partner, sounding genuinely pained. “I almost shot him,” I admitted a bit sheepishly. “I don’t blame you.” Wufei sipped his tea, dark eyes somber. “It makes it too—real—doesn’t it?” “Well, the autopsy photos had already pretty much done the job.” I set my bottle of beer down with a clunk. “Let’s talk about something else, Chang.” “Okay.” He set down a half-eaten bread stick. “Catherine and I are engaged.” I looked up sharply. “You’re joking!” He blushed and looked away. “Actually, I’m not.” “No shit? Really?” I persisted, finding it as hard to believe as Duo’s—as—other recent events. “Really,” he said earnestly. I gazed hard at my partner, looking for a trace of uncertainty or indecision, but I saw none. “Wow. That’s—very impulsive of you. Isn’t it?” He winced a little, looking less composed. “Do you think I should have waited?” Ah—so he wasn’t as confident in his decision as he’d tried to act. He was looking for—advice? Approval? Something. And while it was on the tip of my tongue to say he hardly knew the woman—who was I to talk? He knew she was smart, pretty, and good in a crisis—and that she was capable of defending herself, and adapting to any situation. She was a woman worthy of his respect, as well as his affection. And knowing my partner, that was a necessary part of the equation. “Wufei,” I said in all seriousness. “If you love that woman—and I think you do—why wait? Why waste time picking apart the pros and cons, when you could be enjoying each other’s company? Go for it. Don’t end up with nothing but regrets.” He gave a relieved smile. “So you don’t think I made a mistake—asking so soon?” “Not if it’s what your heart was telling you to do.” “It was.” He looked at me with a slight frown. “Do you feel you have nothing left but regrets?” I opened my mouth to say I had a million regrets—for how I treated Duo the first time we met, and for resisting his advances when I could have been savoring his kiss—but then I realized when it came down to it, my only true regret was that our time had been cut short. The rest of it was so worth it. “Chang—I will forever be grateful for this whole stupid mess—for meeting Duo and falling in love with him, for getting to know a partner I’d underestimated for years, for learning that all lawyers aren’t sharks and all strippers aren’t lowlife scum.” I looked up with clearer eyes. “No, I guess there’s really only the one regret.” He smiled, though his eyes looked suspiciously bright. “And here I thought you’d be as slow as I was.” I shook my head. “Ye of little faith.” The waitress arrived with our meals then, and I found I had a little bit of an appetite after all. “So—tell me about the trial,” I suggested when we were about halfway through out meals. Chang raised an eyebrow. “Sure you’re up for that?” “If I can handle hearing that you’ve already proposed to Catherine, I think I can deal with a little update on the case.” “Very well. Barton got Noventa to put him on the stand as a rebuttal witness to that Schbeiker girl. He explained knowing her from Sanc, and that she had a bit of a ‘thing’ for Duo at the start, until she found out he was gay. Then he said he knew about the fight Duo and Merquise had—that Duo moped around his place most of the week, debating whether to give Merquise another chance. He mentioned the altercation at Sanc and toyed with the idea of calling and apologizing for slugging him. And on the evening of the murder, Duo called Trowa, all but bubbling over to tell him Merquise had given him a plausible explanation and that he was going to ‘go out on a limb’ and try again.” I felt a little of the tension lift from my shoulders. And only then did I realize how much it had bothered me that Khushrenada’s people had been able to make the jury doubt my lover. I hadn’t liked the thought that they might actually believe some of the shit the defense team had been slinging. But thanks to Trowa, maybe they had a clearer picture of the truth now. “He also described the state Duo was in when he showed up in the middle of the night—soaking wet, terrified and grief-stricken.” Chang twirled some pasta on his fork, looking a bit smug. “If there was a dry eye in the audience when he finished, I sure didn’t see it.” He looked up with a smile. “Barton looked good up there—calm and composed. Tsubarov never even got a flinch out of him.” Good for Trowa! I managed a wan smile. “Tell Trowa I said thanks.” “I expect you to do that yourself.” “Chang—.” “No. Seriously. Barton needs to hear it from you. He needs to talk to someone who was as close to Duo as he was.” “I’m not—.” “You damn well are!” Duo was ready to spend the rest of his life with you—.” “And coincidentally enough, that’s what he ended up doing!” I retorted. “Dammit, Chang, I should’ve taken him and disappeared—and Khushrenada be hanged! Convicting that slimeball wasn’t worth losing Duo!” “Of course not,” Wufei replied in a tone of mild reproach. “I’d never say that it was. But Barton is suffering right along with you. I think you should talk to him.” “He won’t understand. He has Quatre.” “And he lost his best friend—even a lover can’t ease that kind of pain.” My partner sighed, his expression turning pensive. “I think the reason Duo weathered Merquise’s death so well was that the man was his lover, while Barton was still his best friend. He had someone who understood his pain and loss—you do too. You have Barton, and you have me.” I eyed Chang warily. “Before this assignment, I’d have said you were my partner—but not my best friend. Now—I guess you’re both.” His smile was warm and genuine. “Does that mean you’ll be my best man?” I sucked in a sharp breath. “You really want me to?” “Who else? After all, you kept shoving me into Catherine’s arms—figuratively speaking.” “Duo helped.” My partner chuckled at my petulant tone and then sobered. “I just want to know that you’ll still be here for my wedding. Whether you choose to stand with me or not, I want you there.” What was that? An attempt to make me promise not to swallow a bullet in the near future? It was a promise I didn’t feel like making. So much was still weighing on my mind. I was worried that Khushrenada might still beat the murder rap—and if he did, I couldn’t promise not to take a shot at him myself. “You’re thinking awfully hard about this,” came a quiet, almost questioning voice. “I won’t say I haven’t wished I died there alongside Duo,” I admitted. “I’m not asking you to. I’m merely pointing out to you that your continued existence is a comfort to me, and I’d like to encourage it.” I snorted at his very obtuse way of telling me not to off myself. “Got a date picked out for the wedding?” He smirked in response. “None whatsoever.” Oh, he was really determined, wasn’t he? An open-ended equation—and he expected me to agree to it? “All right, Chang,” I said grudgingly. “I’ll stick around for your wedding, at the very least.” “I expect a rather lengthy engagement,” he continued, with a mischievous gleam in his dark eyes. “Neither Catherine nor I is prone to acting in haste.” “Yeah—tell that to the guy she got with the knife in the eye,” I teased. The waitress had come to refill our water, and darted an alarmed look at me before scurrying off. Wufei’s laugh was a little more relaxed this time—his whole demeanor less tense, as he realized I was slowly coping with the loss of half my soul. The funny thing was, I realized it as well. It didn’t hurt any less. But, much as I hated to prove Winner right, Duo would want me to live—no matter what. And as I’d said before, I never could say “no” to him. I attacked my meal with renewed vigor, as Wufei turned the conversation back to the trial by telling me how Quatre had shredded the statement from the Schbeiker girl. First, he’d brought up Trowa’s testimony—notably the part where he said that the girl had hit on Duo, been turned down, and had gotten angry. When she cautiously admitted to that much, Winner came right out and accused her of making the call to Khushrenada’s private line the night of the attack on the log cabin. He suggested she did it out of spite and greed—just as she did in the case of her carefully-worded statement about the altercation at Sanc Palace. She tried protesting—saying she wasn’t the one who made the call—and he produced financial statements he’d subpoenaed from her bank, showing a sizeable deposit to her account right after the attack at the log cabin, and another just before her statement was entered into evidence at the trial. She ended up bawling her eyes out, babbling about needing to provide for her kid, and then admitting that she’d met with Une, who offered her money if she could provide information on Duo’s whereabouts. “She claimed she needed the money so badly that she’d have done anything for it,” Wufei explained as he was finishing his main course. “Winner asked if her child was sick, or in need of special care—and she admitted that he wasn’t. He then asked if she was unable to provide food for the boy, and she said ‘no,’ and that she always made sure her son had nutritious meals. So Winner demanded to know what prompted her desperation for the money.” He shook his head, looking disdainful. “She started trying to fumble for an excuse—saying she was saving for his college education—and Winner looked her in the eye and asked if her son’s education was more important than a man’s life. She totally broke down after that—but he managed to squeeze out an admission that her recollection of the incident at Sanc didn’t include the death threat, but that they’d offered more money if she said it did.” “And she admitted to all that under oath,” he added with satisfaction. Score! Maybe I’d have to tell Winner that I loved him again. “Chang,” I said with a shake of my head. “If it were possible, I’d offer to have Winner’s baby.” He did a double-take, his face a mask of horror. “Yuy!” I tried on my Duo-smirk for size. “Sorry—it just seemed—appropriate.” “Yes, if you were Maxwell,” huffed my partner. Then his face did something curious, going from amused to stricken and then settling into a sort of wistful smile. I smiled back. “Maybe I haven’t really lost him completely.” “I’d like to think we haven’t,” he agreed. Then he took a big swig of his tea, dabbed at his mouth with his napkin, and surreptitiously wiped his eyes. We stayed for dessert, discussing the forensic evidence they’d started bringing into the trial, and how Khushrenada had purchased a pair of very exclusive shoes that matched the footprint in the Persian rug. Interestingly enough, the shoemaker in Italy was able to produce records of the purchase that described the shoes right down to the unique signature mark he made in the heel of every pair. I supposed Khushrenada’s lawyers would try to claim he’d given the shoes away. But it was still a tangible link to the murder scene. And it would take extreme gullibility on the part of the jurors to believe that someone other than Khushrenada had those shoes and wore them to murder Zechs Merquise. Oh the case was shaping up nicely. And when Chang finally dropped me off back at my apartment, I invited him up for a beer, but he politely declined, saying he had to work in the morning. Ah—that’s right—he’d jumped through Po’s hoops and gotten his clearance. “In case you’d like to join me back in the land of the gainfully employed,” he said with a smirk, holding out a small business card. “This has the name and number of the department psychologist. She mentioned having a bit of difficulty reaching you.” I ducked my head, taking the card. “Yes—well—why do I need her when I’ve got friends like you?” My partner’s face lit up, and I thought he was going to cry right then and there. But with typical Chang style, he composed himself and nodded graciously. “Glad I could be of help. And when you are ready to return, I’ll be pleased to be working with you again.” I sighed as he drove off, and then headed inside, reflecting that a good, well-balanced meal was sitting on my stomach far better than the fast food I’d been subsisting on. I’d have to consider truly pulling myself back together and restocking my refrigerator with something other than dark beer and leftover takeout. It was a disappointment when I rebooted my laptop and realized the latest program had failed to decode the disk currently inside it. I began to wonder if it was possible at all. Could Merquise have screwed something up and corrupted the files so badly they were gibberish? I threw my jacket across the back of the chair, and settled into it, eyeing the screen with a scowl. “What the fuck am I missing? Dammit, Merquise—you left this for Duo. How hard could it fucking be?” I’d had one program run the dictionary from start to finish, with no luck. I’d tried every proper name I could associate with Duo. What was left? While I mulled it over, I walked around tidying up the room a bit, and stuck one of Duo’s cds into my player, wondering if there was a clue in the music he’d listened to, or danced to. Maybe he and Merquise had a favorite song—their song. I guessed the only song I’d ever associated with Duo was either the throbbing strip music from The Jungle, or the one he and Trowa had used for their demonstration back at the lake house. But when I thought about it, he’d always had his music playing—even in the car. And there’d been the night at the log house, before he’d slipped out the window, when he’d been singing obnoxiously just to cover his sly plotting. Of course, that train of thought took me back to the passes he’d been making at me—flirting in the car and at the cabin—until our precipitous tumble to that safe house floor. Funny, but I’d seen it in his eyes earlier that night—when he told me he was going to take a shower—leaning there in the doorway with that dark light in his eyes. I’d just seen the web site offering a reward for his death and spat out “Jesus!” as an oath. And then it hit me. “No, but I’ve been called ‘Angel’ a time or two.” Angel. A name no one would ever associate with the brassy, crude stripper and street punk. No one except maybe a—lover. I typed it into the password block and in the blink of an eye, data began scrolling rapidly across my screen. Angel.
tbc... |
