fic: those who burn (gw)
Jul. 13th, 2009 02:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jukeboxhound_backupAlpha & Omega: Those Who Burn
[Pairing: 1x2x3x4x5; Wufei's turn. Unbetaed.]
Part 3 in the series.
Legend has it that when lightning strikes the sea, a single perfect pearl is formed.
…
“Aren’t you even worried? I mean, they’re taking our air!”
Wufei continued looking through the diagrams projected onto the wall by the small piece Barton had slipped to them, ignoring Maxwell’s indignant restlessness. Secrets of the Dragon Clans were jealously guarded, and so the other pilot couldn’t know that if Wufei allowed himself to get righteously angry, then his fire would grow hotter and burn the remaining oxygen that much faster.
“Stay calm and breathe shallowly,” he retorted flatly.
“Calm? Excuse me if I’m a bit pissed off that these Ozzies can’t even bother to kill us in person, Zen Boy.”
Breathe. Allow the world to move around and through you, even if it means listening to Maxwell.
“Have you ever heard ‘revenge is a dish best served cold’?” Wufei murmured, and from the corner of his gaze he saw the necromancer’s eyes narrow in interest. A thin smile curled his lips as he continued, “Instead of letting them hear your pain, imagine how you’re going to pay them back in kind when we escape.”
Something dark – not a shadow, but a twist of emotion – flickered across Maxwell’s expression.
“Never thought I’d say this, but you’re a man after my own heart, Chang.”
…
Some believe that after five hundred years, the humble seahorse becomes a great dragon.
…
There was no one else in the small house as Wufei strode towards the dojo at the rear of the building, spine straight and hard as a steel rebar. Each one of the pilots had his own private place where the others didn’t intrude. It was necessary, when five young soldiers all had their own set of quirks and reflexes that didn’t do well in cramped spaces and could easily result in corpses. Wufei had found it wisest to have his own bolt-hole not far from Preventers HQ in
“You’re telling me he’s going to walk?”
“His lawyer managed to convince the judge that the evidence gathered at the crime scene was tainted, Chang. All we have to fall back on is circumstantial.”
Une had been just as unhappy about the circumstances, but was resigned. She knew bureaucracy, and so did Wufei, on an intellectual level. But that didn’t stop him from snarling to himself as he threw open the door of the dojo.
“The man’s responsible for one of the most pervasive prostitution rings in the colonies!”
“He’s also well-connected.”
The spring-board bamboo floor was comfortably familiar beneath the dragon’s bare feet. Without ceremony he tore off his jacket and shirt, leaving on his trousers, and took a moment to let out a harsh breath through his nose. The air was cool against the scales that ran down his spine in intricate whorls.
“This is bullshit!”
“What do you want me to say, Chang? You want me to order his assassination in the middle of the night? This isn’t the war anymore! Unless you’ve decided to go vigilante, in which case you will hand over your Preventer badge, then there’s nothing you can do!”
Slowly he bent his legs and sank into a horse stance, keeping his spine straight, his center of balance low and as controlled as his breath. It was fire that ran through his blood and marrow, a small intense sun that drove him relentlessly forward, but now he calmed the inferno, coaxing it to smoldering coals. He needed focus, not drive; he needed the quiet at the eye of the storm.
Then he brought his fists to his sides, bending his elbows, and slowly pushed out as though pressing against a wall. Bent knees, solid balance, slow controlled movement.
(He wanted the criminal’s flesh beneath his claws.)
When his breaths no longer came out as soft snarls, he stepped forward into the first ch’uan. His footing was sure and his muscles coiled and relaxed in ways as familiar to him as walking. His eyes were half-lidded as he turned his attention simultaneously inward and out, smoothing the tangled chi in his body while being sharply aware of every movement, every whisper of skin against wood or cloth.
(He wanted to tear that flesh from the criminal’s bones.)
“I know you don’t like this. I don’t either, and I – well. Sometimes I wish things were different. But this is the way our world works. All we can do is bring the criminals in and hope that justice is meted out.”
“And if it isn’t?”
Une hadn’t been able to give him an answer to that.
Wufei wasn’t stupid, was in fact one of the best at detective work in the Preventers agency. He’d always known the world wasn’t fair – hell, there was a time before Meiran died and his colony self-destructed in which he would have argued that ‘justice’ was just as fleeting and naïve an ideal as any other. Such was the arrogance of his philosophic learning, just as far removed from practicality as the very ideals it criticized.
Embrace the tiger, a distant part of his mind commented as he slid smoothly into the movement.
(A man who sold adults and children of both sexes, of all races, into sexual slavery was walking around unpunished.)
There were two choices. Either Wufei could hold his tongue against such a blatant breach of justice and continue hunting; or he could hunt this one bastard down himself, which would turn him against official law and make sure that this was his last hunt. Unfortunately, as one of the five best, he was often sent in to handle the worst cases of sabotage, rape, murder, and sadism. Sacrifice the future to bring down this one rabid beast, or sacrifice his own principles this time so that he could uphold them in the future.
The warrior versus the scholar.
Action versus inaction.
It wasn’t until Wufei put a fist through the wall that he realized the fire in his blood was screaming at the universe.
…
The other pilots had an odd fascination for Wufei’s skin.
As mammals, the four young men were used to certain things about living bodies. Heat, for one, usually present in equal proportions throughout the torso and extremities. The unique sensation of skin. A covering of hair in varying degrees of thickness across most of that expanse.
But Wufei had a soft, fine, hairless hide, composed of scales so small that it took careful scrutiny to realize that the patterning wasn’t the normal wrinkling and printing of mammalian skin at all. The scales were slightly larger on the backs of his hands, shoulders, and particularly his spine, where they were nearly the size of coins. The dragon was cool to the touch on his limbs, but got warmer towards the center of his torso. The area just above his heart was as hot as the covering for a furnace.
Like silk, Quatre once said as his fingers followed the subtle swirls of scales across Wufei’s torso. The scales were chill to his first touch, but they would quickly absorb warmth from his fingers, just like fabric. (One didn’t need empathy to know that the dragon wasn’t very fond of that comparison.)
Like shadows, Duo contradicted, chest pressed against Wufei’s back as he unhesitatingly did his own exploring. The scales were more three-dimensional than skin, catching and dully reflecting dim light like burnished metal. If empaths were the emotional foil for necromancers, then dragons embodied the passion that pushed even the humblest of creatures to cling to life.
Neither of the werewolves had ever offered an opinion, but then, they didn’t need to. Werewolves constantly straddled the line between order and wildness, just as dragons did. One species wore its wildness as a skin under the moon and the other carried it between its ribs like a sun. Clashes between the two were enough to make the heavens tremble. No, the wolves were more interested in the dry, musky, reptilian scent so different from their own earthiness – just as dangerous, just as wild.
Wufei, in turn, was both fascinated and unsettled by the thin skins of the others, particularly in the beginning of their odd living arrangement. Seven paper-thin cutaneous layers holding muscle and bone together, so easily broken and bruised that he tended to be overly cautious when his hard nails or needle-sharp fangs got anywhere close. Wufei had to straddle the precarious balance between passion and self-control.
He didn’t like to think about the few times he’d lost sight of himself and ended up with a lover’s blood on his hands or lips. Not that any of the other pilots blamed him, or indeed weren’t used to more severe injuries, and seemed to take his loss of control as a victory instead of indication of weakness on his part.
…
It was said that a dragon’s heart burned like fire.
What Wufei never told the other pilots was that one day, in the way of all dragons, the fire would eventually consume him.
…
Even though the collar was a perfect fit, its presence was like a noose around his throat. Wufei made sure to keep his breathing steady, ruthlessly holding down the instincts that wanted to kill the one who dared thought he could collar a dragon –
Trowa watched him carefully and kept his own body language as unthreatening as possible. Lupine strength or not, even he wouldn’t be able to stop a dragon snapped into full fury. When Wufei finally gave him a tight nod in the mirror, Trowa finished the last tie of the collar and then rested his fingers unthreateningly on the other’s shoulders.
It was a simple band of black leather, slimmer than the width of two fingers. Even so, only the knowledge that this was Trowa who had put it on him and that Wufei given his permission kept the dragon from transforming into the five-clawed terror of his clan. Quite honestly, Trowa was probably the only person he could have allowed to do this; Heero was too much of a rival for something as delicate as this, and Duo and Quatre would’ve probably betrayed some kind of emotion that Wufei wouldn’t have been able to tolerate. But Trowa was just as controlled a person as Wufei, in his own way, and was worldly enough to understand the implications of what it meant for a dragon to wear a fucking collar.
Wufei stared at his reflection in the full-length mirror. He’d agreed to the slightly padded leather trousers with little more than a grumble – the colonies, especially L2, tended to be colder than Earth’s climes, and the trousers were loose and tough enough to be worthy of battle. His shirt was a plain, dark-red tank top that would be covered by one of Duo’s battered leather coats. And then the collar, standing out against the coppery tone of his hide.
“Hey Wufei, what would you say if I said I wanted to tie you down during sex?”
“I’d say that you had a death wish.”
“What, no sense of adventure?”
“…Maxwell, if I’m going to let you fuck me, it’s going to be because you earned my submission. Tie me down and you won’t live long enough to take advantage of it.”
“People are going to comment,” Trowa said quietly, meeting his eyes in the mirror’s reflection. Wufei knew the other pilot well enough to understand that it was a gentle question: could he handle being silent in the face of crude innuendo and potential humiliation?
“Of course they will.” The fact that Trowa would be walking into a room with a dragon as his bodyguard would instantly raise everyone’s estimation of the werewolf. Of course there would be comments…and whispers, and leers, and condescension.
But if Wufei wasn’t careful with this mission, then the man that had slipped through the Preventers’ hands before would escape once more…and he could also very well get one or more of his lovers killed. Both possibilities were horrifying.
He met Trowa’s gaze in the mirror and found no judgment, no expectation, simply acceptance for what might or might not happen. Somehow it helped to settle the insecurity in his heart; one way or another, fate would take its course.
…
Quatre would never admit it, but the emotions he sensed from Wufei could be as unpredictable and uncontrolled as a wildfire or some of the bombs Duo was often sent in by Preventers to defuse. And like one of those threatening bombs, defusing such a temperament all depended on timing.
If Quatre caught the dragon in the study, reclining on a couch with a book or with an inkbrush in hand, it would be like feeling gentle warmth on his face, the kind that came from a fireplace and soothed wintry chills at the end of a long day. More than once the empath had found himself drawn from his own work to wander into whatever room Wufei happened to be occupying just to savor the calm, receptive, meditative mood, sometimes to sit in silent company or to be drawn into some debate about whatever had caught Wufei’s scholarly interest.
If Quatre caught him in the backyard training, it would be the sharp, focused heat of sunlight on metal. It was a different kind of calm, a battle-minded one that appealed to the fighter and strategist in himself.
But if Quatre caught Wufei coming back from a meeting with Une or a particularly ignorant politician, or after a fight with one of the other pilots, or just when he was generally feeling angry and disillusioned, the emotions hit the blond in the face like a wave of flame and ash. It was the sheer power of that internal firestorm that always took his breath away, the depth of passion, willpower, and drive that fueled it. It made it nearly impossible to get through to Wufei when he turned that fire on himself, but when it turned outwards onto an enemy…
It was like witnessing the breathtaking power of a hurricane, and when that happened Quatre could swear he fell just a little more in love each time.
…
Dragons are present in the mythologies of a wide variety of cultures, and in every case their strength is emphasized: strength of honor or strength of evil, physical power or spiritual.
And every dragon has something it fights for.
…
When Wufei and Heero sparred, they sparred seriously. Duo had once watched with a bowl of popcorn in his lap, intending to mock them with it, and ended up not eating any because he was gaping like a fish. It wasn’t like mobile suit battles allowed much room for hand-to-hand combat, and the few times that the pilots were paired up with one another there was usually too much running and shooting to really observe each other’s fighting abilities.
And damn could those two take pieces out of each other.
Transformed, Heero had a thick brown pelt that made his lean body look both larger and more dangerous. Black lips pulled back in a snarl over ivory teeth that could easily snap bone – and had, when he’d run out of bullets.
Dragons of Wufei’s breed could change their size at will, but against Heero Wufei’s serpentine body was several meters long and as thick as an anaconda, four-limbed and wingless and brilliant as a newly minted penny. His long whiskers and dorsal spines were as dark as his eyes, as dark as stone. It was a good thing that the pilots’ shared home was a fair ways outside of the city; that way no one could complain about the eerie howls of a werewolf or the thunderous roars of a dragon as they did their best to tear each other apart.
All in the name of self-improvement, of course.
…
Comparison to a dragon is considered the height of praise and honor.
…
Duo had a bone to pick with the world. Well, more like some of the less polite OZ soldiers, but he would be more than happy to share the tough love. His annoyance had to do with the concept of ‘masculine beauty’ and the strange interpretations it was often subject to.
For instance, long hair, or what resembled long hair among the more diverse species of the Earth’s Sphere. When he had Wufei underneath him and the dragon looked up with hooded eyes, unbound hair lying in a tangle on the pillow and over his bronze-skinned shoulders, the necromancer saw absolutely nothing feminine. There was no mistaking the breadth of the dragon’s shoulders, the narrowness of the waist he gripped, or the hard cock between their stomachs.
Then there was the whole submission thing and the implication that being the one on his back indicated some kind of inferiority. The thought was ridiculous when Duo felt his movements being guided by the powerful legs that wrapped around his hips, and when it takes two to tango – well, someone has to be one catching, so to speak, otherwise it was an exercise in futility. Duo was one tough little bastard, but he well knew that in a straight mano-a-mano fight with Wufei, he’d get his ass handed back to him within seconds.
And Duo hadn’t actually wanted to tie the dragon up. He preferred a bit of interaction himself, thank you, as well as the knowledge that his lover stayed in the action because he damn well wanted to. But Christ strike him dead if Wufei’s reaction to the suggestion hadn’t been hilarious; and even now, flat on his back with his legs spread and another man fucking him, Wufei’s dark eyes were more inscrutable than ever, the slight curl in his lips seeming to murmur, Is that all you’ve got?
Then the necromancer would bare his teeth in a dark smile and think, Sweetheart, I haven’t even gotten started.
Now, the dragon could be a bit of an ass when it came to women and equality, but Duo would be one of the first to admit that the women he knew could be pretty fucking scary and would put several bullets into the skull of anyone who suggested they each needed a man to set them straight. Hell, when one thought about it, two women were leading the post-war world in both peace politics and peace-keeping and doing a damn good job in the process. Besides, Duo could sympathize with the fairer sex, considering how often his ass-length braid had gotten him mistaken for a girl or a defenseless faggot boytoy.
But there was nothing feminine about this, about the way trained muscle flexed under the cool silkiness of Wufei’s hide or the efficient way he could flip their positions without Duo ever sliding out of him. Wufei mindfully kept his claws away from the other’s chest as he languidly rolled his hips, testing both of their control – and if there was anything about Wufei that had surprised the other pilots, it was the way he approached sex with the same single-minded focus he bestowed upon everything else. And he’d done so with his usual blunt arrogance.
What about my body do I have to be ashamed of?
What, indeed. Of course, Duo had been obliged to respond with, Except for that little lack in the party department that Asian men seem to suffer from, and for which Wufei had made certain that Duo’s stride had been a bit stiff for a day or two.
Wufei had hands that in a more peaceful lifetime could have been a musician’s, a scholar’s, a painter’s, but in this timeline they were callused and thick-knuckled from years of intense training. His nose was too straight and strong to be considered conventionally beautiful, and while his smiles could be breathtaking, they happened too rarely to soften the harshness of his features. His body was a disciplined weapon, but like any experienced weapon it bore the scars of past battles.
The necromancer followed the lines of scars with his fingertips, unconsciously cataloguing them as shrapnel or bullet graze and loving their feel, loving that each one had their own little story to enhance Wufei’s. And as though Wufei had sensed the other’s wandering thoughts, he suddenly stopped moving and tightened his thighs to hold Duo’s hips still. Bastard, Duo murmured, and the dragon just arched a brow in response.
…
It was rare for more than two pilots to be at their shared home at the same time. They might have decided to share their lives after the war, but they were solo soldiers by force of habit and their identities were ESUN’s best-kept secret. Inevitably the majority of their small number would be abroad, acting as Preventers or diplomats or perhaps just sinking into the anonymity of being a clown or salvager.
More often they’d be paired up on missions, and this was where their respective personalities best meshed. This was when Wufei’s doubts about their collective lifestyle decision were put to rest with the proof that there really was no one else best suited to a Gundam pilot than another Gundam pilot.
Maxwell had spent over three months hunting down old contacts, spreading whispered rumors and putting the finishing touches on his own special brand of narcotic. It had been taken from an abandoned Romefeller project – only the Jade Emperor knew why those aristocrats had been so obsessed with biological warfare anyway – and then twisted by the Deathscythe pilot along with Preventers’ doctors to produce something impressive but non-lethal. It would now be time for Wufei and Trowa to begin their own roles and slowly work their way into the underground of L2-X0843, and though it would many more months of tedious maneuvering and self-control…
Well, perhaps it was a good thing that not all criminals were as intelligent as the pilots’ targets.
It had started with an offhand insult from Trowa’s false identity in a bar and led to a shoot-out between the two pilots and a small-time gang only loosely associated with the prostitution ring. Trowa was pinned behind a stack of crates in the warehouse, unable to shoot back without exposing himself.
Wufei didn’t even spare the energy for a vicious smile. Without hesitation he threw himself over the third-floor catwalk of the warehouse and landed in a crouch among the group of criminals, then sprung back up to his feet and knocked the gun from the closest man’s hand within a few seconds. A blow to the solar plexus sent the now-unarmed man to the ground. Another man was put out with an efficiently snapped neck, a third dead from a blow that smashed his nose and drove the bone back into his skull. The fourth took a bullet to the forehead from Trowa; the fifth and last man, a mage of some kind and therefore a coward in Wufei’s eyes, took off in terrified flight for the door.
The dragon let him go. Stories would spread of the werewolf and the dragon who were far from being either naïve or overconfident in wanting to play with the big names, and they would be that much closer in reaching their goal.
Trowa was binding the hands of the first man before going through the clothes on the three corpses. Wufei went to help him, but a small voice whispered in the back of his head through a telepathy spell.
You missed one, Quatre murmured. Distantly he could feel Duo’s amusement and Heero’s wry snort.
Wufei replied with the sensation of haughty arrogance, and looked up at Trowa with a smirk. He received a thin, mysterious smile in return.
Other parts.
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Date: 2009-07-18 08:02 pm (UTC)...*goes to read some of Asuka's stuff*
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