Hell Would be in Mexico

by trucizna

Three: A la Puerta del Infierno: August 18th, 196 AC

Angry voices in unintelligible Spanish carried through the partially open door as I tried to blink my way into staying conscious. So far it seemed to be working, and the longer I was left alone the farther my vision returned. After a few minutes I could see well enough to pick up most of my surroundings.

I was in a small room in someone's unfinished cement basement. The walls were cracked, the floor was dusty, and somewhere in the distance I imagined I could hear rats. It smelled like stale, unused air and the remnants of Blacker's classic, never-seen-a-shower stench.

I could have been anywhere in or around El Rey, Mexico. On second thought, I probably could have been anywhere in Mexico.

I decided right then that if it were anywhere at all, Hell would be in Mexico. The place was perfect. If he wasn't living there already, it was prime real estate with Satan's name all over it, written in curvy loops of blood and rat droppings.

The voices outside rose angrily for a few sentences and fell again as someone broke up the argument. My thoughts turned to my escape. If I really tried hard, I thought I could smash part of the chair, somehow get a hold of a large splinter, and pick the lock of the handcuffs. Then—if I happened to be able to stand—I could kick all their collective asses and get out of here.

Of course, that would kind of defeat the purpose of me going through all of this in the first place, and just thinking about all the work involved in getting out of Mexico and into someplace slightly less terrible was exhausting. In fact, the more I thought about moving the more I hurt all over, and I finally noticed I was wheezing like an asthmatic old man.

Just when I decided to fuck it all and drop out of consciousness (and maybe life) the door opened with an overly-dramatic slam that might have startled me if I had any kind of capacity to care. I heard several sets of footsteps approaching me; each accompanied by their owner's ominously satisfied chuckles.

This was getting old already, and I realized why it was Quatre who planned everything in the war. I sucked at coming up with good ideas. For proof, just look at this one. There were three of them and they each carried a uniquely painful weapon to add to the experience. I won't go into too many details, but because my feet weren't tied down I did manage to kick one of them in the gut. My thrashing didn't last very long after that and neither did their interest, apparently, because after a few spitted curses they left, still chortling to themselves about my fate. Several minutes later Blacker was back.

He pulled me upright, this time by the back of the rickety chair. He did it so I could see the wickedly serrated hunting knife he held in his other hand.

"I am going to watch you die, you fucked-up, sorry excuse for a human, and I am going to revel in it."

How nice of him to inform me beforehand. He ran the blade lightly across my face and teasingly down my neck, letting the edge bite into my skin at my collarbone. The knife took my shirt with it as it cut a lazy line down my torso. I clenched my teeth against the pain, refusing to give him the satisfaction of hearing me cry out. The glint in his eyes turned particularly demonic a moment later as he reared back to strike. A timely shadow passing across the doorway made Blacker pause.

"Get the fuck away from him and drop the knife. Now." I recognized that voice. How could I not? Blacker whirled around, knife poised.

"Who the hell…" He didn't even get to finish his sentence before the butt of a rifle hit him between the eyes. He dropped like a particularly ugly rock.

Duo was kneeling in front of me a moment later.

"Wufei…" His voice sounded strange, suddenly, "Wufei, are you okay?" I started to laugh, sort of, but it jarred me in all the wrong places and I ended up hacking spatters of blood onto the floor instead. I didn't notice when he disappeared to release the handcuffs and my bleeding hands dropped to my sides. I didn't bother trying to get up—living seemed particularly stupid after this whole fiasco. He reappeared in front of my chair, his hands hovering like he wanted to touch me but was afraid I would shatter—or maybe bite him—if he did.

"We gotta get out of here." He said at last. He ran his fingers gingerly through my hair, pulling my bangs away from my face. I winced. He let go and his fingers came away smeared with blood. In the hallway outside someone groaned.

"Shit." He whispered, glancing over his shoulder at the open door. He slung the rifle over his back and grabbed one of my arms. "Let's go." When he wrapped an arm around my back and held my side I gasped aloud.

"I'm sorry, 'Fei, but we're in a bit of a time-crunch here."

The hallway was smattered with unconscious bodies. Duo didn't bother trying to walk around them, and when necessary he lifted me easily over any extraneous heads and arms that were in the way. Around a corner we found ourselves at the bottom of a set of long, narrow and very steep stairs.

"You're going to have to get on my back."

No way. I shook my head.

"Damnit, Wufei, now is not the time for your fucking pride!" He snarled, "I think it's a little late for that. I mean look at you!" His voice softened suddenly and he said with a half-smile, "you look like shit."

That boy was fucking nuts, I decided. He dropped the rifle and pulled his braid over his shoulder and out of the way. Since I couldn't really stand by myself I had no other option than to let him sling me over his back where the rifle had just been, and it was in that way I was reduced to riding piggy-back out of whatever hell-hole they'd dumped me in. The still-bleeding cut on my chest dripped down Duo's back, and in my woozy state I felt slightly guilty for ruining his shirt.

We made it into the cricket-filled night air and I was glad to get away from the dank, enclosed space of the basement. It didn't really matter what the fresh air was like, though, because this close, all I could smell was him.

"Why?" I managed to croak after a few minutes.

"Why did I save you?" He repeated, finishing my question for me. He gave a cynical half-laugh, "That's easy. It's my job." I deserved an explanation, I decided. Luckily, he seemed ready to give me one.

"That one time when we were held by Tubarov and OZ, remember? The asshole turned off the air to the prison block and we were going to die. As the oxygen ran out and I could barely move I knew the end was coming. I didn't really mind, you know, since it was my fate as a soldier and all that. But all I wanted was to look at you one last time and see you looking back at me. When I died, all I wanted was one last glimpse into your cold, black, apathetic eyes. But no, you were fucking hibernating."

As if to accent his point he shifted me farther up on his back, jostling every single one of my aching ribs. I groaned involuntarily into his neck. The idea that in an instant—one I barely remembered, at that—I could cause Duo enough angst to last him over a year was incredible to me.

To my surprise, he went on, "I realize by this point that you may be incapable of caring for anybody at all, and that in the past you may have never seen me as anything except another faceless, barely-allied soldier, but you mean everything to me, Wufei. You've been chasing Treize all this time and now that he's dead you don't have anything left, right? Well, you could have had me. I've always been there for you, even if you've never noticed. You know what? That's okay. I'll still always be there for you, to protect you from yourself and the world whether you appreciate it or not. I don't care. It's my job, see, because somebody has to do it. It might be selfish of me, but I won't let you die." He took a deep, steadying breath that rattled ever so slightly, "Especially not in a piece of shit place like this."

By this point I'd lost enough blood that the world was flashing in colorless fireworks across my vision. Hearing is the last thing to go when you bleed to death, so I heard every word he spoke to me. Not that I understood any of it. All those words and I had no idea what he was trying to tell me. I buried my face in his neck with the vague understanding that I'd wronged him in some way I could never repair.

I passed out.

I awoke to this really, really annoying but steady blipping sound, and at first I wondered what timer was counting down and whether I was going to explode soon or not. When I opened my eyes everything was white. Shadows settled slowly into their proper places and I found myself gazing up at an unfamiliar ceiling. Bordering my field of vision were various metal and plastic contraptions. Ones that looked oddly and disturbingly familiar.

Shit.

I catapulted myself upright and immediately regretted it as every muscle in my body screamed in furious protest. That's when I remembered why I was in a hospital. I angrily tore out the needles buried in my arms and inspected the damage.

One. It hurt to breathe.

Two. Bandages wrapped securely around my wrists, adding the fact that I looked like a suicide survivor to my misery. I fucking hate handcuffs.

Three. Looking down under the crappy hospital gown, I could see stitches in my chest. A lot of them.

Four. I had a really, really nasty headache.

Afterward I wished I hadn't taken a tally, because maybe I would have been able to ignore at least one of the things wrong with me. Maybe I shouldn't have taken out all the needles—maybe one of them was morphine. On second thought, I was glad I'd taken them out. I hate needles. No, I'm not afraid of them; I just harbor an intense dislike.

I sat there trying to figure out how to breathe without moving anything in my chest when the plastic sheet separating me from the hallway opened and a man in white came in bearing a clipboard. At least he matched the décor.

"Ah, Mister Chang. How are you feeling?"

I had no response to that, so I kept silent.

"Can you speak? You do speak English, right?" He approached the bed and attached the clipboard to the foot of it.

"Yeah." It sort of sounded like English, anyway.

"Good. Step out of bed if you would, Mister Chang. I know it's going to be painful but you've been unconscious for over twelve hours. You need to move around."

Twelve, huh? Impressive. He pulled down the sheet on the bed.

"Where…?" I began.

"You're in the city hospital of Cuernavaca. It's Sunday, the eighteenth of August, 196."

I shook my head carefully. That's not what I wanted to know. He grabbed my arm and steadied me as I stepped down. I clenched my teeth and felt stupid.

"You've bruised several ribs, so movement of any kind is going to be painful."

With an unfortunate amount of help I walked a little bit around the room. The nurse grinned, "That young man outside is going to be very pleased you've awoken. He hasn't stopped asking about you since I got here this morning. He's been pretty annoying, to be honest, and he just fell asleep on a bench out there an hour or so ago. I'll bring in Old Man Jack to speak to you and we'll let the young man get his rest, hmm?"

I wasn't really paying attention after I realized he must have been talking about Duo. He was just making small talk, anyway, and luckily I wasn't obligated to respond. He helped me through the painful process of lying back down again, and I cursed the fact that I was in such a weakling state of half-death. It was no one's fault but my own, however.

Once I was settled the nurse smirked down at me. "You really shouldn't have taken these out, you know." He held the IVs between his fingers like so many glinting scalpels. When he saw the look on my face he laughed and told me I wouldn't have to put them back in as long as I drank plenty of water, and that I could take painkillers by mouth instead. I relaxed visibly. Jack wheeled himself into the half room/half shower stall once the nurse left.

"You would not believe what it took to get that Maxwell kid to calm down and go to sleep." He growled, "Once he realized he missed the thirty seconds you were awake at five am this morning because he was in the bathroom he went berserk. I convinced one of the nurses to drug him. He's out cold, but we only managed it about an hour ago. I think he's been solidly awake for the past three days."

"Three?" I tried to wrap my brain around that one.

Jack nodded, "He didn't sleep the night you were arrested."

That idiot. Of course that meant Jack was probably awake with him, if he knew he never slept.

"What time is it?" Congratulations, Wufei, on your first complete sentence.

"Two thirty in the afternoon."

Suddenly I felt exhausted, despite the fact I'd been sleeping solidly a half a day already.

"What did they give me?"

"Oodles and oodles of drugs, I assume. You'll need them. You upstarts are always trying to run around the world no matter what condition you're in. I approved them for anything they wanted to give you, and warned them about your habits."

"What habits?" I eyed him warily.

"In particular your habit of ignoring your elders and your personal safety. You've got Duo Maxwell disregarding his to look after your well being. Luckily I'm old and omnipotent enough to look after myself and at least be able to knock Maxwell out when he needs it." He chuckled harshly and shook his head, "He's going to be furious when he wakes up."

The old man and Duo must have really chummed it up while I was knocked out for Jack to feel so friendly toward him. I met Jack's eyes in one of the stare-downs that had become a ritual for us since I showed up at his doorstep. His semi-smile vanished, and after a moment he tossed a crumpled sheet of paper onto my bed. I picked it up and read.

Jack,

You're lucky nobody's dead. If those punks killed any of those boys there would be three heads dangling from the town hall instead of two. There will, however, be no bending the rules for you anymore. You've crossed a line, Jack, and there is no going back.

--Andrew

The letter had had a knife through it at one point, probably pinned to Jack's door for dramatic effect. I re-read the letter quickly but needn't have bothered. Its meaning was clear enough. I waited for Jack to tell me what this meant, besides the obvious, 'get the hell out of Mexico and never come near here again.' That was already on the to-do list.

"He doesn't mean a word of it, obviously." Jack spoke at last, folding and pocketing the sloppy letter, "He's been threatening my life since he was born. My brother is quite the attention whore."

These sentences left me in a bit of a shock, although I'm not sure which was the bigger surprise; that sheriff Blacker was Jack's brother or that I heard him call him an 'attention whore'. Probably the latter.

"He does mean it when he says he wants your heads, both of you."

I listened to all of this, my surprise waning fast.

"He's going to come after you, so watch your back. You don't need to worry too much, however. I can keep Andrew in line. He's the one who's gone too far, this time." If possible, his gaze darkened farther. I wondered what he was going to be able to do in that wheelchair, but at the same time I was glad I wasn't the one in his path.

When I woke up again later Duo lay asleep with his head on the side of my bed, his braid a crooked tail slipping off the edge of the mattress. I decided I didn't much like being awake, since it hurt and I didn't like how my brain worked when conscious. When I tried to move I noticed that Duo's fingers were wrapped in mine. Any wonderment at that phenomenon was banished instantly when I noticed they'd reinserted the IVs into my other arm while I was asleep. In a slightly drugged panic I pulled my hand from Duo's to peel away at the excessive amount of tape they'd used to keep the needles in place.

"Mmmm, Fei?" I spared a glance towards him just in time to catch him rocket into a sitting position, his spine giving off several popping noises I knew couldn't be very comfortable for him.

"Hey, don't. Leave them in." He reached across and pulled my arm away from its frantic scrabbling. I wanted to protest, but I barely managed to restrain myself. Then there was silence. After a few heavy moments of it he noticed that he was still hanging on to my arm and let go.

"Um, how are you doing?"

"I've been better." I drawled. I gave him a severe look. It wasn't like him to be so hesitant, "whatever you have to say, say it."

"We're leaving. I'm taking you with me."

"Where?"

He looked visibly relieved. I didn't know why.

"I don't know yet," he admitted, "but far away from here. Somewhere in space, probably."

"Okay," I said. He smiled. I felt my stomach lurch looking at him look at me like that, and I wondered how I could possibly refuse him.

I was going to have to figure it out, though, and sooner rather than later. I couldn't stay with him forever.