House Arrest

Chapter One:

Duo looked down at the worn defendant's desk trying to tune out the drone from his public defense lawyer and the prosecution. It had yet to work. Currently the prosecutor was asking an elderly Chinese man questions on the stand. Duo was so pissed off that he couldn't look up from the desk in front of him. The heat didn't help Duo's mood any more than the nosy spectators in the courtroom and he was pretty sure that the group in the back were pre-law students. They could fuck off to a different court room and get the hell outta his. Christ.

"Mr. Lau, can you point out your attacker today?"

The man looked over at Duo and pointed, his arm in a cast. With a strong Chinese accent he said, "I remember him. I remember that hair and the purple jacket he was wearing."

Duo peaked through his hair and saw that Mr. Lau's bruises had been healing but were still a nasty yellow. They probably didn't help his case.

And his jacket isn't purple, it's violet.

Duo huffed in anger. It wasn't like Duo actually hit the guy; it was the rest of the gang that did the beating. He just didn't try to stop it. That sick guilty feeling in the pit of his stomach let him know that he was just as guilty anyway.

When Duo was called up to the stand he felt nervous answering questions in front of everyone. He stood and walked right around the desk past Mr. Lau, almost too close for comfort. He shuffled his way to the stand, the cuffs jingling, making him feel even more like a violent criminal.

"State your name, place your right hand on the bible and repeat after me." The bailiff looked as bored and uncaring as the rest of the court, his expression dull, and Duo wondered if he was seen as just another street punk gone bad. Unfortunately, by swearing on the bible, Duo Maxwell would never tell a lie.

"Where were you on the night of September the eighth of this year, Mr. Maxwell?"

"I was walking through Chinatown."

"Were you alone on your walk, or were there others there with you?" The prosecution lawyer paced in front of him, back and forth, from one side of the room to the other.

"There were others in Chinatown with me," he nodded. When in doubt, give them attitude. His violet eyes gleamed and a smirk fell on his lips. He drummed his fingers on the wood in front of him in an attempt to annoy the lawyer.

"Mr. Maxwell. When I ask a question, you will answer that question fully and accurately. There were plenty of people in Chinatown on September the eighth, what I want to know is who was with you when you decided to corner and beat Mr. Lau in that alleyway!" He turned his body and flung an arm towards the quiet Mr. Lau.

Great, a pissed off lawyer is just what he needed. The man's face was sweating and he looked like an overweight suburban male in a suit that was too small for him. But even so, he was a better lawyer than that public defender he'd been assigned. That guy could barely write his own damned name. Might as well give it to them soft and easy; make this go along a little bit faster.

"Listen, before we get all pissy about this, I'm just gonna tell you now that there ain't no way in hell I'm telling you who was with me. And it wasn't in an alleyway; it was on the side of the road. Let's skip to the part where I'm guilty and get the hell on with it." Even as Duo spoke he realized that this was the only way out of it. Take the punishment like a good little bitch and hope to stay out of trouble later on. Even if he did talk, the repercussions from his gang would be more painful than any punishment the prison system could give him.

The judge swirled around to face him and said, "You're pleading no contest to an assault charge, Mr. Maxwell?"

"Looks like," came the dry response.

The judge was convinced this was a decision made purely on fear of what would happen to him if he talked.

"I hope you know this will go on your criminal profile for the rest of your life. It may have consequences with things such as employment at a later date. It will also factor in for more punishment if you are involved with criminal activity of any kind in the future." He took in Duo's weary face and his disheveled clothing.

"Yeah yeah, I know." Duo rolled his eyes, and slumped down in his seat.

After a few minutes of silence the judge shook his head and declared, "I sentence you, Duo Maxwell, to six months home detention for the assault on Mr. Lau, and another six months consecutive with the first punishment, for failing to provide the information on the others involved in the same crime. This case is not to be written as a hate crime, as the assault occurred at random. You, Mr. Maxwell are not to feel like you're getting off that easy. Your parole officer and first responding officer will be Chang Wufei. Case dismissed."

Duo sat up in his chair, mouth open in surprise. Twelve months house arrest didn't seem like that bad a punishment. The court cleared out, readying the next case, and the bailiff led Duo out the back door. The white washed walls of the station pissed Duo off more than the courtroom did. Running was his specialty and under normal circumstances he would never have been caught by the cops like he did three days before. Unfortunately, one of the younger boys had fallen over a curb when the police showed up. Duo stopped to make sure he wouldn't get caught, and ended up getting tackled by a blond police officer half his size. The cop must've had grappling training since it took him mere seconds to wrestle Duo to the ground and shove his wrists together for cuffing. Should've paid more attention, damn it.

As Duo relived the experience the bailiff walked him past his cell and took him to a questioning hold, leaving him there, alone. Duo put his head down on the metal table in front of him feeling the cold all the way through to his bones. He was exhausted. Everyone thinks he was a street punk, born and bred, but really Duo had a happy childhood. Living in foster care wasn't the best experience, but being adopted by Helen when he was ten made life for Duo better than he could ask for. Good food, a nice home and plenty of love courtesy of Helen, made his early teen years go a lot easier than they might have been without her. Even when he confessed his attraction to men she never judged him. If the good woman could see him now she'd roll over in her grave.

Duo groaned. Now he was sitting in the back of a court house waiting to be locked into that same house.

Officer Chang Wufei walked into the interrogation room with a scowl. His new charge, Duo Maxwell, was sitting with his forehead on the table and his hands playing with the chains on his cuffs. The long braid that hung down his back was a great contradiction to the wiry muscled frame underneath the prison orange. Wufei had just come in from the court room, having overseen the court case personally. Another thing he had picked up on was the attitude Duo had given both the judge and the prosecution lawyer. That was going to stop now, before he became accustomed to talking to him like that.

He slammed the metal door shut and Duo jerked back in his seat when he heard the click of the lock fall in place. Wufei knew what the kid was afraid of. He could sense the fear and wondered what was running through the kid's mind. Wufei smirked, satisfied, his position of authority over him.

Duo gulped and wondered what the hell he did wrong in another life that would warrant the need to torment him further with an Asian police officer.

"What are the chances that you're Korean?" Duo winced at the man that was stalking towards him like a predator after its prey.

"Not fucking good," came the response.

Wufei crossed the room, and stood directly behind Duo. He could see Duo was tense, waiting for him to do something. Wufei stood still waiting to see what the kid would do.

When Duo couldn't stand it anymore he tried to turn just slightly to see what Wufei was up to.

Wufei uncrossed his arms and smacked Duo across the head with his open palm. The chair screeched sideways and Duo almost fell to the floor from the force of the blow.

"Holy shit, you can't do that!" Duo yelped in surprised and held the side of his head where his ear was ringing.

"I can do whatever I want. My name is Chang Wufei and I will be your first response officer. That means that when your ankle bracelet goes off I'm the one that heads to the scene. I also hold your tracker, and in the case that you attempt escape I will be the lead officer in charge of the hunt."

Wufei walked around the table and sat facing the prisoner. He looked Duo in the eye and told him, "If you attempt escape, I won't feel bad about kicking the shit out of you. I also warn you in advance that I am entitled to shoot to kill once you're outside the specified zone. I'd advise you to remain within the perimeter I give you, and I suspect we won't have any problems."

Duo snorted. Wufei's eyes narrowed."Do you understand?"

"Yeah, I do. I'm stuck with a 100 foot radius and a chink cop as a babysitter."

Wufei skirted the table and ran an arm down around Duo's neck, slamming his forehead into the table and repeated the question. "Do you understand?"

"Ow man, are you fucking kidding me?" Duo growled under the weight of him and struggled against his arms. Wufei pressed him harder into the table until Duo's body went slack. After realizing the cop wasn't going to let him get up until he spoke he spat out, "Fuck you, I get it."

Letting him go, Wufei grabbed the front of Duo's shirt and brought him upright, back against the chair.

"Stand up."

Duo stood, turning to face his newest enemy and found that he towered over the shorter Asian man. Wufei told him to place his left leg on the chair and then hiked Duo's pant leg up.

Duo couldn't resist saying, "Woah, I think you're getting ahead of yourself there. Normally I wait till after you buy me dinner before you get to undress me." Immediately the cop rolled his eyes and grabbed onto the chains holding Duo's wrists together and locked them to the chair. This made Duo's position a little more vulnerable and successfully stopped the smart ass comments.

Pulling out a black ankle bracelet, he proceeded to slip it around Duo's leg.

"This has a mechanism that can read if it's being tampered with. If it even thinks something is going wrong it'll send me a message on your tracker and I'll be on your doorstep within ten minutes. I'm giving you a 90-foot radius from the center of your house, and if you step over that line, you have thirty seconds to cross back over before the message will transmit to me."

The room was quiet as he attached it to his leg.

Duo took this moment while the officer was occupied, and closed his eyes, trying to come to terms that the bracelet signified a loss of his freedom-a thing that Duo valued most in life. Then he looked down at the officer, wondering how many of these he's put on people. Innocent or guilty.

The black band on Duo's leg was heavy, but Duo wasn't thinking of much except the Chinese man bent over in front of him. The blue police uniform was pulled taught against his skin. He wondered what he looked like with his hair down, instead of swept up in that tight pony-tail. Duo's hand came up to pull the elastic out of his hair but the chains rattled and caught against the chair. Wufei turned quickly and slammed a flat hand into Duo's chest. Duo found himself flat on his back and the chair clattering to the floor with him.

And then he calmly finished adjusting the bracelet in place.

His warm fingers brushed across Duo's skin.

"Believe me, you don't want to have this thing summon me to you. I will be none too pleased."

Duo looked up at Wufei from his splayed out position on the floor of the police station gasping for air and believing every word the man said.

"Understood?"

With a sparkle in his eye he said softly, "I gotcha Wu-man."

Wufei turned red at that. He bent over and grabbed onto the front of Duo's prison shirt, hauling him up with shear strength. He slammed him into the wall, the heel of his hand digging into Duo's chest, the chair on its side, weighing his hands down. Wufei was breathing hard, pissed off at the attitude emanating from this punk kid. He looked Duo in the eye and said calmly, "Duo Maxwell, I am going to make your stay with the prison system a living hell."

Duo realized that he should've gone with whatever the gang threw at him because this man had a dangerous gleam in his eye and a hand over his heart.