CLOSE PROXIMITY

Chapter 16

Day Three 21.03

Heero’s snarl was almost vicious. “Duo, you stupid bastard!”

To my surprise – and let’s face it, my momentary relief – Greg laughed. “Duo, he’s right! You truly are a fucking idiot. If he wants to push me to shoot him, let him, right?”

I dropped my eyes a little; shook a stray hair from my eyes. My voice had a slight falter to it. “Greg. Please. Look, can’t we talk some more? Can’t we make any of this right again for you?”

The look on Greg’s face was harsh. “I despise you both,” he said. “There is no right for me any more. Heero here is nothing but bluff and aggression, and you, Duo – well you’re just pathetic. I can’t believe how eagerly you want to give yourself up for him! Just to give him a few more minutes before I shoot him too. It’d be touching if it wasn’t such a romantic novelist’s cliché.” He glanced between our faces, faintly curious. “But then you’re close, right? The pair of you. Or at least you used to be. They talked about it at the office. The two of you couldn’t keep your hands off each other! Someone said they nearly caught you once, all but fucking up against the vending machine. That there were places in the parking lot that were regular venues for your lunch hours. They said you’d once been living together in that apartment I blew up.”

Greg hadn’t known us before the start of Mission Dove – he hadn’t known much about our relationship. Also we’d been fairly discreet at the beginning. By the time he’d joined the Department, we were on our slippery slope towards splitting up, and probably we were nothing more than the subject of rumours and scrawled notes on the toilet wall.

“That’s got nothing to do with any of this,” I said. I could see Sheri’s gaze on me, fascinated despite her fear.

Greg laughed. I had my eye on his gun and it had dropped back down to his waist. “I’m not so sure. You seemed to lose it a bit after the start of Mission Dove. Maybe not so reliable, not so careful, not so smart. I think your mind must have been some place else. Maybe down Yuy’s pants – but wasn’t he as keen as before?”

I let an angry flush stain my cheeks. “I tried damned hard not to let it compromise anything professionally…”

Greg looked at Heero’s angry face, then back at me. He seemed to be enjoying the tension between us. “Maybe Heero doesn’t agree with you. He doesn’t seem to think much of your professionalism here tonight. And you’ve messed up before, haven’t you, Duo?”

“Fuck off,” I said, but with little energy. Like he said – he was the one with the gun.

“The subject of two internal investigations in three months, Duo Maxwell.” He was taunting me. “They all talked about it. About you.”

“It’s over,” I said, shortly. Greg knew I was on suspension. “I’m on my own now, aren’t I? Maybe you’re right – I fucked up one time too many.”

“Duo, shut up!” Heero hissed behind me. “For God’s sake, he doesn’t need to hear all the sordid details.”

Greg sneered. He seemed to be enjoying our discomfort - especially mine.

I turned to him swiftly, blocking his view of Heero, demanding he look at me. “Just let Sheri go, Greg. She really is no good to you.” I laughed softly. “You know how they are, girls. They cry and howl and generally get in the way.”

Even through her tears, I could see Sheri’s eyes widen angrily.

He seemed to give it some consideration this time. “Why should I? I’ll lose my hostage – and give you and Yuy the chance to plot some way of fighting back…”

And then it was my time to laugh, and there was a hell of a lot more bitterness in it than his attempt. “Me and Yuy? Don’t talk about us like we’re a couple or something! OK, so maybe we had something going once. But you heard all the rumours didn’t you? How we fucked up a surveillance? How we fought with fists and kicks? Bastard punched me! He got me suspended, it’s his fault I’m here in this hole, stuck with its lowlife, scraping up a living, no respect from anyone anymore!”

Greg looked taken aback at my outburst. “Relena talked about you coming back into service…”

I snorted. “She’s a smooth one! She said that to keep the industrial tribunals off her back, didn’t you know? No, there’s no question of it, she wants me out – she blamed me for the debacle at the club when your brother was taken, she blamed me for the fight with Heero when he was the one who started it. He’s the blue-eyed boy – I’m the villain of the piece.” My breath was short and my eyes wild; Greg looked a little shocked by me. “Just don’t include me in with him like that! I’ve got no desire to work with him again. Shit, you saw how it was when you brought him here – he can’t stand my guts. He’s only here under sufferance.”

Greg shrugged, but I could see a flicker of relaxation in his eyes. “It makes no difference to me how you two work together.”

“Except that maybe it does!” I protested. I moved a step towards him, my whole attitude the walking embodiment of a man on the edge of panic. “It was Heero who was there in the thick of it at the club – Heero’s threat that your poor brother struck back at. I was just trying to keep the peace, to be honest, but he wouldn’t listen to me. Even then I knew what a psychotic bastard he could be. He saw them all as enemies, even the innocent kids.”

Heero had nothing to offer but a gasp behind me; Sheri went even whiter. Greg raised an eyebrow.

“You were in the Project Team together. You were together off duty, too – lovers –“

I laughed again. “So because he was in the Team I have to respect him? Because I slept with him? Hell, Greg, I can admit I made some bedtime mistakes in my life, and Heero Yuy was definitely one of them. He treated me like shit, and still hardly has the time of day for me.” I brushed my hands against each other as if I swiped unpleasant dirt from the skin. “But I dropped him just as quickly!”

“Duo…”

I ignored Heero’s low, urgent grunt. I smiled fully at Greg. “Can’t say he was much good in the sack, either.” I stretched my arms and arched my back, as if remembering physical events of the past. “He comes way too quick. Distinct lack of imagination, too.”

Greg smiled back at me, though his lip curled.

“So you’re happy to pass the whole blame on to him – trying to save yourself? That’s some kind of betrayal, Duo.”

I shrugged. “Just know which side my bread’s buttered, that’s all.” I appealed to him again, moving carefully across the room. “I can help you out of here, Greg. I know them all on the site. Let the girl go and they’ll get you an unregistered car and whatever else you need, and you can be away from here before anyone gives the alarm.”

The dynamics of the room had changed quite significantly. Suddenly there were three of us together on one side of the room, gathered round the couch. There was the card table between us and the kitchen, the radio balanced precariously on top of it. And then there was Heero, over on the other side.

Greg looked at me, then at Heero’s face. He seemed to like what he saw there. I was having difficulty facing the man, myself. But then I knew what expression of hatred he’d reserve for me.

“OK,” Greg said. “You can untie her.”

*

Sheri was still huddled on the couch, trying to get the circulation back into her hands. Her eyes were red from her crying, and her mouth was marked with a red rash from where the gag had bitten too deeply into her skin. I’d hunkered down by the side of the couch to reach the ropes that Greg had used to bind her, and now she looked down at me with as much suspicion as she did her abductor.

I rolled the ropes around my hands, aimlessly looping them up. “I can take her out of the trailer –“

“No, you fucking can’t,” snapped Greg. He’d watched me carefully while I untied the knots. My fingers had been pretty clumsy, but he hadn’t moved from his position by the couch. He could cover all three of us with the gun from there. “She shuts up, and she stays here for the moment. I’ll let her out when I choose.”

I straightened myself up. I made sure not to step any closer to him. “Look, let me help you. I want to show you I’m not here to add to your grief. I can be really useful to you, Greg. I’ve got no loyalty to the Department, after all -- not after the way they’ve treated me. And definitely no loyalty to him.” I dipped my head in Heero’s direction.

“I’m going to kill him – kill you both. Are you talking about helping me with that?” Greg looked bemused.

I bit my lip. “OK, whatever you need. Maybe we can negotiate what you do with me. Maybe not. But if that’s what you need…” I heard Sheri whimper softly behind me. I gave a sly grin. “It’d be rather fitting wouldn’t it, to have one Team member kill another?”

Greg’s protest was spat out. “What crap is this? I don’t know what’s got into you, Maxwell, but I don’t believe it. You wouldn’t do it. You’ve lived with him – you’ve fucked him!”

“Jeez… It was just one of those things, Greg.” I guess I sounded pretty embarrassed about the whole damned business. “A lot of guys go through it, you know? Just an experiment with my sexuality; an immature identity crisis, I expect the headshrinkers would call it. I like girls really – maybe if I help you out, you’d give me the girl for fun…”

Sheri moved at that, angrily, as if to throw herself at me, but I pushed her back on to the couch, none too gently.

Greg was watching me even more closely. “Heero tried to save you when I shot you – he stayed around when I thought he’d be racing out of here to save himself.”

I mustered up the hatred that had festered inside me for months and I glared at Heero. “So he’s a fucking fool. So he has some kind of death wish. Still doesn’t mean he can have my ass.”

“Bastard,” said Heero. He hadn’t moved, but his eyes were dark, boiling pools, and they were fixed on me.

“Shut up, Yuy,” said Greg, and the gun wavered back round to cover Heero.

*

But he hadn’t told me to shut up. “Look, Greg,” I blustered. “I understand you, believe me. You and Kes. You’ve been pushed around and excluded all your life, and all you wanted to do was set the pair of you up for a reasonable future together. You see, I’ve never fitted in either – not in or out of work. They tolerate me, but they laugh at me behind my back. Heero was fun for a while, but he never respected me.” I let the slightest of sobs catch in my throat. “You were right, Greg. I’ve fucked up, but I was never given any chance to redeem myself. I let them down, and now they all despise me.”

I stepped away from Sheri to stand closer to him. “I’m well out of it. Fucking department – fucking project Team! I hate ‘em all. They used me like they used you, Greg. Like people used Kes. Sounds like your little plans for revenge have come none too soon.”

Greg was looking confused. I kept talking.

“That was what your brother thought, you know. He said as much to me before Heero came bearing down on him –“

“What? He said -?” Greg’s face had blanched and his pupils were dangerously dilated. “Did he speak to you?”

“Whatever.” I shrugged. I settled carefully on the balls of my feet. I risked a glance at Sheri and flickered my eyes to the door and back. She’d shifted a little so that she was on the end of the couch nearest to the door. I didn’t know if she was taking any notice of me. I also didn’t look at Heero, even out of the corner of my eye. It was probably best I didn’t, at this very moment. “I mean, of course he did, obviously Quatre mentioned it somewhere along the way –“

“No!” Greg’s cry was anguished. “He never said a fucking word about it! There was nothing on file, or in anyone’s notes!”

There was the slightest of hisses from the table, not loud enough that anyone was distracted.

“What did he say to you?” Greg came right up towards me, brandishing his gun. “Tell me what the fuck he said! Did he call for me? What did he say about me -?”

The hissing noise was louder now; there was a crackle of static. Greg whirled quickly back towards the table to see Heero bending slightly down, as if to touch the radio.

“Back off!” Greg shouted.

“Duo – stop him!” cried Heero. “We must answer that call – it’ll be from Relena, telling us what the plan is!” He continued to reach for the mike, and he was nearer to the table than Greg. But Greg had the gun.

We both moved at the same time. Just as Heero got to the table I flung myself at him, knocking him away. Greg waved the gun rather haphazardly at us – it was difficult for him to establish any kind of target with both of us flailing about in front of him. We were shouting together, too.

“Heero, leave it! You can’t do anything now –“

“Duo! You’re scum, you hear me? All you had to do was hold him back while I took the call – which fucking team are you playing for now, anyway?”

“Mine! I’m on my own fucking team! The team that’s gonna save my ass -!”

“Bastard! Selfish, fucking bastard -!”

We wrestled fairly uselessly for a moment or so, panting and grunting at each other. He slammed me against the wall, his lean body moving swiftly across Greg’s line of vision. I saw Sheri staring at us, amazed. She was up on her feet and I really wanted to see her moving towards the door…

The radio hissed again and I saw Greg’s eyes glint with a sudden sly light. “Shut the fuck up!” he yelled, and for a second we both paused, hands gripping each other’s clothing. “Guess I’ll take the call!” he growled. “Maybe I’ll enjoy knowing where the rest of your colleagues are and what they’re planning!”

“No, you mustn’t… “ hissed Heero, fury all over his face.

But Greg reached smugly for the radio, planting his hand confidently on it as he looked for the microphone.

And then he screamed.

We both flinched at the loud, unearthly wail that sounded like it came from his very gut. His eyes grew unnaturally large and his limbs seemed to shudder and fly out in all directions, his arm shooting out to the side as if it was being wrenched out of its socket. The radio jumped from its position on the table and his body started to fall back. The gun fell to the floor as both of his hands reached out helplessly for some salvation.

Neither of us moved to offer any.

*

Sheri was screaming as Greg was crumpling back towards the couch. She looked terrified that he’d fall on her.

“Don’t touch him!” I yelled. “The current’s running through him! Get away from him! Heero, get the gun!”

It was still all a blur; Greg on his way down, Heero diving to the floor to grab the gun. I was twisting, trying to regain my footing, trying to get Sheri out of the way. There was the smell of burnt wiring, and a loud hum in my ears as the radio’s remaining static crackled and spat at us all.

Timing was critical.

Greg’s shocked body was still shuddering from the contact with the radio. Heero had the gun in his hand and had him covered, but Sheri was sprawled awkwardly half on, half off the couch, her body about to get really tangled up with Greg’s. Why he hell hadn’t she moved out of the way? Obviously she was too scared, too shocked, too bruised … Meantime, I was desperate; I lurched across the room to pull her away, knowing Heero couldn’t do anything to catch Greg until she was clear.

Then there was another blur – but this one filled me with anger and despair. Greg couldn’t speak – his hands shook, his whole body shook – but as he crashed on to the couch, he grabbed at Sheri’s throat; it was almost in reflex. She cried out and wriggled nearly free, but her body thudded against me, halting my headlong dash towards them, tumbling me to the floor. I heard Heero curse in the background, and the pain in my hip told me I’d caught the edge of the table as I fell. The radio was thrown completely off, its wires whipping out of their moorings, and the heavy awkwardly-shaped casing thudding into Heero’s legs as he crouched beside the table.

We were all going down – we’d lost control of the scene. We fell to the floor in a mess of expelled breath and twisted limbs.

Greg still lay on the couch, his mouth open and flapping with incoherent words, terrified, shocked, and maniacally angry. Heero was trying to reach the gun, which had slipped out of his grasp; I was doubled up with the agony in my hip, trying to see straight through involuntary tears.

I had no trouble seeing the flash of a blade; Greg had drawn his knife. At the same time, I saw Sheri’s slim body move across him, her cries high and hysterical. I don’t exactly know what she was trying to do, but it looked like she was trying to wrestle the knife out of his hand. Heero was also on his way up on to his feet again, though I couldn’t see if the gun was back in his hand. They both converged on Greg, even as I tried to pull myself up to support them.

There was a cry of pain, and Sheri wheeled away from her attacker, clutching her hand; I thought I could see blood there. I had a clear view through to Heero and Greg, and my own blood froze where I lay. As Sheri had spun away from the group, she’d knocked Heero off balance, and he’d fallen back on one knee on to the jumbled cushions of the couch. Greg was still shaking and his eyes didn’t look in focus, but he was obviously alert enough because he grabbed Heero’s shoulder and was thrusting his knife up towards Heero’s chest.

I was up in less than a nanosecond. I don’t remember directing my limbs -- they just acted of their own volition. I roared with some amazing sound that didn’t even sound human, and I just threw my whole body at Greg, my long legs carrying me across the narrow width of the trailer like a falling tree.

Time suspended, just for that moment. I saw Heero turn to me with that look on his face -- shit, that was only a memory, surely, wasn’t it? -- I heard a boy crying… I saw the slice of a blade through clothing and into flesh… I smelled the fresh, sickly thickness of drawn blood…

I wrenched my mind from both the past and the future and I gripped Greg’s wrist with a strength I didn’t know I had, wrenching it back and away from Heero. My eyes were misted over and I felt the sudden ache of new pain in my injured arm. I heard Heero’s cry, and it sounded distressed –

“Heero!” I gasped. I couldn’t see the knife, couldn’t make enough sense of it all. Had the fucker got him? Had it happened all over again -?

I heard the barking of a dog, a sharp, shocking noise against the previous silence.

Then my limbs seemed to lose control like the strings had been cut on them. I sank to the floor amongst a jumble of bodies and furniture and angry exclamations. I saw Greg’s legs stumbling towards the door; I saw Sheri lying on the floor on the other side of the room, sobbing.

“Fuck – “ It was Heero’s voice, I’d never been so glad to hear him cursing in my life. It meant he was alive, didn’t it?

“He’s getting away!”

And then the trailer door burst open and the silhouette of Greg’s body hurtled out through it.

*

I didn’t pass out – I don’t know whether I was pleased about that, or whether it would have been a blessed relief. Everything hurt like fuck all over again. But I didn’t really have time to wallow in the feeling, you know?

The coil of rope that Greg had used before was lying on the floor, within my reach. I grabbed it and I slung it as hard as I could at his retreating feet. It was a poor throw, though he was moving erratically, like his own legs didn’t want to respond properly. I think I caught at his ankles because I heard him grunt. But I knew it wasn’t enough to stop him – I knew we’d lost him. I was aware of Heero’s body over by the couch, but he wasn’t moving much, and I really didn’t want to think about why that might be.

I had to get up somehow, even though nothing on or in my body seemed to be working properly. I had to stop Greg. Our guns were outside, under the trailers. He’d be armed again in seconds, while we were still grovelling about on the floor and Sheri was still exposed to him…

Then suddenly he vanished from view. It was really odd. He gave a cry of furious surprise and his whole body sank beneath the doorway. Had he dropped down for some reason? Had he fallen?

I lay on my belly, fighting down waves of pain and nausea, and I watched some amazing things happening outside in the darkness of the deserted trailer park. There were way more shapes than just Greg, swirling in and out of the shadows. I heard the sound of running and some loud, shouted orders in a woman’s voice. I couldn’t really compute that one; my brain felt as if it had been hit by a baseball bat then folded over ten times and squashed into a plastic souvenir cup.

I thought I saw a silhouette that couldn’t have been anyone but Junk, and then I definitely saw Greg’s blond head rear back up again in the dim light that was spilling out from inside my trailer. I tried to raise myself on an arm that felt increasingly like it was made of marshmallow to shout out a warning to the big guy.

Seems I didn’t need to.

There was a whirl of limbs and a slim figure ducked down and shot a straight leg out at him, connecting decisively with his body. Greg doubled up, grunting with pain. I saw his knife flash but it spun away from his own arm, flying in a glittering arc over to the side of the trailer. There was some kind of muted cheer, but I thought I must have imagined that in my delirium. The slim, shadowy figure straightened, then dropped on to Greg’s hunched figure again, and I didn’t mistake the loud scream of pain from him then.

I heard only one coherent word from him – “Bitch!” – and then he collapsed completely on to the rough ground with a dull thud, like a sack of sand.

Someone turned on some lights in another nearby trailer – it may even have been Junk’s own place – and the area outside my door was suddenly brightly illuminated.

I could see Greg lying face down in the dirt, one of his legs twisted awkwardly under him. Several other figures stood by him – I recognised Phil and Zac and some of Junk’s sons. Junk himself hovered by his trailer, his face turned towards my door, obviously looking for his daughter, Sheri. For a second, all the participants were cast in stone, their silhouettes frozen around the prone body.

Then Greg made the smallest of movements and every single person whirled back to look down at him. A woman stepped out from behind Junk -- she’d been unintentionally hidden from my view. She was blond, moving with both grace and determination, and was clothed in tight-fitting black shirt and pants. Her hair was a little tousled, but her breath was steady, and she took up a fighting stance as if she were born to it.

Her appearance was accompanied by a snap of Junk’s fingers and the slick crunch of an army of guns being cocked, all at once. Several other figures stepped forward and I could see that Greg had every inch of his body covered by assorted weaponry. There were guys in a circle around him that I’d never seen before on the site; guys who had tattooed muscles where I still had puppy fat; guys that I’d think twenty times about arguing with.

Then Dylan trotted slowly forward, his tongue hanging out, and he placed his front paw on Greg’s neck. He growled, and the body fell very still.

Relena – for of course it was she – turned to look at me. Her smile was very grim, but unmistakably full of triumph.

I passed out.