Gundam Wing/AC 1. Brainwashing or Something

**Disclaimer:** The only Heero I have is my cat and he spells it Hiro. GW is so not mine and so not filling my empty pockets. Not that this'll stop anything should Sunrise/Bandai decide it's worth pursuing me for my pocket lint...

**Characters:** main - Wufei, bit players - Duo, Quatre, and Heero  
**Content:** incredibly mild language, probing joke(s), utter silliness  
**Part Summary:** Duo's had an interesting experience, much to Wufei's disgust.  
**Word Count:** 993  
**Archive:** ask please  
**Concrit:** welcome, but this was just a quick, half-asleep silly, really.  
**Notes:** ::facepalm:: Written for LJ comm gw500 prompt 215 - abduction. Will be updated once a day until all six parts are up!

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**COFFEE & DOUGHNUTS**  
**part i: Brainwashing or Something**  
by McJ 

"You honestly expect us to believe that a strange craft came down from space and transported you aboard so these...aliens, as you insist on calling them...could conduct experiments-"

"Evil, butt-probing experiments! I think they were trying to brainwash me or something."

Wufei frowned at the interruption, hoping Duo read every bit of his annoyance in the scowl. He held his arms crossed tightly across his chest mostly to keep himself from physically lashing out at the largest remaining irritant in his life. Contenting himself with imagining just how easily that long braid could be used as a deadly weapon against its owner, Wufei rewound his words a little then continued as if Duo had not spoken, "-could conduct experiments on you?"

"Why would they probe your butt to brainwash you?" Quatre asked, looking entirely too taken in by Duo's story, as well as utterly confused by the notion Duo had put forth with his horribly constructed interjection. The spoon he used to stir cream into his coffee clicked against the sides of the unadorned white ceramic mug – it was almost as irritating as Duo's insane claim, which was only the latest in a long line of them.

"Because, obviously, that's where his brain can be found," Wufei snarled, throwing his hands upward as if to wash himself of the whole situation. He spun on his toes, heading toward the door of the break room, forgetting his desire for coffee and an apple fritter. Yanking open the door and letting the usual busy background hum of Preventers HQ filter into the otherwise normally quiet sanctuary, Wufei jerked his chin back over his shoulder. With narrowed eyes and gritted teeth, he let his displeasure be heard one last time. "This is foolishness, Maxwell! Absolute drivel. You'd best come up with a better excuse than alien abduction to explain your absence from work for the past week."

Before anything more could be said that might try his patience further and ignoring the stunned yet somehow pleased look on Duo's face, Wufei stepped into the hall and slammed the door behind him. It was not much of a release, but it was better than nothing. Decidedly better than smacking Duo around in the workplace. That would not have gone over particularly well with most everyone he could think of – Wufei still believed Duo's large following of friendly acquaintances were actually a cult, no matter what the others said.

A cult that would buy into aliens probing Duo's posterior for a week in an attempt to brainwash him. Or something.

Cursing under his breath, Wufei stalked back to his desk and sat with a finality that said he had no intentions of moving for anything less than large bomb placed under his chair. Maybe not even then. A small one would perhaps gain a lift of his brow, but nothing more. Wincing at the headache that threatened after his encounter with Duo, he set his head in his palms and considered setting his hair free of its habitual face-stretching restraint to calm it. However, instead, he found himself staring down at a manila folder that had not been there before. It was set right between his elbows in the very center of his blotter.

The aforementioned lift of brow occurred for an entirely different reason now. Wufei eyed the folder suspiciously as he sat straight again, leaning against the hard wooden slats that made up the back of his chair. A sense of foreboding filled him, growing worse the longer he watched the unmoving folder. It was not often that he had these moments of total precognitive clarity, but his instincts were currently dancing an eye-catching tango with his sense of self-preservation and he knew without doubt opening that folder spelled his doom. The capital letter kind of Doom, even.

"Are you going to look at it?"

It was obvious who was speaking not just because he recognized the voice, but also because the overhead lighting cast the shadow of a messy mop of hair across the left end of his desk. He caught it in his peripheral vision, not wanting to give the folder a chance to jump at him and take him off guard the moment he looked away. "I am looking at it."

"I meant as in the act of opening it."

He cautiously shifted his gaze to find Heero standing at the edge of the desk, as surmised, expression as impassive as ever. "I don't want to," he replied truthfully, setting his eyes back on watch against the folder's villainous wiles. "I'm vaguely concerned about its contents and what they might be ordering me to do."

"Only vaguely?"

"All right, deeply." Wufei sighed and let his shoulders slump no more than a few millimeters when the only response was Heero's amused snort. "Fine, but if it's bad, it's your fault and you're going down with me."

With much more cliffhanging drama than it truly warranted, Wufei slowly reached out to catch the top edge of the folder between his fingers. The choice of actually flipping it open quickly or slowly teasing it open for view was an easy one – it always hurt less to rip a bandage off in one fell swoop than to let it linger. He leaned forward and perused the top sheet, his apprehension turning to a low, bubbling fury that made his left eye twitch. A low growl emanated from his throat as he bared his teeth like a highly antagonized Chihuahua.

Beside him, Heero huffed and grumbled. "It can't possibly be that bad."

Suddenly, Wufei felt a blanket of unexpected calm drape over him, smothering the fire with alacrity. He turned a beneficent smile on Heero, closing the folder and handing it to him. "It's your turn. I've already spoken to the primary victim. He claims the suspects used a new brainwashing technique on him. Please, let me know all about your findings."

FIN (of part i)


	2. Disorganized and Stuff

**Disclaimer:** The only Heero I have is my cat and he spells it Hiro. GW is so not mine and so not filling my empty pockets. Not that this'll stop anything should Sunrise/Bandai decide it's worth pursuing me for my pocket lint...

**Characters:** Heero, Duo  
**Content:** a little innuendo, more probing jokes, even more utter silliness  
**Part Summary:** Under Heero's watchful eye, the investigation into Duo's interesting experience continues.  
**Word Count:** 1252  
**Archive:** ask please  
**Concrit:** sure.  
**Notes:** ::more facepalming:: Written for LJ comm gw500 prompt 215 - abduction. The crack...she is strong.

---

**COFFEE & DOUGHNUTS**  
**part ii: Disorganized and Stuff**  
by McJ

Duo had insisted that if he was going to be questioned about the whole of his "alien encounter" that it would happen where coffee and doughnuts were directly on hand, so they kept to the semi-privacy of the break room with the door locked. Frankly, Heero was glad of it as he'd needed the comfort of three maple bars and a full pot of the coffee – black and bitter – to get him through the ordeal thus far.

The story was even more absurd spoken aloud than it was in written form. While normally sparse with his words, Heero found himself quite speechless – dumbfounded, almost – as Duo wrapped up his tale. He sat across the round, plastic veneered table from Heero, sucking the powdery white remnants of a sugared doughnut from his fingers and fiddling with the handle of an obnoxiously vivid purple coffee mug. The telltale bouncing of his knee just below the edge of said table showed he was awaiting some sort of response.

"So?"

Glancing down at the open manila folder and the file laying innocently within, Heero pondered where to start as he brushed aside a few crumbs left over from his pastries. He delayed further with a deep breath, slowly releasing it while worrying at a still wet coffee ring left from his own mug. The napkins were on the other side of the room, near the coffee maker, but going over to get one would really be pushing the delaying tactic a bit far, he thought. Straightening the sheets of paper that were in no need of straightening, he attempted to get his vocal cords working again. "This is..."

"Crazy?" Duo supplied as Heero faltered, pulling his thumb out of his mouth with an audible pop. His chuckle held an air of helplessness, his face tilting downward to study the table top. He shook his head, braid slinking back and forth like some kind of snake. "You think I don't know that, buddy?"

"Of course not," Heero said. He had to say something, after all. Wufei was going to pay dearly for passing this off to him. Perhaps, though, it would have been in his own best interest to have known better in the first place, considering what he had seen of Wufei's reaction to the file. "Have you...been seen to by medical?"

"You mean have I let Sally probe my butt to see if I was lying about having my butt probed by aliens?"

Heero curled his hands into fists, each knuckle cracking in turn. Luckily, he was a good ways off the point of popping any veins, but he could easily envision it happening before they were done. Wufei had likely made the correct choice, Heero reconsidered – continued exposure to this case might have caused him a heart attack or stroke through elevated blood pressure. "Yes."

"Heero, do I look like the kind of guy that enjoys having his butt probed?" Duo asked him, leaning closer across the table as a line crinkled the skin between his drawn down brows. There was something joyously sinister about the look on his face. Combined with the inherent danger involved in answering the question, it was enough to give Heero pause. Again.

However, he could not end this portion of the investigation so soon and steeled his already unbending nerves. He was not going to be led down that path. An answer either way would give him information he had no desire to learn without a few beers in his belly. Not that Heero was one to drink. "Just answer the question."

"Yeah, yeah," Duo sighed. "It's been done. Doesn't Sal have the paperwork in there?" He gestured at the folder. Then he stole it away and began rifling through the contents before Heero could protest.

"It doesn't matter if the paperwork is in there or not, Duo," Heero said, doing his best not to be unduly irritated with Duo simply being himself. Or with his own self for being duped by Wufei. If he kept tight enough wraps on it, everyone might come out of the situation unharmed. "I needed to hear it from you. It's standard procedure, you know that."

"Whatever," Duo snorted. He looked up, rumpled pieces of paper in each hand. "You talked to Trowa yet?"

"Trowa?"

"Well, he is the local leading UFO expert, you know." Duo stared at him like he was stupid, but that was all right – Heero was feeling somewhat stupid at that given moment. A large, unexpected stone of useless knowledge had just appeared in the path of his plow, after all. He tried to unite the image of the Trowa he knew with the alien hunting wackos he'd seen on television and kept getting an answer of three. It quickly occurred to him that Trowa was in fact pilot 03, though, so perhaps it was not so strange that one plus one might equal three in this situation.

Waving paperwork flagged Heero's attention back to the need to move forward with the investigation. "C'mon, Heero, don't let that superbrain of yours fail me now. Alien abduction-slash-butt-probing case, hello?"

"Trowa?" he asked again. "A UFO expert? Are you certain?"

"Yeah, I am. Don't worry, I don't get it, either," Duo commiserated. "Then again, he's always been a little weird." He laid the papers down and plopped his chin in his hands. "I was with him the night it happened. Told him I didn't believe in UFOs. At least, the aliens from another planet kind, anyway. He was trying to show me the best place around to go looking for the things. To prove it to me, right?"

"How come you didn't mention Trowa before?" Heero watched Duo go back to digging through the file, his heart clenching at the disorganized mess it had become. While he did not get twitching eyes like Wufei, Heero sometimes wished he did. Right then, for instance, it would have been a suitable reaction, he believed.

"Oh wow, this is kind of disorganized and stuff," Duo noted suddenly, causing Heero to wonder if his mind were somehow being read – the result of an encounter with an alien probe, maybe? He could only continue to watch in dismayed silence as Duo started shuffling the papers around more, changing the order of them all over again. "Sorry about that. I'll put it all back in order, okay?"

Duty, Heero told himself. Duty was more important than swiping the folder back and getting Duo's paws off it. "Answer the question, Duo."

A pair of curiously round, deep blue eyes peered up at him from beneath a blocky curtain of cinnamon brown bangs. "What was the question again?"

Heero scrunched his face, the annoyance he had done his best to contain started to unfold in his chest like the petals of a rose. A red rose. Like blood. He shoved his hands under his thighs to restrain them from doing something unfortunate. Through a clenched jaw, he repeated himself. "How come you didn't mention Trowa before?"

"Oh, that question." Duo had the nerve to grin, scratch his head, and offer a lame excuse: "Nobody ever asked if anyone else was there and, really, after seeing a flying saucer and getting abducted for a week-long, brainwashing butt-probe, who in their right mind is going to remember some weirdo like Trowa? At least right off the bat, you know?"

Heero jotted down a mental note to kill Wufei at the earliest possible convenience.

FIN (of part ii)


	3. Things to Do While Floating in Space

**Disclaimer:** The only Heero I have is my cat and he spells it Hiro. GW is so not mine and so not filling my empty pockets. Not that this'll stop anything should Sunrise/Bandai decide it's worth pursuing me for my pocket lint...

**Characters:** Trowa, Heero, Wufei, Quatre  
**Content:** mild language, probing jokes, silliness  
**Part Summary:** Our two intrepid heroes seek out UFO expert Trowa for some answers. The "plot" thickens.  
**Word Count:** 1501  
**Archive:** ask please  
**Concrit:** sure, go for it.  
**Notes:** ::yet more facepalming:: Written for LJ comm gw500 prompt 215 - abduction.

---

**COFFEE & DOUGHNUTS**  
**part iii: Things to Do While Floating in Space**  
by McJ

The thickening file folder landed sideways on the middle of Trowa's desk with a loud thwap. He cursed the thoroughness of the janitorial crew as it would have been a lot more atmospheric had the file raised a small cloud of dust upon impact. It would also have sent Quatre, whose desk was butted up against the front of his, into a sneezing fit, but the dust still would have been cool in a nerdish sort of way. However, Quatre was safe for the moment. Little glances away from the report he was working on proved that Quatre was paying attention to the disturbance.

Trowa looked away from his own monitor, frowning at his most recent failed attempt to clear a field of minesweeper on the advanced level. He turned that frown to the plain manila folder, then turned and frowned further at Wufei and Heero standing at the left-hand edge of his desk. They wore matching expressions of disgust and glared at him fiercely. It was actually more of a non-expression on Heero, but it ultimately bore the same hallmarks of annoyance as Wufei's much livelier face.

"Explain," Heero said, nodding toward the folder.

Trowa looked at the folder again, then reached for it, wishing that he had a private office for this confrontation as opposed to the oppressively open quarters of the large group office shared with several others in their division. He flipped through the first few pages at the top of the stack, a smirk quirking the right corner of his mouth upward. "So he's back, then?" A strangled sound emanated from Wufei and Trowa turned his gaze back to him. "Are you choking? Do you need help with that?"

Palms slamming down hard on Trowa's desk near the open folder, Wufei leaned across and got in Trowa's face. He was glad for the partial protection of his hair should Wufei happen to be incensed enough to produce projectile globs of spittle. "You knew where he supposedly was all damn week and didn't say a thing to anyone, Barton! Why didn't you alert us to this?!"

"No one asked," Trowa responded, calm as ever. "I figured that Duo would be returned eventually and he could just as easily tell you what happened. It's not often than abductees aren't returned. Personally, I think it more unfortunate that I wasn't taken with him."

Wufei was restrained from doing anything rash by Heero's hand on his shoulder. Heero eyed Trowa closely while asking, "So you actually saw this unidentified craft Duo's been telling us about, like he claims you did?"

"Yes," Trowa told him, idly looking through the rest of the case file. "I wouldn't say it was unidentified in origin, though. The shape of the craft was obviously that used by the so-called Greys, thus making it identified in that manner. They're a species that has been documented in the alien research field for quite some time now and are quite noted for their propensity toward use of probes in the rectal cavity."

"Maxwell's butt-probe, you mean?" Wufei asked with a scowl. It worried Trowa that Wufei might injure himself with the extended use of such facial expressions. He'd been making them for years, after all. It had to be something that would catch up to him eventually. That's what Duo claimed on a regular basis, at least. However, Trowa was well aware that Duo's claims were not always the most reliable sources of information.

"Yes, Duo's butt-probe," he replied, getting back to the topic. Quatre made a sound that was something between a wheeze and snort.

Wufei's ire deflated, though his face retained a less than serene countenance – Quatre's continued muffled snarfling seemed to be rubbing him wrong. However, Heero took it as a good sign and dropped his hand from Wufei's shoulder, asking Trowa, "Does this mean you are a UFO expert as Duo also claims?"

"I don't know about the expert qualification, but I do know more about the subject than the average person," Trowa answered. He knew from anyone else, it would seem smug. For him, it was simply the truth. "It was an interest I picked up while floating in space."

"...you picked up an interest in UFOs while floating in space?" For all the times Heero had notedly shown a lack of emotion, this seemed a most appropriate moment, Trowa thought. Just how was one supposed to react to such a statement, in all honesty?

"It's amazing the things you see when you don't have anything else to do," Trowa told him, quite casual in his continued perusal of the folder's contents. He skimmed over the medical account added to the file by Sally. Trowa wondered what exactly the exam had entailed and made a note to ask Duo about it later.

The gears of Heero's brain seemed to be grinding their way through a particularly large chunk of rust, his face twisting in ways that Trowa had not seen on him before. Finally, he pieced together enough of his thoughts to ask something that was likely not as difficult to process. "Is this why you spend so much time watching the skies when we go on wilderness missions?"

"You mean camping?"

Heero paused for a brief moment. "Yes."

"What did you think I was doing?" Trowa asked. He got the feeling they were treading on unusual ground as Heero shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. Only biting his tongue kept him from laughing. Quatre's ill-disguised guffaw did not help.

"Bird watching."

Trowa bit his tongue harder until he tasted blood, wincing slightly, then arched a brow and asked, "At night?"

Heero straightened his back and squared his shoulders. It wasn't a huge change as Heero normally was not a slouch – that area was the expertise of Duo. "I thought you were looking for owls."

Trowa waited in vain for a "sir" to be added. He also felt the urge to tell Heero "at ease, soldier." He resisted. Barely. They stared at each other in silence, minus Quatre's gasping for breath, for what must have been at least half a minute, though Trowa could not be sure – Wufei's head was blocking the clock hung on the office wall.

"This is ridiculous," Wufei muttered, shaking his head and turning away from them with a huff. "It's almost like Maxwell is here with us rather than still sitting uselessly in the break room." He swung back around and thrust an imploring hand at Trowa. "Is there anything else you can add to this that wasn't in the file?"

"I can take you up to the location, if you'd like to see it," Trowa offered. "I can't believe you haven't been up there yet."

"If someone had thought to share his knowledge of what happened as soon as the incident occurred," Wufei grouched, "perhaps we could have been to the location a full week ago." Trowa mentally ticked down a count of five and let loose another smirk when Wufei crossed his arms and a not-quite-sneer crossed his face as expected. Quatre buried his head under his arms, shoulders shaking as he snickered and snorted, obviously having done the same as himself. Wufei ignored him in favor of Trowa. "We should leave now to view the site before any more time has passed, not that any evidence is likely to have survived this long out in the open."

"It's good to view the site during the day," Trowa agreed, "but I would also suggest staying overnight to see if the phenomenon reoccurs. As I told Duo, it's a UFO hotspot."

Wufei exchanged a look with Heero, both giving the other a small nod of acceptance. Trowa thought the both of them seemed suspicious. He would have been, given Quatre's failure to control himself over the entirety of the interview. "Tomorrow, then, Barton? We should take the whole weekend, I think, since it will be Friday."

"Of course." The smallest of smiles slid over Trowa's mouth. "Dress warm and pack suitable gear for changeable weather. It still gets a little cold up in the mountains at night, even if it's reasonably warm during the day."

Heero grunted an affirmative and gathered up the folder again, catching Wufei's elbow and tugging him away from his continued glaring at Trowa. For his part, Trowa waited until they were well out of range, then peered across his desk and Quatre's. "Quatre, would you inform Duo that it's time to implement phase three?"

Seafoam eyes sparkling with that ill-contained humor looked up at him from behind the barrier of two pale arms. "Phase three?"

"Yes. Could you please bring me back some coffee and a cruller?"

"Of course. What will you be doing?"

"I need to speak with Une, as advised by our glorious leader."

"All hail the glorious leader," Quatre intoned, practically in a fit of giggles as he rose from his seat and headed toward the break room.

FIN (of part iii)


	4. The Hottest Spot North of Havana

**Disclaimer:** The only Heero I have is my cat and he spells it Hiro. GW is so not mine and so not filling my empty pockets. Not that this'll stop anything should Sunrise/Bandai decide it's worth pursuing me for my pocket lint...

**Characters:** Quatre, Wufei, Heero, Trowa  
**Content:** brief strong language, childish behavior, silliness  
**Part Summary:** Wherein an attempt by Quatre to maintain at least the semblance of a friendly atmosphere is stubbornly defied.  
**Word Count:** 2704  
**Archive:** ask please  
**Concrit:** sure!  
**Notes:** This is where the facepalming became headdesking. Written for LJ comm gw500 prompt 216 - illusion. Also, anon reviews on now because I only just noticed they were off. ::lol:: Oops.

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**COFFEE & DOUGHNUTS**  
**part iv: The Hottest Spot North of Havana**  
by McJ

It took all his strategic finesse to finagle, but Quatre eventually secured the final spot in the Jeep up into the mountains. Convincing Heero and Wufei that they would find his help investigating the abduction site a great boon had taken more than an hour, thanks to his serious lack of discretion the day before. Laughing at the two had somewhat damaged his credibility with them, he'd discovered.

Still, he had done better than Duo, whose attempt to get a ride along had been an abysmal failure. It had been expected, though, that he would try and who was Duo not to live up to an expectation of that sort? Heero and Wufei absolutely refused – no ifs, ands, or buts – when he asked, despite Duo's prominent place in the case as the primary victim. Or formerly primary victim, rather. Easily refuted and debunked, the handful of other abduction claims from that same night had gone by the wayside, leaving Duo as the only victim unexplained.

Up front with Trowa, who sat in the driver's seat, Quatre peeked back every now and then at Heero and Wufei, both ensconced in the back. Wufei had demanded this arrangement. Quatre firmly believed the it was to allow surveillance of himself and Trowa in case any funny business went down between them. The very picture of innocence, something perfected over years of practice, Quatre gave them a smile then turned to watch the deepening stands of long-needled pines go by outside his window. It looked chilly enough to warrant snuggling into a warm and fuzzy pullover. Luckily, he had one hiding amongst his gear. The thick, woolen, incredibly expensive Fair Isle, to be exact.

Usually, he hid it away for fear of Duo having it completely unraveled by the end of the day, seeking to understand how the intricate pattern was created. Several sweaters had gone the way of the dodo due to Duo's fascination. More than once, Quatre had suggested that he take up knitting. Duo protested each time, saying pulling them apart was infinitely more fun. His poor, departed sweaters. Shaking the thought aside, Quatre returned his focus to the scenery.

A few snow-capped peaks poked up from the dense forest, but most of the mountains were fairly low and rounded, offering the forest the appearance of a rumpled, dark green blanket. He glanced up at the sky, glad to see no sign of clouds from any direction. It was still fairly early in the day, though, and he preferred not to deal with inclement weather. The land was wild this far out and a storm would be miserable with nothing more than a tent and some trees for cover.

Silence reigned supreme in the Jeep, no one finding reason to speak since leaving headquarters after a final, early morning check-in regarding the investigation. Other than collecting orders for a run by the drive-through at a burger joint for lunch before leaving behind the last small bit of civilization, that was. As he sat staring out on the land and sky, the hum of the road passing under the vehicle soothed and eased Quatre into a gentle lull. He neared a full-on doze, propped by one cupped palm along his jaw and the cool window pressed against one temple, by the time another hour had come and gone.

"When we get to the scene, Yuy and I will secure the area," Wufei said at that point, catching him at the moment of moving from drowsing to actual sleep. The abrupt break almost caused Quatre to jump out of his seat. "Barton, you will take Winner and set up our base of ops."

Quatre glanced wide-eyed and blinking into the back, catching Heero readying a whispered protest. He met Quatre's eye, though, and kept his mouth closed. A secret discussion could hardly be held under scrutiny, after all.

"Something wrong, Heero?" Quatre piped up, trying to keep the cheerful edge out of his voice, going for concern, instead. He knew he failed miserably when Heero glowered at him and gave up the attempt for one of his helpful smiles. "Do you not like the division of labor? I'd be more than happy to trade partners with you-"

"No!" Wufei spat, cutting him short with a knife-chop of his hand. "It will stay the way I have said until such time as I say otherwise. Are we clear?"

Turning back to the front, Quatre rested his hand across his mouth, hiding the twitchy quirking that threatened to become a smirk. The empathic vibes rolling off the two sitting behind him almost hurt, they were so paranoid. "You know what?" he said once he'd regained control of his lips. "We should have a sing-a-long! You know, to pass the time since it's such a long drive up there."

Almost as one, all three of his companions quickly responded with a resounding, "No."

Quatre sighed and settled into his seat again, arms crossed loosely over his chest. He stuck his feet out under the dash and thumped the toes of his hiking boots together. "Duo would have sung with me."

"Duo's the reason we're out here in the first place," Wufei muttered. "I'd rather not be reminded of him until I have to be."

Heero grunted assent.

Quatre peered out the corner of his eye and caught the rare sight of impatient fingers drumming across Heero's denim-covered knee. It was like catching a wild hippo making out with monkey. Quatre groaned and plopped his head down in his hands – if he could not think of a better simile than that, far too much of his time was being spent with Duo.

"My thoughts on this whole matter, precisely," Wufei said with a snort, thumping the back of Quatre's seat with a booted foot. Whether on purpose or just a result of Wufei mindlessly shifting position was a question left unanswered.

"At least you're getting a weekend away out of it?" Quatre suggested, ignoring a second thump to the back of his seat.

"If I had wanted a weekend away, I would have taken one," Wufei grumbled. "That would have left the rest of you to deal with this nonsense, but I'm too kind-hearted, apparently. Why we're wasting valuable time like this, I have no idea, but I will be lodging formal complaint in the very near future." Another grunt from Heero signaled his intent to do the same. At least, that's how Quatre deciphered it. For all he knew, Heero could have been asking for someone to teach him how to dance the hula.

"Well, I happen to think this is a very important case," Quatre replied. He narrowed his eyes when a third, harder thump hit his seat, but did not otherwise acknowledge it. "What if we prove the existence of intelligent life beyond the boundaries of our solar system? I mean, is there any bigger discovery that could be made in the modern world?"

At this, the solitary thumps became a rapid series centered right around his kidneys, shattering the aura of friendly discussion Quatre had been attempting to hold over the animosity wafting off Wufei. If he could not get them to play his way, Quatre certainly had no problem playing their way.

He threw off the shoulder strap of his safety belt and twisted around to glare at a viciously satisfied Wufei. His legs were crossed at the knee and he was shifted so one heavily booted foot dangled perfectly in line for kicking the back of Qiatre's seat. He wobbled the offending boot toward the seat again, taunting. Challenge lingered in his dark eyes and the habitually crossed arms.

"Would you knock it the hell off?" Quatre demanded with a scowl, waving a fist toward Wufei's face. "I could plant this on your nose, no problem, you know!"

Before Wufei could do more than snort, Trowa reached over and touched Quatre's arm. "Please sit back down, Quatre. It's not worth it. Skeptics are naturally very narrow-minded people and vindictive toward believers."

Quatre exchanged one more long, hard glower with Wufei, then did as requested. One last kick caused him to growl, but he tightened the reins on his temper.

"Hard to believe he was once a pacifist, don't you think, Yuy?" Wufei chuckled, again taunting.

Whatever Heero might have grunted was lost as Quatre lashed out a hand toward the radio console, the push of a button filling the Jeep with the pounding beat of furious rock music. Duo would approve. Quatre didn't change it. He went so far as to smack Trowa's hand away when he tried.

Fortunately, the rest of the ride was comparatively tame and lacking in childish behavior.

By the time Trowa took them up a mountain, the radio had been switched for some twangy country station. It was the only signal strong enough to make it that deep into the wild. Quatre remembered that Duo had once claimed that the only stations that could ever be picked up out in the mountains were country and talk. Considering what he'd found sweeping across both bands, Quatre conceded that he probably had it right this time.

He sighed and took in the mountain around him. Had he been asked, Quatre could not have separated it from the others around them – unobtrusive and decidedly not special, it hardly looked like a home to extraordinary amounts of UFO activity. Which, of course, would be exactly why aliens would choose it, he figured. And, much to his chagrin, he realized his legs were cramping and shifted uselessly. The Jeep was an awfully confined space, especially for such a long drive.

Before Quatre could think more deeply on his discomfort, Trowa turned into a neatly marked, if small, parking lot maintained for visitors to the mountain forest, be they day-trippers or full-on campers. Quatre scurried out of the Jeep, bending and stretching immediately upon touching his feet to the paving. "Next time, let's stop to work out the kinks somewhere in the middle of the drive, okay?" he said to Trowa, leaning down to peer back into the vehicle. "I'm not exactly made of slinkies, anymore, I'm sadly discovering."

Trowa nodded, arching his back and sending an audible series of pops up his spine. "I think I'm feeling it, too."

Neither Wufei nor Heero deigned to add to the conversation. Quatre took it to mean that they were not similarly imposed. He eyed them in annoyance.

They had a bit of a hike up the mountain left – the switchback road up to the lot only took them to the halfway point. Quatre slung the straps of his pack over his shoulders and waited at the beginning of the needle-littered trail with the similarly lightly packed Trowa for their two companions to join them. Neither he nor Trowa made any offer to help them carry the bundles of equipment deemed necessary for the trip. He didn't know about Trowa, but he looked forward to watching them huff and puff their way up the mountain. Much to Quatre's irritation, in the end their superior strength training and cardio workouts prevailed, leaving neither the worse for wear. Quatre eyed them in further annoyance.

Upon reaching a moderately sized mountaintop clearing, Trowa set down his pack and announced, "This is it."

"Where did you see the craft come from, Trowa?" Heero asked, his pack and three canvas-wrapped bundles of extra equipment going down near the center of the clearing with Trowa's pack. For all that he refused to consider even the possibility that alien beings might exist, Heero seemed to be treating the investigation as any other. Well, at least for the moment, Quatre amended.

The same, however, could not be said of Wufei. His gear landed in a heap near Heero's neatly ordered stack. He turned to survey the scene with disgust before the last settled.

"Over there," Trowa said, waving a hand toward the open sky. "The craft came out of the east over the horizon with a streak of green neon light, taking no more than a couple of seconds to make the journey. It came to an abrupt halt over the south edge of the clearing, where it stayed stationary for at least a minute, perhaps a mile off."

Quatre silently applauded Trowa's mad skills at keeping a straight face. Heavens knew he could barely do it himself!

"And neither of you did anything?" Wufei asked then, the sneer so clear in his voice that Quatre had no need to look to see if it was actually there.

"We were in the middle of an encounter of the third kind, Wufei," Trowa responded with a calm only he could attain. "Direct contact with an alien vessel can be quite traumatizing, even for former Gundam pilots."

"What you're telling us is that you and Maxwell both sighted the supposed craft and were stunned into immobility?"

Rather than answer Wufei, Trowa chose instead to continue his story, much to Quatre's amusement. He snickered into his fist while Wufei fumed and glared hard at Trowa's back. "It began a slow movement in our direction, becoming larger as it did so. The shape was a distinctive cigar, with a row of lights circling midway around the bottom." He waved his hand, scribing a circle-ish shape somewhere above them. "It stopped just past the tree line, no more than twenty meters above the treetops, where it hovered for several seconds. I remember Duo and I exchanged a few words, mostly in regards to...how did he put it? Oh yes, I remember – getting the fuck out of here before the LGMs beamed us aboard the SLB."

Quatre made a quick fix to stop his laughter by twisting open a canteen and tossing back some cool water instead.

"Could you please define what LGM stands for?" Heero asked, looking puzzled.

"Little green men," Trowa explained.

"I see. And SLB?"

"Space love boat."

Quatre, in the midst of taking another deep drink from his canteen, choked. He barely had the mind to think Trowa needed a lesson about giving warnings. A hard pounding on his back, strangely reminiscent of the earlier seat kicking from Wufei, helped him to work the water from his windpipe and lungs. He peeked over his shoulder to find Heero. "Thanks," he gurgled, hunched over himself a bit and lightly thumping a fist against his chest. "That almost killed me."

"You would have lived."

Quatre shuddered at the deadpan delivery – it had always made his skin crawl – but quickly put on a charming smile. The day was wasting and he and Trowa had much to do before night fell. He stopped any further discussion of the encounter by saying, "Well, we should all get started like Wufei wanted, right? The rest of the story can be told after we're done."

Breaking off in the middle of a sentence – having continued speaking right through Quatre's brush with a slightly watery death – Trowa nodded and left Wufei hanging. Quatre could see the preempted rant stuck in his throat like a fish bone turned sideways. It was beautiful.

"You get started on the tent, Trowa. I'll find firewood – we're going to need some nice, hot coffee tonight, don't you think?"

"Oh, yes," Trowa agreed, reaching for the pack containing the four-man tent they had brought along, not that it would be used. "Coffee. Did you remember doughnuts?"

"Of course! What's coffee without doughnuts?"

FIN (of part iv)


	5. Our Glorious Leader

**Disclaimer:** The only Heero I have is my cat and he spells it Hiro. GW is so not mine and so not filling my empty pockets. Not that this'll stop anything should Sunrise/Bandai decide it's worth pursuing me for my pocket lint...

**Characters:** Duo, Quatre, Wufei, Heero, Trowa  
**Content:** major stretching of credibility, silliness, minor language  
**Part Summary:** Phase three of the operation commences.  
**Word Count:** 3065  
**Archive:** ask please  
**Concrit:** sure!  
**Notes: **Please leave your disbelief at the door. Written for LJ comm gw500 prompt 217 – see through.

---

**COFFEE & DOUGHNUTS**  
**part v: Our Glorious Leader**  
by McJ

Duo allowed a day to pass uneventfully for the targets, giving Trowa and Quatre time to lull them into a state of complacency. Come Saturday, sneaking up the mountain was easy. Keeping hidden from the likes of Heero and Wufei, even at their most negligent, was a little more difficult. However, if anyone could manage it, Duo knew he was at the top of a very short list. And manage it, he did.

His first priority upon reaching the area around the clearing was to disable Heero and Wufei's rather lackluster perimeter security. It seemed being out in the middle of the wilderness on a case about UFO abduction caused the two of them to go lax. Not to say that it wasn't better than something most people would put up, but for them, it was almost sloppy. Duo made a note to remember this in the future. Not that they'd ever let themselves get caught up in something like this again, of course, but just in case. Notes like this were always good for a just in case.

Digging through the small pack slung around his hips, Duo rechecked his equipment. He could not risk losing any of it. To have the plan fail this late in the game was unacceptable.

Duo slipped his way through the undergrowth, outfitted in forest camo, his face splotched with three greenish hues of grease paint. Above the canopy, the sun made a brilliant show of slipping deeper into the afternoon sky. To avoid sharp eyes that would no doubt be scoping the forest floor constantly for intruders on the scene, Duo leaped upward for a low branch, cringing when it creaked under his slight weight. Moments like this made him glad for his stunted growth – any heavier and the limb would have cracked all the way through, sending him right back down and alerting sharp ears to his presence.

He made his way toward the top of the tree, stopping his climb just before the tree would begin bowing and swaying in a fashion that could not be explained by a slight breeze or smaller varieties of woodland creatures leaping from one tree to another. Close enough to the clearing to get a good view of the happenings within, Duo curled around the trunk and settled in for a long wait.

By the time the scent of freshly brewed coffee reached his nose, Duo had spent nearly two hours trying to relieve the biting pressure of a pointy knot left by a long ago downed branch situated in a sensitive position at his groin. More than one battle against curious squirrels and chipmunks had been won, several more battles against birds intent on ripping out strands of hair to use in their nests, however, had been lost. He'd nearly been spotted once when a particularly ferocious squirrel had sunk teeth into the flesh webbed between thumb and first finger on his right hand, but intervention on the parts of Trowa and Quatre, his loyal accomplices, had saved him. With his hand now carefully wrapped, Duo sincerely hoped the little beast hadn't given him rabies.

Clinging to the narrow branches at the top of a mountainous pine tree for an entire afternoon would be forever scratched from his book of fun things to do, though, because in reality? So very not. In all honesty, the lengths he went to for a little revenge sometimes scared even him.

"Have you found anything, Yuy?" Wufei's voice drifted up to him from the base of a nearby tree. They had already worked over the clearing thoroughly and were poking through the underbrush with a fine-toothed comb now.

"No," replied Heero from somewhere on the far side of the clearing. "Beyond a few recent footprints, which are not to be unexpected in what is ultimately a public area despite its relative inaccessibility, there's nothing. I think you were right about the elements having destroyed any worthwhile evidence."

"Yes," Wufei muttered, the words barely reaching Duo. "Worthwhile evidence of Maxwell's duplicity." His scowl registered in the set of his shoulders and the vicious swipe of one foot kicked through the thick forest duff. "I know he's up to something. We'll keep searching until nightfall!"

"Understood," Heero answered, quite predictably. The soft swish of foliage signaled his return to the search.

Duo sighed. Nightfall was only an hour off, going by mountain terms, but still...it was another hour with a pointy knot poking into his groinal area and uppity wildlife picking fights with him. Again, the things he did for a little comeuppance...

When his stomach growled, Duo resorted to a handful of the trail mix poured loose into a pocket of his hip pouch separate from the equipment. It wasn't much, but ordering a pizza was really out of the question. Even a jelly doughnut wasn't going to happen. He stared down on the freshly caught fish Trowa busily kept an eye on over the flickering campfire, mouth watering as the scent rose to fill his nostrils. He knew foil-wrapped potatoes were buried under the ashes of the previous night's fire, as well. It was torture being forced to watch and unable to partake. As much as he loved horse feed, the thought of trout and taters made his mouth water.

A brilliant wash of salmon pink, lemon yellow, and dusty lilac eventually announced the coming of dusk. Heero and Wufei sat down around the campfire with Trowa and Quatre. They accepted their meals with a leisure that bespoke an utter lack of concern. Wufei was muttering again. Duo didn't need any proof of this – Wufei was always muttering.

"If he was going to do anything, it would have already happened," Trowa said, answering whatever Wufei had muttered. He shoved a moist, juicy, oh-so-flaky piece of beautifully pink trout into his mouth – Duo whimpered – and continued around it, "Do you truly think that if Duo wasn't telling the truth that we'd have made it through last night unmolested?"

"Think hard about that," Quatre added, sinking a fork into his potato. "Since when does Duo not tell the truth?"

"Duo does not lie," Heero spoke up, setting his own fork down on his metal camping plate with a click. "However, this does not mean that he always tells the full truth." Something in the distance crackled and crashed at that point, causing Heero to jerk around, visually hunting down a source for the noise.

Duo couldn't see it from his position, but he knew without doubt that Trowa was smirking behind the flop of hair hiding his face. "What's the matter, Heero? Afraid the bogeyman will get you?"

"I think he's more afraid of the aliens being real," Quatre quipped after washing down a bite of fish and potato with a sip of coffee. Duo's envy knew no bounds. He scarfed another handful of his trail mix and resisted the urge to neigh in protest at the unfairness of it all. Whatever Heero thought of Quatre's jest, Duo never discovered as Heero refused to respond.

Above them, the pinks and lilacs were turning to magentas and midnights, giving Duo his cue. While the others continued their meal and conversation, Duo eased himself down from his perch. He cursed and fumbled when his braid got caught in the branches, dumping the contents of his hip pouch in the process – thankfully it was only his oaty nosh, as the other pockets were safely zipped. Expecting to find himself staring down the barrel of a gun, though, after the noise, Duo blinked in shock to discover that any interest Heero and Wufei might have had had been thrown off by the mistaken belief that he had only been a scrambling raccoon.

Slinking closer to the edge of the clearing, Duo crawled on hands and knees to the break line between forest and open space then lay on his belly. Heero and Wufei were turned away from him for the most part, positioned precisely as Duo had asked of Quatre and Trowa. Duo figured the two of them had conditioned the others to the idea of predetermined spots as they all had sought out particular places throughout the afternoon.

He eased the zip open on the pouch pocket that contained the equipment and pulled out an ear-mounted communication device. Settling it into the embrace of his auditory canal, he momentarily caught Trowa's gaze through the thin screen of underbrush. He smirked and nodded. Trowa returned the smirk, then turned back to the others when Quatre began passing out marshmallows shoved on the ends of pointed sticks.

"This is the last night, guys," Quatre said. "We have to end it with marshmallows. After so many trips together, it's become a tradition, after all."

Wufei took the stick offered to him somewhat unwillingly, as if he were only doing it to appease their insistent friend. Heero, on the other hand, eagerly swiped the stick from Quatre and set about slowly turning the marshmallow over the blazing campfire. It was a weakness they had discovered in Heero a couple years previous, much to the hilarity of all.

"Quatre," Trowa said, then, "why don't you go grab us the other bag out of the tent. The one with the colored marshmallows?"

Duo touched the power button rested near his cheekbone and murmured, "Yellow submarine, this is your glorious leader. Do you copy?"

By the campfire, Quatre smiled perhaps a tad too brightly at Trowa and nodded. "Of course! I'll be right back."

"Glorious leader, this is yellow submarine. We copy loud and clear," answered the familiar voice of one of Duo's many department cohorts as Quatre disappeared through the flap – Trowa had informed him earlier over the phone that it hadn't seen much use with everyone searching the skies the night before, as expected. Duo waited in silence for the code from his other team to tell him that all remained uncompromised. "The octopus' garden is weed free and awaiting your command."

He muffled a snicker against a fist. "Perfect. Begin on my mark," he responded. The back of the tent was being sliced open by a knife when he glanced over. Moments later, Quatre was sneaking out and crawling through the underbrush to join him. They exchanged a brief nod.

Duo turned his attention back on the camp and waited a few moments, hoping one of the two targets would soon look toward the sky. As luck would have it, it was Heero that turned his eyes away from the campfire and his thus far flawlessly roasted marshmallow. At that moment, Duo briefly wished he'd thought to black his teeth – surely the glint of the fire could be seen off his face-encompassing grin? "Now."

A green glow, small and distant, appeared in the sky, coming from the west. Duo watched as Heero dropped his gaze from the starry sky to the campfire then, a mere breath later, shot it back skyward. Without supervision, Heero's marshmallow caught flame and burned like a torch in his hand. Duo and Quatre vainly tried to shush each others' sniggering, managing only to muffled it. Heero slowly stood and raised his unoccupied hand, pointing toward the light that now streaked across the sky. "What is that?"

As one, Trowa and Wufei turned to see where Heero pointed. The green light danced across the sky, zipping from one area to another with a speed and agility that put even the Gundams to shame. Wufei's jaw dropped. Trowa crossed his arms and looked rather impressed. Before the others noticed, though, he dropped it and went for vindicated, instead, exclaiming, "That is exactly what Duo and I saw that night!"

"I don't believe it," Heero said, turning enough that Duo and Quatre could see his frown. "It's some kind of trick."

"It's coming closer." Wufei jumped to his feet, sounding taken aback as the light continued to perform outrageous aerial acrobatics, growing larger as it neared their position.

"It's not real. It can't be real!" Heero tossed his stick with the former marshmallow now sticky piece of charcoal atop the fire. "Trowa, go get Quatre! We'll see what he says about it."

Trowa gave a sharp nod and made a swift exit for the tent. Duo spared a quick glance to see Trowa following the same path Quatre had, coming up beside the blond moments later. Out in the clearing, Heero paled a little as the light drew close enough to reveal a distinctive cigar shape. It halted somewhere beyond the edge of the clearing, showing the truth of its circular body from the underside and the row of lights, as well. No discernible sound beyond a high-pitched whine came from the craft. From this close, no explanation of mistaken identity or optical fantasy held – the craft was obviously there.

It began moving again, slowly, easing over the clearing until it sat right on top of them, eclipsing the sky in every direction, simply hovering and kicking up a wind that buffeted the clearing mercilessly. The tent flapped and the fire guttered under the assault.

Heero and Wufei stood staring up at it with slack jaws, hair whipping into their faces unhindered. Then Wufei suddenly snarled, shoving at Heero with both hands against his chest. "If that's not real, what the hell are we looking at, Yuy?"

"I don't know, but it cannot be real! UFOs and aliens do not exist, Wufei!" He whipped out his gun and pointed it at the craft, but Wufei yanked the gun away from him. Snatching after the gun, he growled as Wufei played keep away with it. "You've been saying that the whole time we've been on this damn case. Don't change your mind now!"

"Are you saying that thing-" Wufei jabbed a finger by extension of his whole arm toward the craft, "-is not about to land right on top of us? Besides, if it just so happens to be real, do you honestly think a bullet is going to do anything to it?!"

They were breaking, Duo could taste it. He waited patiently for the right moment, fingering the button that would open communication with yellow submarine again.

"Yes! That's exactly what I think! A bullet might do a lot of anything!" Heero near shouted back at him, giving up on the gun and grabbing Wufei by the collar instead. It was nice to see Heero so close to reacting like a normal person, Duo thought. "We're either suffering from a group hallucination or it's some type of illusion! Like a weather balloon with special effects! A bullet would put it out of its misery. I never thought you, of all people would fall for this kind of trickery!"

"Oh, so somebody dragged a bunch of smoke and mirrors out into the middle of the wilderness – on top of a mountain, mind you! – on the off chance that a couple of idiots like ourselves would stumble into it?" Wufei would never live down calling himself and Heero idiots. Never, Duo vowed.

"Not somebody! Duo! Are you saying Duo couldn't find a way when the whole thing is so obviously his idea that it's transparent?!"

Duo pressed the button. "Begin finalization of phase three...now."

"No, of course I'm not say-" Wufei broke off right in the middle as the craft did something unexpected, releasing a chorus of dissonant tones and a wild, flashing sequence of lights. "What is it doing?"

Reaching into his pouch as the craft threw down a wickedly high voltage white light from the center of its belly, Duo missed the reaction of Heero and Wufei. Whatever it was, it sent Quatre into a snarfing fit. Duo instead pulled out a pair of small dart guns and loaded them with tranquilizers, each measured precisely for a three hour dosage that would carry them into the last phase of the operation.

He handed one pistol to Quatre and the other to Trowa. Duo waved toward the campsite where Heero and Wufei stared transfixed up at the craft, squinting against the light and shouting uselessly at each other. "Gentlemen, take 'em down."

Under the cover of shrouding pine limbs and bushy undergrowth, Quatre lifted his loaded dart gun and lined up a shot. "I'll take the noisy one."

Trowa snorted. He lifted his own gun and sighted in on the other target. "I guess I've got Wufei, then."

Two near-silent shots, sounding more like a couple of guys going "PFFT!" than anything else, thudded unerringly into their intended victims.

"Phase three complete," Quatre sighed with a smile as Heero and Wufei dropped unconscious to the grassy floor of the clearing. He handed the pistol back to Duo and shoved through the brush back into the clearing. "By the way, Wufei called you Duo in the Jeep on the way here."

"Oh, yeah?" Duo said with a smirk. "I might just have to remind him of that." He touched the button on his communicator again. "That's a wrap, folks! Time to move on to phase four."

"Acknowledged, glorious leader. Phase four commencing. Yellow submarine out." The lights on the round craft instantly went dark but for a small red tracking light that flashed around the edge. It veered off through the nighttime sky and vanished into the darkness.

"How did you swing that?" Trowa asked, nodding after the saucer as he returned his own now empty gun.

"Did I ever tell you my hobbies include robotics and special effects?" Duo replied, slipping both guns back into his hip pouch.

The sound of a helicopter coming their way paused further conversation. Kicking up another wind that nearly uprooted the tent and tested the strength of the campfire, there was decidedly not enough room for it to land. Instead, a rescue sling was dropped.

Trowa and Duo rushed forward to buckle Heero into the harness for the short, upward journey. Wufei was quickly lifted out in the same fashion. They were left alone in the clearing as the helicopter rushed off in the direction the saucer had taken. Duo checked his watch. "Okay, boys, we've got two hours and fifty minutes to get packed and be in position at the hangar. That gives me time to eat some real food while you guys pack your crap. Please tell me there's some coffee left."

FIN (of part v)


	6. Of Your Own Free Will

**Disclaimer:** The only Heero I have is my cat and he spells it Hiro. GW is so not mine and so not filling my empty pockets. Not that this'll stop anything should Sunrise/Bandai decide it's worth pursuing me for my pocket lint...

**Characters:** Wufei, Heero, Duo. minor - Trowa, Quatre  
**Content:** major stretching of credibility, silliness, probing jokes  
**Part Summary:** Wherein the poorly hidden truth is revealed.  
**Word Count:** 3054  
**Archive:** ask please  
**Concrit:** sure!  
**Notes: **Please leave your disbelief at the door. Written for LJ comm gw500 prompt 217 – see through.

---

**COFFEE & DOUGHNUTS**  
**part vi: Of Your Own Free Will**  
by McJ

Wufei slowly became aware of the fact that he was surrounded by light. It was brilliant and seeped through his closed eyelids in a reddish haze. Trying to open his eyes turned out to be something of a task, though, as they felt weighted down by large cinder blocks. He left that for later, choosing instead to take stock of his surroundings through other means.

Under his back was a cold metal surface. It was flat and reminded him very much of an examination table. The autopsy kind. He shuddered. After a moment, he realized he was also naked, his skin sticking in a most uncomfortable way to the polished metal beneath him. He immediately attempted to sit, but found himself secured by heavy straps at the strategic points of shoulders, wrists, hips, knees, and ankles. Forcing his eyes open, his vision took a moment to clear, but eventually revealed to him a strange assortment of machines and robotic arms that he could not put a use to. "What the-"

"Wufei?" Though it was no more than a husky groan, Wufei recognized Heero's voice coming from his right. A glance showed the other in a position like his own a couple of feet away on another table.

"Yuy? What's going on?"

"I'm not sure, but I think we're supposed to believe we're aboard that craft." He sounded groggy, much like himself. The aftereffects of a tranquilizing agent, a tactic not at all beyond the creative scope of Duo, Wufei knew.

Wufei peered around the room, taking in the curved walls. They were smooth, polished metal like the tables and machines, unadorned but for odd symbols that looked to be some form of pseudo-writing. Among the robotics were vials and tubes filled with liquids both familiar and not. The thought that they might have come from himself and Heero or waited to be put into them flitted briefly at the edge of his mind. He narrowed his eyes and shuddered again, not at all amused. "Can you free yourself?"

Sounds of weak struggle followed immediately after the question. Heero grunted as he accomplished all of nothing. "No, I'm completely incapacitated."

"Of course you are," Wufei muttered. "Any time now, Maxwell will jump out of the shadows and claim that he 'got us good.'" However, much to Wufei's consternation, what happened turned out to be nothing – perhaps because there were no shadows in the room for him to jump out of.

The entirety of nothing consisted of machines beeping, colorful beads of light dancing across otherwise dark medical monitors, and glittering robotic arms shifting at odd angles occasionally. Every now and then, the arms would come teasingly close, menacing the both of them before pulling back and finding another target. Several monitors of the non-medical variety showed himself and Heero in disturbing detail from many angles, giving the impression it was all being recorded for later re-consumption. A soft, billowing wheeze suggested air pumps of some sort were nearby, hidden from view. Wufei had no clue what use they might have.

The brightly lit room with all its highly reflective surfaces did not allow for further investigation. It filled his senses with a sterile, foggy reality that kept his lethargic mind from obtaining a full grasp of what was happening around him. This was likely the intention, he thought. Before he could think further, the machines with their vicious looking appendages started moving in a much more threatening manner.

"Yuy?" he gasped as clamps caught his head from either side and held it still. A smaller set surged in next and forced his eyelids open. The placid approach of a thick, hollow needle toward his vulnerable eyes sent a surge of dread thought him. "Yuy!"

"Do you mind, Wufei? I'm about to have a needle the size of a drinking straw jabbed through my eye!" Oddly, it was comforting to hear Heero reacting as badly as himself.

Wufei struggled for all his might against the restraints, hearing Heero do the same. Not matter how hard he tried, though, even the act of closing his eyes was beyond him. The needle came to a halt at no more than a few hairs short of touching his left eye. He wasn't sure who it came from, but a faint, fearful whimper filled the room right before a blast of cool air came out of the needle. It quickly shifted to the other eye and delivered the same to it. With a curse of discomfort, Wufei felt the smaller clamps disengage and hurriedly blinked his eyes, holding them closed as they finally teared up. "Yuy?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

An underlying tone in Heero's voice hinted that the whimper had probably been his, not Wufei's. That gave Wufei a small thrill, but it did not last long as another robotic arm swung out. This one bore what looked to be a tiny set of trimmers at the end. The end disappeared up first one nostril then the other in quick succession and slipped away with a sample of hair. Wufei pulled a repulsed face at the distasteful action – definitely Duo's handiwork. Or an alien that thought like Duo, but aliens did not exist.

A third arm doused him from head to toe with some oily, unscented liquid that quickly became sticky. His lashes practically glued themselves together under the assault, making it a chore to open his eyes each time he blinked He had the sinking feeling they'd just been doused with some sort of glue, but lacked a reason for it. Then another arm swiftly approached, jamming an icy swab between each of his toes. Wufei nearly screeched at the sudden chill, curling his toes tightly against further invasion.

"What are you doing to us? And why the hell would aliens want toe jam, Maxwell?!" Wufei shouted after, knowing they were being watched and at least one person was getting a perverse joy out of their humiliation. He received no answer, not that he expected one. "Come out, you filthy coward! Let's do this face to face!"

"Wufei?"

Heero's voice was a tad on the small side, though it was most likely the weird muffling going on in his own ears that created the impression. The stress of a heart rapidly pounding with rage could do that, he had heard. "What, Yuy?"

"Yelling may not be the best course of action in this situation."

"It might not, but it makes me feel bet-" Wufei's open mouth suffered the attention of another robotic arm at that point, this one shoving in a large wad of cottony fluff. All the moisture within was sucked away into the fluff in moments, making it stick to his tongue so that it could not be spit out. This made the strangely effective and strategically timed gag all the more annoying.

A whooshing sound caused Wufei to scowl around the fluff, wishing he could turn a glare at whoever entered. The remaining clamps, however, refused to budge. His breath caught in his drying throat when a skinny, thin-limbed being with an overlarge head and even bigger, lidless eyes leaned over him.

Its skin was greyish and unblemished. The massive eyes were deep pools of black that reflected the room back at him – which created a deeper reflection as the room itself was just as reflective. Judging by human standards, not that he had others to go by, it was male. The being – Wufei refused to think of it by any other term – might as well have been naked for all the good the silvery second-skin of a bodysuit it wore did.

The being moved closer, leaned over him, and prodded hard at various spots on his body with frighteningly long fingers before moving over to do the same to Heero. Wufei searched with sharp eyes for seams that would give it away as nothing more than an elaborate costume. Much to his dismay, none existed. A decidedly natural appearance to not only the skin but the eyes and finger joints, as well, sent a flicker of worry through him.

"What do you want? For us to admit we've been bested?" Heero demanded of the being, trying to hide a very faint air of uncertainty that matched Wufei's own. Heero received no response beyond a slightly harder jab at his belly, causing him to grunt.

The being raised its hand and waved it through the air. For what reason, Wufei could not determine. Not until the bindings securing his legs shifted, anyway. His legs were forced to lift and bend, no matter how he fought against it. Wufei wanted to shout obscenities as his most intimate parts were bared for all to see, wanted to break the monitors filled with his image.

"Initiating probe," an obviously altered, disembodied voice announced, filling the room from several directions. Wufei noted the being's tiny sliver of a mouth never moved and vaguely recalled hearing something about aliens having telepathic abilities. However, he could not quite match up having a voice in the room with his understanding that telepathy reputedly sent words directly into the mind. This worked to calm the minuscule fear that he might be wrong. It did nothing for the knowledge of what was about to happen with the so-called probe, though.

Fortunately for Wufei, while he could not share his thoughts on this matter through anything more than agitated pulling against the restraints and inarticulate growling, Heero did a stunning job vocalizing his discontent. The foul spewing of filthy language, obviously learned in such depth from Duo, was magnificent.

Around them, machines as yet unused began a slow descent. At the end of these newest arms were a set of decidedly phallic cylinders with smooth, rounded ends – the probes, obviously. Their destinations were easily projected – with a swiftness that hurt, really – to be located, one each, between Heero and Wufei's upraised legs. More oily substance oozed over the polished metal surfaces, a quiet splattering coming from the floor where droplets of the stuff landed.

An image pasted itself across Wufei's squirming mind and it was not one he wanted to consider further. His buttocks clenched tightly of their own regard, his legs straining hard against the straps to pull free. He cursed Duo up and down, back and forth, and even diagonally through the fluff filling his mouth. It was a pity Heero could not hear as it would have urged him to greater heights of his own, Wufei was sure.

The large-headed being watched from its place between the tables, staring down at the both of them with its freakishly huge black eyes. It waved its hand once again and the voice rang out again through the room. "Commence memory wipe and implantation of tracking device."

The monitors stationed around the examination room gave Wufei a multi-angle view of the rising horror on his own face as the probes moved steadily toward their destinations. It quickly became apparent this was more than he was prepared to deal with.

A lengthy torture session? Fine.

A bloody, gaping wound with no sign of help on the horizon? No problem.

A large, oily, metal probe shoved up his backside for the purpose of wiping his memory and sticking a tracking device in him? Not in a million years. It did not matter if it was real or fake. Wufei did the only thing he could: he panicked.

Through wide, frantic eyes, he caught a matching expression of dread on Heero's face in the monitors. This only made Wufei panic more. In a manner very unlike himself, he keened in something rather akin to abject terror. Muffled by the cottony fluff in his mouth, the sound nevertheless was a distinct whine centered near the back of his throat – he would never live this down, no matter how hard he denied the whole thing. Of course, he would never live down many things from the past couple of days, so what harm was one more? From the other table, Wufei faintly made out Heero endeavoring not to follow right along with his example, his earlier failure to bite it back plainly making him fight it all the more.

On the very edge of disaster, as a chilly probe only just touched against quivering flesh and Wufei's whimpers threatened to come unbridled, the grey being raised its hand again. This time, a hard to forget voice came most decidedly from it as it called out, "That's good, Mikey. You can back off the probes now. I think they get it."

Wufei nearly choked on the wad of cotton as the probes pulled away. His fright rolled in his belly, not yet ready to be replaced by the returning fury rising from somewhere around his still tightly curled toes. Although, considering his toes were raised above the rest of him, he thought in a strangely lucid moment, that the fury would perhaps be better described as sinking.

The being tugged off its hand, revealing a much smaller, no questions asked human one underneath. Then it reached up and tore at something behind its head. From there, it pulled off a mask, setting free a long, familiar braid. Duo met first his eyes, then Heero's, taking in the heaving chests and limbs shaking in the aftermath of an adrenaline rush. His grin was dark and rife with victory.

"Hey, guys," he greeted them. "You two are a real couple of turkeys, you know that?"

Wufei narrowed his eyes and scowled at him.

Duo responded with a wink, then asked, "You know what makes this whole thing even better than I anticipated?" He gave them a moment as if waiting for a response, but one never came around either the cotton fluff or Heero's panting. "It's the fact that you both knew it was me. You knew I was behind it all and yet you still let yourselves be dragged along for the ride. The both of you are ultimately strapped down to these tables, moments away from a serious butt-probing," he paused again, then enunciated the next words with a slow, distinct, loving pleasure, "of your own free will."

It was true. Either one of them could have put a stop to events well before they reached this point at any time. Wufei wondered if Heero experienced the same sudden, bitter emergence of self-directed shame and disgust that washed over him right then.

"I've told you both before," Duo continued, "never try a master at his own game." He gave them each another pointed look, his grin stretching to terrifying proportions. "Unless you like losing, that is."

Heero pulled himself together first, throwing out the question that burned brightly on both their minds. Not that Wufei could have given him any real competition with his mouth still stuffed full of cotton. "How?"

Rubbing his hands, one still in alien costume, together like an evil villain from an old movie, Duo explained, "A little schmoozing with the boss lady brings some amazing facts to light. Did you know she can put a week of vacation on your record retroactively?" He tapped a button beside one of the monitors and Wufei found his head free from the clamps. Duo's grin became nothing short of devious. "Something like that gives a guy a lot of free time without anyone knowing. Oh, and don't forget a department full of boys and girls ready to do the Devil's dirty work when he comes calling."

Duo curled his hand into a fist and dropped it down on another button. This one released a load of tiny brown and white feathers from the ceiling, coating both Wufei and Heero, adhering to the sticky substance still covering them. Wufei had forgotten about the glue with the toe swab and aborted butt-probe.

"Like I said," Duo gloated, chortling, his own hair liberally dotted with feathers as well, "a real couple of turkeys." He shook his head, freeing several feathers.

Trying to blink away the feathers sticking to his eyelids, Wufei made a note to pay back each and every one of the fiends that had played a part in this particular stunt, no matter how small. With no recourse to verbally chewing Duo up and spitting him out, Wufei resorted to growling like a dog ready to attack. He even bared his teeth in an aggressive display, though tufts of the cotton in his mouth and the riot of feathers on his face undoubtedly ruined the effect as Duo only doubled over in laughter.

As soon as this ordeal was over and he was free, Wufei vowed that the God of Death was a dead man. A very dead man.

The quiet whoosh of the doors opening again drew Duo's attention away from them, his laughter subsiding a bit. Wufei followed Duo's gaze, his rage growing at the entrance of Duo's two most ardent cohorts. Duo offered Wufei's quivering cheek a pat before greeting them. "Q, Tro, how's the Kool-Aid?"

"I prefer fruit punch to grape, just so you know next time," Trowa answered, smirking as he had never smirked before. Wufei moved up plans to hurt him closer to the front of the list. Hurt him badly. With witnesses.

"A little too sweet for my tastes, but otherwise good," Quatre said, walking over and kindly yanking the cotton from Wufei's mouth. He offered Wufei a sip of water, but Wufei refused. Mostly on principle, but also partly out of pure pettiness. It did not help that Quatre only chuckled at the snapping sneer Wufei leveled at him. Along with Duo and Trowa, Quatre stepped away from the tables, heading toward the doors again. "Who's up for a doughnut run?"

"I told you it was a cult," Wufei spouted in righteous anger as the doors slid closed, spitting out feathers with each word. "Why does no one listen to me? None of you ever listen to me, I swear. It's like a continuing bet to see just how many times the lot of you can manage to not listen to-"

"Shut up, Chang," Heero told him with a sigh, dropping his head on the table with a clang and sending up a small cloud of feathers.

FIN


End file.

Gundam Wing/AC, Friendship, Humor