lavandarlizard2 | *whimper*

Hm... I meant to post this last night, but... well... See, it's been one of "those" weeks at work, and somewhere between three different fish oils and the $1900-a-kilo material, my brain began leaking... O.o I think I managed to scrape up most of the brain cells, but I don't think they're quite back in the right places yet... ~_~

Anyway... Here's some more... ^__^ And yeah; at some point in the past few months, I've managed to forget how to insert text into the lj cut. *sigh* Brain leak.

BFB - Part 097c&d - Under Fire

"Duo, look at me angel," Heero murmured in my ear gathering me close. "It's all right; Wufei will be fine. You brought him here; he'll be okay. Angel?"

I flinched, as if someone had slapped me. I blinked at my surroundings. Infirmary... Wufei... The Were-Tiger. The gun!

Voices around me, Heero and Wufei and... and... Q. But no...

Zuma! Ohmigod!

"Zuma! I left Zuma! Heero!"

He turned me around, dragging me away from Wufei.

"Shh. Inazuma is fine; Tiffany and Enrique went immediately. Everything is under control."

That wasn't good enough. I'd left a teammate under fire.

"I need to see!" I grabbed at his sleeve. "I have to go!"

"All right," he soothed. "I'll call a porter and we'll go."

He might have meant it as a placating gesture, but I was punching the number for the port room into my phone before he even finished.

Bloody blast! I'd left Inazuma behind with that crazed lunatic! Gods, Wufei would... would... I shuddered and Heero took the phone from my hand.

"Jirad? Yes; I need a porter in the infirmary immediately. Thank you." He closed the phone and tucked it back into my bag, which was, oddly enough, still hanging across my shoulder.

~*~d

The porter dropped us at the site and returned; we would either call when ready to leave or catch a hop with Tiffany. I had regained a lot of my shattered poise in the few minutes it took for the porter to pick us up; Mistress Loquinn insisted on doing some laying-on of hands for me, which helped a lot on its own, and there may have been something besides water in the water she insisted I drink. Knowing that Wufei was going to be okay helped too, of course. I was no longer shaking, and didn't feel like throwing up, although I was still a little light-headed. But Wufei was going to be okay.

Inazuma was sitting on the stone wall, arms wrapped around his drawn-up knees, very obviously not looking at the dark stains on the ground; Enrique was right beside him, one arm around his shoulders. Neither of them looked happy, but at least Inazuma was undamaged. He was quietly going over what happened.

Tiffany had the Were-Tiger and the sheriff's deputy answering questions. Several other Mundane types were roaming the area, stopping here and there to examine something on the ground. Little flags poked up from various points and yellow tape surrounded Wufei's bloodstain.

Heero growled from beside me. "Where is he?" he demanded. Enrique, Tiffany and Inazuma all pointed to an indistinct lump under a plastic tarp. "Dead?" Heero snapped.

"As a doornail," replied Tiffany. "With a bloody great hole in him. Sorry, Heero."

He rumbled angrily and let go of me to stalk across to where the corpse lay. Knowing Heero, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if he ripped the corpse to shreds and then incinerated the shreds. I turned to the Elves.

"Zuma, I'm sorry; I didn't mean to leave you," I began, but he waved it away and then reached out with a firm hug.

"It's not your fault, and anyway, the deputy shot him just as he shot Wufei." He didn't look too upset... "Stupid fuck," he muttered, resuming his huddled position and resting his head on his knees. "Is Wufei okay?"

"Yeah. Mistress Loquinn says he'll be fine once he wakes up. He tried to growl at Heero."

"Heh," snorted Enrique. "That tells me he is fine now. Zuma says the idiot was aiming at you..."

"I think so... I remember seeing that gun pointed at me, and then Wufei..." I looked over to where Heero was walking a circle around the now-uncovered body. "He saved my life, I think. If I'd been shot..."

"You might have died right here," said Enrique matter-of-factly. "Because neither of them have the right kind of magic to heal something like that and neither of them would have been able to port you to Mistress Loquinn, and it would have taken several minutes to get her here." He smirked at me. "I think we will all be extra nice to that obnoxious dragon for a while."

No shit... I wondered if any of that had occurred to Heero yet. If it had... No wonder he was so pissed.

He had squatted down to get a closer look at the body; I felt no desire whatsoever to join him in his examination. At least I hadn't done this one; that was some consolation.

One of the Mundane investigators approached Heero and warned him not to disturb the crime scene. I half expected him to give the guy instructions on what he could do with his crime scene, but Heero straightened up with a snort.

"I wouldn't, if it was really a crime scene," he growled.

The investigator stared at him. "Um... Dead body?" he said sarcastically, pointing.

"Not even close," Heero sneered. He hauled back his foot and kicked the corpse. "Get up, you simple spawn of extra-dimensional trailer trash! I know what you are! Get *up* before I cut your damn head off!"

The investigator was reaching for Heero; my jaw was somewhere near my feet; the other Mundanes were converging; Tiffany looked as startled as I felt and the Elves were bug-eyed.

"Heero!" cried Tiffany. "Are you nuts?!"

And then the "corpse" twitched.