sweetestsurrender | { The AU meme }

She snorted softly. "Well, it wouldn't be the first time I bumped into a familiar face during exfil," she replied lightly. "Trowa picked up me and my backup the last time a mission went to shit." Which thankfully wasn't a very common occurrence, but the last six months had seen their intel take a nosedive in quality and reliability. It was why she'd been picked for this mission -- it had been way below her pay grade on the surface, but had turned out to be too much even for her to handle solo.

"Let's just say I didn't trust anyone else..." Duo replied quietly. He'd asked for help. He had. But no one had been available or unwilling to drop everything at a moments notice like he had been. Though maybe he was being a bit harsh too. Most everyone would have taken days to get there and Wufei would have remained locked up... Duo hadn't wanted to waste any time.

"If you want someone else... I can make some calls." Duo kept his eyes on the road ahead, open and searching for his turn. "Just lemme know before morning or you're stuck with me."

Both her brows went up at the first reply, and shook her head at the rest of what he had to say. "Why would I want anyone else, when I have the best pilot in the earth sphere at my disposal?" she asked, smirking a little and sticking her chin up in that arrogant way she had. "As long as you don't mind being stuck with me, anyway."

"Just checking." Flattery aside, he'd started to worry maybe she'd want someone else who didn't know her secret. Maybe she'd want to keep him at arms length now? Only time would tell.

"Depends... What the hell do I even call you now?" he risked a look across at her. "Do I still call you Wufei or... What?"

She smiled a little, and sighed at the question. "Wufei. It's... natural now. Sally and I have been discussing medical procedures to make this sort of situation impossible, but..." She sank down a little in the seat. "I just want to be free," she admitted softly. "If I'd really been him, no one would think twice about his choice to walk away from rebuilding the Clan. Let the few of us that remain be absorbed into other clans. But because I can create an heir..."

It was nice, to be able to talk about it with someone who didn't have a stake in the outcome either way. Someone who cared about her and didn't give a solitary shit about anyone else. "At the same time I can't bring myself to undergo sterilization. I do want children. I just don't know how I'll ever make that happen."

It was vaguely uncomfortable hearing these things from Wufei, but Duo knew it was because he was still struggling with separating who he knew to who was sat across from him. He shifted a bit, cleared his throat and attempted to wade in on a topic he didn't know much about himself.

"You uh...couldn't go the Winner route and skip the whole carrying to term thing in favour of test tubes?" or however Quatre's siblings had been born. Duo thought it was all a bit weird if he was honest. But then again, he was partly of the opinion that if he was ever going to have kids they would be adopted. Why bring more lives into the world when there were still so many needing homes?

She hummed softly. "If I can manage to get some eggs frozen without anyone realizing, I suppose so. Assuming I can find someone else willing to wait, willing to put up with my secret," she leaned her head back against the seat, gazed up at the sky. "I was supposed to die in the war. It's the only reason they let me take his place at all. We were all meant to die."

And now all she wanted was a life of her own, she just wished the terms weren't so goddamn ridiculous.

"Sure places like that can do it without asking questions? Least without broadcasting who you are. No one'd know." Forge some documents, a little disguise, no one would be the wiser.

Duo had began turning down a few quiet back roads before he pulled up in the drive of a small house that, from the outside, had seen better days. "Live or die. We made it out against the odds, Wufei. That counts for something."

"Maybe," Wufei agreed, but with Duo in the know it was opening her up to the possibility of telling the others. She was sure if Quatre knew, he would let her use the same facility his family did, and that would be one place her large, sprawling family weren't likely to have anyone placed.

When they arrived at the house, she let out a sigh of relif. "I hope you weren't planning to shower first," she was a mess and a half, and the clothes would probably need to be burned. "And despite everything, I'm glad I survived. I just wished it was without pretending to be a man." She made sure no one was out or looking, that the giant bloody patch on her pants -- which had grown, so thank goodness for that plastic bag -- hurrying into the safehouse.

He had, until things went sideways. Now he was happy for Wufei to go ahead of him.

While she did that, after he'd tossed the keys her way, Duo went ahead and grabbed the bags from the back seat and carried them all inside. There was food which he began pulling out, nothing flash since it had just been a basic store. A couple of ready-to-cook meals he ripped the packaging off and shoved in the oven which he was glad to see actually worked.

After that he dropped himself down in a chair at the kitchen table, folded his arms across the table and dropped his head into his arms.

He was exhausted.

She didn't take long in the shower, and since this was a Preventers safe house, there were clothes ready for her to change into, though she wasn't at all sure how it was going to go, because she was bleeding excessively.

Enough that she stuffed half a roll of toilet paper into her underwear and didn't risk putting on pants when she emerged, padding out to the living room in just that and a shirt. Without the binder her breasts were very obvious, and her hair down meant she, well. Looked like a she.

"I don't suppose you happened to pick up any feminine hygiene items? The bathroom was out of stock," which was just her luck. "I think there's enough toilet paper to make do until tomorrow if you didn't."

"Huh? Uh yeah... Yeah I grabbed some things. Not sure what I got." He'd made another call to Sally about the whole thing and she'd given him a bit of advice on the subject. He'd still panicked and grabbed what he could. "There was way too many types. But I was told the padded type...uh...would be best?"

He pushed the paper bag that contained it all over to her. There were even painkillers and chocolate because wasn't that a thing too? Or was that a stereotype he was buying into?

Duo finally looked up, he had to force himself to lift his head, and froze. Wufei...didn't look like Wufei. She looked like... She'd always been a pretty man. But as a woman? He dropped his gaze and pushed himself away from the table. "If the bathrooms free now...?"

She relaxed considerably, and even flashed him a smile. "You know," she said softly. "This is as weird for me as it is for you -- I've never dealt with this before. I'm glad that I'm not alone," even if the whole thing was confusing and upsetting and...

She blushed when Duo forced his gaze away, clearing her throat. "Yes, go ahead," she agreed, grabbing the bag and taking it to one of the bedrooms to figure that whole thing out. It didn't take long, with the picture instructions on the box of pads and pulled some pants on, too, now that she wasn't constantly at risk of ruining them. Then she went to the kitchen, took the painkillers, and settled into the sofa with the chocolate to nibble and wait. She hadn't exactly been fed properly while imprisoned, and the food in the oven was smelling heavenly.

A shower wasn't the best idea he'd had. Removing his clothes had been a task.

As it turned out, the adrenaline he'd been running on up until that point had been nice enough to mask the fact that he'd fucked up. He sat on the toilet seat and took stock.

He wasn't going to die, that much he knew for certain. But he needed to get hold of a first aid kit. First he got himself clean as quick as he could manage before he high-tailed it to a bedroom and hunted up the med kit he knew would be under the bed. Clothes would come after he'd patched himself up.

The worst was a bullet wound. Honestly, he was surprised he only had the one. There was as crease across his ribs that would irritate him but the bullet wound was a through-and-through. Duo hadn't even realised it was there until he'd removed his shirt. It was going to be a pain in the ass to sew it up himself, but it wasn't the first time and wouldn't be the last.

She'd heard him come out, rush to the bedroom, and knew immediately that there was trouble. Her chocolate was set aside as she pulled herself from the sofa, padding to the doorway to watch Duo, naked as the day he was born, trying to find the med kit.

"You've been shot," she said it matter-of-factly, stepping into the room. "Get back in the bathroom, I'll bring the kit and patch you up," she didn't leave him a whole lot of room to argue as she stepped inside just in time to watch him find the kit.

Duo once again froze when he was caught. He looked over at Wufei and had the most surreal moment of his life. He was caught between indignation at being ordered around and sheer embarrassment at the state he was in. If this was before he would have laughed the whole thing off. His state of dress wouldn't have bothered him. But he actually wanted to cover himself up. It was so fucked up it made him dizzy and he had to sit down hard on the bed.

"I can do it. My own fault anyway." the liberal array of scrapes and mild burns that scattered his body from his attack of the complex paled in comparison to a bullet wound. But it was something he could handle.

"... If you could grab me some pants though? That'd be great."

"I know you can do it," she replied, pointedly not looking at exactly what he wanted to cover up, as she found a pair of sweatpants that should fit and tossed them at him. "But it's a pain in the ass, and you can only really reach one of the wounds properly. So you'll bite your tongue and let me help."

She took the kit, setting it on the dresser and popping it open to get out everything she would need -- and as an added bonus, it meant Duo was presented with her back, so he'd have some privacy while he dressed.

A dark flush coloured his cheeks when the pants were thrown at him. But he grabbed them and pushed his legs in and while Wufei was pulling things out of the kit, he yanked them up and dropped back onto the bed.

Then he sighed heavily and looked to his side and the arm that had betrayed him by getting in the way of an enemy bullet.

"... Are you alright now?" he asked, deliberately not talking about himself. His way of consenting to her want to help. He as just going to ignore it.

"I am, thank you," she replied, much softer this time as she got out what she would need and turned to bring it to the bed. "The painkillers have kicked in, and despite my misgivings about chocolate actually being helpful... it did seem to make me feel better, too," she smiled a little, pulling on the gloves and getting a bit of gauze wet with antiseptic, carefully swiping it over both wounds.

"You know I didn't really expect it to hurt quite the way that it does," she said, trying to distract him as she got out the numbing agent. "Little pinch," she warned before the first shot, but didn't for the others because each following one was within the numb zone from the last. "I always thought it would feel like getting punched, but it's more like the ache from a charley horse that wouldn't go away. Like when you're tied up for too long and your muscles seize up, but you can't stretch it out and it just sits there, aching for hours and hours." She traded needle for needle and started stitching the wound closed.

"I'd heard it's supposed to be... Wasn't sure if it was true or not." Movies and tv would joke about it but he'd really paid attention outside of that. Why would he? He was a man without any kind of constant female presence in his life. These things were beyond him. But he was glad that he'd gotten it right this time.

Duo quietly listened and nodded at the promise of a 'pinch' and didn't react much aside from a little wrinkle of his brow.

"Sounds... like somethin you'd wanna avoid." Duo's eyes flicked Wufei's way. "Sorry I couldn't get to you sooner... If I had, you wouldn't have had to deal with any of this." And he'd tried. It had taken him a day and a half to get to L2 and the half a day to get his shit together to wage war. Too long.

"If Sally hadn't gone on about it being so helpful, I probably wouldn't have bothered eating it," she admitted with a chuckle. "It does sound an awful lot like bullshit."

She hummed in agreement about wanting to avoid it as she carefully worked to stitch him up. "Oh, it was coming with or without exfil," she grumbled. "I have an implant that's supposed to prevent them from happening, so it probably fell out sometime in the last few days and I just didn't notice. Sally warned me that could happen sometimes, but," she shrugged. She'd had the implant for years with no issue, and had practically forgotten it was in there. "At most you would've saved my clothes from their messy, messy fate." She finished the first wound, and moved to numb the second. "Little pinch," She warned again as she went in with the numbing agent.

The numbness in his arm helped a lot with the pain but he could still feel what was happening. Duo didn't look though. It was fine if he did it himself but if someone else did it it made him feel queasy.

"I'll get you back to Sally. She can help with... getting that back where it belongs." Because he had no idea where this implant went, but he could kind of guess if it 'fell out', and he was deliberately trying not to think about that.

He nodded again. "It's fine." The numbing agent was a novelty. He was used to doing this with nothing. The pain was almost welcome. But on the other hand, having someone helping him was alright too.

Wufei hummed in agreement, finishing up the second round of numbing and getting to the sewing part of the show. "I'll have to ride out this little wave of misery first," she murmured as she worked. "But once that's done with, she should be able to put a new one in and I'll be back to the status quo, for however long I can keep this little charade up. Hopefully until I have a fiance, at least," though how she was supposed to manage that while concealing her gender was going to be the real trick. "I don't suppose you know any men who wouldn't mind dating a woman pretending to be a man?" she snorted, like she'd just told a joke.

"Would you need to pretend to be a man if you found a fiance?" Duo shot her a funny look, lips twitching into a smirk. "I can ask around... But not sure how I'd start that conversation up. There's someone for everyone though, so maybe we could find someone?" Whether they'd pass his inspection or not was another question. Even if he hadn't found out Wufei was a woman, he would have judged any partner she had. Pulled them aside and given them The Talk. Hurt my friend and I hurt yoo.

She shook her head. "As long as I'm sure a wedding will follow, no," she replied. "If I get engaged, reveal myself to be a woman, and then we break up..." she wrinkled her nose, tying off a stitch. "Let's just say I'd be using your old motto to avoid ever meeting whoever they marry me off to. They've never been above in absentia weddings before." It was hard to believe there were still places doing that sort of thing, but L5 was its own peculiar brand of backwards. "Or worse, they'd try to be really clever and convince Quatre to marry me," just the idea had her laughing a little as she finished up the last stitch and snipped the thread.

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