"Hey, watch it!" Leighlei yelled as Trowa Barton shoved her roughly into the cell."Hand’s OFF the merchandise!"
"Shut up, bitch." Trowa ordered gruffly.
"Bastard." She muttered, pulling one leg under her at a time so she ended up crouching. Trowa pretended not to hear her.
"This is my little cock-sucking bitch of a neice..." he began to explain to the few other people in the cell.
"Hey, you FAG!" She exclaimed. Trowa glared at her coldly.
"One more outburst and I’ll blow your fucking head off."
"Umm...I’ll just be..on the other side of the room if you need me." The girl waddled away from him, still squatting, and leaving a scarlet trail of blood behind her. She leaned her head against the far wall.
"Stay over there." Trowa nodded. "As I was saying, THIS is the infamous Gundam whore, Leighlei...my neice...she was discovered in hideout not long after destroying a few very important OZ facilities. I am supposed to oversee the destruction of ALL Gundam pilots...so..I’ll..." He trailed off staring at Lei, watching her shift her weight to one leg as she rolled up her maroon-soaked pants leg on the other, revealing two huge, dirt and blood caked gashes below her knee that seeped a yellowish fluid as well as blood. She grunted slightly, having difficulty supporting herself as she slid the material up over the swollen, slightly purple flesh around the similar wounds on her thigh. When she had finished both her hands and her leg were shiny with fresh blood, as well as the platinum, chainless handcuffs around her wrists. "LEI! What the HELL are you doin’?!" Trowa exploded, striding over to her, she looked up at him, her face shiny with perspiration, and in a completely innocent voice asked him,
"Will you kiss my boo boos unkie Trowa?" His eyes flared with hatred.
"Impertinent...BITCH!" He bellowed, drawing his hand back, he slapped her so hard she fell hard onto her side, a trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth adding to the already red mess of a floor. She lay there, seemingly comatose, as Trowa smirked down at her. "You bastard...you should know not to hit ladies...or people who look like ladies." A weak, cracked voice came softly but boldly from the shadows, followed by a bloody and beaten Wufei. His right eye was swollen shut, there were scratches across his forehead that had already scabbed over, and his lip was so busted, that when it had swollen, it had split open again. Despite this, he dove in front of Lei and dropped to his knees, protecting her from further abuse. Trowa continued to smirk.
"Are you kidding? I’ll kick your ass and her’s, too!" He strode back over to the front of the room and stood, framed in light in the doorway. "But seeing as that is too noble a punishment for you, I’ll simply wait until your execution - oh, and, by the way, that little stunt you just pulled to protect your precious Leighlei, just bought her a ticket to be the first killed by injection. See you tomorrow." He chuckled and walked away, the heavy metal door slammed shut behind him and they were left in utter silence and complete darkness. Leighlei opened one eye and fought her way into sitting position, spitting out the plastic capsules of fake blood that had exploded in her mouth when Trowa had slapped her. She looked at Wufei, who stared back at her with shining, innocent eyes.
"I’m sorry." He whispered. She shook her head and took his hands in hers.
"It’s not your fault." She whispered back. He nodded. She pulled a small, silver key from within her shirt and unlocked the cuffs on herself and her friend. She had jacked them from a guard after the first time she had been in jail and had had to use the cross she wore around her neck to pick the locks on the handcuffs. She now made it common practice to always carry one of the duplicate keys she had had made by the locksmith on her. Just in case. When her hands and his were free she wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned her head gently against his chest, he put his arms around her ribs and held her close, comforting her.
"Hey! Heeeeey! Can you unlock me too?" Another weak voice called. She jumped, her arms slid down onto Chang’s shoulders and her head turned in the direction of the sound.
Wufei’s arms tightened around her soothingly and he placed his cheek beside her ear.
"It’s okay, it’s Duo." He whispered. She smiled.
"Duo! Why didn’t you come out here to see me?" She called. "Don’t you want to see my wicked infection? Duo?"
"I can’t move my legs..." He wailed softly. "Come here, I can’t see you..." Leighlei’s eyes widened with worry as she rose and limped over to the darkned shape against the wall. Wufei stood slowly and watched her take stumbling, pain-filled steps in Duo’s direction.
"Lei..." He hurried to catch up to her and scooped her up in his arms. "You’re hurt. You shouldn’t be walking, either."
"Wufei...I..." She looked up at him, but fell silent as he knelt beside Duo and laid her beside him. Duo sat with one leg drawn up to his chest and the other stretched out in front of him, resting in a patch of dried blood. The bottom half of his shin bent at an angle separate from that of the top, and two red-stained skewers of bone poked through his skin on the line where the angle began. She looked at Duo, the concern bright in her eyes, and tore off the clean leg of her pants, turning them into mishappen shorts. She then tore the pants leg into thinner strips and laid them on the floor.
"Duo." She adressed him as she worked. "You have an open fracture. The possibility for infection is slim because we’re in an airtight chamber...not many germs are going to get in there unless directly applied to the wound...so don’t touch it. I’m going to bind it as tight as I can...but it would be much better if we had a brace..." She proceeded to reach out and wrap a strip of cloth tightly over to wound, pressing down on it to line the bones back up, and tying it tight so they would stay in place, she continued to do this until she ran out of strips of cloth and the basic area of the break had been secured. Then she smiled and sat back, "There ya go."
"Thanks, Lei." Duo smiled a little, too and held up his hands, which were still cuffed. She carefully undid them and slipped them off, laying them on the floor beside him. Duo scooted foreward and lay down on his good side, closing his eyes and attempting to get some rest now that his leg was better. Lei looked down at her legs stretched out before her. One looked normal, the pants leg torn off right at the top of the thigh. Her other leg was swollen and infected, the stained, dirty pants leg rolled up as high as the fabric would allow. She reached down gingerly and ripped off that pants leg as well, revealing the swollen, bluish flesh of her thigh. She dropped the soiled leg on top of Duo’s handcuffs and sighed slightly. Wufei, who had been leaning against the wall, was fast asleep.
"Geez...you guys must have not gotten any sleep..." Lei whispered aloud. "Either that or you had a maaaaaaajor sedative..." She glanced at the two and struggled to stand, she finally managed to, putting almost all her weight on her good leg and pretty much abandoning the other. She stood there for a minute, perplexed as to what she should do. She glanced around, her eyes adjusting to the darkness, and caught sight of the figure of a person laying on the ground near the back wall. She furrowed her brow and hobbled over to it, easing herself onto the floor beside the shadow-softened shape. She reached out a hand and gently touched it. Nothing happened. She brushed the back of her hand against it this time, more deliberately. Still, no response. As her eyes became famliar with the dark, she saw it was a youngish boy. He was laying curled in a fetal position on his side, not stirring. He had platinum blonde hair that hung into his eyes slightly, and an innocent, childlike face. She smiled and reached out, brushing a strand of hair from his face. "Quatre..." She breathed, nearly inaudable. He opened his beautiful blue eyes and gazed up at her, blinking the sleep away from his vision. He yawned.
"Lei...?" He stretched and rolled over onto his back, settling his cuffed hands on his chest and his eyes on her face. "Is that you?"
"Yeah...it’s me." She whispered, taking his soft, warm hands in her own cool ones. She undid his locks and removed the cuffs, setting them aside.He rubbed his wrists gratefully and smiled at her.
"Thanks."
"No big deal, really." She waved her hand dismissively, bringing her good leg up to her chest and resting her elbow on it. "I’m just glad to see you aren’t hurt." She gazed at him adoringly, although the pain and pressure in her leg was increasing by three hundred percent each second.
"Are you hurt? What did they do to you?" Quatre asked innocently, sitting up. He hadn’t noticed her wounds yet, obviously they were in his blind spot.
"Nah, you know me, I’m an untouchable." She forced a convincing smile. "They only cought me in my hideout, which means they probably didn’t find my Gundam. In fact, I’m pretty much positive they didn’t. Who would find a connection to Siberia by finding my secret ghetto apartment on colony 241?" She supressed a rare giggle at the phrase ‘secret ghetto apartment.’ Quatre smiled, too, and for a second she thought he beleived her. She should have known him better.
"You know you aren’t fooling anyone." He said, still smiling. Her face fell as he pulled his shirt off and wrapped it around her leg as tight as the swollen, infected brawn would allow, soon it was splotched not only red but greenish-yellow.
"Quatre...you really don’t have to...it’s only a little infected, really..."
"Yeah and Shakespeare is only a little dead." He retorted. She had tears in her eyes, the pain was so immense she became dizzy. Her eyes rolled back up into her head and she felt herself beginning to fall over backwards. She must have lost concsiousness, because when she awoke, all she could see was the cotton of Quatre’s shirt. She was laying on her side next to him, and he lay on his side with his arms around her, holding her close to his chest. She smiled and sighed, happier in this old jail cell than she had been on the outside for years.