A Promise Between Souls

By DragonMage

Notes: Argh, I am so pissed off. This file wouldn't open and freaked up on me twice!! I had to rewrite this thing twice...ah, what hell. Ack, well, here ya go! *grin*

Chapter 2

Wufei sighed, almost bored, as he weaved in and out between cars. One of the wonderful things of owning a motorcycle is the fact that you can get through a traffic jam with careful and smooth maneuvering and not break the law, and in the end you'd never be late for work. That was one reason why he loved riding a motorcycle.

The second reason was that he had a reckless love for speed. He absolutely loved anything that went fast, cars, motorcycles, planes, Gundams. Anything that could hit a few hundred miles per hour over the speed limit always had a special place in his heart. He also loved rollercoasters but some were so slow, barely hitting 80 mph.

But he favored the motorcycle the most. In a car you couldn't feel the wind against your face as your drive, you can experience the rush to your head that speed induces. On a motorcycle, you can. There was also the great freedom that came from riding a motorcycle. You weren't boxed in like a car or Gundam. You just sat with your legs on either side and go. Total freedom.

As he exited the freeway, Wufei wondered absently if anything interesting was going to happen. He was bored and he wanted to get his mind off Heero.

Heero.

Hn. That damned man was constantly on his mind lately. Well, ever since that damn reunion party, anyway. It had been a few days since the party and Wufei hadn't been able to go a day or hour or minute or even second without wondering how Heero was or thinking about how Heero looked absolutely delicious with his dark blue eyes and sexily tousled hair. It astounded him to no end what kind of thoughts were invoked when it involved the blue eyed Japanese man. When had he became so obsessive?

Wufei pulled into his usual parking space and got off his bike. He pulled off his helmet and shook his hair out as long black silk fell down his back. He had let it grow out a bit since the end of the second war, since, well, he liked it long. Of course, he didn't let it get too long and always went for a quick trim.

Absently, Wufei tucked his helmet underneath his arm and shoved his keys into his pockets. He then walked into the Preventers' office building to begin another day's worth of work...

~*~

"I'm glad you decided to join the Preventers, Heero," Une said as she smiled at the Japanese man sitting across from her. "We need more people with your expertise."

"I had nothing else to do," Heero answered simply.

Une nodded and tried not to laugh as she handed Heero a folder. "There's some information about how this whole place is operated so you can get adjusted and settled around here. You're going to need a partner though, and lucky us you came at the perfect time."

"And how is that?"

"Apparently, one of our Preventers scared his partner into leaving. I don't know how the hell Chang managed to do that, but the poor boy ran off saying he didn't want to be partnered up with some psycho Justice nut. So, you're new partner is going to be Wufei," Une said almost cheerfully as she stood up, signifying that the meeting was at an end. "Welcome to the Preventers, Heero!" She stuck out her hand and Heero shook it.

But he really didn't hear the rest of what Une said as he realized one thing...

<I'm going to be partnered up with Wufei...>

~*~

"What do you mean I'm going to get a new partner? I don't want one! I work perfectly fine alone," Wufei huffed.

"You can't operate without a partner! Besides, it's time you learned to work with people, Lucrezia Noin said, shaking her head. She had been the unlucky one picked to tell the Chinese man that he was going to have a partner. She didn't want to do it but Une told her to so she had no choice.

"I don't want to learn how to 'work with people'," Wufei growled. "I can do fine by myself. I don't know why you people partnered me up in the first place. That weakling just ran off after a few months."

"Wufei, you scared him off!" Noin accused.

Wufei took on a lofty, 'Like I care' look. "He was weak; I do not work with weaklings."

"Then it's a good thing your new partner is Heero Yuy. I doubt he's weak," Noin muttered before she threw up her arms and left the room.

Wufei stood there for a good 10 seconds before he realized what Noin had just said. <No...No way,> he thought in disbelief. Heero was going to become his partner? Heero had *joined* the Preventers?? He thought the Japanese man said he didn't want to involve himself in anything political anymore--well, aside from checking on Relena Dorlian a few times to make sure there were no troubles.

"Hello, Wufei."

Wufei's head snapped up and he met cobalt blue eyes. He had only seen Heero a few days ago at the reunion party. Now he was going to be stuck with him forever?! Or at least until Heero decided to leave the Preventers. For some reason, Wufei had a sick feeling in his stomach that wasn't going to happen any time soon. <Why now?? Why? Why ME?> He thought numbly as he nodded stiffly at Heero.

"I hadn't expected you to join," he admitted as he turned around and walked over to his desk in the small office room. He glanced over at the empty desk--save for a almost brand new computer and some scattered papers--next to his and realized that Heero was going to soon sit there. Every single day. He was going to have to deal with Heero Yuy from 9am to 6pm every single day except for Sunday. <What did I do to deserve this?>

"I had nothing else to do. I though this'd do good," Heero replied as he walked over to the empty desk that was obviously going to be his and sat down on the worn leather chair. He turned and watched as Wufei sat down on his own chair and booted up his computer. He watched as the Chinese man worked silently, gathering folders and papers up and shoving them into the proper drawer before pulling out more and laying them down on a desk. After a while, Wufei became very, very unnerved by Heero's unwavering stare.

He turned and managed not to glare at the Japanese man. "Why are you just staring like that? Don't you have something to do?"

"I'm new. What am I suppose to do?" Heero asked plainly.

Wufei sighed and almost sweatdropped. When he had first joined the Preventers everything was still relatively new so there had been tons of things to do. Now that they had more Preventers on the field and in the office, there wasn't much to do except take care of the more difficult missions that...normal people couldn't take care of.

"I don't know...Didn't Une tell you anything?" he finally asked.

"She welcomed me and told me I had a partner," Heero stated simply.

<A man of little words,> Wufei thought almost in amusement. He grabbed his glasses from the drawer underneath the desk and paused. He turned to Heero with a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Well, maybe you can just get settled. The computer is yours while you're working here so go do whatever you do and adjust it to your liking," Wufei suggested. He then slid on his glasses and went down to work. So many reports to do. Gods, who knew these missions he went out on demanded so much paper work. Lately the missions had gotten weirder and weirder and after each one, there was always a ton of paper work to do and reports to fill out. Gods, there was almost more paper work than action.

One example of a strange mission was when an elderly lady called to report witchcraft going on in the woods a mile or so from her home. She had said she went out at night and passed by the place and heard all sorts of things. Wufei had thought it was crazy but went out to check it out anyway. Gods above, it had been tedious. There had been nothing wrong yet the woman had still insisted on something being off about the woods.

<Some people are definitely in need of some pills in this world,> Wufei thought as he went over the memory. He pulled out a thick file and began to flip through it while writing up a short report on it. He pushed up his glasses and worked hard as he tried to ignore the obvious presence of Heero only a few feet away from him.

Heero pretended to work as he turned on the computer and began to make several adjustments to it. He didn't have his disks with him so he couldn't really get any serious work done, but it would leave him something to do tomorrow. Today he was going to do anything that came to hand and stare at Wufei. Yep, that sounded like a good plan to him. Besides, what else could he do?

"Anything interesting happen around here?"

Wufei turned and tried not to look shocked or surprised in anyway as he regarded Heero with a calm exterior. Who knew the Perfect Soldier was actually inclined to talking? And here he thought Heero was a taciturn stick in the ass. Kinda like him.

"It's okay. Although, some of the strangest things have been going on. It's probably in the water," Wufei answered dryly. He pulled out a file from his stack and gave it over to Heero. "Here, read this one. You'll get a kick out of it, I assure you. It's impossible ridiculous and I have no idea why they send me on these things. There *are* other Preventers in this organization. Hmph." Then he turned and went back to work.

"...haunted houses?"

"I know," Wufei said, nodding as he continued to work. "Apparently, that whole entire area has been experiencing all these strange occurrences. The thing is, the people won't call the police. No, they have to bug the Preventers. We have a lot more important things to do, thank you very much. But do they realize this? No! A bunch of loony, back-country nut-heads!"

Heero smiled slightly in clear amusement. "I take it you're getting tired of these calls?"

"Damn right," Wufei said, nodding sharply. This caused his glasses to slide down to the tip of his nose. He huffed irritably and pushed the glasses back up. "Anyway, I've been getting tired of being called out to these things. I never find anything. Hn. Maybe you can do it next time and I can take a break."

"Possibly," Heero agreed as he continued to read the reports in his hand.

They read and worked at a companionable silence when a girl with short red-hair suddenly appeared at the door.

"New mission, Chang. And the new guy's going with you." She threw a slip of paper on the table and dashed off.

Wufei sighed and picked up the paper and read it over. Then he sighed and groaned while shaking his head in disbelief.

"What is it?" Heero asked, staring intently at the pissed off Chinese man.

"Another heinous report. Same woman. Same report. We have *got* to get her to stop!"

"She's scared. I don't think you did a very good job on reassuring her everything is going to be okay. Come on, let's go," Heero said, standing up.

"Hn. Never knew you were so thoughtful and compassionate," Wufei said, rolling his eyes as he grabbed his jacket and started to leave the room. He brushed against Heero and tried not to show his shock or how nice that brief touch felt. They left the room and started for the parking lot.

~*~

"There's nothing wrong with this place, ma'am. We've checked and checked," Wufei said, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he tried to deal with the old lady in front of him. Heero was off somewhere doing whatever Heero does when he's off somewhere.

"I swear it! I heard some*thing* in there!"

"But you live all the way here! How could have you heard anything?" Wufei demanded.

"I have second hearing, Mr. Chang. I swear it, I heard something strange and I want you to make sure it isn't something evil. This whole place is cursed or something. I just know it! It's been bad for many, many years. No one knows why. I think black magic has been worked here," the old lady said earnestly. "I am serious!"

"All right. We'll check it over again and see if anything is wrong. Maybe we'll find something," Wufei said, nodding. He turned and started towards the car. Where was Heero? It was Heero's car and he didn't have the keys.

After a few moments standing there, looking for his partner, Heero appeared with something in hs hand.

"What is that?" Wufei asked curiously.

"Something. It's burnt." Heero showed Wufei the burnt piece of some kind of rock. "What the heck is this?"

"Don't know. Found it near the edge of the woods," Heero said with a slight shrug.

"You don't seriously think something's in there?" Wufei asked in disbelief.

"Let's go check," Heero offered.

"Fine, fine. Let's go check again," Wufei sighed. He got into the car and waited as Heero slid into the driver's seat and drove off.

They reached the edge of the dark, gloomy forest and stopped the car. Wufei got out first and looked around the place. Nothing seemed to change. It was still evil looking. Maybe there *was* something wrong with the place. It sure didn't look friendly.

"Let's start searching," Heero suggested as he slammed the door shut and walked over to Wufei's side.

"All right." The Chinese man nodded and followed Heero into the trees.

Half an hour later...

Wufei looked around the place and shook his head. "I don't see anything weird or suspicious."

Heero shrugged and continued to look around.

They walked deeper and deeper into the forest, looking for anything that would attribute to the strange sounds that the old lady had heard these past few nights.

"Hey, do you see that?" Heero suddenly asked. He pointed off in one direction between two large trees. "Behind the green stuff."

"It's a bush, Heero," Wufei said dryly.

"No. Beyond it," Heero insisted.

Wufei looked beyond the point Heero had been pointing at and blinked. "That's...that's a house!"

"Feeling like ghost hunting?"

Wufei quirked an eyebrow at Heero and nodded slowly. They tracked over through the trees and thick undergrowth and bushes. As they neared the house Wufei suddenly felt a pretty foreboding feeling.

"Um, Heero, do you feel that?" he asked hesitantly, trying not to believe what he was feeling.

"Yeah. Something's wrong with this place," Heero said quietly. He looked around before starting to take a step forward.

"Wait! Stop!" Wufei reached out and grabbed Heero's arm and pulled him back just as the other man tried to take a single step forward. He jerked back with Heero's arm tightly in his grasp and glared at the offending snake that had been laying there. "You almost stepped on that thing."

The snake hissed loudly before slithering off.

Heero was too busy realizing that Wufei was touching him. He stared down at the thin, golden hand clamped firmly around his arm and then up at the owner's face. Wufei was flushed slightly and still glaring at the place the snake had been. Then he realized Heero was staring at him. He stared right back before looking down where his arm was. He released it so quickly Heero wondered if there had been a snake on *him*.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to just suddenly pull you...sorry," Wufei stammered.

"It's okay," Heero said, shrugging. "Shall we get started?"

"Why not?"

~*~

"This place is locked down tight. Someone's been using it all right," Wufei assessed as he pulled at the door again. He had checked all the windows but found them smeared with some black paint so it was impossible to check out anything inside of the impenetrable house.

"I wonder who...And why they're trying to scare their neighbors," Heero mused as he checked around the perimeter before walking back over to Wufei. "We can't do anything here."

"I know. Besides, it looks like whoever was here is gone. I just hope they don't come back. I don't want to deal with this again. What can we do?" Wufei sighed.

"Arrest them for disturbing the public?"

"Good idea."

"Hn. No problem."

Wufei looked at Heero, the corners of his lips quirked in a smile. "I didn't know you had a sense of humor."

Heero shrugged, his lips also curling a bit. "Let's go back. I think it's almost time for lunch."

Wufei looked down at his watch and nodded in agreement.

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This chapter sucked because it was so hard to write and it annoyed me. It'll get better, promise!