Title: Between II - The Long Walk 3/10

Author: ebonbird (ebonbird@hotmail.com)

Rating: PG

Summary: This is the sequel to "Between" which is

available @ http://ebonbird.tripod.com/stories.htm.

Though based upon episodes 89-104 of Gatchaman I this

story only loosely follows those events.

Contributing tunes: Time Has Come Today - The Chambers

Brothers; Pusher Man - Curtis Mayfield; Spanish Eyes - Back

Street Boys; Never Can Say Goodbye - Jackson Five; All I

Want - Angel Moon; Plenty - Sarah McLachlan; Mighty Love -

The Spinners; Gymnopedie 1, 2 and 3 - Eric Satie; Could I Be

Your Girl - Jann Arden; Ooh Child - The 5 Stairsteps; Paint It

Black - The Rolling Stones.

Disclaimer: The characters do not belong to me. They

are used without permission. Tatsunuko, Co. Leave me

be, this is flattery.

Comments & Criticism: yes, please.



Thanks to BeckyD, Lori McDonald, Naa Dei-Nikoi, John

Duffin, Sal, Stephanie Wilson, Wildcat & Kim Wylie

for beta-reading and encouragement.





******************

3.



They were crushed. Having stumbled out of Joe's cell and

into the God Phoenix after too little sleep. Now, they

lay stretched out on the flight couches in the rear of

the cabin where the high-pitched whine of the engines

was most soothing.



Jun lay on her back, her nose curved towards the ceiling,

her cape draping her legs. Her hand hung long and white

from her sleep-limp wrist, scant centimeters from his

own. Her fingertips rose-tipped, he imagined, from her

warm blood's flow, were a marvel. In the chill darkness,

she looked no different from the girl he'd fought beside

and for over the last two years. Yet there was something

about the minute brush of her lashes on her cheek, the

dark swirl of her baby hair at the shallow dip of her

temple, and the soft part of her lips drew his hand to her

face.



"Jun," he whispered.



Her eyes darted beneath her closed eyelids.



Joe slid off the couch and made way to the fore-cabin.

Jinpei sat in his usual place, engrossed in a hand-held.

Joe slung himself over Jinpei's chair, getting a good look

at the graphics.



"Onechan awake yet?" Jinpei asked without looking up

from the 4-color screen.



"Nope. Sleepin' like a baby."



"Unh," Jinpei grunted, his eyes on his game. "Whatcha

do last night?"



"Talked."



"About you falling out of formation the other day?" Jinpei

queried.



Joe resisted the urge to thump Jinpei on top of the head.



"Yeah."



Jinpei, nodded, sucked on a tooth and fired at pencil

shaped bogies with what looked like flower bombs. "What

else you do?"



"Race."



"You win?"



"Not really."



Thumbs pressing repeatedly into the control-pad Jinpei

laughed aloud, "The great Asakura wiped out by a girl ---

Again!"



Grinning, Joe scratched his side. "What can I say,

shrimp. If it's not one way, it's another."



Jinpei made a face.



Joe grunted, bopped the kid on the head then ruffled his

hair. "Kid," he said, turning back to his seat, "if you

only knew."



Jinpei's soft voice traveled back to him. "Aniki," said the

lethal child known as the Great Swallow, "if you mess up

Onechan it's going to be real bad between us."



Joe spun. Grabbed the back of Jinpei's seat, he yanked it

around hard and snatching up the video game. "What did

you say?!" he breathed into Jinpei's face.



"Nothing!"



"You wanna reconsider that, midget?"



Jinpei stared up at him, trying not to look either pissed or

insubordinate. Joe released him, and went to speak to

Ken and Ryu.



The rest of the flight passed in a blur: the debriefing at

the new headquarters moreso. Joe overheard Jinpei tell

Jun that he was going off with Ryu to visit Ryu's family,

and vowed inwardly to leave the little shit's sister alone.

She hadn't looked at him once since stepping off the God

Phoenix.



Joe found himself at Jun and Jinpei's anyway,

apologizing but not, addressing naked bare feet and legs

and the ghostly whiteness of a neck glimpsed through a

familiar gauzing of dark hair.



Voice in his throat, jaw locked like only in his worst

nightmares, he was speaking, "In a world that made

sense I would never have met you. Galactor assassins

murdered Giorgio Asakura and his parents. Ten years

after the fact, by some blessing, the chance to avenge

them finally comes. I have to take it." Standing on the

second floor landing of the tiny apartment, starring at the

girl, holding onto the banister for support, waiting for her

to say anything, even 'stay'. When she didn't rip off her

face with a shriek to reveal sheets of blond hair, and

jeering lips, when she stepped forward and cleared the

dark with her face, Joe rushed her.



He moved with perfect haste, his arms wrapping strong

around her middle, his hands settling high on her ribs. His

lips found hers.



Despite their tight embrace, he could not get close

enough. That she did not cry out made him seize her

tighter. Legs tangling, they crossed her bedroom's

threshold. She tripped him, or her leg did, and they went

tumbling onto her bed in a long controlled fall and it was

her turn to move with perfect haste because he was

trembling, his hands useless, he shook so. She made

silent promises, Jun did, and between them peeled him

out of his clothes. He laughed because he was so stupid,

he couldn't stop shaking and he was sorry, and she

laughed because he wouldn't shut up. The shaking was a

good thing, the best thing. Jun was near him. She was

real. This was real. No matter where he put them, no

matter how he held her, his hands shook. But in the wake

of a reverent kiss they found clarity. Her hand was

touching him. He bit his lip, going up in flames for real,

and her lips were at his throat, at his mouth, at his cheek,

and her hair obliterated the darkness and she was his

angel of fire, incandescent, so bright she hurt his eyes,

hurt his brain. He shut his eyes, seeing red through the

closed lids, seeing Jun, afterimage bright, in his mind.

Dark pain bloomed in his left eye. He winced. His eye

hurt. Oh, God it hurt. His left eye caught fire. Fire boiled

the tissue in his socket and he banged his head against

the wall to get away, banged his head against the wall,

his heels digging into the sheet a steady tattoo of

stopthepainstopthehurtstopthepain. His arms clenched

around Jun convulsively. He felt the snap of her ribs,

heard the shrill of her scream. He screamed through the

froth in his mouth, through the blood, through the bile,

through the pain. The shaking was a bad thing, a bad

thing and it hurtsohgodithurts, ohgodithurts. There was a

thin drilling noise, him screaming, and everything went

dark.



Joe came to with his head between Jun's legs, her breasts

within mouth reach. Jinpei was sitting on his legs. Ken

squashed between him and his flight couch to his left.

From the sound of the engines the ship was decelerating

and everyone Joe could see looked concerned.



Joe tried to speak, only to encounter a nasty tasting

towel. His mouth felt like he'd cracked a molar and his

tongue thick and numb, like he'd bitten it. And his face

hurt. Specifically his eye hurt. A whole fucking lot.



He looked to Jun, whose face was oddly skewed. She

kept her face very still. Her eyes were obscured by the

yellow visor of her helmet but when he thought they met

his, she smiled. Joe didn't smile back. Her fingers

stopped stroking through his hair and Joe wondered how

long had she been doing that.



"You had a seizure," Jun said, as her thumbs, soothing

against his clammy skin, rubbed at the bunched muscles

of his jaw. "Ease up on the bite-stick."



Joe did so, with difficulty. Ken pulled it free and it trailed a

long line of red-threaded saliva.



"Can I have my hand back?" Joe croaked.



Dropping it, Ken sat back on his heels. Joe reached up to

the source of the pain and encountered a bandage.



"You tried to gouge your eye out," Ken supplied, his blue

eyes bleak.



"Can you move your legs?" Jun asked, her lips barely

moving, and Joe wondered how much she really knew.



He tried to pull his legs towards him. For one horrible

moment, they didn't respond before he realized that

Jinpei's weight had numbed his legs. Joe shifted his leg,

jostling the younger boy.



"Aniki," said the boy.



Joe would not look at Jinpei.



"Aniki," pleaded the kid. Joe ran his hands over his arms

and chest, checking for further injury. "Joe?"



Jun leaned forward, and for what seemed like the first

time Joe got a completely unobstructed view of the

tender skin between her neck and her chin. Joe felt her

hands tighten on his skull. Heard the kid swallow so hard

he sympathetically felt the lump.



Jun's hand slid down Joe's neck, kneading his flesh. The

muscles and tendons were so tight the considerable

strength she used made no difference.



"Jun," Ken said.



Her hands stopped what they were doing.



"Keep Jinpei and Ryu out of trouble."



She went.



Kneeling on one flexed leg, Ken fixed Joe with a glare.



"You wanna tell me why you fell out of formation

yesterday?"



"Lookin' up Jun's skirt?"



Ken's knuckles whitened on his knee, muscles tensing in

his back and shoulders. His eyes shimmered with fury.



"I. Don't. Know." Joe bit out. Sat up without making any

noise.



"You're going in for a full diagnostic," Ken said through

his teeth. "Right after the debriefing."



"I've already had a full diagnostic."



"Oh, yeah?"



"Two!"



"When?"



"Recently," Joe gave his neck an experimental crack. He

flexed his legs, got to his feet. His balance was fine, more

than fine.



Sitting on the ground, Ken mildly inquired, "Why wasn't I

informed?"



"Results are pending." Which wasn't a total lie.



The God Phoenix passed through a pocket of turbulence; Joe

barely swayed on his feet. He smirked at Ken. Something odd

gleamed in Ken's eyes. Joe realized there hadn't been any

turbulence.



"You're going back to the clinic."



"Not after the debriefing."



"Right after the debriefing."



"My time is my own."



Ken stood, hand curled into a fist. "I'll put you down

myself, Joe."



Joe grunted at the unfortunate choice of words.



"Fuck it," he said. "Fine," and settled himself on his couch.



"Good," Ken said, and looked at his relaxing fist as if

surprised. For a moment Ken looked a little sheepish. He

stowed the bite stick in a biohazard compartment.



"Fuck you," Joe said.



"Joe," Ken whispered, but everyone in the cabin could hear

him, "You haven't been a hundred percent in a while."



"After seventeen months combat, none of us are."



"That's enough!" Ken's pretty face was hard, his hand

fisted at his heart level. "You are out of line, G2!"



"We're cleared to land, Commander," said Ryu.



Ken took a deep breath, "If you don't watch . . .. I'll walk

you over myself."



Not if I'm mobile, Joe thought, securing himself for

landing.







******************

******************



end 3/10







"I hate women who say pretty=stupid.

They're really misogynistic men in drag."

~~~BeckyD



ebonbird's fan fic cache http://ebonbird.tripod.com

the storm archive http://ebonbird.tripod.com/stormarchive.html















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