Many thanks to dannyboymw, without whom, this fic would never have materialized in time for Gundam 00 Week's Day 5 – April 7 / Setsuna's Birthday
All birth dates (minus Tieria's) are canonical
Per Annum
adv, in or for each year
April 7, 2017
"Okay!" Chris announced brightly to everyone seated in the mess hall. "So what we were thinking is that we should find out when everyone's birthdays are so that we can plan a celebration for everyone!"
"Oh yeah!" Lichty said, pumping his fist in the air beside her. "That would be awesome! It's been so long since I had a birthday party."
Lasse grinned from over in his seat as well. "That sounds like a great idea. It would be really fun to have more to celebrate."
Chris beamed at them all, but before she could begin to ask when anyone's birthday was, Tieria had pushed up from his chair with a furious expression on his face. "You can't do that!" he protested.
"Do what?" Chris asked in surprise. "Have parties?"
Tieria sputtered. "Yes. No," he corrected before shaking his head in irritation. "You can't leak classified information like that!"
Chris blinked at him. "Classified information?" she asked, puzzled.
"The date of birth for every member of Celestial Being is classified," Tieria said. "You know this. It's personal information— S-Level security— and you want to compromise our mission so that you can have… parties?" he asked, enraged.
Lockon held out a hand. "Hold on there, Tieria. Holding birthday parties isn't going to compromise the mission—"
"No?" Tieria asked as he whirled around to face him. "Aeolia Schindberg clearly specified what information needs to remain secret in order for us to carry out his work and this is part of it."
"Tieria, it's just a birthday," Lasse tried to tell him. "It's not that big of a deal."
Tieria opened his mouth to reply scathingly when Lockon cut in, "Okay, so how about this… we won't get the year. So we won't be able to tell how old anyone is, but we'll just get the day and the month. Those are the same every year, so it can't possibly be any kind of security threat."
Tieria looked scandalized. "You can't do that. That doesn't… that's still… that's not—"
"Mine's March 29!" Chris said.
Tieria looked ready to explode.
"And mine's June 12!" Lichty supplied quickly.
"Hey, that's only a few weeks ago!" Chris said, her face falling. "You should have told us, we would have done something for you!"
"I thought about it," he admitted with a half-hearted shrug, "but…" he trailed off and glanced up at Tieria, whose expression promised murder.
"That's okay," Chris waved him off as she made a note in her terminal. "We can still throw a belated birthday party for you, and we'll be sure to do it on time next year, now that we know!"
Tieria looked back and forth between them, as if trying to decide which one of them to go after first.
"When's your birthday, Allelujah?" Lockon asked, turning to the meister seated at the end of the table.
Allelujah looked up quickly, as if startled at being addressed. "My birthday?" He asked, eyes darting between everyone seated around him, and then up at Tieria. "I, um…" And then the fell silent, looking down at his fingers entwined in his lap.
Tieria stared at him in near-shock, clearly having expected the miserable excuse of a meister to divulge his birthday at the first opportunity. He seemed to struggle with himself for a moment before clearing his throat and addressing Allelujah with a tight, strained voice. "Thank you," he said, as if it cost him dearly to admit it, "for understanding how vital it is that we don't—"
"Hey, my birthday is October 16," Lasse told Chris, from across the table.
Tieria whipped around, looking ready to throttle the man, but the sound of the door hissing open a moment later prevented him from making a move.
Setsuna was standing outside.
His eyes were wide open in surprise as he took in the large number of people still seated in the mess hall this late into the afternoon, and the volume with which they were discussing. For a moment, he stood perfectly still, and then he looked ready to bolt.
Before he could so much as take a step, however, Lockon called out to him, "Hey, Setsuna!" Setsuna froze in place, one leg partway off the ground, and turned very slowly. "You're just the man we wanted to see!"
Setsuna stared at him in dismay, clearly regretting ever having come to the mess hall in the first place. Lockon had stood up, though, and looked ready to come out and take him by the arm and bodily lead him to the table to join in the conversation if necessary.
Staring directly into Lockon's eyes, Setsuna realized that there was no escape. With that knowledge, he steeled himself and slowly walked into the room. Despite entering, he seemed determined to ignore everyone and everything in the mess. He bypassed the table completely, not making eye contact with anyone as he walked past and made his way to the cabinet with the day's rations.
He pulled out a white tray of B Rations and set it on the counter as Lockon started explaining that they were finding out everyone's birthdays.
"You are not!" Tieria cried. "You can't do this. This is highly classified information. I'm going to—" he paused for a moment, as if he couldn't believe what he was about to say. "Sumeragi Lee Noriega," he began, in a strangled voice, "will surely—"
Lockon started laughing.
"Oh, her birthday is August 24!" Chris happily supplied.
"She was practically the first person on this list, Tieria," Lockon explained, still laughing. "She really does not care about this so-called breach of security."
Taking advantage of Tieria's shocked silence, Lockon called across the room to ask, "So when's your birthday, Setsuna?"
Setsuna acted as if he hadn't heard. He did not turn around or make any kind of response, except to viciously tear off the cover of his ration tray.
Accepting this as answer enough for the moment, Lockon turned to Feldt instead. "Hey, Feldt, when is yours?"
Her voice is quiet but serious as she said, "December 28."
Chris squealed beside her. "Ah, that's so close to Christmas!" she exclaimed. "That's amazing. We're going to have to do so much shopping!"
Feldt looked like she only regretted the revelation a little bit.
"What a good birthday to have," Lockon said, smiling, and she smiled back. "Mine's March 3."
Tieria was all but swiveling between them at this point, as if he were trying to decide who to throttle first, and how he could possible hope to preserve their stringent security measures when they were crumbling down in ashes around him.
"So, Setsuna," Lockon began in a falsely casual tone, "you and Tieria are the only ones left."
Setsuna turned around long enough to glare daggers at him, but otherwise made no answer.
Lockon laughed. "Well if you don't tell us your birthday…" he trailed off. "We'll just have to come up with one for you!"
Allelujah looked startled. "You can do that?" he asked Chris.
"Of course!" she answered. "We have to celebrate everyone's birthday."
"So if you forgot yours," Lockon drawled as he stared at Setsuna's back, "we can pick a new one for you."
Allelujah shifted in his chair and timidly cut in, "If… in that case, I'd like mine to be February 27."
Chris beamed at him. "Sounds perfect, I'll write that down!"
Allelujah's cheeks flushed as she input the date into her terminal.
Tieria turned at this betrayal, seething. "You deserve a thousand deaths, Allelujah Haptism," he hissed, blazing eyes threatening murder.
"So when's yours, Tieria?" Lockon asked genially, as if Tieria hadn't been about to lunge across the room to murder one of his fellow meisters.
At the question, Tieria spun around and sputtered a bit. "Like you think I'll tell you that—"
"If you don't, we will just pick a day," he threatens with a grin and a sidelong look at Setsuna. "And the harder you try to put up a fight, the harder we'll celebrate when it comes time. There will be cake," he promised.
"And party hats!" Chris said.
"And party hats," Lockon agreed. "Yes, of course, party hats—that's a given. And presents."
"Yes!" Chris continued, "and singing!"
"And surprise parties waiting around every corner," Lasse added with a laugh.
"Don't test us, Tieria. We will do it and if you don't give us a date, we'll pick one for you and it may or may not be next weekend, so…" Lockon trailed off and realized that Setsuna was paying attention to him now.
They both knew that his threat was very real and that there would be no escape from a birthday party of some kind. Setsuna's frown deepened, but he turned to face Lockon more fully. And, as Tieria began ranting about their blatant breach of security once more, he quietly said, "April 7."
Then he picked up his food tray and set of utensils from the counter and walked out the door.
Tieria stopped midstride to stare after Setsuna as he disappeared into the hallway, and looked about ready to run after him to deliver a swift and painful death to the youngest meister when Lockon said, "Alright, you're the last one, Tieria. When's your birthday?"
"You can't make me—I'm not going—" Tieria fumed. "You think that I will ever tell you—"
"July 19 it is," Lockon said, and Chris dutifully wrote down the date on her list.
"Yeah, that feels right for Tieria," she said.
"I thought it was fitting," Lockon said, nodding across the table.
Tieria stared at them in horror, backing up a bit until he staggered backward into the counter. "What?" he asked them, his voice raw in shock. "What? I will—"
"You will what?" Lockon asked in amusement.
"I will—I will report this," he said, a little too desperately and a little too late.
"I already said that Miss Sumeragi doesn't care, but okay, go report us," Lockon said. "Go file a report with Veda. They're not going to switch out the entire strike team a year before we're going to start interventions, especially not over something like this."
"And if you do try to delete our records," Chris warned with a bright smile, "I will warn you that we all have pretty good memories."
"There's no way we're forgetting this," Lockon agreed. "But if we did forget," he added with a grin, "well then, we'd just have to play it safe and, oh, I don't know, celebrate every few weeks just to make sure we didn't miss anyone."
"So much cake," Chris lamented in mock sadness. "All that singing…"
Tieria's eyes somehow grew even wider as he stood in place, trying to come up with words adequate to the situation. He didn't seem to find any, but raged silently in place for a long minute. Finally his fists balled up at his sides and stomped over to the door and stormed out of the mess hall.
Everyone watched him go with various degrees of amusement and relief. After the door hissed closed behind him, everyone dissolved into laughter.
"Aha," Lichty wiped a tear from his eye. "That was amazing," he laughed, nearly doubling up in his chair.
"Did you see his face?" Lasse chuckled.
"Ah, okay, okay," Chris said, trying to calm herself down.
"So what do we have?" Lockon finally asked.
"Well, we still need to get Ian and Doctor Moreno's birthdays," Lasse pointed out. "But beyond that, we've pretty much gotten everyone in one go. Congrats, you guys."
"Yeah!" Lichty crowed in triumph.
Chris eyed over her list. "This is going to be so much fun. I can't wait to start planning," she turned to Feldt. "We can get part hats and candles and… and…"
Lockon leaned across the table to try to get a closer look at her screen. "Okay, so whose birthday is coming up next?"
They all huddled closer to read the list of names and their corresponding dates.
Lockon threw back his head and barked out a laugh as he realized who would get the first birthday party.
"It's Tieria," Feldt said as she did the calculations.
"This is going to be so great," Lockon laughed, and everyone around the table agreed wholeheartedly.