Quatre's Alcoholic Adventures in Time
Quatre woke up, knowing that tequila had been a mistake. Perhaps the vodka too. Definitely the whole night had gone done hill after he started taking shots. But the tequila was the one that left an unpleasant after taste in the mouth. It always did. Quatre never learned.
"And who are you?" A woman said imperiously.
He looked up, blinking at the woman. "Quatre Winner," he murmured, without a second thought. Then winced. Well, he thought as the woman appeared to gather more anger, this was going to appear in the tabloids.
"Mr Winner, what are you doing in my bedroom?"
His eyes went instantly shut. "Shit." This was going from awful to terrible in mere seconds. This was not going to be a good day.
"Bad manners, the young these days... I blame technology. Ever since the steam engine was made more accessible, bad ideas have been flowing around England far to easily." The woman, clad in all black, sniffed her displeasure.
"Right. Steam engines?" Quatre reconsidered his definition of a bad day. "What year is it?" Please, he internally begged, let in be AC199 and this woman just be crazy. Please!
"It is 1880 young man," she shook her head. "Now how did you enter my bedroom? The guards will be most displeased, they will consider this affront on their honour."
"1880! Oh shit, shit, shit!"
The woman paid in no mind. "No manners at all! Young people these days can't even answer a simple question."
"Wait, who are you? Maybe you can help me?" Quatre asked.
"I? I am the Queen of England, Victoria!" She thundered.
Quatre decided that consciousness was really wasn't as worth while as most thought.
The queen poked him with her cane. "Young people..." She muttered, pursing her lips and shaking her head. "Oh, at least he is handsome enough." She laughed suddenly.
Due to the poking Quatre came too, rubbing his ribs. "Ow..." Unknown to Quatre, the queen feigned ignorance very successfully. Then he remembered. "Wait! This isn't my time..." He frowned.
Victoria narrowed her eyes at him. "Your time?" She said softly, carefully. Her grip tightened on her cane.
It was time, Quatre thought, to leave. "Um... right, must be off." He made a hasty bow, backing out backwards.
"Guards! Guards!" Yelled the queen.
It wasn't going to turn out a good day, Quatre glumly realised as he was roughly led away by two guards. Several other guards glared at him. In every other corner there seemed to one.
Not a good day at all.
"Hmm... most peculiar, most queer and most fantastic!" The man with the tinted glasses let out a strange, muffled laugh and smiled at Quatre in the most disquieting manner.
As Quatre had just arrived, he wasn't sure what the man could be commenting on.
"Mr Barton, it seems we have a visitor," the man nodded, "Good chap, good chap. That Barton. I'm Doctor Smythe, yes yes, with a 'y' and an 'e'."
It took much of Quatre's will power not to leap out and cry with relief when Trowa entered the room. To his surprise, Trowa's eyes merely slid over him before meet Smythe's. "Yes, Doctor?"
"Seems this young fellow was caught in the queen's," the Doctor shuffled and leaned closer, "In the queen's bedroom!" He whispered, "But no one saw him enter by the door, and the windows have no signs of entry."
"So it was referred to Torchwood then?" Barton smiled. "So new and yet already busy."
"Yes, yes. The queen appears to believe that Mr Winner's entry is, eh, supernatural, paranormal. It is our duty to investigate it." The man coughed. "Or you rather," Smythe patted Trowa on the shoulder. "You methods of persuasion, Barton," there was a glint of something nasty in Smythe's eyes. "Do your best!" He murmured as he left the room.
"Is that you Trowa?" Quatre asked, desperate to know.
"I am Mr Barton. You are Mr Winner." He intoned, his fingers tapping at the top of his shirt.
"Of course. My mistake." Quatre murmured, nodding. The silence stretched into minutes.
Trowa sighed. "I never thought I would see you here," he smiled and stepped forward to embrace Quatre. "I thought I would be lost in this time forever. Sorry for acting like I did earlier. Doctor Smythe has the tendency to listen at doorways."
Quatre returned the hug, not minding that they stayed like probably longer than necessary. "But, Trowa, I just saw you last night!"
"Maybe," Trowa shrugged. "I've been here for several months. I didn't have much choice. While I didn't enter by the queen's bedroom, I did enter a way that was noticeable. Doctor Smythe at once recruited me for Torchwood." At Quatre's questioning look, Trowa elaborated, "It's a new intuition created by the queen to collect and research anything... paranormal."
"I don't remember that from my history lessons!" Quatre exclaimed in doubt.
"No. It's a secret group. Everyone who is part of it would deny it's existence."
"What is Torchwood, anyway?"
"Basically a secret organisation started by the Queen after she encountered an alien werewolf and realised Britain was in need of a organisation to protect it from the evils of space. Mostly we just study anything that falls from the sky. It's pretty boring." Trowa said.
"I see," Quatre said. "Alien werewolf? They... exist?"
"Well, not anymore, I think," Trowa said. "I'm pretty new, and since I didn't exist until a couple of months ago, they don't really trust me."
"So... we're stuck here. In the past."
"Pretty much," Trowa agreed.
"And I'm a test subject now?" Quatre shook his head. "Great."
"I think I can manage to get you out of that." Trowa said. "As long as you don't mind pretending to be hangover and apologetic."
As he was sporting a massive headache, Quatre grumbled, "That shouldn't be too hard. My head is killing me."
It had been three months since Quatre had arrived in Victorian England. Due to his particular circumstances of arrival and then his subsequent, if short, imprisonment by Torchwood, he had been required to work for the organisation. It wasn't too difficult, as Torchwood was still in the early days.
In the mean time, Quatre was perfecting his paper aeroplanes. Except planes didn't exist. Thus, at the sudden realisation of this thought, he had decided to get very drunk, very quick.
He started with tequila. It didn't take long before Trowa joined him.
And then joined him in some other pursuits.
Well, they were bachelors, after all.
"Ow, ow, ow, ow..." Quatre groaned, rubbing at his head as he resisted the urge to throw up. It was difficult. "I am so stupid!"
"You are!" Said someone laughingly.
"Shut up Duo! Ow, too loud!" Quatre rolled over, into someone warm. He snuggled up to Trowa. Then shot up, quickly. The nausea wasn't easily ignored, but Quatre managed, as he stared at Duo with a flabbergasted expression. "Duo?!"
"Yeah?" Duo murmured, looking disgustingly fresh as a daisy.
"We're back! We're back! After all this time!" Quatre said, smiling.
"From where? You've been snuggling with Trowa all night, when you weren't gabbing about how the walls were dancing, or the pink elephant was coming to get you. Or save you. You're a weird drunk Quatre."
"But, we've been gone for months!" Quatre exclaimed.
Duo raised an eyebrow. In some distant corner of his mind, Quatre was jealous. He could only ever raise both. "No you haven't." He walked out, muttering about having a shower.
"This is weird," Trowa murmured.
"Yeah," Quatre flopped back into bed. Finally, his headache was disappearing."I guess we can never get drunk again."
"Why?" Quatre asked, frowning.
"It seems that when we do, we go back in time."
"Well, that sucks..."
"I wonder if we can learn to control it..." Trowa murmured thoughtfully.
Quatre grinned. "Maybe."