A/N: For the Halsey Drabble/Snippet Challenge on Tumblr, this is day 2 of hopefully 4 of fics that are inspired by Halsey songs.
A/N2: Always thanks to Ro for beta-reading and supporting me.
A/N3: And a super thanks to ChronicWhimsy, Kangofu-CB, Amberlyinviolet and Maevemauvaise for being who you are.
A/N4: Inspired by 'Control' from the Badlands album. Lyrics at the end of the fic.
Warnings: angst
Monster
It wasn't a meeting between equals.
It was hardly a meeting at all.
Une had flat-out rejected sending Heero to meet him. The two were, even years after the wars and after the changes 'peace' had wrought, too different and still enemies.
Duo was rejected as well. Sally pointed out that there was no telling whether or not Duo would antagonize the man or empathize with him - and no wanted wanted two former Gundam pilots turned serial killers on the loose.
Wufei took himself out of consideration. He was too close to the victims. He knew too much and, frankly, he wasn't willing to go down whatever dark spiral was necessary to unravel the seeming madness.
Quatre was the obvious choice - out of all of them, he had the least personal attachment to him, and the greatest likelihood of finding out just what had happened and why.
But Quatre Winner had to run one of the largest and most profitable companies in the Earthsphere. He couldn't take nine months to go to Mars.
And so Trowa was the one that Une sent to Mars to find out just what the hell had happened that had led to Zechs Merquise murdering twenty-one colonists and three Preventers agents.
He had had to grab a ride on a supply shuttle that doubled as a passenger freighter. Nine months of dodging children and bright-eyed immigrants who dreamed of life on Mars had not left Trowa in a particularly open state of mind. That his primary reading material outside of the shuttle's bizarre collection of pre-colonial romance novels was the fully, unredacted file on Zechs Merquise certainly didn't help matters.
By the time he finally got to Mars, Trowa knew far too much about corsets, their removal, and the almost equally tawdry affairs of Zechs Merquise.
He was being held in what Noin had turned into the brig, the proto-greenhouse in the earlier Hab module that had been left empty and used for storage once the newer Hab modules were installed.
He was manacled, wrists secured with zip ties that had been clipped short and melted down to further minimize the chance of escape. It was the only restraint, and very nearly the only clothing he wore.
Trowa wasn't sure if the decision to keep Zechs in only briefs had been made for expediency's sake or because he had done something to merit the removal of his outer layers.
Either way, the image of Zechs Merquise, nearly naked and dusted with a fine layer of reddish-brown from the dirt-packed floor under his feet, wasn't something Trowa had pictured. At least, not within the context of reading his files.
If anything, Trowa could quite easily picture Zechs supplanting the cover art for the romance novel set on an Australian ranch featuring a reformed criminal and an English aristocrat.
Ironic.
Considering that Zechs was the aristocrat and Trowa the reformed criminal.
Noin wouldn't give him a chair. Nor would she allow him a datapad or notebook. The cameras would record everything, she assured him, for him to review later.
Her eyes had been haunted as she looked through the viewport at the man trapped beyond.
Trowa walked into the greenhouse and waited for the door to hiss close behind him before he moved towards the center of the room, to where Zechs lounged on the dirt, propped up on one elbow and as casual and carefree as if he were on a beach in the Mediterranean.
"I thought they might send Maxwell."
Trowa arched an eyebrow.
"You hoped they would."
Zechs looked amused, his full lips curving upwards, and he shrugged carelessly.
"Instead, they sent you. How tiresome."
Not as tiresome as nine months on a shuttle, sleeping in a bunk just one yard away from a complete stranger who, thankfully, remained a complete stranger even after sharing close quarters for so long.
"You murdered twenty-four people."
Zechs lifted both eyebrows in polite surprise.
"Did I? Not twenty-five?"
Trowa had become very intimate with the files, with the photographs of Zechs's victims. All twenty-four of them.
Noin had not alerted him to any discrepancies.
Zechs chuckled, and Trowa clenched his jaw against the brittle sound.
"You might be able to keep me entertained after all."
The door whooshed open and Noin, flanked by two colonial protection force agents, stood on the other side.
"Agent Barton, clear the room immediately."
The twenty-fifth corpse had been found.
Lyrics for "Control"
They send me away to find them a fortune
A chest filled with diamonds and gold
The house was awake, the shadows and monsters
The hallways, they echoed and groaned
I sat alone, in bed till the morning
I'm crying, "They're coming for me"
And I tried to hold these secrets inside me
My mind's like a deadly disease
I'm bigger than my body
I'm colder than this home
I'm meaner than my demons
I'm bigger than these bones
And all the kids cried out, "Please stop, you're scaring me"
I can't help this awful energy
God damn right, you should be scared of me
Who is in control?
I paced around for hours on empty
I jumped at the slightest of sounds
And I couldn't stand the person inside me
I turned all the mirrors around
I'm bigger than my body
I'm colder than this home
I'm meaner than my demons
I'm bigger than these bones
And all the kids cried out, "Please stop, you're scaring me"
I can't help this awful energy
God damn right, you should be scared of me
Who is in control?
I'm well acquainted with villains that live in my head
They beg me to write them so they'll never die when I'm dead
And I've grown familiar with villains that live in my head
They beg me to write them so I'll never die when I'm dead
I'm bigger than my body
I'm colder than this home
I'm meaner than my demons
I'm bigger than these bones
And all the kids cried out, "Please stop, you're scaring me"
I can't help this awful energy
God damn right, you should be scared of me
Who is in control?
And all the kids cried out, "Please stop, you're scaring me"
I can't help this awful energy
God damn right, you should be scared of me
Who is in control?