To Vampiric Cynicist -- I hope you had a wonderful birthday! Your reviews have been something I enjoy reading and often look forward too, and that one was very sweet. I'm glad it worked out that way for you.
Also, if you ended up liking this story, again, I feel compelled to beg you to read some of the others. They get no love, and I pitifully plead for feedback. For those 3x4 fans who seem outraged with this one, there is even one of those, though it's a bit dark. If you're a Quatre fan, well, they are all centered around him.
Thank you, as always, to the loyal ones who continue to follow this story through. I know the wait's been long, but the end of this is just around the corner, I promise.))
Wufei had almost thought it was just another empty room, in spite of his instinct that the clean and unmarked doors in this residential hallway had to mean something, until he caught sight of that stretched out banquet table with it's piles of empty dishes and cups, and then noticed the scent in the air.
Over the odor of cooked meat and wine, freshly baked breads and the burning logs that he could see flickering behind a chair out of the corner of one eye, he swore he smelt… Passion. There was no other word for it. It wasn't the bitter musky tang that he often associated with the darker streets of a city, nor that wild aroma that sometimes came from the room next door late at night, when he knew he'd soon be listening to Duo's 'muffled' cries and Heero's lower ones… It wasn't like that. It was dark and sweet, and left a feeling of energy in the air. It was unsatisfied and yet somehow 'begun' and it left someone with that helpless charge to their nerves.
It wasn't awful, but almost pleasant. Like faint and enticing innocence.
So why did he hate it immediately?
His answer came when over the crackling of the fire, he heard soft breathing. Wufei didn't have his weapon raised to attack as he moved around the regal chair; he didn't need to, he knew who's breathing it was. He'd listened to it from time to time when it's owner would doze off watching TV, or reading in the chair, or even the few times he'd cracked open a door in the middle of the night just for such a purpose, and had committed it along with many other things to memory.
Quatre.
The boy, his boy, was laid out before the flames like an offering, and Wufei felt impotent rage, admiration and jealous flip through him fast as shuffled cards when he caught sight of him. The pale limbs he'd only watched move under the hems of shirts and pants were now bare for all. The curve of the neck that he'd seen vanish into that stiff collar no longer need to be imagined, and yet he wished it did. Quatre was more beautiful than he'd hoped, but he'd always known until now that he'd discover that for himself the first time he claimed the blonde and was later perched above this sated form, watching him sleep off the after affects of their coupling and feeling a glow of satisfaction like now other himself.
Not like this.
This wasn't how he was supposed to know that Quatre's navel would be a perfect little well, or how his hair would look adorably tousled after fooling around, just like a guilty school girl's. This wasn't right.
Worse. It wasn't fair.
His angry eyes leapt off that gorgeous form, darting around the room like two accusing laser beams. There was nothing for his anger to target though; no guilty man hiding behind curtains or laying in bed smoking, a wide cat grin on his filthy face. No one to take responsibility for his unconscious love.
Nor was there the time to hunt for them, he realized. It was a crime that would go unpunished this evening, but one that he would not be forgotten. And may whatever gods there were have pity on the poor fool that did this once Wufei discovered who they were.
The brunette knelt down and carefully, so carefully, lifted the blonde. He braced Quatre against his chest with the boy's limbs hanging over his shoulder, and then noticed the clothing that had been set aside.
How kind of him to be so considerate, came the helpless and biting remark in his head as he scooped them up and held them pressed to the small of Quatre's back with one hand. It would have to do. He needed the other free to wield the sword that had always been his closest ally.
Quatre didn't stir other than a low sleep-ridden moan, and Wufei was glad for it. If the blonde were to wake now, they wouldn't get out of here without being caught. There would be too many questions and he wasn't in the mood to patiently explain them, nor to let his own stream of inquiries bubble free.
Who did this?
Did they drug you?
Did you like it, or did you fight them, like you fight everything?
Did you ever know that I wanted you?
That I wanted this?
Did I?
Too many questions.
So he was grateful that the body on his shoulder didn't move as he turned and with one last hateful glance around the room, headed to the door and vanished out into the silent corridors.
XxXxX
"His lover?"
Trieze shook his head softly, still watching the room even though their main show had come, picked up, and then gone again.
"How do you know?"
He sighed and looked to the side where Zechs stood near the glass, his arms so tightly around his form and still shaking, like those arms kept his body from breaking apart.
"Because of the way he looked at him."
"What do you mean?" Zechs frowned, "He just looked angry to me. Like he wanted to kill him, or us."
"Us, would be my guess… But that's not what I mean. I meant the way he looked at him, not the emotion, the very -way-. He looked at his body like he'd seen it so many times before, and yet hadn't. Like someone who'd dreamed of a land, every single night. A land that was perfect and wonderful, and heaven… And then the way they look the first time they step out of a plane or a door, and they truly see it. The comparisons that must be made, and the realization that not even a dream measures up to reality. That was how that boy was looking at him. That was how I spent years looking at you before you accepted me. Wistful, then amazed in spite of myself."
"So, no, I don't think they are lovers, or even boyfriends." He gave Zechs a soft smile and slipped over to take the blonde's shoulder, turn him, and place a kiss to the flowing hair that covered his pale forehead. "They might become, though, if that exotic one chooses to move."
He watched his beautiful soldier's brow wrinkle and watched the jealously flare within his eyes, and Trieze related. The young needed their time to play, and everyone needed to learn before belonging solely to one person, but Zechs had a hard time accepting this. He would have kept his 'Angel', and kept him well, but this had to happen. All Trieze could do now was comfort his beautiful lover for the one that had gotten away from his gentle grasp.
XxXxX
Through luck, or through divine intervention, Wufei and his new burden that he'd never address as such, were not accosted on their way out. There were several close calls, including one where he actually lashed out but merely hit the wandering soldier on the back of the head and let his unconscious body drop, but no actual face to face confrontations. Considering how it had been on the way to the room, that amazed him.
He reached his exit point in record time, gently laying Quatre down beside himself and glancing through the empty hole that had held a grill vent, and then studiously examining the moonlit outside world that lay beyond. The grass was blue in the cool light, glittering with dew drops much like the lumbering shadows of the waiting trees. No guards on this end of the compound, not even after they'd done their raid so few night ago. It was almost suspicious in itself… Like he could expect there to be a firing squad on the roof and a general just waiting with a grin to announce they'd known of his location and progress the entire time.
But it looked safe… And he couldn't remain here.
Wufei took one last look down the halls, relieved but hating their emptiness, then blinked when he saw something move after all. Not a person though. Just a camera, perched high in the corner, turning towards them. It didn't continue on it's automated path and that made Wufei's eyes narrow. He was catlike as he glared from the patch of spilled moonlight, cold and promising of death and revenge, perhaps justice as he'd call it. The shadows struck his face and yet his eyes were two distinctive black pools to the figure that sat before the monitor that was the camera's brain. Then the oriental man crawled through the hole with his sword, and a moment later, strong arms reentered to gently enfold the body of the blonde, and tug him so tenderly through.
XxXxX
The boy sat in the office chair, his legs hanging a foot from the ground and swinging lightly, childishly some might have said, as he watched the male and his captured prize running low to the ground over the South end of the compound. That area led right to the trees, the fence unevenly lined up to weave in and out of their trunks.
Before him, on the dozen security screens, was the interesting sight of nearly every one of their pixilated surfaces being empty. Less like live feeds and more like freeze frame photography. Except for one, the Northern corridor near the soldiers' cafeteria. That hall was bustling with activity as more and more of the patrolling soldiers came whipping around the corners and met with the general mob of confusion that lay there, guns drawn and eyes questioning one another.
Their faces as they turned around and looked in all directions, then at one another talking hurriedly, was something else that brought a smile to his face. It was short lived and vanished into mature exasperation as he watched as one of them picked up a walkie talkie, and lifted up his own sitting on the desk beside him just as an annoyed voice crackled through.
"This is Sergeant Johan. Mika? You still there?"
The boy rolled his eyes, his young voice decidedly pert as he answered. "My shift ends in an hour, Robert, where would I be? At the mall?"
There was a pause, then a gruff tone barely avoiding anger. "Are you sure you saw something near the cafeteria?"
"I have the screens right in front of me, don't I?" The child lifted his gaze to the monitors again, and watched as the brunette laid the blonde on one of the low hanging branches, then boosted himself up. "I saw someone walking by the Northern camera, indoor, hallway six, and haven't seen anyone on any of the other monitors. He must still be there."
"We're not seeing anyone. Are you absolutely-"
"Then you're not looking hard enough," He answered, coldly, a child's voice dripping with ice. "Maybe if you'd stop standing around chatting and would divide and search as you should have been trained, you'd actually find the threat instead of keeping us all at risk, hm? I'm sure the General would appreciate some rapid action on your end, for once."
The boy released the button on his end, then snapped the walkie-talkie off, setting it back on the desk.
Before him, shrunken almost delicate on the screen, he could see said general in his little box of a room. Truthfully, with the way Mister Trieze's lips were currently moving over their top soldier's upper chest and the way Zechs head was tipped back and caught in a soundless exhale, Mika thought he might have been exaggerating his reaction to Robert's actions just a little. Not that I've-got-a-stick-rammed-up-my-anus Johan needed to know that.
That was a typical sight though, those two playing in 'secret', for the blonde child that had set up this security grid, and shortly his eyes moved back to watch as the young Chinese man gently gathered up his companion to his chest. He aimed one last hateful scowl up to the building, then turned and jumped down into the trees, vanishing from the cameras ever watchful gaze.
An eye for an eye, blondie. Mika thought out to the unconscious form with it's friendly and parental nature. He could still feel the gentle brush across his forehead and hear the soothing words before he was 'shooed' out of his own office by the blonde while his companions ransacked the room. He'd been out numbered though, and some had looked trigger happy, so playing along was necessity. We're even. Next time, they'll be on you from the moment you enter my base.
XxXxX
For Wufei, the trek back to his motorcycle took entirely too long. He remembered the journey leaving this base, and yet had still managed to stumble into the very edge of the thorn bushes. He was now bleeding along the curves of his cheeks, and poor Quatre was still letting out sleep pained whimpers where the cuts stung along his dangling bare legs. He stirred once, when one had dragged down the side of a thigh, but other than a murmur of inarticulate words, there was no reaction. Wufei managed to keep most away from his back, and his backside, which had been resting embarrassingly and yet welcomed along his arm. He didn't see that the arms had also become victim to those natural claws until he was setting Quatre's body over the seat of his motorcycle. The pale appendages were criss-crossed in wounds, much like his own. They both looked like they'd gotten in a fight with a big kitty, and had lost… Only Quatre'd also suffered the creature's impish end, and thus his clothes were missing.
The reason he wasn't immediately on the bike was because of those clothes. In a hurry or not, Wufei felt the idea of Quatre propped in front of him naked on the road would be a bad one. It would attracted the wrong kind of attention, and should the boy himself wake up, it would create more panic where he doubted it'd be needed. Not to mention the possibility of the rushing air chafing some of Quatre's more delicate parts.
More and more though, as he sorted out Quatre's pants from the tangled mess, he thought it was possessiveness that made him want to cover the blonde. After today, whatever had happened, he didn't want anyone but himself to see that body.
Though the temptation was there to touch the boy who dozed on as if drugged (which was beginning to worry Wufei), he managed to restrain himself. His heritage screamed against such things, and he wouldn't disgrace the boy any more than possible. That the thoughts came to him at all disgusted him, and yet he understood it was human nature and could not be helped. He would not touch Quatre like this. He did however note, absently, the feel of the baby soft skin as he slide the clothing mechanically on, and referenced it for later comparison.
He'd have the time for such things after he'd interrogated his teammate, scolded and drilled his errors into his mind, and then stated his interests and intents. After he'd bandaged the boy in whatever hotel room they found themselves in, and after he'd comforted Quatre through whatever emotions he was bond to be flooded with.
Another night would not go by where he would sit back and bite his tongue.
Then Quatre was decent, if not still more rumpled than Wufei'd ever seen him, and he was swinging himself over the back of the bike to arrange the complacent Arabian before him. It would be an awkward ride, but he thought that with the weight of Quatre's head resting against his chest, he would have never driven more carefully.