A/N: For Crown of Winterthorne, as a bribe for more of her AMAZING Westworld 2x3 fic.
A/N2: Title from the song by Stars
A/N3: Always, always thankful to Ro for beta reading and friendship. You are amazing.
A/N4: Okay, here's the deal. Writing is tough, especially for me. Over the years I've been lucky to have incredible people support me and tell me how much they enjoy my work, but I've also had those comments and reviews that just completely derail me and make me wonder why the hell I'm doing any of this or why I'm enough of an idiot to think anyone would even care.
So, no, this is not an update on any of the many WIPs I have going, and if you don't enjoy this fic then I am sorry.
But if you do, even a little, I cannot express how much it means to me to see that someone took the time to leave a review. Even if that review is "thanks" - it has a HUGE impact.
A/N5: HOLY CRAP! Thank you to EVERYONE who left a review. I really appreciate the encouragement, and the excitement and just… seriously, thank you all so very, very much.
Warnings: angst, language, violence, sex, death, blood
Pairings: 6x2, others…
Midnight Coward
Chapter Two
Maxwell parked illegally, but he simply pulled out a hanging placard with a bright red P on it and hung it from his rearview mirror.
"That's useful," Zechs muttered.
Maxwell smirked.
"Gotta be some kind of perk to this fucking job," he muttered, as he turned off the ignition and climbed out of the car.
Zechs wondered at the tone and the words - Maxwell was surely too young to be bitter already about his government career.
Then again, Zechs had always wondered just what had driven three of the former Gundam pilots to join the Preventers. Wufei Chang, he understood, and even Trowa Barton made a certain amount of sense, but Duo Maxwell? The anarchist who had been so anti-government that even the invitation to join an organized rebel group had been met with derision? Zechs had a hard time reconciling that boy with the man escorting him into his apartment building now.
Duo opened the door, getting to it before the doorman could, and he held it open with gesture of mock deferment.
Zechs walked ahead of him into the marble-floored, mirror-walled lobby.
He felt immediately more at ease in the familiar surroundings. That irritated him a little, made him reflect on just how long it had been since his life had been in danger on a daily basis, and he had the unwelcome realization that he was old.
As Leo, the nightshift doorman, got up from his desk and approached them, Zechs saw his eyes widen.
However, he wasn't stricken with bafflement by being in Maxwell's mere presence. Instead, Leo's entire focus was on Zechs.
"Sir, are you-"
Zechs waved him off, lips thinning at the concern in his voice.
"I'm fine, Leo. Just tired."
Leo frowned, but he wasn't in a habit of arguing. Instead, he looked over at Maxwell. His frown deepened, and Zechs made a mental note to give him more money for Christmas this year - that look alone earned it.
Leo looked back at Zechs.
"He's with me," Zechs sighed, biting back the urge to add that under no circumstances was Maxwell here in the same capacity that most of the men Zechs brought through the lobby were.
"Very well."
Leo sounded like he wasn't entirely sure he should allow the former Gundam pilot into the elevator with Zechs, but he summoned it all the same.
While they waited, Zechs glanced at the nearest wall and grimaced at his reflection.
The long scab wasn't, it turned out, the only blood on his face. There were spatters of it across his nose, forehead and other cheek. He looked a little like a madman, and even the warm glow of the lobby lights did nothing to diminish the shadows under his eyes. And his hair, as Maxwell had pointed out earlier, was indeed mussed.
Zechs fought back the urge to set it to rights, and used his finely-honed self-control to force his hands to remain by his sides and his posture casual as the elevator door opened and he and Maxwell stepped into it.
"Good evening, sir," Antonio greeted them. Like the rest of the staff, seeing Zechs this early in the morning wasn't a surprise, but, also like Leo, Antonio wasn't quite able to keep the shock off his face when he took in Zechs's appearance.
"Good evening, Antonio," Zechs responded.
He saw Maxwell quirk an eyebrow, and idly wondered what the other man was thinking.
The elevator took them up to the sixteenth and top floor, opening directly into the foyer of Zechs's apartment, and Maxwell raised his eyebrow again.
"Have a good evening, sir," Antonio said as they stepped out.
"Thank you."
Zechs started to walk into his apartment, but Maxwell stopped him by reaching out and splaying his left hand over Zechs's chest. In his other hand, Maxwell had a gun. Zechs hadn't even seen him draw it.
"Why not let me go first," Maxwell suggested.
"A driver and a bodyguard? My, how versatile you are."
Maxwell scowled at him, but stepped forward, his feet soundless on the wooden floor despite the size and thickness of the boots he wore.
Zechs waited while Maxwell presumably ensured that his apartment was safe, and when the Preventers agent returned to the foyer a few minutes later, he looked slightly disgruntled.
Zechs arched an eyebrow.
"Don't tell me you're disappointed there wasn't another murderer waiting for me?
Maxwell scowled.
"This place is huge," he muttered.
"Generally, that's the idea of a penthouse apartment," Zechs crisply informed him as he finally walked into his apartment.
The lights, programmed to always be on at night on low levels in the foyer, living room, dining room, kitchen and library, brightened as Zechs stepped into the kitchen and pressed his palm against the wall sensor.
Maxwell's discomfort grew even more obvious with that, as the brighter lights revealed not just the size of the apartment but the floor to ceiling windows on the outside perimeter of the apartment and the view of the city.
Zechs ignored him, however, and reached into the freezer for the bottle of tequila he kept there.
He poured himself a shot and threw it back, and then decided what the hell and had two more before replacing the bottle and setting the shot glass in the sink.
Maxwell was watching him, his face surprisingly neutral.
"Now that you've escorted me home and ensured that my domicile is assassin free, shouldn't you be scurrying back to Preventers to let them know you've cleaned up my mess?"
Maxwell snorted.
"You think getting you out of there was cleaning up your mess? There's still two dead bodies to deal with - the press fallout from all of this - and the fact that someone hired an assassin to kill you. Your mess is going to take a lot more than me throwing my weight around a fucking police station to clean up."
Maxwell looked almost furious by the end of his tirade.
"Would it be easier if next time I simply let myself be killed?"
"It probably fucking would. You don't- I get that you still think the world fucking revolves around you, but it doesn't, and the shit you get into impacts everyone. So next time someone comes at you with a knife, yeah, do us all a favor and let them gut you."
It took a moment - a tense, dangerous moment of silence as the two men glared at each other - but then Maxwell drew in a deep breath and released it in a shaky exhale. He rubbed his face with one hand.
"Sorry. That was- out of line."
Zechs felt his lips twitch into the closest thing to a smirk he had felt all night.
He accepted Maxwell's graceless apology with a nod.
That little interlude had given the tequila enough time to start working through his system, and Zechs welcomed the heat and languor in his body.
He started to unbutton his bloody shirt, carefully removing the onyx cufflinks from the french cuffs and setting them on the hall table first.
"What are you- what the hell are you doing?" Maxwell demanded as Zechs shrugged out of the garment.
Zechs ignored him and huffed in disgust when he saw the blood had soaked through the dress shirt and into his undershirt. He pulled that off as well, grimacing as it stuck to him a bit.
"Merquise, what-"
"You might find it perfectly comfortable to lounge around covered in the blood of dead men, but I find it a little repulsive. Perhaps it's something to do with how I was raised."
Maxwell sneered.
"You have a problem being covered in blood? Well, yeah, I guess that makes sense. You're not used to it being so up close and personal, are you? But it's not always a game you get to play in the safety of a cockpit." Maxwell spread his arms wide. "Forgive me for not appreciating how delicately you were brought up."
Zechs glared at him, but Maxwell glared right back.
Maintaining their furious eye contact, Zechs reached down and started to unfasten his belt and trousers. He toed off his shoes while he did so, looking down and seeing that they too had spatters of crusted dark brown blood.
"What-"
"I'm going to take a shower. Assuming, of course, that you managed to find it and ensure that it was safe for me?"
Judging by the look on his face, Maxwell was likely hoping that it was anything but safe.
Zechs shoved the trousers - also stained with blood - and his briefs down to his ankles, and then pulled off his socks.
Naked, he arched an eyebrow at Maxwell.
The younger man's cheeks were pink, and he had to jerk his gaze up to meet Zechs's eyes again.
"Care to join me?" Zechs offered the invitation with a sneer.
Maxwell's cheeks went from pink to red, and his lips were pressed so tightly together they were almost invisible.
"I'll pass," he growled.
Zechs turned his back on the other man and started to walk towards the master suite.
He paused at the edge of the living room.
"Make yourself useful," he said, turning his head enough to see that Maxwell had been watching him walk away. "Get rid of those clothes."
He didn't wait for Maxwell's reaction to the order, preferring instead to picture in his mind the look of fury on his face.
The shower was both invigorating and a reminder of just how sore he was. Zechs stood under the spray of near-boiling water for a long time, scrubbing his skin until it was red and his nails gleamed.
He didn't let himself think, didn't let his mind reflect on just how he'd ended up spattered in blood or with bits of another man's skin under his nails; he just immersed himself in the uncomfortably hot water and gave himself over purely to the sensation.
Despite the age of the building, the water pressure and hot water tank were impressive, and Zechs had no idea just how long he had been in the shower before the water started to turn cold and he finally decided to turn it off.
His hair was plastered to his head and back, and he hadn't had the energy to wash or condition it in the shower. He scowled as he ran his fingers through it and the fine strands tangled. That had been a mistake.
Irritated with himself, Zechs jerked a comb through it and then swept the wet strands up into a bun at the back of his head.
It wasn't a look he preferred, but he wasn't in the mood to blow it out, and he couldn't very well leave it down in this state.
He took his time dressing, pulling on clean briefs and an undershirt before going into his closet and selecting a pair of gray trousers and a pale blue sweater to put on.
Fully dressed, he felt a bit more like himself. But when he stepped back into the bathroom and saw his reflection in the fog-tinged mirror, he could see there was still too much emotion in his eyes.
He should have had another shot or three of the tequila.
Maxwell wasn't in the living room or kitchen - both he and the pile of discarded clothes had vanished, and Zechs felt a brief moment of relief.
But, of course, life wasn't about to give him such an easy out.
He found Maxwell in the library, seated at Zechs's desk, his battered jacket draped over the back of the chair and his pale face washed in the frosty blue light of the computer.
"Find anything interesting?" Zechs was proud that he managed to sound mildly interested instead of infuriated at the additional intrusion.
Maxwell looked up, not in the least bit apologetic or embarrassed at having been caught snooping.
"Your security firewalls need some work."
Zechs felt a muscle in his jaw twitch.
"I'll mention it to my IT expert."
"Should probably just fire him. Took me about five seconds to get through them."
Maxwell stood up from the desk, and he looked over Zechs's attire before lifting his eyebrows.
"You sleep dressed like that?"
"I was unaware that you planned on having a slumber party."
Maxwell flushed again.
"I just meant-"
"I sleep naked, Maxwell, and as much as I'm sure you miss the chance to stare at my cock, I'm not interested in having to clean your drool off of the floor. You mentioned something about us needing to talk?"
Maxwell looked nearly murderous, but after a moment, he folded his arms across his chest and he leaned back against the wall of bookshelves behind the desk.
"You need to tell me just what the fuck happened tonight."
"I already gave a statement to-"
"I don't give a shit what you told them. You lied at least three times while I was there, and I was only there for ten minutes."
"My lawyer said there were surveillance tapes. If he managed to see them, I'm sure that the Preventers can use their infinite resources to-"
"Merquise, I've been given a lot of leeway on how to deal with this situation."
Zechs snorted.
"Are you actually threatening me?"
Maxwell sneered.
"I'm informing you that I can clean up your mess in any damn way I please. We'd prefer to do it the quiet way - which means you tell me what the fuck happened and I deal with it from there. Or, if you want to continue playing these games, then first thing tomorrow morning I go back to that police station and tell them that we're opening an investigation into last night's events and I need all of their information, and then I have one of Prev's PR reps host a press conference asking for anyone with any information to come forward, and then I start investigating the board of your little company, showing up at their country clubs and penthouses and asking all sorts of questions about money laundering and government bribes and whatever the fuck else I want to ask because I can."
Zechs had seen the footage of Maxwell, the scrawny fifteen year old captured by OZ and interrogated with such brutality that it had turned Zechs's stomach even then. He hadn't broken, no matter what was done to him, and in between his screams of agony he had kept up an almost nonstop stream of invective, promising all manner of vengeance and insulting his interrogators in at least five different languages.
He'd wondered if that Maxwell still existed, wondered if he had survived two wars and the subsequent bureaucratic battles to form a pacifist Earthsphere government.
It had been a very long time since anyone had had the temerity to speak to Zechs like Maxwell just had. Maybe it was the tequila, but it made him feel almost nostalgic.
"What, precisely, do you want to know?" Zechs asked.
Maxwell blinked, clearly surprised by his capitulation and his even tone.
"For starters, why would Ilija Horvat try to assassinate you?"
"Who?"
Maxwell gave him a steady look.
"Am I to assume that was the name of the assassin?"
Maxwell sighed.
"Merquise, like I said, I can make this-"
"Your confidence in my omniscience is appreciated, but I have never heard that name before."
After another moment of studying Zechs's face, Maxwell seemed to take him at his word.
"He's a Croatian national. Was. He fought in the first war - on your side, in the infantry - and after the military dissolution, he started doing contract work; small shit in South America, mostly, but a few years ago he moved into the big leagues when he killed Breskev."
"The L1 ambassador?"
Maxwell nodded.
"Yeah. After Breskev, he took out Lin, Rutger-Smith, Tidwell... That mining facility owned by the Winner Corp? That was him too."
"Ah. And I imagine it was after that incident that the Preventers began to take an interest in him. Tell me, how much money does Quatre Winner funnel into his little private army?"
Maxwell continued as if Zechs hadn't spoken.
"Then there was the American president, the bombing of the conference in Singapore last year. Actually, you're probably the least significant mark he's taken on in five years, now that I think about it."
Zechs arched an eyebrow. It had been far, far too long since he had spoken to anyone like Maxwell.
"Did you ever meet, during the war?" Maxwell continued his interrogation.
"It's doubtful. I didn't associate with infantrymen. Where was he stationed?"
Maxwell rolled his eyes.
"China - had a tour in Russia just before the end of it all."
"And his training?"
Maxwell pushed away from the bookshelves and walked over to one of the leather armchairs situated by the fireplace on the interior wall of the library.
He sat down, without asking, and sprawled his legs out in front of him with all the ease and nonchalance of someone completely at home.
"He was at New Magnus in Spain."
Maxwell seemed impervious to Zechs's resentful glare, and as much as Zechs himself wouldn't mind sitting down, he wasn't about to do so and make Maxwell's behaviour seem acceptable.
"I toured the facility once, a year before the war."
Maxwell lifted one eyebrow, steepling his fingers in front of his face and looking at Zechs over them.
"Considering that it probably takes all of five seconds for you to piss someone off, maybe that's all it took."
"Yes, no doubt a five-second encounter offended him so much that he decided to wait ten years before attempting to kill me."
Maxwell shrugged.
"Maybe the opportunity just arose and he figured he would mark you off his to-do list."
Zechs gave him a look.
"Okay, so if we assume Horvat hasn't been sitting on a decade-old grudge, who have you pissed off enough that they'd hire a world-class assassin to get rid of you immediately?" Maxwell asked, his question far more pointed than the superficial ones the police officers had asked. "Because, let me assure you, there are masses of people who'd probably off you for free if they had the time to spare, but clearly you've made an enemy who needs your immediate removal."
"Volunteering for the job?"
Maxwell looked him over slowly, and then shrugged one shoulder, an insolent smirk on his face.
"I don't normally attack old men, but I'm not willing to rule it out."
Old. Zechs was, at most, maybe six years older than Maxwell.
"Nice deflection, by the way, but I'm not some low-salaried beat cop intimidated by your princeliness. Answer the question."
"And as I said at the station, I am a public figure. There are any number of people who might want me dead."
"For fuck's sake - I'm actually trying to help you here. Why won't you just fucking cooperate?"
Zechs allowed himself a moment to bask in Maxwell's irritation.
"Just what sort of help are you offering? I already took care of Horvat."
"Okay, and what about the next guy that comes after you? You might want to get your ribs looked at, by the way. Might just feel like bruising, but if they're broken, you never know, they might puncture something vital and you might bleed to death. Or suffocate. Or drown in your own blood if they get your lungs." Maxwell sounded almost euphoric as he listed off the ways that Zechs could die.
Zechs was surrounded by civilians almost all of the time, and he realized that as much as he thought he had kept himself in shape, had kept his senses honed and his healthy paranoia simmering below all of his decisions, he realized that he had been fooling himself. Less than an hour in Duo Maxwell's presence, and Zechs had felt the sharp taste of adrenaline more than once, had felt his body respond to the warning signs of just being in the other man's presence, and he'd missed it.
Ironic that the run-in with Horvat had affected him far less.
Then again, that had been a frantic, abbreviated blur - the whole thing over in less than ten minutes. Maxwell was a sustained onslaught on all fronts.
Maxwell was still looking at him, but Zechs had no desire to respond to him.
"Fine," Maxwell sighed, and shrugged. Zechs wondered just how the younger man managed to make the motion look so fluid when he was sitting in a high-backed chair.
"Can you think of anyone else who might be carrying a grudge from the war?"
Zechs gave him a look.
"Present company excluded," Maxwell amended, with his lopsided sneer back in place.
"No one with the resources to hire Horvat."
"You mentioned stalkers, before."
He had. It had been a mistake, and he had hoped - in vain - that Maxwell hadn't been paying attention.
"I'm sure you've had to deal with them as well."
Maxwell shrugged again.
"I'm not a - what do you keep calling yourself? I'm not a public figure like you are."
It was hardly a response to Zechs's statement, and Zech wondered just what sort of post-war encounters Maxwell had had to deal with.
"How did you deal with them?" Maxwell asked.
Because of course he had caught that slip too.
"Private security forces can come in very handy."
"Where were they tonight?"
"I usually dismiss them when I have companions."
Maxwell silently echoed the word, his lips forming companions and then tilting into another sneer.
"Funny, that. Never would have pegged you for the type who needed to pay to fuck. Then again…" Maxwell trailed off, his eyes dark and judgemental.
Unperturbed, Zechs merely lifted an eyebrow and gave Maxwell his most patronizing look.
"I assure you, Maxwell, that I have no need to pay for companionship. I pay for a certain amount of expertise and aesthetic quality." Zechs let his eyes rake over Maxwell's nearly prone form, letting his own distaste and judgement show on his face and in his voice. "If all I wanted was an inept, fumbling fuck, I could easily find one. Couldn't I?"
Maxwell flushed again, his face as red as it had been when he had been caught staring at Zechs's cock earlier.
He recovered quickly though, still lounging in his seat, still looking at Zechs with murder in his eyes, his voice cold and languid and dangerous when he spoke again.
"Was he one of your regulars, then? Nick Sousa?"
"It wasn't the first time I used him, no."
"Was he your type or something - young and damaged? Weak?"
Zechs arched an eyebrow.
"Sorry, sorry," Maxwell held up one hand. "Is that just an aspect of his aesthetic quality? I assume he had the required amount of expertise, seeing as how he has a record of getting picked up for solicitation going back to when he was thirteen. Not that that was all that long ago - only nineteen, and he's a dead whore. Seems like a waste."
Zechs felt a muscle in his jaw twitch again as he held himself in check. He had managed to mostly resist rising to Maxwell's baits before now. He refused to give in when it mattered, when Maxwell sat there carelessly insulting an innocent boy who had died just hours ago. A boy who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and who was now dead because of Zechs.
All of the things he had kept himself from thinking about, from feeling, started to crack through his resolve.
Nick had arrived at the brothel room only minutes before it happened, had just finished undressing and was kneeling at Zechs's feet, nuzzling his ankle and begging Zechs to use him, when the knock at the door came. Zechs had risen to his feet, brushing Nick's hair out of his eyes and telling him to wait while he answered the door.
The man - Horvat - had been on the other side, gun already out, and Zechs had slammed the door closed on his hand, causing him to fire wildly, before Horvat forced his way inside. They fought, Zechs prying the gun from his injured hand and flinging it away, Zechs having the upper hand until Horvat pulled a knife, until he threw Zechs into the entertainment console and kicked his side, hard, and stood looming over him, a triumphant smirk on his face.
And then Nick - idiotic, loyal Nick - had thrown himself at Horvat, had taken the knife to his gut with wide eyes and an animalistic howl.
Zechs had immediately lashed out, surging to his feet and charging Horvat, wrenching the knife from his grip and using it to slash the man's throat, the warm spray of his blood leaping onto Zechs's face and clothes.
Nick had died quickly, in a great deal of pain, and he had cried, as Zechs cradled his body and cursed the EMTs who seemed to be taking an impossibly long time to arrive. Nick had apologized - had apologized - as though he had done something wrong, as though any of this was his fault at all.
Nick hadn't been the only one who had cried, but at least Zechs had waited until the light had faded from the boy's eyes, had managed to hold himself together and offer comfort to him as he curled into himself and blood gurgled from his lips.
"So are you just that good a fuck?" Maxwell continued, unaware of Zechs's turmoil and uncaring. "Or is it that you pay that well? I mean, how much do you have to pay a whore to be willing to die for you? Then again, if you were what he had to look forward to, he was probably pathetic enough to-"
It was more than Zechs could take, and he finally lashed out.
Maxwell was caught off-guard for a second, but he was already scrambling out of the chair by the time Zechs reached him.
His foot got tangled up with the leg of the chair, though, and Zechs used that advantage to latch onto Maxwell, grabbing his shoulder and wrenching it back, barely satisfied with the grunt of pain that passed from the other man's lips.
Maxwell twisted, his fist catching Zechs's cheek, and from there it was just a blur.
Zechs was out of practice - his twice-weekly boxing matches at the gym did nothing to prepare him for the dirty, survivalist fighting that Maxwell knew.
They both landed blows, both grunted and gasped and cursed as they went from upright and struggling to losing their balance and rolling on the floor.
Zechs wasn't sure how long they grappled, wasn't even sure it was his own blood he tasted in his mouth by the time he pinned Maxwell beneath him, using his greater weight and size to keep him down.
He had a hand around Maxwell's neck, just short of crushing his windpipe, and he was amazed at how delicate, how fragile, the other man seemed in this position.
And then he felt the sharp press of metal against his own throat.
It was the letter opener, from Zechs's desk.
Before he could even wrap his head around just what had motivated Maxwell to pocket the tool when he had been using Zechs's computer, he registered the fact that the letter opener wasn't the only thing Maxwell seemed intent on stabbing him with.
Zechs released the other man's neck and eased back, a sneer on his face that made it clear he had felt Maxwell's erection.
The younger man lay on the floor, breathing heavily, his eyes unfathomable.
"And to think you have the audacity to call Nick pathetic? At least he demanded payment for his services. You're a heartbeat from begging me to fuck you right here, on the floor of my apartment."
Zechs rose to his feet, and Maxwell scrambled to his own, all of that boneless grace he had had when sitting in the chair evaporated.
His face was a dark, angry red, and his fists were clenched.
"This is tiresome," Zechs continued. He was exhausted, and his body had been sore before, but now, after their tussle, he wanted nothing more than to drink himself into unconsciousness. "I'm sure you can show yourself out. If you have any further questions, contact my lawyer."
Zechs turned his back on Maxwell, walking over to the desk and pulling Alison's card from the top drawer.
He flicked it in Maxwell's direction, his satisfaction at seeing it hit him on the cheek dampened when the man managed to catch it before it fell to the ground.
He stood there, glaring down at him, until Maxwell turned on his heel and stalked from the room, stopping only to drop the letter opener on a side table.
Zechs listened to him stomp through the apartment, waited until he heard the faint ding of the elevator doors opening, and only then did he allow himself to relax.
Only then did he give in and return to the kitchen for the bottle of tequila.
He didn't bother with the shot glass this time. He uncapped the bottle and took it into the living room before collapsing onto the floor, in front of his couch.
He leaned back against it as he swallowed down the fiery liquid.
It did nothing to alleviate the pain.
-o-
TBC
Next up is a Duo POV chapter. We're going to go back and forth between them - so there WILL be more Zechs POV for all of you who love it.