Bishi Pile Challenge:
Major challenge response: Unreasonable, Anger, Conspiracy, Assassination, Crisis, Argue, Curiosity
Minor challenge response: Conference, Information, Organisation
Word count: 2,098
Series: Friends 2: Friends and Enemies
Author: Karina
Pairings: Zechs + Duo, Trowa x Quatre
Ratings: M 15+ [In Australia] Rated in the event of bad language and violence.
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the characters.
Warnings: No apology given for Aussie spelling, but fair warning given.
Many thanks to Katie for beating this chapter and to Dragon Dagger for keeping me on the straight and narrow.
Character Challenge:
Chapter 13
He would peel the skin from his lover's skinny arse when he got his hands on him.
Had Quatre ever been spanked as a child? If not he would be in for an enlightening experience because some drastic measure was obviously required to make him see reason. He had to be made to realise he could not always involve himself in matters that, quite honestly, were no concern of his.
Marquise was certainly of no concern to any of them.
/And curiosity is no excuse./
Had he honestly thought, even for an instant, that he could stop Quatre from becoming involved? The idiot had not even waited for them to return from the mission before immersing himself in something he did not understand.
Something he should stay out of. Something they ALL should stay out of.
Une would not have had him attempt to contact Quatre if she was not certain he was meddling in matters best left alone.
His fingers closed over the mobile phone like a clamp in his frustration and he stared out at the blur of neon lights as they drove through the city. He hit speed dial yet again, knowing already it was useless but carrying out the act regardless. There was always hope, but he knew the bastard had to have turned off his phone.
Une sat tight lipped beside him. He had not had to say a word as they made their way back to headquarters; it was glaringly obvious that Quatre was not picking up. He had left one voice message for Quatre to ring him and that was all, now he merely made the call periodically in tight lipped silence and listened to the phone ring out to voicemail.
What Une thought on his actions he dared not think, but she could be no more thrilled with the situation than he. Quatre should know better than to get involved in clandestine dealings, he was being watched no less than the rest of them, and he was the head of a multi billion credit business empire. Whatever he did, wherever he went, it was considered news. There were always eyes and ears attentive to the comings and goings of the rich and famous.
/Except now, when I need to know where he is and what he is doing the prat has managed to escape everyone's notice./
Quatre had chosen to be The Winner and not a Preventer agent. He had chosen to pursue the business empire that employed millions of people either directly or through flow on employment, throughout the length and breadth of the Earth Sphere. It was his job, his duty of care to his employees; a duty Quatre had willingly chosen, to see that the corporate empire ran smoothly.
Now he was haring off and playing with conspiracy theories on a grandiose scale and imagining himself to be a secret agent… and now that was going a little bit too far, Trowa decided. Fair was fair, after all. Quatre was more than capable of making an impact in regards to Preventer style operations. He kept super fit, he kept abreast of the politics of the Earth Sphere and he knew as much, potentially more, as any of the rest of them about how the ESUN ran and who in reality ran it.
And he well knew the darkness that lurked beneath the surface of civilisation.
Oh yes, Quatre was quite capable and unfortunately he was also insatiably curious. He hardly lacked for confidence in his own abilities.
Trowa ran his thumb over the screen of the handset and watched as they left the brightest lit area of the central city. Preventer Headquarters loomed ahead; the compound was well illuminated and there appeared to be no extra guards in evidence. If Une had raised the security level it was not obvious.
She did not stir as they entered the underground car park and he tried once more to reach his lover, already knowing he would be ignored. He would be giving Quatre more than just a piece of his mind when he got his hands on him. They had been through this before and he had warned the man, much as he loved him, that there were lines they should not cross. It appeared that Quatre may have stepped over one of those clearly defined lines they had established when they determined to make a serious attempt at their relationship.
He was far from ready to leave his lover, but had Quatre decided to take matters that far? What had happened for him to close off communications between them?
It had to be Maxwell's decision to head up that mountain and then his own assignment by Preventer to go in pursuit of Maxwell. Their being involved had to at least factor in the equation that had led Quatre to this extreme.
"Conference room three for debriefing in fifteen minutes. Inform the others."
He glanced at Une as the car door opened and she slid from the vehicle. They had parked? He had been that distracted? Not good, but she had said nothing beyond informing him of their debriefing. He did not think they had been stationary for more than a few seconds and she was already striding toward the elevators, her back ramrod straight and invisible icicles freezing the air around her as she moved.
Yuy and Chang were waiting for him and they walked together to the elevators, both obviously content to ride a different car and thereby escape the arctic chill of their Lady. The air in the building was at least comfortable away from Une in her present persona, and he slipped the mobile phone into a pocket as they waited for the car to arrive. He would continue to try, though to have been ignored for so long was a clear enough message.
"Conference room three. Fifteen minutes."
Heero grunted and Chang inclined his head slightly, and it was Chang who breached the silence with a question as the doors opened. "What has her in a worse mood?"
"Quatre is not answering his phone."
Heero huffed and Chang closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose as he sighed. "I hope she is wrong."
"We can hope." Trowa snorted, clenching his hands into fists and resisting the urge to grate his teeth. "The curious little bastard can't leave anything alone."
"So are we in, regardless of what Une has to say, or are we going to be sensible and leave this one alone unless we are specifically instructed to interfere by Une in a professional capacity?"
Yuy's scowl deepened and he glanced at Chang, well aware of what the monotone comment implied, before entering the car and making room for his companions before pressing for floor thirty-three. He still had not determined, to his satisfaction, his own motives and thoughts on interfering. Honestly, Heero would have preferred not to commit himself, but if Winner had taken the bit in his teeth and was running with it…
"We do what we have to."
Chang grunted and Trowa remained silent.
Yuy had such a way with words.
Winner was trying her patience.
The idiot would destroy everything she had painstakingly built over the last few years and for what? Just what was it he was intending to do by going AWOL?
Une ground her teeth as the elevator lifted her higher into the complex. She would need dental work if she kept this job and much of that work would have to be attributed to stubborn male pricks who could not keep their fingers out of other people's pies. Marquise was bad enough on his own, but team him with the former Gundam Pilots and you had a mess no one could safely manage.
It would be doing everyone a favour if she regressed to her former occupation as an assassin and removed all six of them from the mass of humanity. They had their uses, but were they actually worth the hassle of managing them?
/No one would miss the bastards./
What to do? She had her own watchdogs on her heels and would need to tread carefully. Of course she did not have the whole picture to work with, but then neither had Winner and he had dived into the mess without a moment's hesitation.
Action was like a drug to them, they could not do without a regular dose of adrenaline singing in their veins; but why did they have to threaten to take down the peace with their hunt for excitement? It was pathetic really, that they could not settle to a normal life and get comfortable with it.
She could not afford to allow anyone to see her rattled. Seeing Him after so long… it brought back memories. Memories she would rather forget. She could not deny he was a fine looking man and was maturing into an uncommon male beauty. There was a presence about him that one could not ignore and it had nothing to do with that handsome face. He had lived hard and he had lived rough, but there was still that refined air about him that marked him as being of the nobility.
Treize had had it too.
Twelve minutes and she must face the pilots in debriefing and she had no idea how to continue with the operation. Twelve minutes. She might be able to delay making a decision for a few hours, but could she take the chance on ignoring it and leaving whatever was to happen to Marquise to bumble through and Winner to explode into prominence?
Whatever Quatre Winner chose to bring to public attention was news.
News that was never ignored.
She hissed softly. Winner could be discrete but only if it suited him. He could be subtle and if he felt the need he could rage through a china shop with all the delicacy of a bull in heat in hot pursuit of a rival. She stepped out of the elevator and set her features into her default neutrality. She was not happy and everyone had best realise it and stay out of her way unless she summoned them. She had some thinking to do.
"Good evening, Anne. You are out and about late."
Sally Po smirked at her, falling into step and nodding politely as she kept pace as they strode through the hallways.
"Always something to be done. Nature of the job." She could wish the woman would find someone else to annoy.
"Mmmm, that is true enough but I haven't seen you this tense since the Barton incident. It can't be comfortable walking around at that pace with your knickers in that much of a twist. Is it Yuy, Relena, Maxwell or perhaps Marquise?"
The woman was uncanny in her perceptions and to be honest she was a nuisance at present as a distraction. A surge of anger arose, was ruthlessly grasped and trampled into submission. There was no time to indulge when Winner and Marquise were involved.
"Ah, a combination of the four, eh?"
"Don't you have something better to do than annoy me when I have work to do?"
Could she take the hint? Ah, no, of course not. This was Sally Po, Preventer Chief Medical Officer and, after so many years working together hand in glove, friend.
"I am doing my work. My 'Anne is shitty' metre has gone off the scale. In the interests of avoiding a bloodbath in the halls I ventured out to defuse the situation."
It was unladylike, and she did try to be a lady, Mr. Treize would expect it of her, but at just this particular point in time who cared? Certainly not her. Une grunted, continuing to stride through the hallways and indeed lengthening her stride, her glare sending agents scuttling like frightened mice out of her way. The only one who resisted the glare and stuck with her was Po, all the way to her office.
Smiling.
"So which of our troublemakers is it?"
No. She could not involve others needlessly. She did not want to involve Preventers at all, though in time she might have to. She was certain this was only the first act in the play to take down Preventer and replace it with something else. Something darker and more dangerous.
"For your own sake, Sally, back off. This time you don't want to get involved. I'm trying to make up my mind whether or not to involve Preventer and you really do not want to be in the firing line."
End
Karina Robertson 2011