06-Jun-2004
revised: 05-Jan-2006
Title: The X Faction 9a/?
Author: Kitty Chou
Archive: GW Addiction
Category: AU, Yaoi, Angst, OOC-ness (depending on how you think of the guys thinking)
Pairing: 1x2, 3x4, 2+4, 5+H
Disclaimer: *clears throat* I do not in any way, shape, or form own Gundam Wing or its wonderful characters! I just pull them out to play and then clean them up and put them back when I'm done! I'm making no money and if you sue me you will receive no money because *shock* I have none.
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, yaoi, angst, violence, lime
Spoilers: Well, if you don't know who won on the show, then yes.
Author's Notes: Thanks to all those who wrote feedback and to those who don't, but read the story anyway! This chapter is currently unbetaed I'm afraid, as I feared you might kill me all if I put it off any longer! Special thanks to Megabitch! Megabitch for beating me with whips and chains and the bride's bouquet until I wrote more. I divided this chapter into two sections in case you didn't notice... Why? Because a lot more talking than I expected came up and I wanted the big talk between the five of them in this chapter. So yeah... part A/part B.
Feedback: Please send feedback! ARNIE HUNGRY!!!
Resisting the urge to glower anxiously, Trowa made his way toward where he thought Heero might be. No part of him was looking forward to the inevitable confrontation after the past four years. What was he supposed to say? 'I'm sorry, Heero. I shouldn't have blamed you when Quatre saving your life from your boss when she went psycho, but since he's okay now, will you still be my friend?' Trowa snorted and shook his head derisively, turning down the corridor leading to the rooms they had been given.
All of the black bands lived in a 'block' in the center of the dormitories. There had, coincidentally, been three extra rooms built in the block, but they had always been empty. Trowa suspected they had been built in hopes that the he, Heero, and Wufei would join the X Faction. Quatre always did have amazing intuition when it came to matters concerning the five of them.
A smile flickered onto his face, warming his somewhat sour disposition. The five of them... It was nice to be able to think like that after so long.
As he neared Duo's quarters his foot caught on something and he stumbled slightly. Looking around briefly to make sure nobody had caught the embarrassing slip (after all, acrobats were known for their profound grace) he looked to see what had tripped him up. Frowning, he stooped to retrieve the olive color standard issue long-sleeve button down shirt worn as part of a Preventers agent uniform.
Almost as if on queue, the door to Duo's quarters slid open with a faint 'ding' and Heero, shirtless and spotted with love bites and small bruises, stepped out. Heero froze and Trowa's eyebrows rose toward his hairline. Glancing at the shirt he held it up to the half-naked man.
"Lose something?"
Heero grunted an affirmation, watching him warily and catching his shirt one-handed when Trowa tossed it at him.
"So... " Trowa started hesitantly, unsure of how to go about this. "Good night?"
Snorting, Heero shrugged into his shirt. "Yeah, you could say that." Taking in Trowa's disheveled appearance and the hint of a hickey above his collar, Heero smirked. "You?"
Trowa laughed softly, running a hand through his tousled hair. "None better to date," he replied easily, before slipping back into a nervous uncertainty he'd been experiencing more and more the past twenty-four hours. "Heero, I-"
"I know," Heero cut him off, pausing in the buttoning of his shirt to look directly at the other man. "I am too."
Relief settled over Trowa and he relaxed visibly, a small smile even crossing his lips. "Friends?" he asked, putting out his hand. Stepping forward, Heero clasped him just below the wrist in a comrade's hold.
"Friends."
Further down the corridor, Wufei snorted and folded his arms over his chest as he murmured softly to himself. "If all they needed was sex, I would have slept with them both long before now."
"Aww..." a voice trilled in his ear. "Wufei, that's the sweetest thing I've ever heard you say!" Wufei jerked his head around, but found only an empty hallway. The voice laughed. "Forget something did we?"
The air shimmered before him as the HPS lined up millions of miniscule projections, displaying the image of a very smug German girl with vivid violet hair. Wufei glowered at her irritably, touching his earpiece in remembrance.
"I thought I'd switched it off," he muttered, frowning at the hologram.
"No, it was already off," Hilde informed him, grinning in what she knew was an irritating manner. After all, she had learned it from Duo. "Callie left them off for privacy. You turned yours back on. If you look, there's actually little icons to help you out... " She broke out in laughter as Wufei glared balefully at her.
"But, as much as I'd love to stand around and belittle you, we have business to attend to. Hey!" she yelled, her image twisting to point at Heero and Trowa. "If you two are finished with the making up and bonding thing, we can get started with the grand tour!"
"Oh? And exactly what is it about this tour that makes it so grand?" Trowa called, arching an eyebrow in faint amusement.
Hilde laughed, puffing out her holographic chest. "That I'm giving it!"
"We... are so... utterly... fucked... "
"Have I ever told you how you swear like a sailor after sex?"
"Jokes... are not... helping... Duo... "
"Yeah, well neither is your determination to push yourself too hard. Take it easy, will you? You're going to undo all our hard work that way," Duo chastised the blonde, putting a hand on Quatre's straining thigh.
Sighing, Quatre eased the weights down gently, relaxing his legs. "Sorry... I'm just... worried," he said, running a hand through his sweaty hair. "We've worked so hard to get this far, despite everything. But... I want him, Duo... I don't want to lose him, not again."
Duo nodded and helped him out of the leg press, moving him into a position where he could massage his legs before they called it a day. "I don't want to lose Heero either, or any of them for that matter. It feels good to be a team again... " he sighed, easing him down onto the bench with a frown. "But can we tell them? About the project?"
"Just for the record, I vote no, thanks," Hilde commented grouchily on their earpieces, making them roll their eyes.
"Hilde, do you mind?" Duo made a face, switching his earpiece to one-way only. Quatre did the same.
"I'm just saying that if it comes between telling them our dark little secret and lying out our asses, I vote ass one hundred percent!" she quipped before going silent again with a soft huff. "I don't know, Duo... " Quatre said slowly, as if she hadn't interrupted them. "A part of me says, yes, absolutely. We should tell them and deal with the consequences. But... "
"But the realistic part of you knows we'll lose them all if we do," Duo finished with a sigh, working out the tight muscles of Quatre's legs. "I think I'm going to have to go with Hilde on this, Quatre. I don't think we can tell them. Not now anyway and maybe not ever. It's not like we're using the project anyway. It's buried... let it stay that way."
Quatre hesitated a moment, looking troubled, before he nodded with a soft sigh. "You're right. They can't know."
"And that's the 'entertainment arena', or the EA as everyone calls it. Now, follow me over this way and we'll stop by the public gym before heading for the sickbay and testing labs-"
"Where does that door lead?" Heero asked their so-called 'guide', pointing toward a door at the end of the corridor they had just stepped into.
Hilde went static for a moment before stabilizing with a laugh. "Empty, now. Before I got here, those two blockheads had designed it to be a linen closet! Never mind that the quads and the showers are almost a mile away from here! I'm telling you, they'd be lost without a woman's touch." She put her hands on her hips with a decisive nod.
Trowa smiled and Wufei chuckled a little despite himself (though he rolled his eyes), but Heero kept looking at the door, frowning a little. Hilde grabbed his attention, snapping her non-existent fingers in front of his face.
"Hey, tall, dark and broody! There are more interesting things than towels for us to see and the day is wasting away! We still have the happy meeting of death and destruction coming up in..." she trailed off, consulting her watch, while she was actually consulting the computer. "Forty minutes or so. So we'll do a quick run through medical land before I send you two off to shower." She pointed at Heero and Trowa, her nose wrinkling as if she could actually smell them.
"And what am I supposed to do?" Wufei asked, arching an eyebrow.
Hilde smirked and poked him, her holographic finger going through his chest. "You are coming with me on a quick run to dock your ship. Now, sickbay."
She led them down a series of corridors, chatting about random technological and architectural advances they'd made since arriving a few years ago. Heero droned her out for the most part, listening enough to take the information in without focusing all his attention on her. That door... there was something about it... something that was bothering him...
"Here we are!" Hilde said triumphantly as if she had brought them there magically instead of hiking them several miles over the whole satellite. "The sickbay! Home of the lovely Dr. Oct, or as we like to call her, Octopussy!" She laughed a moment before trailing off at their blank expressions. "Fun group you are... Come on! Quick tour and then showers and ship!"
The opalescent doors of the sick bay slid open without a pass code as they stepped forward, making a slight hiss. A very pretty black woman in a lab coat, whom they'd met the night before, came forward to greet them, holding out her hand to each in turn.
"Hello," she greeted them, her voice pleasantly deep. "It's very nice to meet you three, I've heard quite a bit about you. I am Dr. Miranda Oct, head physician here in the sickbay." She swept her hand out, the sleeve of her coat sliding back enough to reveal a striped band as she gestured at the sterile white and metallic gray room, divided into segments by large transparent walls of an acrylic plastic that was almost certainly bulletproof.
The name struck a chord in Trowa and he frowned thoughtfully. "Miranda Oct... You worked with OZ during the war. Under the command of Lady Une."
Dr. Oct looked surprised a moment before smiling gently, nodding. "Yes, I was. And yes, I did. I was her personal physician then, I followed her as far as Peacemilion before deciding that my services were no longer necessary. You have a very good memory, Trowa Barton."
Trowa's lips quirked in amusement as he remembered the lack of memory he had suffered with Quatre just a few hours earlier. "That remains to be seen. I'm just good with names."
"Indeed." She smiled again and looked at him a moment before coming back to her senses, shaking her head a little. "Forgive me, I drifted off in my memories a moment. Shall we?" Turning, Dr. Oct began walking through the sickbay, giving them the tour of the place.
"We keep a complete data log on our members here. It includes everything from scars and moles to allergies and phobias. The log doesn't allow for any secrets, but that's the way we work here. With the delicate nature of our operations and everything at state, we cannot risk a spy in our midst or have a member in our ranks whose loyalties may suddenly find themselves changed."
"What do you do with those cadets?" Wufei asked, frowning slightly.
"Oh they're weeded out before they even know what they're signing up for," she said with a laugh. "And those that manage to slip by, well, we have a special place for them. A... holding pen, if you will, until the war is over. They're all paid during that time, and most of them work building us equipment or doing research."
The slight frown deepened and Wufei exchanged glances with his partner and his friend. "You hold them against their will?"
"Some of them, yes, I'm afraid. Though those with families have them brought to them, which quells any complaints." She shrugged a little. "If we lose the upcoming war, it will probably be charged against us as a war crime." They were silent and she smiled softly, as if to children before leading them on.
"What about us?"
"What about us?" Duo replied, blinking at Quatre from where he was brushing out his wet hair.
"Do we tell them about us?" Quatre asked as though it were obvious, rolling his eyes and drying off his chest.
Duo shrugged and pulled his hair into a dripping ponytail, grabbing a stick of deodorant. "I don't see why. Or why not, even. The relationship we've had during the past four years has nothing to do with them. And I don't see why they should have a problem with it if we do tell them."
Nodding, Quatre snagged the brush from him and started on his own hair. "Yes, you're right. If they have a problem they can just kiss my pale, handicapped ass, can't they."
Laughing, Duo replied, "Or suggest an orgy!"
"Well, yes, obviously that would work as well," the blonde commented dryly, pulling on his shirt with a wry grin, blushing lightly.
Still snickering, Duo put on his earpiece, switching it back to two-way. "Operator, this is Professor D, what is the progress on the newbies?"
"Miss H and Chang are currently bringing in Chang's ship, Fengshen for docking, sir," the current Operator replied.
"What about the others?" Quatre asked, fixing his own earpiece on.
"Barton and Yuy are in their respective quarters. I believe they are showering and getting dressed, sir."
Duo snorted with laughter. "Believe? You mean you haven't been watching them shower? What's wrong with you, Ian? Lost your touch?"
"Just my pride, sir."
End Part 9a
Part B: Fengshen and many meetings.
(:./kitty/faction9)
