11-May-2006
Title: The Properties of Zero
Authors: TB and Marsh
Category: yaoi, AU
Pairings: 6x4x6; past 2x4x2
Warnings: lemon, drug abuse, angst, some discussion of suicidal thoughts
Rating: NC17
Disclaimer: The characters and plot of Gundam Wing are the property of their creators, not these humble fic writers, who have borrowed them without permission with no intent to profit from their use.
Notes: In this timeline, the series is canon except that Treize survived his duel with Wufei in the final episodes. Libra was disarmed and all sides came to a peaceful settlement in which the colonies are a sovereign nation with full participation in the government of the Earth Sphere Alliance. Treize is a prominent member of the ruling council, as is Relena Peacecraft.
This fic is meant to be an exploration of the effects of the Zero System between the two pilots who suffered the most under its influence. It is not a fic in which Zechs and Quatre will go mad and turn into ravaging monsters. This is a story about surviving trauma and personal demons, and the ways in which a person must change in order to deal with that constant onslaught.
The Zero Property of Multiplication:
Multiplying any number by Zero leaves Zero.
He swayed a bit as he stood. The needle he'd just used, and the one he had shared with Quatre the night before, went into the garbage. He wiped his spoon clean with a rag from the kitchen, and replaced it in his pouch with the tourniquet. He stood for a while then in silence, looking down at the smudges of dried white jizz streaking his leather couch cushions, trying to comprehend how they'd gotten there. Not quite making it, either.
All of three people besides himself had been in the townhouse since he'd bought it after his release from prison. The decorator. The maid. His sister. And now there was a young man in his bed, and Zechs had invited him there-- hadn't he? Or maybe it was Quatre who'd invited himself. Zechs couldn't quite remember. Surely there'd been a moment on that balcony of Bolsover Castle, a moment where he'd made the decision, taken the lead.
Zechs left the stains where they were, and walked down the hallway to his bedroom. They were well into mid-day, but his house was always dim, the windows a blue glass that altered the quality of sunlight and rendered everything a little hazy. The bedroom had no windows at all, a specification which had greatly appealed to him, for all that he spent little enough time in there. In fact he couldn't easily remember when he'd last been in his own bed; he slept on the couch when he slept at all. It was something of a surprise to see the room and realise it didn't look the way he'd recalled it looking. It was a dark room only slightly lightened by the untreated beechwood walls and ceiling beams griding the narrow interior. The bed was a massive affair of burgundy sheets and a thick duvet of metallic bronze. The desk in the corner held more pictures he had never bothered to examine, and there was a lamp he couldn't remember having ever seen before, set on a dim orange glow. And there was Quatre, his pale skin looking lily-white in all that dark, rich colour, his tousled hair a gleaming flax against the bevy of overstuffed pillows he lay amidst like some sort of-- cabana boy.
Zechs stood staring at him for a long minute, before he found the presence of mind to move. He shed his trousers, dropping them carelessly to the tiles. He lifted the edge of the duvet, tugging at the crisp sheets until he could slide under them. He lay back and propped his arms behind his head. There was a distance of nearly two feet between himself and Quatre, who lay on his stomach with a pillow tucked beneath his chest. Quatre's eyes opened, and met Zechs's.
He said, "I used your toothbrush."
"No problem," Zechs answered tightly.
"Are you all right?"
He admitted silently that he would need a new toothbrush, but suddenly there didn't seem to be a point in all the tension. "I'm fine," he said. He slumped a little more into the soft mattress, and cracked a small, snide smile. "Feeling no pain."
Quatre's hand emerged from under the pillow at his chest and moved to Zechs's arm. Gentle fingers stroked the forearm to the elbow. It took a moment to understand the gesture, and when he did, Zechs felt a little-- ashamed of himself.
"I did it in the other arm, this time," he murmured. He caught Quatre's hand, tracing around the edges of each finger with the tip of his own. Then he brought it to his mouth, and pressed a kiss to the palm. "This is who I am now."
"Who will you be in another ten years, I wonder," the young man mused.
He exhaled sharply through his nose. "I hope I'm dead."
Calm eyes turned up to his again. "Then I'll have no-one to talk to, I suppose."
That made him pause. He tried to sound casual, and failed dismally by his own judgement. "Oh, you're staying?"
"Not if you're dead," was the immediate reply.
Zechs had no answer for that, though on some level it struck him as funny. He rolled onto his side, closing some of that gulf of space between them, and rubbed a thumb down the curve of Quatre's cheek. He followed the touch with a kiss. Quatre's response was enthusiastic, lips that tasted minty nipping lightly at his, but it was Quatre who pulled back first, his eyes downcast and his tongue licking away traces of Zechs's saliva. Zechs let him go, finding himself a little pressed for air, for space, for privacy and silence and darkness. His head felt swollen, his eyes out of focus. He wanted to have sex again, but it had been so strangely cataclysmic the last time. The jut of Quatre's shoulder blades in his back made him itch.
They'd been silent for some time when Quatre spoke, and his soft voice pulled Zechs into the present with a painful jolt. He had to struggle to reconstruct a sentence he'd already missed most of: "How did you survive Libra's destruction? I always meant to ask you that."
It had been the closest he'd ever come to dying, for all the times he'd sought so hard to accomplish it. The massive explosion wrought by his own beam saber and Heero Yuy's canon had caught Epyon even as Wing had sped to freedom through a hull breach. Zechs had all but clawed through the wreckage, finally carving an escape with his malfunctioning thermal weapons. Epyon had been blind and without life support by then. Zechs had planned to die in that battle; but fear had gripped him, and the desire to live, and he had forced open his hatch and flung himself into Space as Epyon self-destructed about him.
He cleared his throat to answer. "It wasn't terribly heroic, I'm afraid," he said. "Epyon was disabled, so I stole another suit. The pilot was as good as dead anyway." He didn't know anymore how true that was, or if it was only something he'd repeated so many times it took on a sheen of truth. He'd thrown a dying man out of a working suit so that he himself could live. At the end of the day, it didn't say anything good about his character; but that wasn't what plagued him, when he thought of that day. Mostly, now, he simply wished he'd let Epyon take him to a frozen grave.
A moment later, Quatre said, "You know my father died."
The change of topic disappointed him. Quatre was a comfortable sort of confessor, and the telling of each shameful secret brought its own mercy. "I think I remember reading that, yes," he answered belatedly. "I'm sorry." When silence lingered, Zechs wondered if he ought to say more. Before he could think of anything adequate, however, Quatre said, "I'm not."
"I don't understand that," he answered slowly.
"I don't either. But I'm not." Quatre closed his eyes, and dropped his cheek back to the pillow.
"Does it bother you?"
"Yes."
For all the response had come without hesitation, Zechs still wondered if his questions were unwelcome. Or if it was only the silence Quatre was trying to stave away, and the things that would fill that quiet, if Zechs didn't. He asked, "What do you do about it?"
Quatre laughed softly. "I pretend."
"Pretend what?" he pressed.
"That he was a good father. That I was a good son."
That response seemed grossly out of character, and Zechs found he felt betrayed by it. "How does that help anything?" he demanded bitterly.
Green eyes opened, and Zechs registered genuine surprise in them. "Is it supposed to help?"
Zechs stared. "Why would you play head games with yourself if it didn't?"
He watched a little grin form on Quatre's mouth. "I guess it sounds crazy, when you put it like that."
"You're a little unbalanced," Zechs told him warily.
"Does it bother you?" He paused. "You can't catch it from a needle," he added. Whatever he saw in Zechs's face, he didn't seem to like it. He looked away, and clung a little tighter to his pillow. Hunched in on himself, he murmured, "I don't have to talk. If you'd rather I be quiet."
"No." He brushed the edge of the pillow, warm from Quatre's body, stirring the pale hairs on Quatre's forearm. An unfamiliar emotion was filling him. He had never been a comfortable man, never at ease with himself, much less others. But though being with Quatre was surprising, and sometimes impossible to understand, it wasn't-- uncomfortable. As strange as it was, the moment where he thought Quatre might decide to leave, he realised he could want someone to stay.
"Yours is the first voice I could tolerate in years, Quatre," he said.
Quatre relaxed infinitesimally, but Zechs saw it, and knew it had been the right thing to say. "You say that very seriously," Quatre murmured. "I always thought it was strange how quickly White Fang agreed to follow you. How loyal men of OZ were to you. But when you look at me like that, and you speak with that tone, I think I can understand it."
"They were following my face," Zechs protested. "Not me. There's nothing at all admirable in my character."
Quatre propped his chin onto the pillow, something canny and appraising in his look. It made Zechs distinctly uncomfortable. "What?" he demanded.
But what Quatre said didn't seem to follow on what had come before. "I didn't think you liked me," he murmured.
Perhaps, Zechs thought, all their conversation would follow this pattern, as Quatre jumped from thought to thought with no logical progression discernable. "And now?" Zechs replied curiously.
"You don't know me."
"No," Zechs conceded, "we don't know each other at all." He slid his fingers through Quatre's soft hair, pulling the fringe away from his face and holding it there, the better to study the young face regarding him calmly. "I used to think you were like me," he added. "Then. The shining star with the secrets hidden on the dark side." With a little caress, he let go of the strands he held. "I was right."
That produced a smile. "You don't know how many people would disagree with you."
"Because they're stupid and unobservant," Zechs countered.
"TIME ran an article on me last Christmas. They called me 'vapid.'" He put on an appropriately vapid look, and giggled in a girlish falsetto. Zechs chuckled.
"I read that," he said.
"I have it pinned up in my bedroom."
"They write more vicious things about me." He laughed again. "I like it."
"I'm sure you do."
"They can say what they want. It doesn't make it true, but it's delicious when it is."
Quatre moved his pillow closer, and followed it until they were sharing body heat with only a corner of cotton sheet between them. "They say you were Treize's lover while you were in OZ." He hesitated. "Actually, they say you were open for business, but that was the only part I ever believed."
"Treize started fucking me when I was thirteen. That didn't make us lovers."
To Quatre's credit, his expression barely wavered at Zech's flat declaration. But he did grow solemn, and his eyes seemed more blue than green in the dim light. He said, "That's very young."
Zechs snorted. "Tell me why it was too young to fuck but not too young to kill? Because I was already a soldier then. Wasn't I?" He raised his eyebrows, but Quatre didn't demur. "You weren't much older," he recalled, "and a hell of a lot less well trained."
"I flew my first mobile suit when I was thirteen," Quatre admitted. He was silent for a moment, and Zechs waited, curious about his thoughts. "I killed men that day," Quatre murmured finally. "Soldiers. I never knew who they were. I used to dream about them, but they had no faces."
"Mine used to have faces."
"Do you think that makes it worse, or better?"
Zechs shook his hair back over his shoulder. "I don't think it makes a difference. They're still ghosts. We're still accountable."
"You like that word," Quatre observed, and Zechs wasn't sure if it was his imagination that painted a little censure into his tone. "Accountable. That's the second time you've used it with me."
"Is it?" he answered casually.
"Mm."
"That's nice."
Quatre, caught, laughed brightly. Zechs grinned back, and said, "I like how that sounds."
"You're accountable for it," Quatre teased. This time, it was Zechs who laughed. Quatre's smile deepened, and he reached for Zechs again, clasping his arm again, his thumb rubbing lightly. "You're looser, now," he said.
"I'm high."
The thumb traced abstract patterns on the inside of his elbow, around the sore marks left by untold numbers of needles. "Do you think it's weird that we're both blond?"
Again Quatre surprised him. "Not really," he answered. "You never screwed a blond before?"
"No." He smiled cheekily. "I think it's artistic."
Confused, Zechs asked him, "What's that mean?"
"I looked a little. Earlier." He gestured vaguely out the open bedroom door, presumably to the den beyond and its stained couch. "Just... aesthetically interesting."
He thought about what that meant, and eventually was able to supply his own version of it. "You're hot," he said. "I didn't think beyond that."
"I'm hot?" And this time he knew he wasn't imagining the change in Quatre's tone-- he'd pleased the other man. It was no effort at all to affirm it with a long, pointed look at the bare expanse of Quatre's lean, muscled shoulders, the curve of his back disappearing into the sheets. The ruffled hair that spoke of sex and invited admiring touches, and the sleepy, bedroom eyes.
"Yes," Zechs drawled.
The little smile revealed a flash of teeth as Quatre's eyes left his, shy and a little coy. "I've never been hot before."
"You keep the wrong kind of company."
"What company ought I to be keeping?"
"Treize had a thing for you. He pretended once."
That flopped between them with all the grace of a crippled Leo on land. Quatre was staring at him. When outrage began to creep into the man's expression, Zechs could only resign himself to having resoundingly earned it.
"He made you do that?" Quatre demanded.
That was not what he'd expected. And he didn't expect to feel a rush of gratitude and relief. "It's not the worst thing he asked me to do." Quatre's hand found his arm again, stroking back and forth in sympathy. Zechs opened his mouth to say more, but realised there wasn't anything to add. That had been one of his most shameful secrets-- that Treize had asked, and that he'd agreed. They'd already been growing apart, even in the early days of the war. He'd been aware of Treize drifting from him; falling deeper into that world of intrigue and politics that Zechs had never loved, never understood. Une had been quick to step into his place, and she'd made herself useful in ways Zechs couldn't, wouldn't. They'd still slept together, when they could, but it had only highlighted the loneliness and distance. Until they'd watched a tape of a captive fifteen year old boy together. Treize had apologised-- one of the only times Zechs could ever remember him doing so. And Zechs had cried, something he hadn't done since he was six years old. It had been a long time before they'd been able to touch each other, after that.
Zechs cleared his throat. "I have to warn you, historically I've had rotten luck with-- relationships. But I was never open for business."
"The only people who believe that are fit for nothing," Quatre said quietly, but forcefully. "Anyone who looks at you should know better."
He glanced away to the wall. "Don't patronize me, please."
The hand on his arm disappeared. "And don't denigrate me so you can enjoy your misery."
"Is that what I'm doing?" he said coldly. He tried to soften his tone at the visible hurt on Quatre's face, but he couldn't help feeling impatient at having to explain himself. "That's not my intention."
"I think it was."
"I'm not a masochist."
"No, you're only a drug addict!"
That stung. "And you call me sadistic," he retorted.
Quatre paled. And then he put his back to Zechs. Zechs stared, ready to snap again until he realised that Quatre's back was hunched painfully and his shoulders were all but quivering with tension. He remembered then that Quatre had back problems. He could see the muscles spasming, and when he placed gentle hands along Quatre's spine, he felt them writhing. Quatre shuddered as he dug his thumbs into the tender iliocostals, and he knew without being told that their argument, if that's what that had been, was only contributing to the painful strain.
"Forgive me," he said.
"Why did you take me home from the party?" Quatre whispered. He pulled away from Zechs's massage, planting his back to the headboard. "I'm short and I look like a little boy and I'm no better than one, if I can say things selfish things like to--"
They stared at each other. And in that distant murmur ZERO could manage, even when he was high, he heard the answer. He was no better than Treize; fascinated by the twisted, the broken. Everything that Quatre was, in all his youthful vulnerability.
Quatre took his silence as condemnation. His eyes were red, and his voice shook. "The men I killed when I was thirteen," he said. "Do you know what my punishment was? My father sent me to boarding school." He cracked on the final word. "I killed men. I don't even know how many, but it could be a dozen. I killed. And he sent me to school."
He had to wonder what his own father would have done. His memories of the King of Sanq were a child's memories, hazy and awed and dim with time. He had no way of knowing what kind of man his father had really been; what kind of man Zechs himself would be if his father had lived. Perhaps he'd be just like Quatre.
Quatre let out an uneven breath, and ran a hand over his face, back into his hair. "I'm sorry," he managed, almost politely. "I don't feel very well."
He finally found his voice. "You're hung over," he said. He hesitated, then left the bed and went down the hall to the kitchen. He filled a tumbler with water from the sink, and searched the pantry until he found what he was looking for-- a bottle of aspirin tablets. He brought both items back to the bedroom, and found Quatre sitting with his knees to his chest, gazing down at his shaking hands.
"Don't ask me to shoot you up again," Zechs warned him. He held out the water.
Quatre found a smile from somewhere, but it was weak. "What's the pill?"
"Aspirin. I only have one left." He shook the bottle as evidence, eliciting the lonely rattle of a single tablet, and popped the cap. He dropped the pill onto Quatre's palm, and watched him slip it onto his tongue and drink it down.
When he'd finished the water, Quatre asked, "You don't get hung over if you shoot up again?"
Zechs shook his head. "You always get hung over."
Quatre sighed, and cradled the glass between his sheet-draped knees. "Why did you bring me here if you didn't want me to do it, Zechs?" he asked directly.
The time for nonchalance was gone. Zechs answered honestly, and candidly. "I didn't want you to walk away and disappear. Quatre... look at me."
He had the unhappy feeling that he was seeing what had been only hidden below the surface all night, since they'd first spoken on the balcony. The frightening thought that he was watching the inevitable, that Quatre would unravel and fall broken at his feet. The thrill he'd felt last night at the thought of destroying Quatre was now a feeling of almost physical nausea, and an urgent need to stop it from happening. "Quatre," he repeated, more sharply still.
The wide eyes were pleading with him, but Quatre was far too stubborn to give it voice. He glanced away from Zechs, and said hoarsely, "I can control this."
"Look at me and let me help you," he commanded.
"I'm looking!"
"You don't hear it," Zechs told him in his most implacable voice. "You hear me. You're here. ZERO has nothing for you." He gripped Quatre by the chin and turned his head back until their eyes met again. "Say it and ZERO has no power."
Quatre laughed uncertainly. "Name it to banish it?" Zechs answered with a crooked smile. "Something like that," he agreed. He reached for Quatre's hand as the stormy eyes roved away from him, skipping about the room, unable to settle. He tried to lend his strength for the struggle, though he couldn't understand it.
"It's all I have, Zechs," Quatre whispered at last.
"No," he denied flatly. "You're wrong."
"I've known you for all of twelve hours. It's a drop in the ocean. Less than that."
"And ZERO is your most steadfast friend," he retorted sarcastically. "I get it." Quatre flinched, and Zechs sighed. He cupped the young man's cheek, smoother, softer than his own even at eighteen. "Don't hide from me," he added gently. "I live where you live, remember?"
It was, finally, the right thing to say. "You do, don't you," Quatre mumbled. He smiled, but it was faint, almost automatic. "Population of two."
"Three if you count ZERO."
That won a tremulous chuckle. "Do you suppose it's blond too?"
The danger seemed to be past. Under his gaze Quatre was pulling back together, rallying his strength. Zechs sat cautiously on the edge of the mattress, and squeezed Quatre's hand as comfortingly as he could. "Ginger, probably," he said jokingly.
The palm he held was damp and hot. "You really hate him," Quatre said. He looked almost unbearably young, and Zechs could still feel the impression of that hairless cheek.
He said, "He created me."
And then, perversely, their roles were reversed, and Quatre was the one holding his hand, trying to comfort him. "You existed before he found you," Quatre told him fiercely. "Maybe he moulded you. But he didn't create you. Even he isn't that powerful."
"He's immortal, didn't you hear? Unkillable."
"So's Heero Yuy. So are you, for that matter. It's going around."
"Treize is no longer a factor in my life," he said. A bold statement of patent untruth that didn't even impress himself. He didn't give Quatre an opening to say anything else that would require him to examine a part of his life that he hated. He switched tracks, and went on the offensive. "Why were you at his party?" he asked.
Quatre blinked, then lifted a hand in a shrug. "I was invited. My sisters thought I could be trusted to enjoy myself in public."
Again. That was yet another time Quatre had referred to his family like that, with that undertone of bitterness and self-loathing. Was it paranoia? Drama? Or was it genuine? He hadn't really believed it in the kitchen, when he'd offered to call his sister. But what if it were real? Who was behind it, and why? Was it because of his attempted suicide? The scars were well-healed and probably years old. And no-one had stopped them leaving the party.
In the end, perhaps the easiest way to discover the truth would be to invite it in. "Do you need to call someone?" Zechs asked Quatre.
"I should hire you. I like what you said to Relena."
"Okay." He walked to the desk, picked up the phone, and brought it back to the bed trailing the cord. He presented the base to Quatre, and set the receiver between his shoulder and ear. "Dial it," he encouraged.
Quatre laughed, clearly not taking him seriously. Or trying to laugh off a bluff that had been called? Zechs removed the received from his ear and bounced it lightly on his palm.
"How tight a leash are they keeping you on?" he demanded.
Quatre hesitated, and for a moment Zechs was certain he'd caught Quatre in a lie. But then his shoulders slumped, and he stared bleakly at the phone he held, tracing the number pad with a single finger. Zechs had to strain to hear his voice. "That was... I haven't left my home in... in four months." He pressed down on the ‘mute' button. "Four months."
The anger started somewhere near the pit of his stomach. By the time it made it to his head, Zechs had to unclench his jaw just to speak. "Dial it," he said.
"They have good reasons."
"Really."
"Yes." He exhaled. "I should call. They'll be worried."
"Do you want me to?" he offered again. "Or will that get you in more trouble?"
"Only if they find out what we've been doing, I suppose." He turned a little smile up to Zechs, but it didn't reach past his mouth, and it was short-lived. Zechs ignored it.
"I'm not going to let them punish you for associating with me."
"It wouldn't occur to them to blame you. I've demonstrated that I'm perfectly capable of embarrassing them on my own."
"You're an adult, Quatre," Zechs pointed out. "You're allowed to spend time with whoever you want."
He looked up. "Can you give me a minute?"
He nodded, though he wondered what would be said that he wasn't invited to hear. "Yes, of course," he murmured. He left promptly, and closed the door behind him until it was just before the latch. And then he went to the kitchen, and picked up the extension line.
He listened to the ringtone as he leant against the counter. When the click announced that the other line had been answered, Zechs waited for the female voice of one of these overbearing sisters. The person who answered, however, was a man.
"Hello? Quatre?"
Quatre was not at all surprised. "It's me," he said softly. "I'm safe."
"Your sisters are pissed. They know who you left with."
"Then they know it's all right. They know where I am."
"Yes." The was a short pause. "Are you all right?"
"Yes. I went voluntarily."
Voluntarily. That word stung. What in hell was going on?
"Should I worry?" the man asked.
"I told you years ago you didn't have to worry about me," Quatre responded, somewhere between irritated and-- fond. And the man replied in the same tone.
"Which would be fine, if you didn't keep proving yourself wrong," he said. "Look, just give me a time frame. How much longer are you going to be there?"
Quatre didn't immediately supply an answer. "I don't know," he said finally. "I'll call when I know."
"Khushrenada is telling everyone you've gone off to duel or something. He's highly amused."
"Shut up, Duo."
Duo. Duo Maxwell, Pilot 02?
This time the silence was a little hurt. "So. Call me when you're ready to leave. I'll pick you up."
Zechs hung up with Quatre, barely registering the exchange of good-byes. He didn't know what to make of the call. Or rather, he knew exactly what to make of it. ZERO was screaming far too loudly to be ignored.
He was sitting on the couch in the den when Quatre emerged a few minutes later. The magazine he'd found with his mail in the hall was months out of date, but it was sufficient disguise. He was collected enough to ask, "What'd they say?" without shouting.
"You heard."
He looked up from the glossy pages. "Pardon ?"
Quatre crossed his arms, though his quizzical, mildly confrontational stance was made somewhat ridiculous by the fact that he was still nude. "I didn't need ZERO to tell me you'd listen," he said.
Zechs glanced back down to the advertisement detailing expensive exfoliators and hand lotions. The pictures registered only vaguely. "Then why'd you send me out?" he asked without looking up.
From the periphery of his vision he saw Quatre spread his hands in a shrug. "Habit, I guess."
"You don't owe me anything." Zechs flipped a page without reading it.
"The cost of a hit." Quatre came to the couch, reaching out to the back cushions and running a finger along the leather seam. "May I sit?"
Zechs performed his own careless shrug, from the shoulders as he occupied his hands turning another page. He felt faintly ill, and distinctly used. "So that's all this was?" he demanded of the magazine.
The silence had a tinge of surprise in it. When Zechs risked a look, he saw Quatre's face had gone smooth, the eyes blue and wide. Then a frown started, followed by a look of, if Zechs could believe it, genuine distress.
"No," Quatre said quietly.
He licked his lips. "Maybe you should tell me what it was, then."
"I met you on the balcony. I went home with you."
"And you'll call Maxwell in a couple of hours and he'll pick you up, and you'll have a laugh about how screwed up Merquise is now," Zechs completed harshly.
Upset lines dragged Quatre's mobile features into misery. "Why would you say that to me?"
He allowed himself the angry gesture of tossing the magazine to his coffee table. "I don't know, Quatre. Why would I?"
"Trust me, Zechs, no-one laughs with me. And if he ever learns anything about what we've done here, he won't be laughing then either."
"Which part? Which part is the worst? The fact that we shared a hit, that we fucked or that we have the same Problem?"
He watched Quatre's chest rise and fall in shallow breaths, as that speckle-flush began to appear in splotches from his collar. Suddenly Quatre seemed aware of his nakedness, and his arms moved restlessly, settled low on his belly to hide his lap. At last his mouth opened, and he said softly, "Duo is the one who caught me talking to ZERO. Aloud, in those days. Before I knew it made me look crazy." He broke away from Zechs's face to look at his hands. "Before I knew it made me look dangerous."
Some of his anger evaporated at that wistful tone. But it didn't alleviate the sense that he was being lied to, or deliberately kept in the dark, and he didn't like it. Zechs determined then to get some concrete answers. He made his voice the hard voice of command, and said, "Is he your keeper, Quatre?"
Quatre responded to his tone by going stiff. "He's my friend. He-- he is my friend."
He didn't back down. "Last night you said they were your jailors. Which is it, Quatre?"
Zechs saw the agitation on Quatre's face before he turned away, dipping toward the ground to retrieve his undershorts and trousers. "I gave them reasons," he said tightly. "I gave them a long list of reasons."
The deliberate obfuscation was frustrating. "What reasons?" Zechs demanded. He left the couch, and made a grab for Quatre's arm just as he stepped toward the front hall. He knew immediately he'd squeezed too tightly when Quatre winced, and struck back, nearly breaking his hold with a well-placed blow to the crook of his elbow.
"Don't manhandle me!" Quatre snapped.
"Am I going to be another one of your jailors if I do?" he retorted. Immediately he regretted it. It had been too many years since he'd had to temper himself, and he knew he'd inflicted a wound. For all purposes, Quatre was smaller and younger than him, more easily hurt.
Why did Quatre feel anything for him? He had drugged Quatre, taken advantage of him, turned on him and accused him of lying. He should put Quatre out the door while they both still had a chance at pretending nothing had happened, and it could all be safely forgotten.
Just as his hold loosened, Quatre's head came up. He said, "I killed a man. Two years ago."
Zechs swallowed to ease a dry throat. "Where?" he answered softly.
"I-- " Quatre exhaled sharply and looked away. "Another party. He approached me. He was taunting me," he explained haltingly. "He knew I'd flown a Gundam. I knew he was OZ. He had a gun. I broke his skull."
"ZERO told you to?"
"He never drew his weapon. ZERO told me it was there. Hidden under his jacket. It was there. But no-one knew that when they found us."
It did, Zechs had to admit, explain a great deal. And intuition furnished the rest. "They covered it up?" he guessed. "Your sisters and Maxwell?"
Quatre nodded slightly. "They made a deal."
"What was it?"
"They watch me. The man's wife got a settlement."
Zechs dropped his hand. It was obviously not the whole story, but he knew what the rest of it must be, what was unspoken, as shameful as his own secrets. Quatre had been an elite warrior, not that many years out of combat, and already in the grip of a machine that made no differentiation between those who could fight back and those who could not. An insult, a threat, and ZERO would have supplied the order-- attack first. ZERO might even have been correct in that assessment, if there had been a gun. But Zechs could also imagine what it must have looked like, finding Quatre standing over a broken body. It must have looked like murder.
"What is ZERO telling you about me?" he asked slowly.
Quatre's jaw worked. "Escape."
"Elaborate."
"That's all. Escape." He shook his head. His fingers played with the hem of his trousers, and he was shivering. There were already red impressions on his upper arm where Zechs had held him.
"Is that what you're going to do then? Escape me?"
He shook his head again, his eyes dark as they met Zechs's. "I think-- I thought-- I was escaping to you."
He nodded. His throat felt so dry. "Are you going to stay?"
"Do you still want me to?"
"You're welcome here, yes."
Quatre let out a breath in a little puff, and then sniffed; his hand twitched as if to wipe his nose, but habit stopped him. "Why?" he asked unevenly. "After all that."
"Because we're alike. Because I like you." He searched for something more, better, to say, but words had never been his strength. They abandoned him now as well. "I don't know," he finished awkwardly. "Does it matter why?" He put a hand on Quatre's shoulder, and stepped toward him. A moment later Quatre relaxed against him, and Zechs embraced him one-armed, holding him against his chest with the trousers stuck between their nudity like an absurd shield of modesty.
"Just don't lie to me," he murmured, rubbing his other hand along Quatre's back. "Okay?"
"All right," Quatre agreed softly, his breath warm on Zechs's bare skin.
He didn't know what to think. ZERO was insistent that he was being played, and he found it hard to disagree; just as hard to fathom, though, what Quatre stood to gain from such an elaborate set-up. He brushed his fingers through the long, silky hairs at Quatre's nape, and said, "Relax. I'll handle them all."
"Are you angry with me?"
"No. Never."
He felt Quatre swallow. "Duo. We used to be together. We met during the war, when we thought Heero had died-- when Colonel Une threatened to fire on a colony, and Heero self-destructed. Duo was his friend. We went into hiding together. He was the first-- he was the first boy who'd ever really looked at me like that."
"What happened?"
"I got sick. He broke it off. He said I-- he said we had too many differences, that he didn't want to be just Quatre Winner's boyfriend, that he needed to do something more. It was after-- after I killed that man."
It made even less sense, then, that Quatre had called him. Zechs tried to put that into words, tried to hold onto the point. "If he's not your lover anymore," he asked, "why him?"
"I live with him. He stays in my house, so there's someone around."
What? "So because he stays he's awarded the privilege of abusing you?" Zechs pressed.
Quatre stepped away, and dropped onto the couch. He lay his head back, staring unblinking at the ceiling. "I destroyed a colony," he said harshly. "Thousands of people. I put ZERO in my Gundam. I brought it into being. I tried to kill Trowa-- I don't know if you knew that. But he would have forgiven all of that. He's not a bad person. He understands."
Zechs said, "It's not my business," but in a way, it was. And he wanted the answer. He wanted to know what was going on, and he wanted to know why Quatre seemed to feel he deserved his prison. One death was regrettable, but it didn't explain everything.
"No," Quatre sighed. "This is part of it, isn't it? The escape." He was quiet for a moment. "He rejected it. ZERO. I'll never understand how he could do that. How he could be so strong."
Zechs sat on the cushion beside Quatre, the leather cool from the central air on his thighs and shoulders. "It's not about strength," he returned.
"What is it about?"
"Desire." He swallowed, trying not to look at his desk and his pouch. "It's about what you want. And what you believe."
"I wanted to let go," Quatre murmured. "I wanted answers. And I believed..."
"And now you can't stop." The shift of Quatre's eyes was answer enough. "Someday we will."
Quatre nodded. His hand moved, but he quashed it; then a moment later it moved again, and Zechs watched in surprise as Quatre wiped angrily at his face, digging his knuckles over his eyes. Zechs caught him, and held Quatre's hand firmly, stunned to find the knuckles wet. "What is that?" he demanded.
"What?"
He brushed a streak of liquid away from a hot cheek with his thumb. "Why tears?" he clarified, confused and wondering.
"I don't know. It's too much." He seemed embarrassed, but more tears followed, as his eyes reddened and he tried to hide it by looking away. One fat drip clung to the curve of his jaw, and Zechs stared at it.
"You need sleep," he decided at last. It must have been the hang-over, and maybe his back was still hurting. He stood, and pulled Quatre to his feet as well. He was surprised again when Quatre's hand tightened anxiously about his.
"Will you come?" Quatre asked him tentatively. "Really?"
He could only nod. "If you want."
"I'd like it. I liked it last night, on the couch."
Not the sex. Afterwards, when Zechs had slipped behind him, to hold him while he slept. "Then-- I will," he said.
Painfully green eyes turned up to his. "Zechs? What can I do for you?"
He conjured a smile, and fought to keep it on his mouth and in his eyes. "You're here."
The doorbell rang at half four.
Zechs had showered and dressed while Quatre slept like the dead, oblivious to the noise. He had finished the magazine, tried to interest himself in food, and spent far too much time in silence with only circling thoughts and unanswerable questions. The doorbell was a shock. The maid came only once a week and wasn't due for three more days, and he simply did not get other visitors. He stopped in his bedroom closet first to pull a pressed cotton shirt with long sleeves from its hanger before going for the door. He shrugged it on, twitching the collar flat just at the buzzer rang again, the low tone grating on his headache. He was surprised to discover he had never locked the door after he'd brought Quatre in; he had been far too distracted, to have forgotten such a detail. Now feeling grim, he depressed the latch, and opened the door.
Duo Maxwell was standing on his front steps.
His first thought was that Duo had arrived unsummoned and without notice. His second was that Duo, unlike Quatre, could really be said to have aged since the war. His face no longer had the childish roundness that Quatre's had. He was somewhat taller than Quatre, though still several inches shorter than Zechs, and he was whippet-thin. He was also, whether by design or accident, dressed in nearly the same colour Quatre had been wearing at the party. His ivory button down was belted into pale slacks that were slightly darker. Zechs followed rangy legs down to scarlet trainers, and winced.
"He's sleeping," he said.
Duo blinked at him, then shoved his hands into his pockets. "Can I come in?"
He kept his face impassive as he stepped aside, courteously opening the door wider to allow Duo to pass him. Duo entered his home with a little sidestep and what looked suspiciously like a hunch designed to make him appear smaller; he glanced about incuriously, then turned back to face Zechs as the older man closed the door and leant against it.
"I guess you met up at the party?" he asked.
Zechs held up a hand. "Look, don't play games with me, okay? I know you know every detail of what happened between that night and now."
Eyes that were still that curious shade of violet narrowed at him. Zechs returned the look iota for iota, until Duo broke their stare and looked about the hallway. He fingered the blossom of a fake hyacinth on the table almost absently. "Is this the first time... you and him..."
Zechs smirked at him.
This time Duo visibly clenched his jaw. A moment later he said, not precisely requesting, "If I can just hang around until he wakes up."
"It's driving you crazy, isn't it?" Zechs murmured.
"I'd think someone like you would be a little more sensitive with phrases like that."
Oh, there was no friendship or compassion on offer here. Duo's purple eyes were level and his gaze, though not hostile, promised no compromise. Zechs had no plans himself to pull his punches. "Someone like me?" he repeated, brushing past Duo and walking into the den. He didn't remember the state of the couch until he saw the cushions. He sat directly on top of the mess, the easiest way he could think of to hide it without first drawing attention to the existence of a problem. He tossed an arm over the back of the couch and crossed his ankles, inviting Duo to one of the chairs with a careless flip of his hand. "So," he continued, "I'm crazy, and Quatre's crazy, too, and we can't be trusted together; so you came to fetch him back to where you can watch his every move. Is that it?"
Duo sat on the jacquard suzette chair, a ginger procedure that seemed to make him uncomfortable. He stayed perched on the edge of the seat, at any rate, and kept his elbows on his thighs rather than trusting the arms of the chair. He wore a pursed-lip expression now that was appraising Zechs. "Is that what he told you?" he replied.
"Leave Quatre out of it," Zechs said pleasantly. "I think you should tell me what you think."
"I think I'm here to give him a ride home. That's all."
"I think you're early," Zechs corrected. "He's staying."
Duo had even less practice than Winner at concealing his thoughts. Zechs could easily read the evaluation going on behind Duo's eyes-- how much to give in, how much to fight. Still trying to be casual, when he wanted to scream and yell. He didn't have Quatre's unique combination of polish and innocent appeal, but he gave off a stronger impression of boyishness, an image Zechs had no doubt was a careful construction. He remembered the first pictures of Pilot 02 to come across his desk-- remembered thinking he had never seen a clearer image of Peter Pan brought to life, from the dangerously sly smile to the cocky hand planted on slender hip on the eve of his own execution. The inevitability of time was stealing some of that from Duo Maxwell, unlike his fictional twin. Duo looked like he was trying hard not to grow up. The red sneakers planted on Zechs's teardrop Dorokhsh rug were damning evidence in themselves.
"Another night?" Duo asked finally. "I can bring some stuff for him."
"Perhaps longer," Zechs said. "What's your interest in this?"
"I'm his friend. What's your interest?"
"I'm his friend."
Duo glared at him. "Then I'm really not sure what all the attitude is about," he said in a clipped, irritated little snip.
"Maybe I'd like to know why calling you makes him afraid."
Duo blinked rapidly as he tried to hide his dismayed reaction. "Does it?"
"I think you know it does."
His mouth tightened. "Look, I get that you've just met him and all, but I don't appreciate the third degree. I'm not here to piss on my territory."
"Aren't you?" Zechs retorted.
"You're doing enough for the both of us."
"Alright then." Zechs knocked one of the loose cushions over as he stood, letting it cover the stains while he went into the kitchen. He had brewed iced tea only two days ago, and he poured two glasses of the smoky lapsang souchon blend. The glasses were already perspiring as he brought them back to the den. He gave one to Duo, who accepted it while avoiding his fingers so deftly he almost didn't notice, and resumed his seat. "If we're mutual friends," he resumed, "then why don't you tell me why you keep him on such a tight leash?"
"Leashes are for dogs, not friends." Duo sipped, and made a little face at the bitter flavour. He rested the glass on his knee. "He called me."
"I know." He didn't add that he had pushed Quatre to do so, nor that they had argued about it after. "Why you? It's my understanding the two of you are no longer together."
"Guess you did cover a broad range of topics in the past twenty-four." Duo drank again, cautiously, then drained a third of his glass. "We broke off. Yeah."
"Then why does he call you instead of someone else, and why is he still afraid of you, and why, when you're speaking to him on the phone, do you act like a put-upon, cuckolded lover?"
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me," Zechs said flatly.
"And apparently you heard me."
"Answer the questions, Maxwell."
Duo leant forward and placed his tea carefully on the coffee table. As he straightened, he said, "You know, I don't think I will. I don't like the question-- I don't like how you asked it-- but most of all, I don't like you."
Zechs smiled. "Oh, dear."
"I came here perfectly willing to accept that the two of you were doing-- whatever-- and that's fine. That's jolly. I'm just the ride home."
Zechs ignored that. "Are you his guardian?"
"I'm his friend," Duo repeated stubbornly.
"Does he have a guardian?"
"I think one of his sisters is his legal guardian until he hits twenty-one."
"I find that interesting," Zechs said. "Don't you? He's an adult by any standard. Why would he need one at all?"
"He's got a gigantic trust fund, that's why. You rich people don't like to let the cash slip away until it's legally unavoidable."
Zechs took his first sip of his tea, watching Duo watch him over the rim of the glass. "That's not the impression I got from Quatre," he answered after he swallowed.
"What answer would you like me to give you?" Duo returned. "The one that confirms what you already think, or my side of the truth-- which isn't nearly as fun?"
"You've already said you're not going to give me your side of the truth, haven't you?"
Frankly Duo said, "I don't really see why I should."
"Either you're very confused, or more possessive than you are willing to admit."
They were glaring at each other now, tempers rising beneath the surface. Duo didn't quite have his tone under control when he snapped, "Does it even cross your bleeding mind that you don't have all the facts?"
"Yes, it does. And I've been asking you for them for a quarter of an hour. You're so damned selfish you refuse to give them to me. What do you expect me to do?"
"Back the fuck off!"
"Why?" he demanded.
"Because he's not up for whatever agenda you've got. In case you didn't notice that when you were tucking him into bed."
"I don't have an agenda." As soon as he'd said it, though, he realised how it could look as though he did. Quatre was wealthy, as Duo had hinted. So, of course, was Zechs, and Duo's roving eye had no doubt observed quite a bit. But Quatre was also a Gundam Pilot, just like 02. He supposed the strange thing was not that Duo should question his intentions, but rather that Quatre hadn't. They had been enemies and more than enemies; they had sided with Treize sheerly to bring Zechs to defeat. And there had been a moment-- more than one, if he was honest-- since Quatre had walked onto his balcony, in which Zechs had had a fleeting thought of finally conquering one of them, the zealous child-killers from Space. But he didn't feel that anymore, somehow.
Duo set his jaw. "That has yet to be seen."
His headache was worsening, a thrumming pain in his sinuses. He rubbed the bridge of his nose firmly, but the relief faded as soon as he removed the pressure. "Why don't you tell me what you think I want from him?"
"I think you've already had part of it," Duo said, the accusation clear as daylight. "The rest-- I don't know. But you're a little too interested to be just a mutual one-off."
"I don't have one-offs."
"Then I'm not gonna find him naked back there?" He jerked his thumb at the hallway, his eyes hard little chips.
Zechs shrugged. "I have no idea. Feel free to check as long as you don't wake him up. He's near collapse from exhaustion. Something his many guardians and jailors have failed to notice."
Duo was glaring again. He lasted only a few seconds before he accepted the invitation, rising and striding purposefully down the hallway. Zechs did not follow. He did, in fact, know what Duo would see-- Quatre, asleep in the bed as he had been for four hours. He did listen closely, but Maxwell was silent as a ghost even on the tiled floors. When he emerged a minute later, he looked subdued. Zechs did not ask, and Duo did not offer: he resumed his chair, and picked up his tea. Zechs waited quietly as Duo stared, abstracted, into the contents of his glass.
Duo broke the muteness abruptly. "Did he tell you what he did?"
"He told me there was a killing and a cover-up, yes."
"He tried to kill himself afterward. Did he tell you that too?"
Zechs nodded. "Yeah."
"This last month, he could barely get out of bed." He met Zechs's gaze dead-on, defiantly almost, as if locking a target. "Exhaustion isn't the half of it."
Zechs said, "Maybe I can understand him better than the rest of you sane people."
Duo's eyes narrowed. "What does that mean?"
"You're the one who was throwing accusations."
"Don't deflect that, tell me what you mean."
"I think you have an exaggerated, skewed sense of what insane is or isn't."
He scowled. "And I think you may be full of shit."
"Yes, yes," he responded impatiently. "You've made that clear. What are you so damned afraid of?"
"Him getting hurt again," Duo answered immediately. "Because I know I can't stop it, especially if he has helpful people like you barging in." He gripped his tea tightly. "He's the fucking walking wounded, Merquise."
"We all are," Zechs dismissed him. He eyed the younger man. "Even you. Arrogant of you to suppose you're not."
"Arrogant is pronouncing from on high when you know nothing about me, buddy," Duo snapped angrily.
"You're not so very different from any of us that were there," Zechs forestalled. "Christ, you're either in denial, or a liar."
"Just because it's inconceivable for you to move on doesn't mean the rest of the world has to hang up their lives too." He stood stiffly. "I have crap in the car for Quatre. I'll bring it in."
Zechs watched him go, once again fighting intense frustration. It was increasingly clear there was some kind of conspiracy in the shadows, and that it probably reached much further than Zechs's townhouse and one broken relationship. He wanted answers, and he wanted Duo to deal with him honestly, and he wasn't any closer to either of those ends than he had been when the man had arrived.
Duo returned shortly carrying a bundle of folded clothing, and a small bag of toiletries. He held them out, and Zechs took both items, turning the bag over to examine its contents through its clear walls. There were pill bottles inside.
"What are they?" he asked.
"Anti-psychotics and anti-anxiety," Duo informed him, a touch sullenly.
"Something I should know, Maxwell?"
"Plenty, if you plan to pursue anything with Quatre."
"Then why are you so defiant about sharing?" he demanded, coming to his feet. Duo put distance between them immediately, his body language signaling his sudden wariness, but Zechs did not move out from behind the coffee table. "It's not like you to be so petty."
"You jumped all over when I walked in the door!" Duo protested. "And you haven't done a damn thing toward assuring me that you're in a position to care for him."
"He wasn't exactly flourishing under your care, either," Zechs pointed out, rather nastily. Duo flushed abruptly, letting Zechs know that score had drawn blood.
"You know, it's hard to imagine why so many people hate you," the younger man muttered.
"It's hard to imagine why so many people adore you." Zechs drew a deep breath to steady himself. "Look, this is getting us nowhere. If you're serious about caring about Quatre you'll help me help him. If you're not, you can just go."
If he'd thought that would end it, he was deluded. If anything, it pushed Duo into direct confrontation. His expression went flat and dangerous. "Let me put it you to this way," he said in a low voice. "You have absolutely no right, and absolutely no power, to make me go away."
"I think I'm the only one who can say that for sure, Duo!"
It was Quatre. Zechs hadn't even heard him coming, and judging from Duo's flinch, he hadn't either. At least Quatre wasn't naked; he'd put on one of Zechs's shirts, and it covered his bare legs to the thighs. He looked a little like a ruffled child playing in his father's clothes, but there was nothing child-like in his face just then. His eyes were dilated, and dark, and they were furious. Zechs had the sinking feeling that he'd walked into water too deep to stand in.
"Did we wake you?" he asked carefully.
Quatre glanced at him. "I heard you talking," he snapped. "I'm not stupid."
"Of course you're not," Duo said.
"Come sit down," Zechs added. "I'll get you a blanket."
"I don't want a blanket." Quatre looked warily between them. "What I want is to be an active participant in planning the rest of my life."
Zechs gestured to the couch. "Then come sit down and tell us what you want." He was aware of Duo backing off, but he was more focused on the deep frown on Quatre's face, and the oddly mistrustful look he wore.
"You don't have to take that tone with me," Quatre accused. "I'm not going to fly into a blind rage."
"Okay," Zechs agree, keeping his tone bland and inoffensive. "And you don't have to be rude. It won't help any of us do this."
"Rude?" Quatre repeated incredulously. "I walk in here to find you two fighting over me like dogs on the last dinner bone. I know how to take care of myself. I know who my enemies are!"
He felt himself tensing under Quatre's attack, ready to react as aggressively as the smaller man. He capped it with an effort, sensing it wouldn't be the right way to control this odd tantrum. "Do you?" he asked evenly. "Who, then?"
Quatre's hands are clenched and white-knuckled. "Those who confine me. Those who try to control me."
"No-one's doing that here."
His expression darkened. He dismissed Zechs with a curt toss of his head, and stalked around him to the couch, where Zechs had left the clothing and sundries. He gathered them in his arms, and with a last burning look that encompassed both Zechs and Duo, he left the den. Moments later Zechs heard the bedroom door swing shut.
Duo exhaled softly. "That was refreshingly mild," he muttered.
Zechs rolled his shoulders to ease their rigid tension. "Was it?" he asked, in all seriousness. The episode had erased, at least momentarily, the brewing argument between himself and Duo, and he saw in the pilot's face a like sentiment. And a deeper unhappiness, as Duo gazed into the hallway where Quatre had gone.
"I suppose he'd say it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you," he answered slowly. He looked at Zechs. "I suppose you might say that, too."
"No. I'm not paranoid." He picked up his tea, and drank from it; it loosened his throat and chest, and the coolness was welcome. "Though I do still wonder what your agenda is. As well as his sisters'."
This time, he knew he was getting an honest answer. There was no dissembling in Duo's posture now, no attempt to hide or withhold. Simply, Duo said, "To protect him from the people who really are out to get him. But mostly to protect everyone else."
"And I'm one of those, in your estimation?"
"At the moment, you bet your ass I do."
"He asked to come here," Zechs pointed out.
"And he asked to stay?" Duo said, meeting his eyes.
Zechs returned the look. "I said he was welcome as long as he wanted to."
The other man nodded, and then the fight drained out of him. Zechs was left blinking, surprised, when a suddenly weary adult replaced the boy he'd been talking to. "He needs to stay on the meds," Duo told him. "He'll feel worse if he doesn't."
"All right," he agreed.
"I'll tell his family where he is. You might get calls."
"That's fine. --From you as well, I imagine?"
He didn't need the little negative shake of the head to read the answer in Duo's body language. "I'll do my best to keep my face out of your business. That little show a few minutes ago wasn't very ambiguous."
"I heard your phone call with him. Every word," Zechs felt compelled to say. "That show wasn't very ambiguous either."
"You've had the tip of the freaking iceberg, Merquise. I've been dealing with this for years." He sighed. "I try," he added quietly. "Can you grant me that much?"
"I'd have less difficulty if you weren't so interested in your piece of turf where Quatre is concerned that you can't cooperate with me."
"I'm not thrilled that 'cooperation' entails rolling out the red carpet to your bed."
Zechs seized on that, sensing a kernel of truth was about to be revealed. "Is that what this is about?"
"It would be enough." But he didn't leave an opening to pursue anything. He produced a card from his wallet, and a pen from his pocket, and wrote a number quickly. The card he passed to Zechs. "If he starts-- if he gets any worse, this is a number you can reach me at. I can stay away until you ask for help, if you swear to me on your father's grave you'll call when you need it."
"You don't have to stay away." He took the card, looking at the jutting, angular scrawl of numbers. "And I'll call."
"Thanks." Duo cast a final look down the hallway, then squared his shoulders. "All right. Bye."
"Are you still sleeping with him?"
Maxwell hadn't gotten more than two steps. He stopped, but didn't turn about. "That's not your business."
"I think it is, if it's your business that I am."
He about-faced. "Fine. No."
"Then why are you so obsessed with who he's sleeping with?" Zechs tried to catch his eyes. "Should I worry that you're in love with him?"
"Of course I'm in love with him!" While Zechs stared, surprised, Duo laughed suddenly. It had a cutting, bitter undertone. "Try to keep up."
He felt he understood even less of what was going on than he had before. "Then why are you no longer together?" he asked genuinely. And genuinely interested in the answer, because it was clear to him that Quatre had unresolved feelings as well. Maybe it wasn't him with the agenda? Was this some kind of play? Or-- how could people lead such complicated lives?
"I couldn't handle it." Duo glanced away. "And I feel like shit about it, so I sit on his ass pretending to be his friend."
Slowly Zechs said, not quite sure why he was saying anything, "He believes something else entirely."
"Yeah. That's abundantly clear."
"Why do you allow it?
"What am I supposed to do about it?" Duo hunched his shoulder. "Anyway. Call me." He didn't wait this time, but went to the door and let himself out. Zechs followed after a moment, watching through the window panes on either side of the door as Duo jogged down the steps and to the small blue car parked in Zechs's drive. A minute later the car turned on, the engine a faint rumble from inside the townhouse, and then it pulled out of the drive, and turned down the street.
Zechs locked the door, and realised he felt-- sorry. Sorry for Duo.
But no more enlightened.
Eventually he made his way back to the bedroom. The door had been opened, but he didn't go any further than the frame, leaning against it to look inside. Quatre was in the bed again, still wearing Zechs's shirt, one of the cotton blues. He had taken up position on his stomach again, but this time he had several more pillows under him. Zechs wondered if one of the pill bottles had held pain medication.
"Are you going to tell me what happened out there?" he asked the silent room.
"What happened?" Quatre repeated, his voice muffled. But no longer that combination of belligerence and suspicion.
I know who my enemies are, Quatre had said. Zechs didn't have to think very hard to know where he'd heard that before.
"You're angry," he observed.
Quatre only sighed, an oddly defeated sound. "Not at you."
"No?" He himself still felt on edge. Most of his days were a haze of apathy, a cycle of highs never allowed to dip into lows. And he had never liked these kinds of confrontations, twisted and layered and so dependent on the ability to express the right words and feelings. It wasn't the clean engagement of battle with discernable goals, where adrenaline was the only high you needed and everyone understood what everyone else was thinking.
"Not at him either, I guess," Quatre said after a moment. "Was I horrible?"
"No, you were angry."
His face finally appeared from behind one of the gold pillows. He looked far more tired, almost sick, and that made Zechs worry. "Can you rub my back?" he asked softly.
"Sure." He finally left the door and sat on the edge of the bed, setting his hip against Quatre's. He focused on the same muscle group as earlier, alternating sweeps with the heel of his palm and circles with the pads of his thumbs. Quatre's back was stiff, resisting the pressure of his hands, and he knew that he was only causing pain. He kept at it, stroking firmly and steadily, and gradually Quatre began to relax. When he pushed the shirt higher to get it out of the way, he saw the scar from the stabbing. It was a depressed knot of white tissue nearly a half-inch long, most likely an exit wound. There were other scars, as well, some so faint he could only barely feel them under his fingers.
"Did you ever meet him before?"
He discovered he could span Quatre's back with his hands, as he laid them still for a moment. His skin was several shades darker than Quatre's; his hands looked like wings sprouting from Quatre's spine. "Who?" he asked.
"Duo."
"Yes. A few times."
"Do you regret meeting me yet?"
He resumed the massage, pressing deeper now that Quatre was loosening up. "No," he answered truthfully. "I doubt I will."
"Tell me what I can do for you. Please."
He thought about it as he began to work between Quatre's shoulder blades, feeling out knots and attacking them one by one. At last he concluded, "I don't know what to ask for." Quatre rolled over, catching one of Zechs's now aching hands and holding it, interlacing their fingers. It was a tender thing. "I never know what to ask for, because I don't know what I want."
"It doesn't have to be big," Quatre said. Zechs didn't know what that look in his face was. Determined, but pleading. "It can be something small."
He said the only thing he was sure of. "Stay."
A real smile blossomed over Quatre's face. It tugged at him, and he couldn't help returning it affectionately. It was such an unreserved, so artless an expression of pleasure. He couldn't imagine that he'd ever been responsible-- accountable -- for such a smile before.
"Lie down with me?" Quatre asked him, his fingers a tender touch against Zechs's cheek. Zechs went with the gentle tug of Quatre's hand holding his, and together they settled to face each other. He smoothed a hand down Quatre's hip, around warm skin to the small of his back, caressing now. And Quatre's thumb was on his lips, resting there in something like a kiss.
Nothing like the man who'd asked for a hit. Or the man who'd yelled at him and Duo in the den just a quarter hour ago. He supposed he didn't need any more confirmation that Quatre was sick, maybe as sick as Duo had said. Did that matter? It didn't lessen him, and it didn't-- it didn't change that he'd reached out, and for Zechs, who was no prize, who was his own brand of screwed up.
Quatre was going to stay. Maybe another day, maybe two, and then Zechs would call Duo, because he'd promised he would, and Quatre would go back to his prison and Zechs would sink back into his. He didn't want that to happen, didn't want to be two ships passing once and never again. He didn't know how to stop it, either.
Quatre echoed his thoughts. "This can't last forever," he said softly.
He moved his lips against Quatre's finger. "Nothing lasts forever."
"What are we going to do?"
"Now, or when it's over?"
Quatre nodded. Zechs smiled. "Do I sound too needy?" Quatre joked, but there was something changing in his eyes, growing deeper and bigger.
"I don't have much experience being needed. It's kind of pleasant," he murmured.
"I don't know anything about you. Not really."
"Did you think all I wanted was a few hours in bed with you, Quatre?"
"I don't know," he admitted quietly. " We've only just met."
"We've known each other forever."
He won the smile back, softer now, with steady eyes looking into his. He slid his arm about Quatre, pulling him closer, and lowered his head until their lips met. It wasn't much, maybe wasn't enough, but it was all he knew to give right then. And Quatre took his stupid offering like it was all he'd ever wanted. When they separated Quatre's mouth was red and Zechs's lips were tingling and damp. He felt-- really good.
Quatre sighed, and traced a line over Zechs's collarbone. "I wasn't sure you liked kissing," he said.
"Neither was I."
"If it makes you uncomfortable..."
"I like it."
"You don't have to. Not everyone does."
"Do you?"
"Yes. But only if the other person is enjoying it as well." He hesitated, and Zechs wondered, too late, if he'd been meant to confirm again. Quatre stroked his throat sweetly. "I can live without kissing," he added abruptly. "This is... we have something more. Don't we?"
"I'm not with you for the kissing, no. Or the sex." He shrugged. "If it happens, fine." It wasn't the right answer, and he knew it, but the right answer wasn't coming. "I like you," he tried again. "I can't say that about too many people."
"I can't imagine why, I've acted like a lunatic since you met me."
That made him chuckle. "How does it feel?"
"Crazy," he said. "Ironic, since everyone thinks I've been crazy for years." He concentrated on the movement of his fingers against Zechs's stubble. "It's like I'm floating... I'm not sure what the right words are, or where to look, or what to do. And it doesn't matter in the usual way if I get it wrong, but it matters more, because you--" He cut himself off.
"I what?"
"I'm not sure," he murmured slowly. "Hear me, I think. Know me." His thick lashes were hiding his eyes from Zechs. Very softly, almost in a whisper, Quatre added, "I fought a war with Duo. I loved him even. But we-- we never-- there were always things we couldn't say. I don't feel that here."
"You can say whatever you want," Zechs assured him. "I want you to. I'm sick of liars."
"How much truth is too much?"
"I don't think there's a limit." A fingertip brushed his chin. "I don't feel comfortable not knowing."
"You want control," Quatre rephrased.
"Yes. Don't you?"
"I've abused it whenever I had it. I don't deserve it."
"I can't imagine that in you," he said honestly.
"I like to think it's the worst I'm capable of. I don't know; maybe there's worse. I don't want to know if there is."
"Out of control is worse."
"There's always fate," he said whimsically. Seriously. "Or God. Or ZERO."
Zechs shook his head, and caught the hand when it tapered up his jawline. "You don't believe that any more than I do," he disagreed.
"They're just names. Words. Maybe my family are my fate. My father was my God. There are things we can't escape."
"Your father is dead. Your family only has as much influence on you as you give them. You could stop, you know."
"What would I do instead? Where would I go? I have nothing and I can't give anything back. All I've done in my life is be my father's son and pilot a Gundam. The world doesn't need me much for the first, and not at all for the second."
"You're here now," Zechs reminded him. The lashes rose, and Zechs had a good look at the doubt in the green eyes. "You said you wanted escape," he added intently. "You said that's what I was to you. Why don't you start believing it?"
"I don't know. I-- I think that-- I don't understand yet. What the path is. What the choice is. It's like standing in a dark room, clinging to the hope that there are walls."
That surprised him. "Is ZERO quiet?"
Muscles stood out along his jaw as he nodded. He was scared, Zechs realised. And understood finally why Quatre hadn't asked for a second hit. "You don't have to be sure of everything all the time," he admonished soothingly. "Anyone who says he is, is a liar."
He was surprised when Quatre didn't answer, but instead rolled to put his back to Zechs. Then he wormed his way backward until he was fitting tightly against Zechs's chest, and he pulled on Zechs's arm until he obligingly draped it about Quatre's chest and held him close.
"Why are you so cold?" he asked. He meant to sound annoyed and gruff, but somehow he didn't manage. He fumbled for the sheet with his foot, and dragged it up, tucking it around Quatre and holding it in place with his arm. He'd never met anybody who wanted as much physical contact as Quatre seemed to need. It was hard not to be aware of the way Quatre's body, chilled as it was, was pressed against him; it made him too conscious of his own hot skin, of the way his groin was flush with Quatre's bottom, how easy it would be to throw his thigh about Quatre's hip and bring him closer.
"Why do you have such a big bed?"
He had to think about that. "I don't bring people here, if that's what you're asking," he said.
"No. I knew that."
"I don't like feeling crowded," he answered finally.
"While you're alone in your big bed?"
He smiled, and buried it in Quatre's hair. He smelled like sweat, and the bed, and underneath it somewhere like shampoo. "Maybe if I had a smaller bed, I would."
"I suppose that's very foresighted," Quatre agreed gravely.
"If you want to know the truth, the decorator picked this bed. I think she thought I might invite her into it."
"Very foxy."
"She thought wrong." His arm tightened about Quatre without conscious direction. "Either way, I'm glad of it now."
"Mm," Quatre said. "Good answer."
End Part 2
(:./erin/zero2)
