23 Aug 2003
Title: Exposé
Author: WingNut (wingnut629@yahoo.ca)
Archive: Gundam Wing Addiction; anywhere else, please ask
Category: fluff, humour, lemon-lime
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: gratuitous lemons and limes, silliness, some pilot
stereotyping
Spoilers: none
Blurb: A gossip columnist has Quatre in her sights.
Notes: Spring 2002 - Summer 2003. Yes, I am that slow.
Disclaimers: I don't own the characters from Gundam Wing; Bandai, Sunrise and Sotsu do. This is a work of non-profit fanfiction. I also do not own the rights to the Speedo name or brand.
It was the last night of the United Earth Spere Trade Conference. In a suite high in the San Francisco Starley Hotel, a picture flashed onto a vid-screen in a darkened room. It showed Quatre Winner, a friendly smile on his handsome face, looking sideways and shrugging out of a fluffy white housecoat at the side of a pool. One smooth shoulder was bare, the sleeve just covering that hand; the other hand was grasping the lapel on that side and pulling it away from his nicely-muscled chest.
The picture disappeared and another photo of Quatre came up, this one showing him wearing only a form-fitting swimsuit. He was bent over slightly and reaching for a towel, his posture emphasizing the lines of his back and legs, and the curve of his rear.
A few moments later, that picture was replaced by another: on one side was a huge spray of water; on the other, a fit, trim, and obviously male Quatre was laughing and dodging out of the way with a graceful twist of his body, the blue-green Speedo bringing out the colour in his bright eyes.
"Well...?" inquired a soft voice.
Relena stared up at the brilliant image. "Oh my, my, my... Dorothy, I owe you twenty credits. You were absolutely right, he *is* a hottie under all those clothes."
Sally grinned from her position on the couch. "No argument here. I never suspected that he was so..." she waved a hand suggestively.
"Nummy?" finished Noin from the other end of the couch. "Firm? Snuggle-able? Drop-dead sexy?"
Dorothy simpered. "I'm so pleased you all agree with my assessment," she trilled.
Relena made a face at her. "You don't fool us with that fluffy-headed routine, you know."
Sally laughed. "Anyone who could manoeuvre this situation to get young Mr. Winner here," she raised her wine glass to the picture in a silent toast, "to willingly unveil that gorgeous body for the camera is far too intelligent to be considered fluffy-headed."
Dorothy smiled sweetly and batted her eyelashes. "You're too kind, I'm sure. After all, if our dear Miss Relena" Relena stuck out her tongue "hadn't solicitously nudged our shy little stud in the right direction, and if you and Miss Noin hadn't taken the photos, why, my silly little news articles probably would have come to nothing."
"Not that it wasn't fun," Noin said, "but wouldn't it have been a lot easier to simply invite him to a pool party?"
Dorothy and Relena exchanged a rueful glance. "We've tried that," Relena admitted, "several times. He either politely declines the invitation, or comes dressed in loose, long clothing, saying that his skin burns easily and he has to cover up, or that he doesn't feel like swimming just now."
Dorothy shook her head. "There's no way I could compromise the security at any of his homes without being caught. I've spent a small fortune sneaking little cameras into his quarters at conferences and such, but they've always been discovered by one of the pilots before I can get anything interesting. Believe me, I wouldn't have resorted to such a complicated plan if it hadn't been necessary."
Sally laughed. "Complicated, but very effective. Setting the ninnies in SLOP on him was a seriously brilliant move. Cruel, mind you, but brilliant."
Relena giggled. "You should have seen the desperate look on his face when they cornered him outside the washroom. Poor Quatre! He's too polite, he didn't stand a chance."
Sally laughed again. "Oh, our Quatre is made of sterner stuff than that. He stood up to them quite nicely, in the end."
Noin snorted into her wineglass. "I'll say!!" She avoided Relena's puzzled gaze and said to Dorothy, "Let's get on with the rest of the show before Junior starts kicking my kidneys again."
"And what a show it is," Dorothy grinned wolfishly. "I was quite impressed with the quality of the photos. Even in the magnified shots, the focus and detail are excellent."
"Only the best for the Preventers," Sally said cheerfully. "Fully digital, smaller than my pinkie fingernail, able to store up to 132 full-colour shots, built-in telephoto, wide-angle and macro lenses... I swear, surreptitious surveillance has never been so easy."
"I'll keep that in mind the next time I'm getting undressed," Relena said with a look of mock worry.
"And speaking of getting undressed..." Noin and Sally snickered, "if you thought sweet Quatre was hot, take a look at this one..." The screen filled with an image of Trowa suspended above the pool in a perfect swan dive, his athletic body taut and glistening with water.
"Ohhhh... myyyy... God! *Why* did I have to be chairing that panel when this was going on?" Relena moaned. "I never thought they'd *all* end up in the pool!"
Dorothy smirked and began slowly clicking through the slide show: Duo and Quatre, still dry, talking cheerfully by the side of the pool and looking quite delicious; Trowa in the middle of a twisting dive, with Quatre looking on with an almost dazed look of appreciation on his face; Duo from behind, his legs braced as he heaved a comically-surprised Quatre into the pool.
Then the room filled with laughter as Wufei appeared on the screen, uniform soaked, water dripping from his nose and chin, and a longsuffering look on his face.
"What happened?" Relena giggled.
Sally grinned. "Two words: 'Duo' and 'cannonball.'"
The next shot was a close-up of Wufei's face, wearing a devious smirk. "And now," Dorothy said gleefully, "we're coming to a series that I like to call: The Revenge of the Dragon."
The first slide showed Wufei, now stripped down to his underwear and looking deliciously attractive, heaving a thrashing Duo into the pool. The second was almost the same, but in a different location. The third showed him pulling Duo off the ladder into the pool, the fourth, dropping Duo head-first into the deep end. The fifth and sixth showed the now-happily-smiling Wufei first throwing Duo out of the pool, and then throwing him back in.
Dorothy paused on this last photo. "I must confess I'm curious to know what the others are doing in the background on this one." The pilots were plain to see, sitting in a row on the edge of the pool, solemnly holding up fingers - Quatre nine, Heero six, and Trowa eight.
Noin laughed. "They were scoring the performance - you know, technical difficulty, artistic impression, that sort of thing. Too bad Duo-tossing isn't an Olympic sport."
There were several more shots of the five pilots; wet, muscled bodies twisting and arching in playful competition. There was a particularly fine picture of Wufei and Heero wrestling, and another of Trowa smiling mischievously and using one finger in the ribs to upset Duo's precarious balance on the diving board. Trowa and Heero wearing matching smirks and tossing a laughing Quatre into the water earned a chuckle, as did the shot of Duo leaping into the pool with his trademark manic grin, his braid flying up behind him. There was also a lovely shot of Heero from behind in waist-deep water, showing the muscle definition in his back and shoulders as he used a two-handed sideways swipe to totally drench Quatre.
Then the screen cleared to show Zechs facing the camera. He was down on one knee at the edge of the pool talking to Trowa, who was standing in the pool. Quatre sat to one side, reclining on his elbows and dangling his legs in the water.
"What...?" Relena murmured.
Dorothy snickered. "I had to interleave the pictures from both cameras to get a coherent series of events. Just watch."
The next shot was almost exactly the same, except that Quatre was looking sideways and down at Zechs without turning his head, an appreciatively little smirk on his face.
"Wait!!" Relena gasped, laughing. "Is he checking out my brother's behind? Quatre!!"
Quatre's blue eyes were looking up at the high ceiling in the next picture, a wicked little grin on his lips.
Sally started to laugh as well. "Ding-dong! Temptation calling!"
The next picture was a close-up from behind, showing the pale waterfall of damp hair over Zechs' broad shoulders and down to his waist, and a blurred hand darting into the frame from one side. The thumb and forefinger were just discernable, stretched apart wide enough for a healthy pinch.
Then the screen filled with an image of Zechs Merquise, pilot of legendary reflexes, launching himself forward over the pool with a wide-eyed and openmouthed look of incredulous shock on his face.
The room rang with laughter again.
"That sweet, polite, and thoughtful routine of Quatre's is just a facade," Dorothy said finally, wiping her eyes. "It's somehow comforting to know that he isn't as saintly as he seems."
"Well, not 'saintly,' not with a body like that," Relena pointed out. Then she grinned. "'Heavenly,' perhaps."
"You want heavenly, Relena? Just wait..."
The activity in the photos became more intense, the bodies of the participants mostly obscured by water. Then a picture of Trowa and Quatre flashed up. It was obvious from the positioning that they were kissing, but Trowa's head and shoulders were blocking most of the view.
"Too bad the angle is wrong on that," Noin commented.
"I tried," Sally said ruefully, "but I couldn't get into position quickly enough. Sorry."
The next few slides showed the escalation of the waterfight -Zechs fending off Quatre, Trowa and Heero facing off, and Duo laughing like a maniac as he held up Wufei's underwear, with the Chinese man exploding out of the water right behind him.
Then Relena gave a little scream as Quatre appeared, totally nude, dashing towards his suit.
"Off-centre, and rather crooked, but still, an adequate shot," Dorothy said judiciously.
"*You* try aiming a camera behind your back while you're lying down and see how well it comes out!" Noin protested. "At least I got him in the frame."
"And the subject is better than merely 'adequate,' which counts for a lot," said Sally, grinning broadly.
"I have to agree," Relena said distractedly, fanning herself with a handy magazine.
"OH NO!!" Relena dropped the magazine and dissolved into giggles as the next photo showed Quatre from behind, a shocked Mildred Bridgewater visible beyond him.
"Ohhhhh yes," Sally said. "I must admit I felt badly about that. I was supposed to be guarding that door, but I knew that if I left the towels unsecured, he would just grab one the second he got out of the pool and we'd never get any photos."
"It was for the greater good," Noin assured her. "If you hadn't done that, Quatre never would have had to stand up to those SLOPpies, which I think was better for him in the long run.
Sally laughed. "Yes, that's right. I was altruistically thinking of his emotional well-being when I sat on the towels."
Noin and Sally took turns relating in great detail exactly what had happened, to the delight of the two who had not witnessed the event. Then they all ran through the slides again, picking out their favourite pictures and commenting freely (and lewdly) on the handsome young men onscreen.
Finally, Noin pulled herself to her feet, chuckling. "Well, as enlightening and entertaining as this day as been, I need to get my sleep. Although I'm sure I won't be able to settle down until I get over the urge to giggle every time I look at Zechs." She grinned at the picture of her husband frozen in startled mid-leap, still up on the screen. "I am *sooo* tempted to print that and display it on my desk."
Dorothy smiled and began handing out disks. "I imagine that would be most unwise, not the least because Zechs is certainly clever enough to realize how that picture had to have been taken, not to mention by whom. However, I've made copies of the complete set of photos for each of us to peruse at her leisure, as thanks to you all for your assistance in settling this outstanding bet."
"And I suppose I'd better pay up," Relena said ruefully. "I'll know better than to bet against you again, Dorothy. Although," she looked at the disk thoughtfully as she paid Dorothy her winnings, "I must say that when the result is something like this, I don't really lose."
Dorothy grinned and checked her watch. "The last article should be dispersing through the net even as we speak. I used the three pictures I showed you first, plus some others, so you might want to check it out as well - simply to keep yourself informed of your fellow-delegate's media woes, of course."
"Oh, of course," Relena agreed earnestly.
Quatre's laptop beeped late that night, as he had programmed it to when the next update of the Factual Truth arrived. Quatre immediately stretched out an unerring hand and pulled the little computer down onto the bed.
"Quatre..!" Trowa moaned in protest as the dark room was bathed in the soft light from the screen.
"Sorry! But this won't take long, I promise," Quatre whispered back. He opened the web browser and pulled up the article he had been dreading.
The Factual Truth - The Lowdown on the Upper Crust, OnlineLETTING THE QUAT OUT OF THE BAG
Some things are meant to be covered, such as bags under the eyes, and tomatoes before a frost. But some things should be left uncovered as much, and as often, as possible. Handsome young men should be include in this latter quategory. Check out buff Quatre Winner, shown here relaxing at the pool after a hard day's work at the Earth Sphere Trade Conference in San Francisco's Starley Hotel.
Quatre shifted slightly, biting his lip, and quickly paged through the photos. He was pleasantly surprised to see that they were much better than he had expected. The pictures contained no awkward poses or goofy facial expressions, and although they were revealing, at least they showed conclusively that the previous stories had been exaggerations or outright lies.
He read through the article again, worried that there was something malicious hidden within its almost friendly tone, but he couldn't find anything. Well, perhaps the reporter had just decided to concede gracefully when she saw that the photos didn't support her former theories. Yes, that must be it.
He sighed with relief, relaxing as he felt the weight of worry roll off him. He had been afraid that somehow, the e-zine would have ferreted out the story of him confronting SLOP - or even worse, pictures of it.
But that was impossible. He shook his head and chuckled. Really, he was getting more paranoid than he'd been during the war!
"Quat.. re..." came a muffled complaint from beneath him, accompanied by an encouraging bump of the hips.
"Oh! Sorry, my love," he kissed the arched spine under his lips in apology, pushing the laptop away. He nudged Trowa's knees a little farther apart, and with a heartfelt groan and renewed enthusiasm, finally finished sliding all the way inside his lover.
He was feeling much better already.
Relena waved farewell one last time as Quatre and Trowa headed across the lobby. Dorothy ghosted up behind her and said softly, "I may have underestimated."
"Hm??"
"Those photographs. I may have underestimated their effect," Dorothy repeated, nodding towards the young billionaire.
Relena turned to see Quatre push open the doors, walk through with Trowa at his heels, and stop dead at the shrill screams of excitement from the huge crowd of young women gathered outside.
Dorothy sighed. "Sally just reported that there are about six hundred of them."
Relena blinked. "Oh dear."
"On the other hand," Dorothy said thoughtfully, watching Quatre step back in alarm as the crowd surged forward, "if this sort of thing prompts Quatre to go public about his relationship with Trowa, maybe we'll be able to get a better picture of them kissing."
Relena turned to her friend, her lips twitching as she suppressed a smile. "Wanna bet?"
End
(:./wingnut/expose5)
