"Bad Company"

Written By: Clara Barton & Kangofu_CB

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing. The following is an intellectual exercise with no intention of profit. That said, these characterizations, words, and situations are mine. Please ask before reprinting.

Rating: NC 17

Warnings: Post-Canon, Undercover Missions, Undercover as a Couple, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Human Trafficking, Gang Violence

Pairings: 3x2

Summary: "The only hell and the only paradise are the ones we build ourselves." - Unknown

This fic is dark. It explores the way the lines between good and bad, black and white are blurred, for those who work from the inside to bring down the bad guys. Clara and I do not, at any point, get graphic in our descriptions, but there is a lot of sensitive subject matter. We have tagged as clearly as possible, and individual chapters will contain individual warnings. As a general rule this fic contains: implied torture, death, description of a human trafficking organization and its methods, the surrounding implications of human trafficking including forced prostitution and what amounts to slavery, drug and alcohol use, and drug trafficking. We understand that these subjects are not for everyone. We have made every effort to be respectful and accurate without being gratuitous or disturbing. The bad guys are bad. The good guys are, sometimes, not much better.

We use a liberal sprinkling of Spanish and Russian in this fic, and neither of us are native speakers of either. We’ve relied heavily on the internet, and so we apologize for any mistakes. We have also included translations at the end of each chapter in the form of footnotes.

"Bad Company"

Chapter 5: Riders in the Sky

Their faces gaunt, their eyes were blurred, their shirts all soaked with sweat
He's riding hard to catch that herd, but he ain't caught 'em yet
'Cause they've got to ride forever on that range up in the sky
On horses snorting fire
As they ride on hear their cry

-Johnny Cash

The next shipment arrived and was processed without incident.

It was an all-too-rare occurrence these days, and Trowa kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waited for local law enforcement to get brave or stupid and stumble upon them. Waited for the colonials to riot. Waited for Gerhard's replacement, Eduardo, to make a mistake.

But nothing happened, and all of the tension and anxiety Trowa had battled for the day was left churning in his stomach.

When they got back to the compound that night, everyone was in high spirits. Trowa wasn't the only one who had anticipated things going wrong, and the rest of the crew reacted to the successful delivery by partying.

The shuttle pilot and his crew had hung around, going back to the hacienda to pick up their payment and staying on, at Alessandra's invitation. It was the usual practice - it helped Alessandra build relationships with pilots willing to risk ESUN and colonial patrols to carry illegal cargo. And it helped her show off her magnanimity.

Trowa could still remember the first of Alessandra's parties after he joined Sinaloa.

It had been three weeks after he started, and it hadn't been thrown because of anything as mundane as a successful shipment. Trowa had fed Anhil intel on one of the enforcers, a holdover from before Alessandra had taken over, who had been biding his time and waiting to avenge his previous employer. Preventers had identified him as an exploitable resource, and Trowa had been rewarded for uncovering his duplicity, and been allowed to be the one who finally put a bullet in his head after Salome finished with him.

The party that night had been blessedly mind-numbing. There had been enough drugs on hand to start a public health crisis in a small town, and Trowa had availed himself to a cocktail of drugs and booze that had let him float through the celebration in a distorted haze.

It wasn't until later, when Anhil pulled him aside and introduced Trowa to his cousins, that Trowa started to feel nauseous.

It wasn't until the next morning, when Trowa woke up hungover and desperate to piss and had to crawl over the naked men in his bed, that he let himself start to wonder just how far he would have to go in order to make this op work.

This party was far different from that one - Alessandra and Salome had stayed, for that one, conspicuous in their joy over the death of a traitor.

For this party, Alessandra told Anhil to make sure moi deiti didn't burn down the hacienda, and then she and Salome left to spend the night at one of her coastal resorts.

Trowa had known then that things would be raucous.

Tension had been building for weeks, ever since Branson's execution, and even before that, when the Snakeheads had started to infringe on the Sinaloa territory on L3. The crew had been restless and on-edge since then, and this felt like the first time something had gone right in nearly forever.

Of course, Trowa had been working from the start to fracture the confidence of the Sinaloa cartel, and while things were, in a general sense, going according to plan - the plan meant things had to go to shit.

Which meant more violence, and more victims.

It had been a difficult balancing act before, when Trowa had been forced to work just as hard to keep himself emotionally removed from the brutality around him as he had to actually do his part in it.

But now Duo was here.

Had been here for nearly a month. And he knew.

He hadn't seen much of it, certainly hadn't had any part in it outside of the tussles he himself had been involved in with the crew, and Trowa couldn't decide if that made things better or worse.

Worse, because Trowa was still in this alone. Better, because Trowa had only ever wanted to keep Duo's hands clean in the first place.

Worse, because Duo was there. His indigo eyes saw everything, and Trowa couldn't even stand to be in his own skin when Duo looked at him.

Worse, because when Matvei got his hands on the stereo and starting blasting music beside the pool, Duo abandoned his computer network inside and came to investigate.

Alessandra had made arrangements, before she departed with Salome, and a slew of beautiful men and women lounged by the pool - local additions to supplement the handful of palomniks, ready to pleasure the crew and share the bounty of liquor and drugs that were spread out like a buffet.

Trowa, standing on the fringe of things, watching as the violent men around him danced and snorted cocaine and swam naked, met Duo's eyes for a long, tense moment.

It was impossible to look at Duo, to have Duo look at him, and not feel all of the things Trowa had been trying so damn hard to forget.

They stood there, staring at each other across the gulf between them, for too long. Long enough that Trowa was sure they were attracting attention, long enough for Trowa to see Duo's eyes shift from angry to cautious, and long enough for the knot in Trowa's gut to coil tighter, almost constricting him, long enough-

Matvei walked by and shoved Duo into the pool.

Trowa watched as Duo's arms wildly flung out, as his body hit the water at an awkward angle and a splash of water arced upwards and out, dousing Anhil and his coterie of admirers.

Duo went under and then came up spluttering, rage in his eyes, hair and clothes plastered against his skin.

He swam for the nearest ladder, strokes precise and furious, and his gaze never wavering from the chuckling Matvei.

He pulled himself up, water dripping from his body, looking like some kind of avenging sea creature.

Trowa realized that, aside from the too-loud music, the party was utterly silent, and everyone's attention was focused on the two men.

This was a fight that had been brewing since Duo's arrival, since Duo threw a knife at Matvei, and since he started making casual, pointed comments about Matvei and his internet browsing habits. Duo had half of the cartel members at the compound under his spell, and the other half plotting ways to get revenge. He had always been a polarizing figure - charismatic and charming when he wanted to be, deadly and annoying as fuck when he put his mind to it.

Trowa could see the tension around the pool, the shifting bodies as everyone wondered what would happen next.

Duo was on the top rung of the ladder, and Trowa could see his entire body, clothes molded against his firm, lean frame, and he felt a pang of longing so intense it stole his breath away.

And then he stepped forward and placed his right palm against Duo's chest.

Duo met his gaze, brows drawing together in confusion.

"You've been working too hard, lisichka," he said. "Cool off."

And he shoved him back into the water, the shock of the action catching Duo off-guard, and the water making his grip on the ladder weak.

Matvei howled with laughter and clapped Trowa on the back.

Duo looked at the pair of them, a sneer twisting his lips. He pulled off his soaked shirt, balled it up, and threw it at Trowa.

Trowa sidestepped the projectile neatly, and it landed on the wooden deck with a wet thunk.

Duo's Sweeper tattoo, the dark navy outline of an old Terran plane fuselage, stood out, inked just above his left pectoral, and the rest of the tattoos and scars on his chest, shoulders and upper arms were visible.

"Come join me, payaso," Duo taunted, the sneer on his face somewhere between sultry and condescending. Trowa wondered if he had picked that particular look up from Zechs.

All eyes were still on them, and most of the enforcers were looking at Duo with new eyes.

The Sweeper tattoo had to be earned - Trowa, for all that he had done work with Howard's group in the decade since the war, hadn't earned his yet. Duo had had his for years, and it was a symbol, among spacers, among all of those who lived on the fringe of society, of who Duo was and what he had done.

Trowa could see that even Matvei looked a little awed by the tattoo, and he licked his lips nervously as he glanced between Duo and Trowa.

Rolling his shoulders in a loose shrug, Trowa let his gaze assess Duo for a long moment.

"No."

And then he looked away, over to where Anhil sat with a group of nubile young men. Trowa picked one out, smirking slightly at the dark-haired man, and jerked his head.

The man rose to his feet and came over to Trowa, who put his arm around his shoulders and steered him towards the bar area.

Everyone settled back into the swing of the party surprisingly easily, and as Trowa lounged by the pool, slowly and steadily drinking himself out of sobriety, his companion sitting on his lap and admiring Trowa's muscles and face and chest and whispered teases, he tried to keep an eye on Duo.

And Duo was clearly keeping an eye on him.

Even as the other man swam, even after he finally got out of the pool and joined some of the crew in a game of darts, Duo's gaze kept finding his.

Trowa ran his fingers down the spine of the man in his lap, looking at Duo the entire time, and the darkness of the night around them and the distance between them made it impossible for Trowa to know what Duo was thinking.

Eventually, the man on his lap shifted, bracketing Trowa's body with his thighs and leaning closer to brush his lips over Trowa's jaw and then his ear.

"Take me back to your room, chapo," he breathed.

Trowa shifted, running his hands over the man's back and gently pushing him down Trowa's thighs, away from him.

"Not tonight."

The man looked disappointed, and then angry.

"Estoy demasiado borracho," Trowa soothed him. "No sería bueno."

The man shrugged and smirked, trying to crawl back into Trowa's lap.

"I'll do all the work, chapo," he purred.

Trowa caught the hand that reached for his belt.

"Not tonight," he repeated, more firmly.

The man scowled at him and shook free. He climbed to his feet and glared down at Trowa for a long moment before stalking off.

Trowa sighed and leaned back against his chair. He took another sip of his drink.

"You and 02 need to work out your problems, hermano."

Trowa looked up to see Anhil sit down in the chair beside him.

Trowa finished off his drink with a sneer.

"He's better than Marco," Anhil said, voice low. "And you two were buddies during the war, si?"

Trowa snorted a derisive laugh.

"I'd be better than Marco. And we weren't buddies during the war."

Anhil shrugged.

"You fought on the same side."

"Only by coincidence," Trowa muttered. It was, after all, entirely true.

And, of course, there was the fact that there had been times during the war when they were on different sides.

But there was no need to bring that up now - or ever.

It had been Sally who had first suggested that Heero, Duo and Trowa would provide the most benefit to Preventers as themselves - Heero, who had been an assassin and hacker for hire before he saved the world, and now used the latter skills; Duo, an anarchist who had simply been fighting to bring down the Alliance, and who had strong ties to the Sweepers; and Trowa, who had no strong ties to anyone, and had spent his childhood as a mercenary.

And now his adulthood.

The three of them lived openly as themselves - with no cover - and it allowed them to infiltrate shadowy organizations without any kind of elaborate cover stories.

It also meant that when Trowa looked in the mirror, when he wiped blood from his hands, he was looking at himself. There was no cover, no convenient web of lies cushioning him from the reality that his actions were entirely his own.

"And coincidence brought him here. On the same side again." Anhil shoved at Trowa's leg. "La mujer likes him. And she likes you. Don't make her choose between you two, hermano. She doesn't like it when her favorites can't play nicely."

Trowa had seen evidence of that first-hand.

During his first months with the cartel, there had been two enforcers, handsome men who preened under Alessandra's dark, amused gaze and spent more of their time trying to outdo each other than do their jobs. After one too many brawls, Salome had executed one of them. The other had vanished not long after, with no explanation.

Trowa couldn't let that happen again.

He forced a sigh.

"You want me to go apologize? Ask him to dance?"

Anhil snorted and shook his head.

"I want you to get your head out of your ass, hermano. I don't care how much you like your own shit. It's starting to smell."

With that, Anhil got up and left Trowa alone.

-o-

Trowa never slept well.

Not before this op, and certainly not during the op.

Sometimes, it was useful - keeping odd hours meant he learned a lot about the habits of those around him - but most of the time, it was just frustrating. He couldn't remember the last time he had actually felt rested.

That was a lie, he could. He could vividly remember it. But it wasn't a time or a place or a feeling he could let himself dwell on.

The party had started to lose steam around 2am, most of the crew escorting company back to their rooms or going off alone with more drugs or alcohol.

Duo had hung around for most of it, moving from darts to dancing, alternating his time between teasing the crew and flirting with the beautiful men and women that Alessandra had provided for their amusement.

Trowa spent the rest of the night alone, brooding.

It was after three when Duo finally pulled away from the embrace of a man and woman. The two had been wrapped around Duo for the better part of an hour, touching him, pressing kisses to his skin and muttering things that had all three of them laughing.

Duo's eyes met Trowa's again, something between a warning and a challenge in them, but then he made an elaborate show of kissing the man and woman goodnight and walking back into the hacienda alone.

Trowa followed him soon after, pausing beside Duo's closed door, the desire to reach out and turn the doorknob so intense he felt a little lightheaded.

But he walked to his own room and closed and locked his door. He lay on his bed and stared up at the ceiling, and tried to block out the dying strains of the party, tried to prevent himself from thinking about before, and from thinking about the future and all of the things he still had to do.

It was just after dawn when Trowa gave up attempting to sleep.

He climbed out of bed, changed his clothes, and went down to the kitchen to find something to eat.

Instead, he found Duo, sitting at the island in the kitchen, sipping on a cup of coffee, and eating an apple.

Duo and his damn apples. Duo and his damn obsession with fresh fruit. Duo and his damn obsession with-

"You're up early," Trowa said.

Duo shrugged one shoulder negligently, and then took another bite of his apple.

"Felt like running before the sun rose," he said around the mouthful.

Trowa looked him over more closely, noticing the way Duo's bangs were pushed behind his ears, the way his shirt clung to his shoulders and back, the shorts he wore that made his thighs entirely too attractive.

He turned away from the sight and poured himself a cup of coffee.

Trowa looked at the bowl of apples on the counter, shiny and new, arranged in the same way Duo arranged them at home when-

He slammed shut those thoughts, those memories.

He made himself a piece of toast.

"Gotta get boring, clenching that stick up your ass so tightly all the time," Duo drawled.

Trowa locked his jaw against responding to the comment, and resolutely ignored Duo.

Duo snorted in amused derision.

"You like this all the time, or just since I joined up? Nobody else around here acts so fucking constipated all the time."

The words reminded Trowa of what Anhil had said last night, of the warning that his behavior was noticeable, that his antipathy towards Duo was drawing Salome and Alessandra's attention.

He released a breath and turned around to look at Duo.

"Enjoy the party last night?" he asked, keeping his voice neutral.

Duo was clearly thrown by the change, and for a moment, he stared at Trowa, mouth open. It was almost comical.

"Oh yeah," Duo finally answered. "Who doesn't love a dip in the pool?"

Trowa snorted. He wasn't going to apologize for that. Duo had been ready to commit murder, and that would have gotten both of them killed.

"You looked like you made some friends," he said instead.

"Well, I'm a friendly fucking guy," Duo said before taking another bite of his apple, his tone anything but friendly. "So'r'you, it looked like. Or maybe you just have a thing about boys sitting in your lap."

Trowa narrowed his eyes at Duo, and the other man rolled his eyes and shrugged.

"Whatever, man," he muttered.

"La mujer seems to like you," Trowa said, trying to change the subject.

Duo snorted.

"Even though I haven't sat in her lap?" He shrugged. "Yeah. She doesn't want to feed me to the wolves yet."

"She trusts you," Trowa murmured.

Duo's eyes turned sharp, and some of his animosity seemed to vanish.

"Yeah, about as far as she can throw me."

Trowa smirked at that.

"With Salome's help, that's actually pretty far."

"Yep, right into the nearest ditch, huh?"

The words hit too close to home, and Trowa knew that that was exactly what Duo had been aiming for.

"Stay out of either of their laps and you won't find yourself getting thrown in one," Trowa recommended.

Duo's lips twisted, and he saluted Trowa with his mug.

"Thanks for the advice, payaso."

Trowa shook his head at the nickname. It had been a taunt years ago when Duo first saddled him with it, but it had become something more for them, over the years, had become a touchstone, had become intimate.

Trowa hated hearing Duo call him that here, in this place, where everything he did pulled him further and further away from where he wanted to be. Who he wanted to be.

"How's Howard?" Trowa asked, the most innocuous thing he could think of to say.

"Good. Laughing his ass off about the two of us working for the same outfit again."

"I replaced the table we broke," Trowa pointed out.

"Yeah, but he's still got crew who flinch when your name gets mentioned."

"Good," Trowa decided.

He buttered his toast, feeling Duo's eyes on him the entire time.

"He wanted me to pass on his regards," Duo said. "Told me to keep an eye on you."

Trowa seriously doubted Howard had said any such thing.

Howard was Duo's contact, was as close to family as Duo had, and Howard thought of the long-haired man like a son. Trowa, on the other hand, he treated like the delinquent boyfriend who always fucked things up, but who he tolerated for Duo's sake alone.

Of course, being tolerated by Howard meant a lot - it meant Howard had Trowa's back, meant he always had a handy cover story, meant he had a way to get extracted, meant he had a place to run to.

But those words... they weren't Howard's words. They were Duo's.

And the expression in Duo's eyes said that, said all of that and more.

"You've got enough to keep your eyes on," Trowa told him, "and I can look out for myself."

"What if I like looking at you?" Duo said with a leer.

Trowa gave him a quelling look.

"You like looking at me because you're demented, lisichka," Trowa muttered.

"Pot - kettle?" Duo suggested.

His tone was light, teasing, so far from the animosity their previous interactions had been drowning in.

And Trowa - Trowa wanted so badly to reach out and snag the apple from Duo's hands and place his mouth where Duo's had been. Wanted to drag him into the shower. Wanted to take him as far away from where they were as it was possible to get.

He wanted to run, and when Duo looked at him like that, full lips curved in a lopsided smirk, it was far too easy for Trowa to imagine doing exactly that.

"You and me aren't the same, lisichka," Trowa said. He kept his voice low. "You got hired to do a job - got hired to sit behind a desk and play with your toys. What you do and what are I do are very different. I dig the ditches, don't I?"

Duo's eyes narrowed, and he tensed.

"All by yourself, huh?"

Trowa nodded.

"All by myself. You do your job, and I do mine. Just like always. We don't work together, lisichka, and we aren't friends."

Duo finished off his apple, chewing thoughtfully as he considered Trowa's words.

"But I'm a friendly guy, you're a friendly guy. We can-"

"Mne nuzhno eto. Ostav' menya v pokoye."

Duo's Russian wasn't great, but he knew enough, had certainly heard both those phrases from Trowa before, just never paired together.

He swallowed and nodded.

"Alright. Fine. You do your job, and I do mine. That's the only reason we're here anyway, isn't it?"

Duo didn't give Trowa a chance to respond. He picked up his coffee mug and walked out of the kitchen.

-o-

Chilly would be one way to describe the silence between Duo and Trowa over the next two weeks.

Arctic might be more appropriate.

Absolute zero wouldn't even be an exaggeration, Trowa thought, after sixteen days of Duo's eyes sliding past him, of Duo's smirk falling and his mouth snapping closed every time Trowa walked into a room, of Duo ignoring perfect setups for any number of jokes or teases whenever Trowa was within earshot.

It wasn't what Trowa had expected when he had begged Duo to leave him alone.

He hadn't wanted this - not this stony facade of indifference. He had simply wanted space, had wanted Duo to stop looking at him with fire in his eyes and tension around his smirk, had wanted Duo to stop treating him like an almost-comrade, to stop being so close and-

And Trowa had surely gotten exactly that. Duo might as well be on Mars, for all the attention he gave Trowa, for all the concern he seemed to have for him.

It wasn't better.

It was, Trowa realized after just one damn day of the torture, infinitely fucking worse. Because now he wasn't even himself in Duo's eyes. He wasn't even human in Duo's eyes. He was just another lackey in the Sinaloa cartel, and he wasn't even worth Duo's notice.

It made the dark void in Trowa's gut twist and ache, it made him just that more vicious to himself, left his heart and his mind empty to dwell on all the things he had done and all the things he would still do before-

Before what, though?

What could possibly come after?

The mission was still impossible, even with Duo there. Trowa had no idea what Duo was doing - the initial plan, when this op had still been a multiyear mission, had been to insert a tech specialist who could expose the Sinaloa records, drain their funds, and give the Preventers actionable intel. Trowa's role had always been to insert himself into the cartel, to work his way to a position of trust and to make a hole for the tech specialist, and to methodically attempt to destroy Sinaloa from within.

But it was like a damn hydra.

He had, not entirely to plan, taken out Branson, and he had been replaced with a more competent accountant. Gerhard had been a trusted enforcer, though not as trusted as Trowa, and Trowa hadn't had all that much to do with his death. Marco... Trowa hadn't had as much to do with Marco's demise as originally planned, but he had been the one to put a bullet in him.

In the months before, Trowa had played a part in the downfall of a handful of lower-level chapos, and had given the Snakeheads openings into the Sinaloa digital network, and had passed along what intel he could to Zechs about the Sinaloa's shipments.

It wasn't enough.

It wouldn't be enough, and Trowa woke up everyday confident that if it wasn't his last, it was among his last.

And Duo wouldn't look at him.

Anhil, of course, noticed.

He made comments about it, pointed little barbs about Trowa's people skills, but he didn't push the issue until almost three weeks after the party.

A new shipment had come and gone, successfully received and processed, and Trowa had felt yet another layer of his humanity scratched away.

But the cartel was finding it harder and harder to track down competent pilots who didn't mind running the gamut of ESUN security forces, L3 customs, and Snakehead pirates.

Anhil had a few connections, old war buddies, mercenaries he had fought with during the Eve Wars as a soldier for a dictator in Guatemala who had tried to use the colonial conflict as an attempt to consolidate power, and he wanted to bring them into the cartel.

He had arranged to meet with one of his old camaradas, who knew a pilot and a few soldiers looking for work as enforcers, and he invited Trowa along.

Trowa had expected that. After all, he more or less existed to be Anhil's right hand.

What he hadn't expected was for Anhil to pause on their way out of the hacienda and look towards Duo's computer terminal, mouth drawn into a thoughtful frown.

"No," Trowa had whispered, knowing instantly what Anhil was thinking.

The shorter man arched an eyebrow at him, silently warning Trowa to shut the fuck up if he wanted to keep his tongue in his mouth.

"Yo, 02."

Duo looked up from his desk, pushing his headphones off of his ears and staring at Anhil, his expression a mixture of curiosity and irritation.

"Yeah?"

Anhil made a 'come here' gesture.

"You could use some sun. Ride with Trowa and me."

Duo lifted both his eyebrows and looked between them.

"I didn't know either of you were into threesomes."

One of the guys sitting on the couch choked on a laugh.

"You're not my type, boca grande," Anhil muttered.

Duo grinned wolfishly, and Anhil realized the opening he had given the other man.

"Come on," he said, before Duo could speak. "We're meeting with a new pilot. You can give us your opinion."

Duo looked at Trowa.

"You've got Mr. Tall, Dark and Angry. He knows enough about flying not to crash on takeoff. He can give you plenty of opinions. Besides, I've got some projects to work on for la mujer, and-"

Anhil's eyes narrowed.

"I might not be God or the Devil, 02, but I'm not asking. I'm telling you to get off your ass."

Around them, the room fell silent.

Duo slowly rose to his feet.

"Shotgun," he growled, and walked past them.

Anhil muttered something under his breath that made Trowa smirk.

Anhil glared up at him, and Trowa shrugged.

"There's a reason I don't like him," Trowa pointed out.

Anhil muttered something else, and threw the car keys at Trowa.

Trowa actually grimaced as he caught them.

Driving meant sitting beside Duo.

A realization that the long-haired man had as soon as Trowa hauled himself into the driver's side of the Jeep.

Duo's jaw tightened, and he tapped an angry, impatient tattoo on the open window of the passenger side as he waited for Trowa to start the Jeep and throw it into gear.

Anhil settled in the back, and Trowa spared him a glance, saw his amused smirk, and rolled his eyes.

Thankfully, the wind roaring through the open windows meant no conversation was possible, and it was silent between the three men except for Anhil's occasional shouted directions.

Fifty minutes took them around Mazatlan and towards the backwater town of El Walamo.

Trowa had driven through the town once before, months ago, on the night after he had helped Anhil bury the bodies of three girls that Gerhard had pulled aside from the most recent colonial shipment and decided to have fun with. Trowa had taken the Jeep, had mumbled something about going into Mazatlan to get laid, and had driven south, through Mazatlan and El Walamo and on until El Caimanero. He had parked the Jeep directly on the beach and sat on the sand, had let the waves creep closer and closer with the tide, and had stared out into the roaring darkness and wondered what he had become.

Anhil directed Trowa to pull into El Walamo's single convenience store.

"Gotta take a dump," Anhil offered. "Fill up the tank."

Duo snorted, but refrained from making any comment when Anhil gave him a challenging look.

Trowa got out of the Jeep and walked around to the passenger side. He unscrewed the gas cap and started to pump gas into the tank.

The weather was warmer than usual for April, the sun out and the breeze almost nonexistent.

It was depressingly pleasant.

The sound of rhythmic thumping drew his attention, and he looked over to see Duo's right hand, draped through his open window, idly hitting the side of the Jeep in time to the music blasting over the convenience store's speakers.

Duo's arms were covered in tattoos, but Trowa's attention was drawn to the one on his wrist, the black outline of a lion.

They had been drunk, had been celebrating Trowa's entirely made-up birthday, had fucked for hours and had still been buzzed when Duo had suggested they properly commemorate the night. They had both gotten tattoos. Duo had gone first, had smirked as he requested the lion over the pale skin of his wrist.

It was simple, it could have meant anything, but even Quatre had known, after seeing it the first time, that it meant more than just a drunken misadventure.

Trowa swallowed hard and looked away from Duo's arm, turning entirely, just in time to see a large, black SUV pull into the parking lot, barely skidding to a halt before the doors started to open.

The captain of the mercenary group Trowa had grown up with had always said Trowa had good instincts, had always claimed Trowa could sense danger. The captain had trusted Trowa's instincts too much, to everyone's detriment.

But right now, those instincts were screaming at Trowa.

"Zasada!" he called out, even as he tossed the gas line aside and moved to put the Jeep between himself and the black SUV.

He heard Duo swear, saw his head dive down just as the first gunshots ripped through the air.

Trowa crouched down on the driver's side of the Jeep, pulling out his FN Five-seveN and waiting for the rounds of gunfire to subside before returning fire.

The driver's door jerked open and Duo spilled out, gracelessly falling to the ground and muttering curses in Spanish as he positioned himself behind a tire and pulled out his HK USP, a gun that definitely wasn't something the rest of the Sinaloa cartel used, but that Duo had been using since he had been a teenage terrorist.

There was a lull, and Trowa risked a glance around the back of the Jeep.

He didn't recognize any of the six shooters, but he did recognize the snake tattoo on the neck of one of them.

He shifted away as they continued to shoot.

"Friends of yours?" Duo called out.

Trowa gave him a look.

"Snakeheads."

They shared a grimace.

"I'm not a tactical genius, Tro, but can I point out that taking cover between a Jeep and these," Duo kicked the gas feed in front of him, "isn't the best idea in the world ever?"

Trowa glared at him, but Duo was right. Sooner or later - definitely sooner - the gas tank in the Jeep was going to be punctured, or the gas feed would be.

And then they would be really fucked.

He looked around.

The convenience store was a good ten yards away, and the Snakeheads would have a clear line of sight on them if they ran for it.

Still...

Duo followed his gaze and swore.

"I should have fucking stayed at the hacienda playing fucking Minesweeper."

"And let me die alone?"

Duo's eyes turned fierce.

"Neither of us is dying here, Tro." His voice was deadly serious, steely and even.

Trowa nodded in agreement.

"Then we need to move."

"On three?" Duo suggested.

Trowa nodded again.

"One, two-"

The door to the convenience store was thrown wide open as Anhil stepped out, FNs in each hand, firing at the black SUV.

Duo made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a primal roar, and he and Trowa took off running towards Anhil, firing at the SUV as they went.

Trowa saw three of the Snakeheads go down, saw a fourth start climbing back into the SUV and-

And Anhil stumbled, eyes going wide, and red started to bloom across his right thigh.

Duo tackled Anhil to the ground, throwing them back into the store as the glass windows were shattered by bullets.

Trowa followed them into the store, skidding down onto his knees beside Duo and Anhil.

Anhil was groaning, teeth gritted together tightly while he cursed the Snakeheads and himself.

Trowa reached towards Anhil's leg, but Duo was a step ahead of him, shoving his HK into Trowa's hand and feeling the wound.

"No exit wound," Duo muttered, and then grabbed Anhil's hands. "Hold pressure while we go fuck these chingados up."

Anhil sneered, but he dropped one of his FNs and pressed down on the wound, growling in pain as he did so.

Duo waited for Anhil to nod, and then he turned to Trowa with a feral grin.

"Ready?"

Trowa handed the HK back to Duo, and picked up Anhil's abandoned FN.

"Ready."

The look Duo gave him made Trowa's already racing pulse skitter.

Shinigami was looking at him, ready for death and battle, and Trowa felt that dark part of himself rise up as well, felt his adrenaline spike, and could practically taste the metallic tang of blood on his tongue.

Without speaking, they rose and moved towards the shot-out windows, taking cover behind a cooler while they assessed the parking lot.

Two of the Snakeheads were cautiously approaching the convenience store, while a third was checking for signs of life among the fallen Snakeheads.

Duo moved quickly, confidently taking down the unsuspecting man, and then he and Trowa were bursting out of the store and firing at the other two armed Snakeheads.

Trowa took down one, winging him in the shoulder, and the man stumbled and fell to his knees.

Out of the corner of his eye, Trowa saw Duo put a bullet through the other man's head.

Trowa approached his guy, kicking the gun out of his reach and crouching down beside him.

"Who sent you?" he demanded.

The man looked up at him with wide, pain-filled eyes.

"Who sent you?" Trowa repeated as he pressed the heel of his hand on the wound in his shoulder.

He roared with pain, but offered no information.

Trowa sighed and pointed his gun towards the man's knee.

Before he could fire, however, the man rolled, pulling a knife and lunging for Trowa.

Trowa just barely threw himself backwards in time to avoid a slashed neck.

Duo's shot took the man in the chest, the impact of the bullet jerking his body farther away from Trowa. Duo's next shot went into his head.

Trowa rose to his feet, and Duo's eyes looked over him, dark and furious, searching for a wound.

"I'm fine," Trowa assured him. "Check them for ID. I'm calling this in and taking care of Anhil."

Duo nodded, but he made no immediate move to follow Trowa's instructions.

Instead, their eyes caught and held, and there was an ocean of unspoken words between them, threatening to drown Trowa.

He was the one to walk away, turning from Duo and going back into the convenience store.

Anhil was still sitting on the floor, had moved to prop himself against a rack of candy bars, and his face was pale and beaded with sweat.

Trowa handed over his phone.

"Call Salome," he said.

Anhil's fingers fumbled a bit, but he dialed and held the phone to his ear.

Trowa, meanwhile, pushed Anhil's hand away from his thigh.

There was no spurting blood, which meant the bullet hadn't hit an artery, which meant Anhil wasn't going to bleed out immediately.

But the wound still needed pressure, and he still needed medical attention as soon as possible.

Anhil was speaking into the phone, muttering in Spanish too garbled with pain and too rapid for Trowa to keep up, but after a moment, he dropped the phone and nodded at Trowa.

"Doc's gonna meet us at the hacienda," he said.

Trowa pulled off his shirt and folded it over several times before he pressed it against Anhil's thigh.

"Good. Because the last time I played field medic, it was to amputate someone's leg. And I'm not going to listen to you bitch at me about doing that wrong," he said.

Anhil gave a weak, broken laugh that turned into a cough and then a groan of pain.

By the time Duo came back into the store, Trowa had coaxed the terrified store clerk into giving Anhil water and finding his first-aid kit, not that a tube of antibiotic cream or a butterfly bandage was going to do them much good.

Duo's face was grim, Shinigami still in his eyes.

He looked at Anhil, and then his gaze swept over Trowa.

All of the fiery bloodlust in his eyes cooled, chilling his eyes to blue ice as he looked over Trowa's torso.

He could feel Duo's rage as he saw the new scars, the new tattoos. And then his eyes fixed on the rosary.

Duo's rosary.

-o-

Chapter 6

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