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"Sideshow"Written By: Clara Barton 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: language, sex, violence, BDSM, angst Pairings: 2x3 Summary: Duo visited Trowa a few
times every year, catching up to the circus on one colony or another
and showing up uninvited and unannounced in Trowa's trailer. But an
unexpected confession from Duo leads to a change in the nature of
their relationship. "Sideshow" Chapter Six Quatre looked surprised when he answered Trowa's call, amazed, no doubt, that Trowa had taken the time to call him twice in the last three months when he usually only heard from Trowa when he saw him twice a year. "Trowa!" Quatre smiled, and he looked tired and stressed and under other circumstances, Trowa might have wondered why, but as things were, he couldn't be bothered to be curious, let alone to ask. "I need your help." Quatre's smile faltered. "Is everything okay? Are you okay? Did something happen at the circus? Were there riots or -" "No, there weren't riots," Trowa assured him, and part of him appreciated Quatre's concern. "Duo's been arrested." Quatre tilted his head. "What did he do?" Trowa knew he was angry and frustrated and probably spoiling for a fight, but he resented Quatre's immediate assumption that Duo had done something to earn his arrest - resented the fact that Quatre's response hadn't been 'what can I do?' instead. Trowa knew that if he had said anyone else - Wufei, Heero or even himself - Quatre would have had a different response. "He saved a girl from being raped," Trowa snapped. Quatre frowned. "Then why -" "Her attacker was the governor's son. Duo put him in the hospital." Quatre sighed and rubbed one hand over his face. "Trowa -" "He's been in custody for two days and they haven't charged him with anything," Trowa added quickly. It had been frustrating as hell, going down to the detention center and being told to fuck off two days in a row, and it had been reckless, probably even stupid, to revive his old skills and sneak into the detention center, posing as a janitor and then hack into their computers, access the files and see that Duo was being held but hadn't been charged with anything, his arrest not even forwarded on to the regional data bands. Not even the Preventers knew he had been arrested. "Surely they -" "They haven't," Trowa interrupted again. "You know what happens to people like Duo when they're arrested and not charged." Quatre's eyes narrowed. "We aren't at war anymore, Trowa. The governor and the military police are not OZ or the Alliance." Trowa arched an eyebrow at that, but he knew antagonising Quatre would, in the end, only make him more uncooperative. Quatre sighed. "I'll make some calls, but Trowa - this is... not a good time. There are riots everywhere, Relena and I have had death threats, the government is under a lot of pressure. Publicly stepping in and securing Duo's release after he attacked the son of a colonial governor -" "He defended a child," Trowa corrected. "The media outlets won't spin it that way and you know it. It's just going to make things worse." "Then don't make it public." "You're asking me to bribe government officials. Trowa, that's illegal and -" "Duo would do this for you without asking any questions." "Duo never thinks to ask questions before jumping head first into hell," Quatre muttered and he sounded frustrated with Trowa. "He's my friend too, Trowa, and I care about him. I don't want him in prison and I respect that he saved someone but you have to appreciate the fact that this situation isn't ideal." Trowa fought to keep the sneer from his face. No, the situation was most certainly not ideal. "I'll make some calls," Quatre repeated. "Thank you," Trowa said and he knew it didn't sound very gracious but the words, even without meaning, were all he could muster. He ended the call and scrubbed his face. It had been a long two days. In between Trowa's stakeout of the detention center he had worked out a patrol rotation with Pesha and Nicholae of the circus grounds and the sleep he had lost didn't matter, especially not when he would have lost it anyway, but Trowa had forgotten what it felt like to be this keyed up all of the time, this full of stress and adrenaline and he thought he had been done with this shit. Had thought his years of being a soldier were behind him. When he stepped out of his trailer he stepped into a world of barely organized chaos. Not surprisingly, their grounds permits had been revoked and the circus was in the process of hastily packing up to catch the next shuttle out. They still had a few hours, and most of the work had been completed that morning, with everyone working together to take down the tents and start transporting the freight and animals to the 'port. Trowa walked over to Shandor's trailer, not surprised to find August inside already, both men sitting and drinking coffee. Shandor gestured towards the free chair at his small kitchen table and Trowa sat while Shandor poured him a cup of coffee. "Any word?" August asked. Trowa shook his head and forced a shrug. It was one thing to let Quatre see how frustrated he was, entirely another to make August or Shandor more concerned than they needed to be. "Not yet. I called in a favor, though." August nodded, but Shandor was looking at him with narrowed eyes that knew too much, that could read Trowa's body language far too well. Trowa shook his head, just one small gesture and Shandor looked away, conceding. "I'm going to stay behind," Trowa told August. "I thought you might. We can change up the routines to cover for your absence," August assured him. "And you'll make sure the troupe keeps up the patrols? Make sure everyone stays safe?" In some ways it had been an easy decision for Trowa to make, that morning as he packed a duffle bag and tracked down Cathy to tell her he was going to wait for Duo. In other ways, Trowa felt guilty about it, guilty about leaving the troupe to fend for themselves when it felt like he was sending them out into a den of wolves, just waiting to prey on them. "We survived without you before," Shandor said, his voice teasing and sharp. "We can make do again." Trowa glared. "The riots -" "We survived mobile suit attacks," August said, his voice mild. "We know how to look to our own. We won't let anything else happen." Trowa had to accept that, had to believe that they would be safe. "I need to grab my bag and then my trailer is ready to go," Trowa told them. He finished off the coffee in his cup. "I'm going to look in on Sylvan." August nodded. "Keep us updated." Trowa inclined his head towards August but he avoided meeting Shandor's eyes. He didn't want another lecture or any kind of veiled words about his relationship with Duo, not right now. Simza's trailer was open, and while part of Trowa wished it had been locked - wished it had had a damn barricade in front of it - he knew that was stupid. Inside, Nicholae was fiddling with a tablet, reading about the riots it looked like, judging from the images. "Hey." Nicholae looked up at his voice, tensing and then relaxing. "Hey." Nicholae didn't look as though he had been sleeping much either, and Trowa didn't envy him whatever mental hell he was living through. Family was important, and while the troupe considered everyone to be one large, extended family, the individual family units in the troupe were tightly knit and private and Trowa knew it had to be eating at Nicholae that his sister had been attacked, that it had taken Duo, an outsider, to save her. And now that outsider was in a detention cell. "Mind if I talk to her?" Trowa asked, jerked his head in the direction of the closed door to Sylvan's room. Nicholae sighed. "You can try," he muttered. Trowa nodded and walked past him towards the door. He knocked. "It's Trowa." There was no answer and Trowa looked over his shoulder to Nicholae, who just shook his head. "Duo's going to want to know how you're doing," Trowa said, and it was more than a little manipulative, but he heard the lock on the door turn and he opened it. Sylvan regarded him with dark eyes and Trowa had to force his hands to relax, to not fist at his sides in anger. He hadn't seen her yet. That night everything had happened too quickly and yesterday Trowa had spent most of his time at the detention center and today he had split his time between the center and packing up the circus. Her face was swollen, her eyes red from crying and one there was bruising on her right cheek, just below her eye and a cut across her lips. She was wearing a sweater and baggy pants and he couldn't tell if she had any other injuries - couldn't see anything else until he noticed the bruising around her neck, the dark marks of fingers around her slender throat and he had to swallow back his rage. "Are you going to get him out of prison?" Sylvan asked. "Yes," Trowa said, promising both of them. "It might take a few days," he added when he saw hope in her eyes. She looked down. "What are they going to do to him?" "Nothing," he assured her, lied to her because Duo had been in this situation before and he hadn't come away unscathed and back then it hadn't been personal - he had just been a teenaged terrorist. But now he was a man who had put the governor's son in a hospital and things were already tense enough, with the riots, that the MPs had to be on edge to begin with. "You're lying." "You're too damn smart," he muttered. "Not smart enough," she countered, her voice thin and bitter. Trowa shook his head. "No. What happened had nothing to do with you, Sylvan. It wasn't your fault. You -" "He said I wanted it!" Sylvan interrupted and her eyes were still dark but they were wet and there was no way Trowa was prepared for her tears, for her pain. "He said my dress -" "No," Trowa stopped her. "No." He repeated and he pulled her into a hug, felt her small fists bunch against his shirt and her wet cheek against his chest. He ran his hand through her hair and it was the only thing he could think to do, the only way he knew how to soothe. "He lied to you," Trowa said softly. "He lied and you can't let his lie break you, Sylvan." She sobbed. "I couldn't stop him, Trowa. I couldn't stop him from hurting me and if Duo - it's my fault Duo's in prison and they're going to kill him, aren't they?" "No, they aren't." Trowa held her at arms length so he could look her in the eyes. "They aren't going to kill him." "But they shot those rioters on X2913. The MPs shot them." Trowa said a silent fuck you to Nicholae and his tablet, but he couldn't really blame him for keeping up with the news scrolls. It was better that he did. Just unfortunate that Sylvan could connect the dots and knew Duo wasn't safe. "Did Duo ever tell you about the times he had to break out of OZ custody during the war?" "No." She frowned. "He's going to break out?" "He won't need to," Trowa assured her but then he smirked, tried to find the humor in this, "unless he wants to. And knowing Duo, he just might." She didn't look entirely convinced. "I'm going to be here for him, Sylvan. He's going to be fine. None of this is your fault - and Duo would tell you the same thing. Will tell you the same thing," he added. "I need to ask you for a favor." She frowned again. "Me?" Trowa nodded. "I need you to keep an eye on the cooling unit in the refrigerator we use for the animals' food." "What?" "You've watched Duo work enough to know what can go wrong - and I know you helped him work on it last time it went haywire. I just need you to make sure it doesn't break down again. You know where my tools are?" She nodded. "Duo showed me." "Good. Can you look after it for me? There's no one else in the troupe good enough to fix it if something breaks." She looked skeptical, and it was a slight exaggeration, because Besnik was fairly handy, but he still didn't know the machine, hadn't helped take it apart and put it back together. "Okay," she agreed. "Thank you. I'll see you soon." It felt a little trite, but Trowa wasn't sure what else to say. He left the trailer and walked across the grounds to collect his duffel and his tablet and he noticed he'd missed a call, saw the message from Quatre and he scowled when he saw it was text and not a voice or vid message. The governor's son has a concussion, three broken ribs and a broken arm. Duo will be charged with assault tomorrow and the governor promised the trial would be quick - they aren't just going to hold him forever. I'm sending one of my lawyers to the colony. We'll try to get the lightest sentence. I'll keep you updated. -o- Quatre had looked surprised but happy when Trowa called him. Wufei, on the other hand, just looked aggravated. Of course, that probably had something to do with the fact that it was two in the morning where Wufei was stationed and Trowa had been spamming him with calls on his personal line for the last half hour, knowing that eventually he would wake up. Wufei looked sleep tousled and Trowa realized he had never seen him like that, had never seen his hair loose let alone tangled. "It's two in the morning, Barton, and I've just come off duty after a four day escort mission so unless Yuy is attempting to self-destruct again -" "Duo's been arrested." Wufei's eyes instantly narrowed and he still looked aggravated but significantly more awake. "When?" "Three days ago." "Why didn't you call me sooner?" Trowa glared. "I tried Quatre first." Wufei snorted. "Quatre's running for regional administrator of the L4 sector, he can't step in to get Duo out of prison." That was news to Trowa, and he should probably pay more attention to those emails Relena sent out with updates on their family. Likely one of them had mentioned something along those lines. "What happened?" Trowa briefly related the events of the last few days, including the arrival of Quatre's lawyer that morning and his report after being allowed to speak to Duo. He had told Trowa that he was fine, had clearly resisted arrest, but wasn't being treated that harshly. Wufei sneered at that last part, and Trowa appreciated the fact that someone else cared. "Message me whatever intel you have - I need names and times. I'll make a few calls and get the next shuttle out." Trowa frowned. "Can't you just tell them to release him?" "Yes, how silly of me to have forgotten to use my magic wand to fix this." "You clearly aren't going to be using your charm to get him released." "It's a complicated situation, Trowa. The riots -" "Screw the riots. Duo would have already tried to break any of us out of prison if our positions were reversed." Wufei glared. "Trowa. I care about him too. We will get him out. But there are obstacles I need to get around to make sure this doesn't make things worse. Send me the intel. I will be there soon." Trowa had almost called Heero instead, but while he resented Wufei's inability to present an immediate solution, it was clear Wufei was going to help and he would have to settle for that. Of course, settling meant tracking down Quatre's lawyer and getting all of his notes, scanning them and sending them to Wufei along with the names of all of the MPs Trowa remembered from that night and all of the ones he had met since then, all of the ones who politely told him to catch the next shuttle off colony and stop bothering them or he would find himself in a cell next to his colonist friend. It was another day before Wufei arrived, and when Trowa met him at the 'port he was surprised to see him in civilian clothes, canvas pants and a sweater that made him look more like a dock worker than a Preventer. Wufei noticed Trowa's attention to his clothes. "I told you things were complicated," Wufei said. He had a duffle bag on one shoulder that Trowa hoped held his neatly pressed Preventers uniform. Trowa wasn't sure how a complicated situation necessitated Wufei showing up looking like a powerless colonist instead of a decorated Preventer agent. "Give me the update," Wufei said as he and Trowa walked away from the 'port and towards the detention center. "The lawyer says they are waiting a few more days, until the son is off his pain meds so he can testify." Wufei rolled his eyes. "Of course they are," he muttered and then he sighed. "I'll go by the center and talk to Duo. We need to get this resolved as quickly as possible." Trowa certainly agreed with that, but something about Wufei's tone made it clear Duo wasn't his main concern for a quick resolution. "If this leaks to the public - it's going to set off more riots," Wufei said and Trowa hadn't even considered that. "It's just one incident." "One incident when a former Gundam Pilot attacked the son of a colonial governor who has very publicly stated that these riots are being organized by terrorists who want to bring down the government and the only way to stop them is with military force." When Wufei put it like that Trowa had to agree with him. Duo would become a martyr to these people - he could imagine that sympathetic, soulful eyed man from the vid waxing poetic about Duo defending the helpless colonists and knew it would make things worse. Trowa took Wufei to the cheap hotel room he had rented, expecting Wufei to change into his uniform, but Wufei just stored his bag, pulled out a few documents, and rolled his eyes when Trowa refused to stay and wait for him to come back. He did have to wait outside of the center, since he knew the threats to arrest him were becoming less idle each time they were delivered, and he took a seat at a cafe across the street from the center, ordered a coffee and felt ridiculously useless for the next two hours. When Wufei came out of the center Trowa walked over to meet him, and the tense set of Wufei's shoulders and the scowl on his face were about as comforting as Quatre's assurances that his lawyer would press for the lightest possible sentence. "What?" He asked. "Not here," Wufei muttered. "Back at the room." So Trowa waited twenty minutes, walked in silence with Wufei while he imagined all of the ways this was about to get so much worse, and started to mentally review the layout of the center, started to plan how he could break in again and try to - "The son talked to a reporter," Wufei said once the door to the hotel room was closed. Trowa frowned. "So?" "So this is going to be all over the scrolls by tonight - tomorrow at the latest." "Then we need to get him out before this becomes an issue." Wufei scrubbed at his face. "We can't. There can't be a news scroll of Duo imprisoned for assaulting the governor's son and then his immediate release because of Preventer intervention." "Why the hell not?" "Because it's complicated," Wufei snapped. "It's not as easy as snapping my fingers and getting my friend out of prison! You have no idea just how dangerous everything is right now and one wrong move is going to lead to another war, Trowa!" "Duo would -" "Duo knows. Duo knows how much is at stake and he knows, Trowa. He knows a hell of a lot better than you do that he's fucked and he's going to sit tight and wait for this to blow over and so are we." Trowa glared at Wufei, furious at being spoken to like an idiot, like an outsider - like a civilian. "What if it doesn't blow over? If it's on the scrolls -" "If it doesn't blow over then we're all fucked," Wufei said. "Either he gets sentenced to hard labor on Mars and riots break out or riots break out and he's released and the government is just that much closer to falling. Either way, we're fucked." "How long has this been building, Wufei?" Trowa had to ask. Wufei sighed and sat down on the single bed in the room. "You probably know that just as well as I do. You travel the colonies, you've seen what the depression has done." "Who released that vid?" It had been replayed constantly over the past few weeks, the brown eyed man a constant fixture and Trowa had started to see men and women in black shirts and red bandanas in the crowds at the circus. "They call themselves the Brotherhood." "Original." Wufei shrugged. "It fits their message - banding together, using the force of numbers to topple the few, the masters." "Who was on the vid?" "His name is Micah Vaughn." "Their leader?" Wufei shook his head in the negative. "Just another soldier. He fought against Oz during the last war - some pathetic militia unit from L3. They picked him as their public face, but he's not that high up the ladder." Wufei spoke about the Brotherhood as if he was very familiar with it. "Why haven't you stopped them yet?" Trowa had to ask. "Because it's not that easy. We can't just arrest four million people, Trowa." Trowa stared. "What?" "They have cells all over the colonies - they even have some on Earth and our last report from Zechs indicated there were some blackshirts on Mars too." "Wufei - four million can start a war." They sure as hell couldn't win one, but that was enough to seriously disrupt the government, to kill, to destroy the fragile Earthsphere peace. "The war's already started, Trowa," Wufei snapped and then he sighed. "I need to sleep. I was too busy giving Une briefings on the shuttle flight out to sleep. Wake me up in six hours - or sooner if the story breaks on the scrolls." Trowa glared at Wufei as he undressed, completely ignoring Trowa, and climbed into the bed. Angry and impotent, Trowa left the hotel room and went back to his cafe, ordered another coffee and stared at the news scroll on the large monitor just inside the cafe. -o- The story broke that night, and two days later crowds had already started to gather in front of the detention center, protestors against colonial government violence and MPs reacting aggressively and arresting more than a few protestors just making the story even more popular on the scrolls. Each day Wufei went back to the center, dressed as a civilian, and Trowa continued his utterly useless existence watching the news scrolls and each day the situation continued to deteriorate. By the fifth day of protests there were black shirts in the crowd, and on the seventh day there was a new vid, starring none other than Micah Vaughn, and Wufei and Trowa were sitting at the cafe together eating their evening meal when it aired for the first time. "Brothers and sisters - one of our own fights against the masters who enslave us and he stands alone, he stands strong and he stands in prison. Duo Maxwell has spent his life fighting for the colonies, defending his brothers and sisters and today he does so without a Gundam, without the weapons the Terrans used against us for so long. Today he fights injustice with his hands alone and today he needs us, his brothers and sisters, to fight alongside him." Vaughn didn't need to go into detail about Duo's arrest, the assault, the girl he had saved - the news scrolls had covered all of it before and Trowa was only grateful for the fact that none of the media outlets had managed to track down the circus yet. "Will you allow Duo Maxwell to once again suffer the brutality of the Terran government and hide behind him? Or will you stand with him and fight to bring down this government that would steal the innocence of a child?" There were murmurs from the other cafe patrons, and Trowa knew Wufei's dark look mirrored his own. This was bad. Very, very bad. -o- X1256 had been immune to the recent riots. The relative prosperity of the L1 sector, even during the depression, and the strength of the governor on the colony had meant that the handful of protests that could have turned into riots had quickly been squashed. But things were different now, and the vandalized businesses, the estate homes set ablaze, the MPs attacked all created the frenzied atmosphere of rage that had permeated the other colonies for months now and the two days after the vid aired left Trowa waking up in the middle of the night to the sounds of gunfire and explosions and he felt like he was back in the war, could taste his own heartbeat and the rush of fear and jumpy reflexes that made him feel nauseated and edgy. Things weren't blowing over, and Quatre's lawyer was utterly useless and Trowa had to concede that Wufei could not, it seemed, magically fix this. So on the third night he left the hotel room after Wufei had fallen asleep and he made his way to the posh residential sector of X1256 and he snuck into the governor's mansion and he found his son, the shit head who had tried to rape Sylvan, and he woke him up with a knife to his dick and a hand over his mouth. "Tomorrow morning you will go to the detention center and you will tell them that it wasn't Duo. You were mistaken, and he wasn't the one who attacked you when you tried to rape a child." He tried to bite Trowa, and if he wasn't worthless scum Trowa might have admired the guts that took, but instead he cut into his scrotum, not deeply, but he felt the skin give way, the fabric of his sleep pants tear and the man gave a terrified wail that Trowa suffocated with his hand. "It took me twenty minutes to sneak in here and get past your father's guards. I can do it again - and I will, if there isn't a news scroll on the air by noon tomorrow stating that you identified the wrong man. Do you understand me?" The man nodded frantically and Trowa pulled the knife away from his groin and delivered a swift, brutal punch to his skull. A small part of him wondered if it would lead to another concussion, or exacerbate whatever lingering trauma there might be from Duo's attack. A small part of him hoped he had a brain bleed and was found dead the next morning - it would, undoubtedly make everything worse if that did happen. It was easy enough to slip back out of the mansion, to navigate through the darkened streets and avoid the MPs enforcing the curfew that seemed to do little to stop the vandalism and the rioters. It was easy enough to slip back into the hotel bed, to lie awake and count his breaths until his heart rate was normal again. "Do I want to know?" Wufei's voice startled him in the darkness. "No," Trowa told him honestly. Silence stretched between them. "Thank you," Wufei said at last. ~ * ~ |
