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"Friends "Written By: Karina
Series: Friends Pairings: 2+6 Ratings: M 15+ [In Australia] Rated in the event of bad language and violence. Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing or the characters. That’s the way it is. Warnings: Not a death fic despite how it starts.
Aussie spelling and unbetaed. Summary: When Milliardo Peacecraft is abducted
and left to die a solitary death Duo Maxwell decides to take a hand
in the proceedings.
Chapter 45 Trowa decided Maxwell had a glare on him to rival Heero’s patented death glare. Something was up between those two, something more than the tension that had existed between them for months now. Whatever it was it was fresh lit and had been in evidence for the last half an hour and Trowa was beginning to worry, and was in no small way annoyed at the pair of them. One minute all was well, they were sitting around the fire rather like they had in the past, sipping their soup rations and almost reminiscing about various incidents during the war. It had been almost companionable, but then something had ignited between Yuy and Maxwell and Trowa was not the only one to notice. Chang was doing his own share of glaring, a little more heatedly at Duo if anything, but shooting the odd fiery glare at Yuy too. Neither had said much, seemingly content to restrict themselves to the glaring contest, and Trowa hoped it would not ignite into anything more. He knew what Heero wanted and he knew Duo would not agree to stand in on Relena’s security contingent. Someone, one day soon, was going to need to get that message across to Yuy and make it stick. The man could be as thick as a brick some days. They were all veterans, all of them older by nature than by physical age, having seen too much of the hard side of life during the wars. They had been partners, some closer to each other than to others, but they had all been Gundam Pilots and shared that common bond. They had been the ones to share the victory and come from it not merely as survivors, but as heroes; had they lost the war they would have been branded terrorists with prices placed on their heads. Not even the pacifist regime now in power could ignore war crimes. They had enjoyed celebrated hero status in the public eye and endured countless sessions with psychologists and officials from government departments demanding to know the ins and outs of their Gundams and the people who had constructed them. None of them, to his knowledge, had revealed more than the barest minimum of what they knew, each choosing to plead innocent of knowing the deeper details of their respective Doctors and the group backing them. Their catch cry was that they were ‘just the pilots.’ They knew they had not fooled those who interrogated them, but they had enough friends in high places to ensure they were not tossed in the nearest cells and the keys thrown away. Those of their group who worked for Preventers were possibly the safest of their group. The government could keep an eye on their daily activities, and be relatively assured they were not planning insurrection in the shadows. Duo, of course, was the one at most risk. Quatre had Winner Enterprises to protect him; the government was careful about messing with a corporation that had its fingers into so many vital areas of the ESUN. Quatre ran himself ragged maintaining the corporation, and Trowa supposed they deemed him too occupied to be a threat. It was Duo who was the loose canon. He had not settled down to an occupation the government would approve and he was visibly restless and unsettled on a daily basis. A potential disaster waiting to happen. That Duo was with Quatre most often Trowa suspected was the only reason he had not been gathered in for further questioning. As frightening as it was, it would not surprise him one day to realize that he had neither seen nor heard from Duo for weeks and find himself wondering if it was Duo on a walkabout, or if there was a conspiracy to place Duo in detention. There were some cases he worked on for Preventers that would demand his attention sufficiently for him not to realize how long Duo might be missing. It was worrying. ——————- Maxwell, as usual, was glaring at Yuy and the two looked close to raining blows at each other. The silence, which had been companionable and reminiscent of those days during the war when two or more of them had chanced to be together, had diminished to an uncomfortable and pregnant silence. At any second the two could snarl and go for the other man’s throat and Wu Fei decided he had had enough. He was cold, despite the fire and the warmer glow of the soup he had eaten. He was never fond of winter and the snows of Sanc were trying at the best of times. Being trapped in the snow with a pair of idiots who could not share a fire without glaring death at each other was not his idea of the ideal evening. Barton was aware of the tension building and looking between the two as though he actually considered stepping between them. That, in Wu Fei’s opinion, was tantamount to the desire to commit suicide. He had had enough of the two, of Maxwell’s refusal to settle down and get the government watch dogs off of all of their backs. While Duo persisted in his restless inability to choose a path for his life they all would be watched and distrusted. No one would forget they had been terrorists, even though they were accorded the status of heroes. Government red tape would never write them off as harmless, but they could at least keep a low profile and prove themselves useful to the powers that be. It would only be a matter of a decade or so before the parliament would lose interest in them and they could vanish quietly into the masses. While Maxwell resisted the ‘normal’ everyday activities of the world, as pursued by young men of their age, they would never be able to step aside into the shadows and anonymity. His stubborn refusal to at least show a normal facade was stopping the others from earning anonymity points and quietly slipping away. Not that he could not understand why Maxwell refused to accept Yuy’s proposed position as bodyguard to Relena Darlian. Wu Fei totally understood and agreed with Maxwell’s revulsion of the position. He would no more accept it than Maxwell, and he had informed Commander Une of that fact not so long ago, when she had approached him over taking over the position for a time. He suspected Barton had also refused. There was too much involved in guarding the Princess of Sanc; too much formality and way too much red tape for his liking. It would bring him to the forefront of attention and not permit him to quietly slip into the shadows of obscurity. Why Yuy wanted to pursue the woman on more intimate terms he would never know. To his mind that was begging for those interested in their activities to take action against them. Surely they would not wish their ‘Peace Princess’ to be on the arm of a notorious terrorist? The man was a raving lunatic. What he should do was knock the pair of them unconscious, tie them up and go to bed. At least that way he might get some sleep in this hellishly cold place. They were all idiots, and so was he; an idiot for caring when no one obviously cared about him. Could they not just call it quits and go to sleep like civilized people? Perhaps they might wake more sociable and far more sensible than they currently were, and everyone might agree to lie low in plain sight until the focus shifted to other people. Much as Marquise appeared to have done. He had to admit he had not thought about the man for years. He had known Marquise had returned from Mars and he had thought briefly on him when Noin had begun slanging him after their break up. He had, after listening to hours of her bitching about the ‘cold hearted lying bastard’ decided Marquise must have finally come to his senses and realized the onna was a foul mouthed fishwife. Her anger was beyond any reasonable grounds surely? She must be unstable psychologically and surely Une would pack her off to a psychologist if she did not settle down soon? However, it was not Noin who required his attention. It was Marquise and the need to get him off the mountain. Given the video Maxwell had taken the man would be in no condition to walk to their helicopter, so it was more likely they would need to dig Maxwell’s out of the snow bank it now was and ensure it was still capable of flight. “We will need to be up early to dig out your machine, Maxwell. It would make sense to use your helo instead of hiking down the mountain.” ———————— Chang had broken the uncomfortable silence and with mention of the task to come Heero might find a way to get them out of the room and to bed so he could speak with Duo and Marquise. He needed a few questions answered and undoubtedly Marquise held those answers. How much he had shared with Maxwell remained to be seen, but Heero was not inclined to miss the opportunity to learn what he could. The blue-violet eyes still bored into him and he returned the glare with equal intensity. He had no idea what the others might think of their staring match, but he was not particularly fussed about them. He and Duo were long overdue for a talk and though this was hardly the time or place, it did not matter. Whether it was about their future, or about what was going to be required to get Marquise down off the mountain, they would need to talk. He could understand why Duo would not want to take up his position as Relena’s Chief of Security but honestly, it was not as bad as everyone seemed to think. He had put in the hard yards and had the team operating at a fine tuned level. Everyone knew their job, and was good at it. All he wanted was for someone to take up the reins and keep a finger on the pulse while he determined if it was possible for him to get any closer to Relena than he already was. He was not blind. He was well aware of how people looked at the Gundam Pilots and considered them leashed, but still rabid, dogs. Certain people would not want their precious princess to associate on a personal level with him. He had to weigh the pros and cons of the situation and decide one way or the other. Chang wanted to fade into the background and disappear, slip free of the dogs always sniffing in the background and find some kind of normal life. Really normal, he knew, was far from the lives they all lived. Duo was the most honest of them all, refusing to take what was offered just to get the dogs off their backs, but they had to do something to break free. He liked Relena, really liked her, and he wanted to know, one way or the other, if he could have more than just a friendship with her. Marquise had chosen to free Noin and not flinched from that choice, though Heero now supposed the man would need to make yet another life change. Who ever was out to get him would try again. Marquise would have to resolve the matter before it was resolved for him with a knife in the back. “It would make sense for us to go to bed and deal with the details of getting off the mountain over breakfast,” Heero broke the locked glare, looking deliberately to Chang and then Barton. “I will take first watch and keep the fire going. We will be more comfortable with the fire burning, and I am not trusting there are not others out in this weather.” “I’m not sleeping with that blazing. It’ll spark on the tent and we’ll go up like a torch.” Duo snapped. “I will keep the flame low and watch for sparks, so will the next to follow me on watch. Barton, you take second watch, Chang you third. Two hours each. Maxwell can take the last.” “Be sure to scratch on the tent before you open it.” Duo glared at Wu Fei. “If I don’t shoot first and think later, then Zechs is likely to. Either way, you’ll have a hole in you.”
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