Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Sex, Substances, Sin, Salvation ❯ IV - D - Shield Me, Spear You ( Chapter 30 )

Sex, Substances, Sin, Salvation

How these 4 `s' words are intertwined

By Masamune Reforged

WhenShootingStarsFall.com

Warnings: Yaoi (tons of pairings, but mostly 1x2, 3x4 and implied former 13x6. Lemons amuck.), cursing, drug use, violence, angst, insanity, cameos, AU, lunacy, racism. All the bad shit you'd expect in real life.

 

Page IV: A Crow Left of the Murder

Part D of Page IV

“Shield Me, Spear You”

3rd Person Narration

 

They crossed the dance floor directly over JP Losman's VIP room. Trowa noticed them immediately. In his dark little corner of the room he had taken to staring up at the people above them. The ceiling of the VIP room on the second subterranean level was a one-way mirror that could support the crushing weight of the thousands of people which milled about unawares of being visible. If the scene above Trowa would strike a person as decedent and disgusting, then the one directly before his eyes was worse. Losman and his friends were snorting and drinking thousands of dollars away at an hourly pace. The girls were offering themselves out like candy. What made it hard to watch for Trowa was that Quatre was there.

 

Trowa had a pretty good memory for some things, despite the amounts of weed he smoked. Names were not one of those things he tended to remember. Truthfully, he was woefully inept with recalling the names of people he'd even just met.

 

But the pair above was somehow different, perhaps because of the circumstances he'd met them under. The long-haired tramp was Duo Maxwell, the dangerous man in the suit was Heero Yuy. Trowa felt that he would never forget these names, and this struck him as stranger than the phenomenon of his remembering them in the first place.

 

Heero was the one that worried him. He had asked Circus and a few of his connections in the underworld about the Japanese assassin, and the stories they'd heard and relayed to him made even Trowa uncomfortable. There was no doubt; that man was here to kill someone.

 

So, now, Trowa was wrestling with himself. He was here to protect James Parker Losman. But the only person here he really gave two shits about was Quatre Winner.

 

Trowa was tired and confused, lightly fingering the butt of his gun through the thin folds of his jacket absentmindedly. Trowa had no idea why Losman needed bodyguards, but he was even more clueless as to how Quatre was involved with such a person. He watched the rich blonde stagger back and forth, spilling his bottle of alcohol all over the floor.

 

After he'd finished parking the car and gotten past the assholes in security, Trowa had been shocked to find that Quatre was there, as he was now, stinking wasted. Quatre still hadn't noticed that Trowa was there in the shadows next to the door.

 

Here was a person who Trowa honestly felt was a genuinely kind hearted person. Quatre may not have shown any great deal of kindness or gentleness, or even common respect during the course of the 24/7 store robbery, but Trowa held no doubt that he possessed a remarkable amount of both virtues. In truth, Trowa was not able to come to a conclusion as to what exactly his feelings were toward Quatre, perhaps because he was unconsciously afraid of the answer he might find.

 

Quatre took a highly piled line of cocaine through a rolled up dollar bill and stood ramrod straight, ashen faced and sweating slightly. He promptly fell backwards onto a vacant portion of the long, black leather couch behind him. If the couch had not been there, Trowa was sure the blonde would have landed smack on the floor. Trowa looked up and could not see Heero Yuy or Duo Maxwell among the throng anymore. He quickly focused his attention back on Quatre, who was being fanned and offered a drink by a beautiful slut with red hair.

 

Trowa felt compelled to do whatever he could to make sure Quatre would be safe.

 

But doing that wouldn't get him money for the rent.

 

He understood why he wanted, needed, the money, but Trowa was unable to unearth the secret source of his rising impulse to rush to Quatre's side, to check to see if he was okay, to take him away from this exorbitant, dangerous place. Such things are usually buried at depths too deep and hardened for most men to breach with even willful soul searching.

 

Trowa felt compelled, despite how much tonight was showing the length of distance between himself and the blond. He was beginning to understand that he didn't know this person at all, that the isolated incident that they'd shared together might not, probably did not, mean anything. Quatre enjoyed all the cushy, up-scale things that only the rich could afford. Trowa could never give him that, didn't want those things anyway. And... Trowa frowned bitterly, enviously, Quatre seemed to be very popular with all the beautiful women that were constantly surrounding him and showering him with affection. Quatre's friends seemed to be smart, successful go-getters. How else would they have this much money? he reasoned.

 

And Trowa?

 

In his own eyes, he was uneducated, a failure, timid, and-

 

“Yo,” the female bartender yelled over in his direction. “Yo! Get over here!” She too was one of the bodyguards hired by Losman. Her name was 'Denim'.

 

Trowa took a nervous glance over at Quatre, who was still being fawned over by the women, seemingly glued to the couch now. Checking with the guard on the other side of the door to make sure leaving his post was acceptable, he strode over behind the bar.

 

“Takeover bartending will ya?” Denim yelled in his ear. “I gotta go take a piss.”

 

Trowa started explaining that he had no idea how to bartend or how to make any kind of drink besides Cool Aid. The bartender/bodyguard countered by saying that he was too small to watch the door alone, and that Slender, the hulking black guard, had to stay by the door.

 

“Trowa?”

 

Trowa froze. Quatre was staring at him from across the room, making the others stare as well.

 

“Trowaah! Isz you!” Quatre nearly tripped onto his face crossing the distance to the bar. There was no way to hide now.

 

“Perfect,” Denim whispered, patting Trowa forcefully on the back. “You can entertain the rich pricks while I go take a leak.” And she walked away.

 

“Whatchyoudoinear?” Quatre's words came out all mixed together. “Hey, hey! Doalinewidmehuh?” Quatre took out an eggshell of blow, holding it out proudly. It was all Trowa could do to make sense out of the inebriated blond.

 

Trowa didn't know what to say, so he said nothing. He was always horrible with picking the right thing to say when it really mattered. He looked at the cocaine and frowned.

 

“Ey Trowaah!” Quatre demanded his attention, raising his voice to a shout.

 

Trowa looked away from the cherub blond. The women were pointing at the two of them and whispering. He didn't like that kind of attention, and suddenly wanted Quatre far away from him.

 

“You shouldn't talk to me,” Trowa said finally. “Just act like you don't know me.”

 

There was no way a well-to-do person like Quatre Winner would ever have anything to do with a bum like himself, Trowa had told himself many times. Getting his hopes up would only make the fall harder. It probably would have been better if they'd never even met...

 

“Buhwhyy?” Quatre began to whine, backing away slightly from the bar. Trowa chalked up the blond's moodiness to the drugs and booze. He couldn't-

 

But, a pained look took over the shorter youth's face, and it hurt Trowa to look him in the eyes. Quatre pouted like a child who didn't fully understand. And in turn, Trowa didn't know how to explain. He told himself that it wasn't his fault, that he wasn't the one upsetting Quatre. Still, it wasn't easy to ignore... He did want to say something, but-

 

“Oi! New bartender, eh? Fine by me, that chick was a bit of a bitch, ya know what I'm saying?.” The brooding young businessman had approached the bar during their silence. “You two know each other?” The businessman was quite good at reading others.

 

“No,” Trowa answered coldly. Quatre opened his mouth, but just looked at the floor and closed it without a word. “He must have thought I was someone else.” Trowa found himself lying before he'd even made up his mind on what to say.

 

“Whip me up two Tequila Sunrises then,” the businessman demanded.

 

Trowa turned around to face the bar, three dozen kinds of liquors and mixers staring him in the face. He had no idea what was in a Tequila Sunrise, except for maybe tequila. He turned back to the bar. Quatre was still standing there, looking miserably dejected. The brooding businessman tapped his fingers impatiently. The rich hate waiting.

 

Trowa grabbed a bottle of Patron tequila, two glasses, some ice and a thing of orange citrus juice. He figured the citrus was as close to a sunrise as he would get; at least it had the right color. He mixed the drinks so that the man facing the bar couldn't see what he was putting in the glasses. He totally guessed the proportions, going a little heavy on the tequila.

 

“You extracting the grenadine back there or something?” the businessman asked, agitated.

Trowa didn't even know what grenadine was. He rushed back to the bar, handing the drinks to the customer and adding, “I made them a little stronger than normal.”

 

The businessman smiled. “Good thinking man. Get the broads wasted faster. Good shit.”

 

The brooding businessman walked away. Quatre was still standing there. Softly, he murmured, “So I guess you're just going to pretend you have nothing to do with me? Fine.” Sadness made the words come out sober.

 

“We don't have anything to do with each other,” again, Trowa said the words without even thinking. How was this rich kid sulking about what a cab driver thought of him? “Our paths just happened to cross again, that's all. You should go back over, have fun with your friends.”

 

The coldness of his words were part of a shield he only now realized had been raised on instinct. He pretended to clean one of the shot glasses on the bar, as if he really were a bartender and that this little piece of compressed glass was what he was supposed to be focusing on now. The glass, not the beautiful youth in front of him who he wanted to... He set the glass down and picked up another dirty one.

 

“So, so you really don' like me?” Quatre asked. Trowa froze, almost dropping the glass in his hand.

 

Quatre looked at Trowa imploringly through bleary aquamarine eyes. When they say alcohol is a depressant, they're damn right. Trowa didn't know what to say; and so Quatre spoke first, saying the words that came all too naturally to him, words that he'd deeply feared would reflect sad reality, “Of course. Of course you don't. Who could like a shitty-”

 

And Quatre stuffed the cocaine back into his pocket, grabbed a bottle of champagne and made for the exit in a huff. Instinctively, Trowa started to follow him, already cursing himself for being such an insensitive bastard. He slammed the shot glass down on the bar and it shattered as easily as if it had been fragile hope.

 

“Where are you going?” The huge, black bodyguard, Slender, stopped him at the door. Quatre slammed it behind him.

 

“I have to take a leak,” Trowa lied.

 

“You gotta wait until Denim comes back,” Slender insisted. “At least two with the client at all times.”

 

“Hey! Hey you! You call this a Tequila Sunrise?” The shouts from the businessman, the pounding music overhead, Slender's restraining arm and the image of tears streaming down Quatre's face made Trowa forget who he was and where he was.

 

And then he was not were he had been.

 

And, similarly but in a strange way completely differently, he was not quite the same as he had been a minute before.

 

-end “Shield Me, Spear You” Part D of Page IV in

Sex, Substances, Sin and Salvation. How these four `s' words are intertwined.

MasamuneEHS@hotmail.com

 

Next: “Drug Dealers are Unreliable”

 

ID Notes:

Denim and Slender are two very minor characters from the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Obviously I've changed Denim's sex to female here...

 

Notes:

Trowa remembers Heero and Duo's names from their wallets.

 

Tequila Sunrise: 3 parts Tequila, 6 parts orange juice, 1 part grenadine syrup, preferably in a high glass with ice, added in that order, sometimes garnished and not to be stirred or shaken.