Not for the first time in his life, Quatre wondered just how Zechs managed to keep his hair in such a bizarre state of perfection no matter what brand of trouble he threw himself into. It was damned distracting, trying to shoot a moving target that shot back with twice the firepower while that pale white-stallion hair arced and writhed in his face. Did it never find itself in knots? When Zechs woke in the morning, was it mussed or just naturally so well tamed, celestial in its state of beauty that it would always revert back to form? Duo had a running bet that the man carried a comb wherever he went, and used a least a full bottle of conditioner a week. But then, Duo was also rather bitter on the subject: Duo had split ends. Zechs' hair was... unsplitable. For lack of a better word.
Quatre watched, hypnotized, as the bullets zinged through the silver tendrils, the very body of the hair itself seeming to part way around the harm threatening their lives. The older man halted, suddenly, swore, and fired two cold shots that left the bullets silent and his hair shuddering to a pause. Zechs turned toward him, the silver curtain swishing against his shapely buttocks that Quatre was so not yearning to cup with his palm. He wondered not for the first time if Zechs was actually a play on sex rather than six, and if the man was aware of the sheer orgasmic power his body possessed with the merest gesture, his face featured in the fantasy of many, many people throughout Preventers and beyond. One would think he'd have to be blind not to see his own beauty, but Quatre and Zechs had been partners for nearly a year and half now and the younger man found there was an oddly endearing quality about Zechs that suggested a complete lack of subtlety. The man could wrap an entire army around his finger with his scary Peacecraft charisma and then retire to his bed with the firm belief that he was a man who could not be loved.
"...minus three seconds."
"Ah," Quatre said, startled out of his thoughts with a mean blush. Mentally, he rewound what was said and then remembered Trowa was going to blow up--
A screaming of metal and fire from the left side of the station rocked them off their feet and Quatre was thrown into Zechs' delicious backside. Apologizing and inwardly smacking himself, he staggered back to position and blinked as the red emergency lights came on. A second later, the automatic water sprinklers spat out jets of water over their heads, and the fire alarm wailed obnoxiously. It was Quatre's turn to swear.
"Next time, I write the mission plans," he shouted over the roar. Ordinarily, he would've, but Une had insisted they needed both his and Zechs' personal services for this one, and somehow that meant Noin ended up writing the script. Quatre had only complained for old time's sake at the start, focused on the mission at hand, but now he was ready to rip Noin's spine out. Truth be told, he didn't understand why things had to be done so half-assed--he'd told Trowa the fire alarm would go off, and he'd told him he wasn't partial to being in the building while the man happily blew it apart, but Trowa had given him that look, the one that managed to say "Yes, Quatre" and "I take orders from no one" at the same exact time. Granted, Quatre wouldn't have followed the plan if anyone other than one of the pilots were in charge of the demo-ops, because no matter his loyalty to Une (which was still questionable at best), Quatre was not partial to death by stupidity. But it was still utterly unnecessary, and the strategic genius in him was screaming bloody murder.
Despite the irrationality, however, Zechs was playing soldier very well and doing exactly as was outlined for once. He hefted his gun, unaffected by the indoor rain, and marched down the hallway toward the rooms currently being used as cells.
That long white mane was bathed in blood under the lights. It clung to Zechs like a part of his skin, hanging into his eyes in fine red clumps. Quatre longed to brush through it with his fingers and relish in the wet, slippery--
Focusing now. In the field--he knew better than this. What was his problem, anyway? It was only hair... in the way that a Montrachet 1978 was only a bottle of wine.
Muttering, Quatre shot the one lone guard before the poor man could turn his way, and Zechs kept watch while Quatre took the clearance card from the body and swiped it through the scanner so the cell door slid open. Duo was standing on the other side with his arms folded, glaring a pulse rifle through Quatre's head, the most sour look on his face.
"Don't fucking say it," Duo growled over the still-wailing fire alarm, stomping out of the cell and kicking the dead guard fiercely on his way out. He took the gun, checked its cartridge, and began to pace back the way they'd come.
"Hm."
"Shut up, Quatre."
"I haven't said a word, Duo."
"Just... shut up."
Zechs lifted a brow as he followed Duo's agitated leave, Quatre passively taking the rear. Despite the current situation, he found himself inwardly laughing at Duo's expense--to be captured by amateurs like these was truly embarrassing, not to mention that because they were using the same high-tech stations OZ had built back in the war over ten years ago, which was still perfectly as Duo-proof now was it was then (with minor exceptions), he was forced to wait to be rescued like any other ordinary officer. Duo wouldn't be living it down any time soon, and he knew it.
Thus, as they made their way back to the shuttle in stoic mission-oriented silence, Quatre found himself staring at Zechs' buttocks again simply because he was bored. Trowa's buttocks were much more lean and hard, built like a man with little trace of the boy he'd once been. Quatre had to admit in the privacy of his own thoughts that he had quite loved those hard, manly buttocks, especially when he could grope them into an attractive spotting of black and blue when the sex was at it's roughest and Trowa was in full mercenary-mode. But Zechs had a decidedly boyish backside, with round, squeezable hemispheres that yearned to be caressed with loving hands. Not that Zechs was soft, per say, he was just... well, as Duo had said on more than one occasion, highly fuckable.
And there were other reasons.
Quatre and Trowa (as they were dubbed for years, as if having mutated into a single organism of rampant gayness and severe public affection) had lasted three years, one month, two weeks and four days before breaking down into a worthless pile of broken promises. It was a thing of great disappointment to the world, like an expensive house built on cheap labor, breaking down long before the mortgage was paid off.
It was probably doomed to begin with, ending the way it had, though Quatre would never admit it. It happened simply because, out of circumstance, the two of them spent less and less time together, and more and more time away on duty, or at work. It was after many months of isolation away from Quatre that Trowa developed a shocking affection for Dorothy during a Preventers operation to aid Relena's project to rebuild Cinq, and Quatre discovered them trading tongues in the palace gardens of Relena's yearly Christmas party that December. He'd said a few mean words to Dorothy, Trowa jumped in to defend her, and Dorothy proved that she needed no defending at all, to which Quatre, disgusted, walked away, punching Trowa's lights out when the man attempted to stop him. Like a scorned woman, Quatre dumped all of Trowa's things in a soggy box out in the rain, and the two of them failed to speak to each other for an entire year after that, until Trowa's and Dorothy's wedding, to which Quatre reluctantly attended as the best man. Things were much better now in an unrequited sort of way, but there was still a gaping hole in the universe where the other half of Quatre's soul should be. Quatre hadn't dated since the breakup, even though everyone but Trowa himself had said it was best to move on from these things. It was just, Zechs was the first man to really match everything that Trowa had been to him. He was the first man in a long time who just seemed to click.
Hungry death written all over his face, Duo fired three consecutive cold shots, throwing Quatre from his thoughts again with an ugly bang. He noticed only belatedly that the fire alarm and the water works had finally stopped it's annoyance. Zechs followed Duo like Death's pale horse while Quatre kept watch at the rear, the way they'd come just as deadly silent as they'd left it. Duo slipped into control room, re-downloading the information he'd come to collect the first time around before he'd been captured, still looking quite pissed at his situation. Quatre watched on as he pocketed three disks, favoring his leg while the downloads progressed. He didn't look any worse for wear, but Quatre knew Duo had the horrible habit of getting hit in places far too easy to hide. Knowing how these things usually progressed, he was absolutely positive they would be half-way back to headquarters when Duo would feel the need to announce that he had a broken leg. Since Quatre's mother-henning days were long over, he didn't feel the need to point it out if Duo was just going to be stubborn about it anyway. He went back to fantasizing about Zechs until Zechs announced that he was going to clear the corridor of bodies and he and Duo were left alone in uncomfortable silence.
Pissy as ever, Duo leaned back in the computer chair and glared. "Your head is in Venus, Q-ball. You're gonna get us killed."
Insulted, Quatre gave a glare of his own. I can run a mission through enemy territory and oggle Zechs' beautiful bunions too. However, he still didn't say anything, simply because he doubted Duo would understand.
"When's the last time you had sex?"
"What?"
Downloading the last disk, Duo gave up the pissiness for an evil grin and lazy dialect. "Not offerin'. Just askin'. You been starin' at Zechs' ass like a starving man since I got outta that fuckin' cell. Fine piece of ass, though, I do admit. How long you been partners, now?"
"Two years."
He laughed, but in a friendly way, giving Quatre the most adorably affectionate look. "Two years of constant companionship, depending on each other to stay alive, cramped in the tightest, dirtiest spaces Preventers can provide, and you've never fucked? I mean, least I have an excuse. My last partner was Noin." He shuddered, slipping another disk into his pocket. "This is all her fault. She should be fired from the force. I coulda been fucking killed."
"But you weren't."
"Don't defend her, Quatre. You know as well as I do that she's dangerous."
He thought about the woman's obvious affections for Zechs and could hardly find reason to disagree. But that was the trouble, wasn't it? He didn't know if Zechs returned the feelings. He'd never once seen the man drop any kind of romantic feelings Noin since getting to know him, but Zechs was complicated and just because he didn't outright say he loved a woman didn't mean he didn't feel that way about her at all. In other words, Noin was the great gaping mystery keeping Quatre from his goal, and he didn't know how to handle it. In fact, he didn't even know if Zechs was gay. He'd never dropped any hints.
Damn. All the good guys are straight these days.
"This was her idea," Duo went on, flailing wildly as he pocketed the last disk and stood up. "I don't know why she ranks higher than me in Une's eyes, and certainly she doesn't belong in the tactical department."
"Yeah. Duo, is Zechs gay?"
The man paused comically in mid-step for the door, glancing back at Quatre with a deer-in-headlights look. Then he recovered, laughed, and honestly considered the question.
"Dunno. But I swear he an' Kushrenada--"
"Did nothing of the sort," Zechs finished, that calm brow lifted in Quatre's direction as he entered the room again. Quatre had the common courtesy to look ashamed, his heart sinking down into the general region of his stomach, but Zechs shocked both men when he smiled almost dangerously. "I have shared... acquaintance... with other men, however. You need but ask."
Ask, then, the little voice in Quatre's head whispered. Ask him if he finds Noin sexy.
He could still be bi.
"Er. Well. Ah... you see..."
"I think what Quatre's trying to say is, 'Dinner and a movie?'"
"Duo!"
Zechs titled his head slightly, eyes narrowed in thought. His soaked hair slithered to the side like a lazy, wet snake contemplating an afternoon snack. Then he said, "Veal shank?"
Duo smirked. German, wasn't it? "Schnitzel."
Zechs seemed to leer. "Citizen Kane."
"Godfather."
Quatre's head bounced back and forth between the showdown of date arrangements that he apparently had no say in making himself. "What about The Wizard of Oz?" They both looked at him, as if he'd grown a second head, and Quatre mumbled, "I think it's very pretty..."
Zechs seemed to soften. "The Wizard of Oz and then Citizen Kane."
Duo was shaking his head. "Casablanca."
"Casablanca?" Zechs seemed lost.
Duo squawked. "You've never seen Casablanca?"
"It's a western," he said, as if that explained the meaning to life itself.
"No it's not! Christ, I can't believe you--"
"Um." Quatre was at a loss for words. The two abruptly broke into argument, and Quatre winced. He checked his watch.
"Casablanca over Citizen Kane hardly seems fair--"
"You've never seen it, you arrogant, prissy, stuck up--"
Quatre fired his gun toward the ceiling, and everyone jumped as the bang resounded in the room much louder than it would've been in an open space. It seemed to vibrate in their bones when Quatre said quietly, "Can we go, please?"
Zechs met his eyes briefly, before staring at the floor. He was boyish in his shame, blushing furiously.
Quatre resisted the urge to giggle. Duo didn't bother.
**
They made it back to Une in relative safety. Duo's injuries were only minor, and Trowa flew the ship, Zechs providing co-pilot to avoid Quatre while Quatre pestered Duo over his humiliation to avoid Zechs. The two in question managed to go through debriefing without speaking more than trivial details to each other. It wasn't until Zechs offered to drive Quatre home, the two of them sitting uncomfortably in Zechs' car in the underground garage of Preventer headquarters in Cinq, that Zechs finally addressed... them.
"I apologize," he said suddenly, hands gripping at the wheel to calm himself. He avoided Quatre's eyes for fear of what he might find there, wet clumps of sodden hair hanging miserably in his eyes. "I should never have been so forward. I was taken by the moment--"
Quatre grabbed hold of Zechs' chin with gentle fingers and pulled his gaze back to the things that mattered.
"I'd love to."
This was the part where they kissed in the movies, but things were far too awkward to press the issue. Quatre pulled his fingers away as if they burned, and sat back in his seat, his arms folded, shoulders hunched slightly with bizarre tension. What he wouldn't give to run his fingers through the champagne clumps and brush them away so he could lose himself in those royal blue eyes... but he couldn't.
"Oh." Zechs seemed stunned. He smiled slightly, shaken, and then almost reluctantly turned the ignition. The car started, but he didn't shift into drive. He just sat there, the motor quieting to a hum, unsure of his actions and his final destination. "If you're sure--"
"Positive," Quatre said, a little too quickly. It sounded terse, far more angry than he'd intended.
Zechs nodded, once again looking a scolded schoolboy.
Quatre sighed, his shoulders sagging.
After seconds that passed by like centuries, Zechs whispered, "My place?"