Category: Continuance, Post-Waltz, UCPA-verse
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Note: I originally had this posted under another name, but decided to repost it. If you have any questions and/or comments, feel free to review/pm/message/email me from either account.
It was almost humorous the way the others reacted when they found out he was going to join the UCPA – the United Colony Prevention Agency. A few years after the Preventers initial founding in 196 after the incident later known as Waltz, they found that running a military style establishment throughout Earth and Space through one core agency, was a little more difficult than originally planned. Two years later, the Preventers had split into two separate establishments, both intertwined with each other, but ruling over different jurisdiction. EP, Earth Preventers, took care of everything Earth based; the UCPA watched over everything in space starting twenty miles out from Earth’s farthest satellite.
During the four months it took to go through the application and verification process to get the job, each of the other pilots spoke with him at least once, one on one, about how he should join EP. It was endearing, and while Duo listened to them and nodded and smiled through the conversations, they all knew nothing would be able to change his mind. He wanted to stay in space, stay on the colonies, and if that was what he had his mind set on doing, nothing would stop him. But that didn’t stop them from trying.
Apparently they hadn’t realized how closely they would be working together despite the difference in organization. After all, the bad guy didn’t usually pick a single sand box to play in. Which was how Duo found himself in Cinq Kingdom EP headquarters, lounging in a plastic chair in a break room, paper cup of coffee nestled against his chest, feet propped up on the round table in front of him, red chair tipped back precariously on it’s back two legs.
Whenever a case went cross jurisdictions, EP and UCPA joined forces in order to deal with the problem as quickly and efficiently as possible. It was a ‘act first, do paperwork later’ type of deal; and, seeing as he was a space agent Earth bound at the end of his mission, he was doing his paperwork here. Normally it wasn’t that big of a deal. Then again, normally, Duo worked pretty damn hard to find himself in space once he declared something finished; and that was because he had a tendency of not following all of the rules.
Une, who was still in charge of the EP program, as well as the negotiation segment between EP and UCPA agents, had a stick up her ass so far and so deep that Duo’s little escapades seemed to threaten her life by raising her blood pressure so high her face was almost always tinted pink whenever he saw her. He tried not to see her all that often. Unfortunately, things hadn’t worked out as planned this time around.
Thus, alone in the EP HQ break room that felt more like a prison than a lounge area. He sipped at his coffee and continued watching the news that blinked down at him from a TV in the far upper corner of the small box. Regular stuff, nothing about anything of what he just did, which was for the better. He would have been worried if whatever he was working on had been leaked to the media. He was, after all, undercover special ops.
He’d finished four cups of coffee and was leaning back as far as possible in his chair, trying to balance all of the cups end over end on his forehead, when the door finally opened. Instinctively he reached for the gun at his shoulder, causing all of the cups to come crumbling down on top of him, hitting him in the face and then falling back to the ground with light pop sounds.
His regular automatic wasn’t at his shoulder however, his fingers merely pawing at the empty holster that nestled there. They’d taken it away when he entered the building. Yeah, they were all playing on the same side, but apparently weapons laws weren’t the same or something – maybe it was just because Une seemed a little bit afraid of him with a live weapon in his possession. He didn’t know why. He might have been a teen terrorist, but now he was a government lapdog. Well… maybe not a lapdog, but he did do what they told him to – for the most part.
Heero walked into the room, his eyes latched on to Duo’s hand under his jacket, following it critically as it slid out and into the open, empty handed. Cracking a grin, Duo let out a huffed chuckle. “Hey, old habits.” Like that was all he needed to say to explain it, and it was. He knew the other would understand. “So, ‘m I in trouble?” His casual grin widened, his eyes sparkling something more dangerous than mere humor and something along the lines of his old teenage mischief.
“Duo.” Heero sounded, tired almost. He didn’t look happy as he walked into the room and whipped out the green chair across the table from Duo. “Une wants to suspend you.”
A loud metallic thunk resounded throughout the small room as Duo’s chair smashed into the ground, his feet falling heavily off from the table, his eyes were a little wide. “What? Seriously?” A ghost of a smile remained on his face, but it faltered slightly. He’d been with UCPA for nearly two and a half years. He’d been doing great; loved the job, was good at what he did, had a blast while he did it. So he broke a few rules in the process, who really cared as long as the job got done?
“She’s trying to get Trevall to agree to take your badge for six months.” Heero’s voice was steady and his eyes were flat, he wasn’t kidding around, he was serious.
Trevall was the head of UCPA, Duo’s boss, a great guy who seemed to like Duo and didn’t mind looking the other way when he pulled some of his more unorthodox stunts. It was doubtful that he’d agree to a suspension. After all, Duo was a head agent at UCPA, there weren’t many like him, and the ones that were, were with EP. He shook his head, slowly at first, and then a little more vigorously. “No way. It’s not gonna happen.” He paused, shook his head again, and propped his feet back up on the table. “Not gonna happen.”
He didn’t hear Heero get up from his seat, was too focused at the point on the ceiling he was glaring at to notice the other come around the table. He did, however, notice when Heero’s hand clamped on his shoulder and pushed him and his chair back down to the ground again, forcefully. Duo’s head snapped up, deep blue, almost violet eyes clashing dangerously with the man towering over him. “You need to be more careful. There are jurisdiction laws. There are rules. Regulations.”
With a snort Duo shrugged his shoulders, sliding out of the other’s grip, his eyes falling away from Heero. He didn’t want to hear this, not now, not from Heero. It was bad enough trying to drudge up every single memory he had to Trevall, trying to figure out if the man would agree to a suspension or not. He didn’t want to hear his best friend criticize his tactics, didn’t want to hear that all this trouble was his own fault.
“Duo-”
“Shut up.” He was sour, his arms folded in front of his chest, glaring at the far wall, blatantly refusing to meet the other’s gaze. He didn’t want to hear it.
The silence that hung in the air was unnaturally heavy between them. Since the years following the war and Watlz, all five of them had become exceptionally close. As good as family. But Heero, somehow, had become his best friend – though he still wasn’t sure how that had happened. He thought it might have to do with the way Wufei had gotten married and Quatre had the company and his girlfriend, Trowa was at the circus whenever he wasn’t working. The two of them had started hanging out a lot. Things just kind of worked between them.
They were good friends, for years now; and in those years they had plenty of silences, full and complete and very natural and comfortable. This, however, was not one of them. It was heavy and stiff and suffocating, it made Duo shift uncomfortably in his seat, his fingers curling into white knuckled fists, his jaw clenching tightly. Heero was suppose to understand, was suppose to walk in and shrug it off with him; he wasn’t suppose to make him worry about his career.
Heero’s hand came to rest on his shoulder again, and he tensed under it, still staring viciously at the wall. “Let’s grab a drink down the street.” The suggestion was light and void of the seriousness of the conversation just moments before, followed by Heero giving him a little shake and then breaking off and walking across the room, hovering at the door. “First round’s on me.”
Grumbling under his breath, Duo pried himself from his chair and followed the other out of the room, leaving his mess of cups on the floor. Spiteful vengeance for the hours he’d been in there.
They walked down the hall in silence, much more comfortable than the one they had just come from. The halls were practically empty and Duo glanced down at his watch even though he already knew what he’d see. 1:03am. It was late, he was tired, he just wanted to get some drinks in him, go home, and forget all of this ever happened.
“I didn’t mean to upset you.” Heero swiped his pass card through a little slot at the front door and it chirped agreeably and unlocked to let them out into the warm night air of July.
The streets were empty, the night lights making soft orange pools of light on the abandoned sidewalks, spread out every twenty feet or so, guiding them down the block and around the corner where Duo knew an old Irish pub lay nestled in the wall. Une probably hadn’t realized it was there when they chose the building for the Preventers’ office or she probably would have kicked the guy out or found another place. She didn’t seem like the one to approve of agents getting off work and grabbing a drink.
Hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his leather jacket, Duo shook his head. “Naw, it’s okay, it wasn’t you. I just-” He let out a heavy sigh and kicked a pebble on the ground, watching it skitter down the block a few feet, catch a crack and careen into the street. “How the fuck does Une get the balls to try to suspend me? I mean, I got the job done, right? So what’s the big deal?”
“Regulations. Jurisdiction.” Heero sounded loyally, knowing exactly what the problem was, and knowing full well that it went deeper than those two words. “Une takes it all very seriously. The policy and the system, it’s important that it works correctly, works the way that it’s meant to. We aren’t just police officers, it’s political.”
Duo’s eyes flickered toward the man next to him, narrowing slightly as his attention caught on the EP badge on the shoulder of the Preventers jacket Heero wore. That alone seemed to encompass everything that the other was talking about. His fingers pawed at the leather of his jacket idly. He had a UCPA jacket, official with badges and everything, very similar to the one Heero wore right now; but he didn’t wear it, hadn’t worn it since the day he got it. He was undercover. He was a special ops agent. You had to think differently when you did that kind of stuff, you couldn’t just go around and advertise to the world who you worked for for a living. It got around, even if you thought you were safe. It was why he wore a cap a lot of the time now, trying to hide his face, keeping himself hidden as much as possible.
“I’m sure it won’t go through. Trevall likes you too much.”
They were pushing into the pub door’s, into the musty, smoky bar, working their way to the back of the nearly empty place to take a seat at the stools at the bar. As promised, Heero called up the first round. A fresh, frothing, dark, Earth beer. Bitter and cool to the mouth, Duo wrapped both hands around it in a way similar to how he’d been clutching his coffee cup earlier. “Really?”
He’d been trying to tell himself the same exact thing, but every time he thought it, he saw Une’s face in his head. The woman’s eyes could pierce Gundanium, much less a man’s heart and soul, she could devour Trevall. The man wouldn’t last a minute. He was going to get suspended. If Une had it her way, maybe he’d be fired.
“I’m sure.”
That made Duo look up, a singe eyebrow arched elegantly. Heero rarely ever did that – making things up, going with the response that made someone feel better instead of the one that was the actual truth. He cracked a smile and lifted his beer again. He had good friends. He could last a six month suspension. Trevall was a strong guy, he could stand up to Une; after all, he put up with Duo.
“When will I know?”
Heero shrugged, nursing his own beer like a small, precious child. He took a healthy drink, his eyes staring across the bar at the wall of liquors in front of them, thinking. “She’ll call me.”
“Oh?” That was a bit of surprise. Duo’d thought he would be the one expecting a call of anybody. After all, it was his job that was on the line. Then again, Une probably thought he’d pull some ballistic shit if he found out that he was suspended. Maybe that was why she took his gun away from him; maybe she was afraid he’d come in the next morning and shoot all her employees. On the other hand, she always took his gun away from him, and it wouldn’t be that hard to get a hold of another one if he really wanted to.
“Yeah. You’re not in the break room like you’re supposed to be.” When Heero looked over his blue eyes glimmered with humor and Duo couldn’t help but laugh, deep and rich, bubbling up from his very core. God, only Heero could make him laugh at the fact that his job was on the line and he was disobeying a direct order of the woman who was the head of the witch hunt. And then he laughed harder at the thought that Heero would be the only one to make him laugh at anything. Friendship for no matter how many years would never erase memories of the Perfect Soldier and the almost mute boy the other had been when they first met.
Grinning, he knocked back the rest of his pint and raised his eyebrows in surprise when another one appeared in front of him like magic. His eyes flickered over toward Heero who just smiled encouragingly and he took it without question. Friends don’t let friends not get drunk when they are about to lose their job.
Six pints of German imports and twelve tequila shots later, Duo wasn’t what he would define as drunk, but was definitely more loose tongued. If he had been clinging to his beers before, he was downright molesting the one in his hands right now, his big, long fingered hands clutching around its center, enveloping the glass in his grasp that was so tight the glass was practically creaking.
“I get the fucking job done,” he muttered. “Get the fucking job done, kill the fucker, get the fucking data, and what the fuck does she do? Mother anti-Christ bitch from Hell wants to suspend me. Me?! UCPA might as well just roll on its back and die if I’m outta the picture. Fucking bitch from fucking Hell with her fucking Devil fork and fucking horns that come out of her fucking head.” He paused as though considering taking a drink from the beer, decided against it, and continued.
“I always get the fucking job done. Always! And what do I get for it?” He looked over at Heero, as though actually waiting for a response; rolled his eyes when he didn’t get one, and then answered it himself. “Fucking nothing.” He sighed and winced. “Fucking shit cunt ass bitch.”
From beside him, Heero raised an eyebrow, wondering if it was time to leave McJerry’s and head home for the night. Duo didn’t get mad that often, or at least, not truly mad, not angry. So he’d forgotten about the mouth that formed on the other when it did happen. A special combination of life disaster and a fair amount of liquor and Duo was a regular old drunk Irish man himself. Heero did, however, have solace in the fact that the other wasn’t actually drunk; but he wasn’t going to tell him to shut up either. Sometimes a good rant and a fantastic display of profane language could do amazing things toward making someone – particularly Duo – feel better.
“You know what I fucking get Heero?” Duo turned on the other again, his expression strangely sober, then looked down and groped at that the end of his shirt. “I fucking get this shit.” Pulling the hem up to nearly the middle of his sternum revealed the knot muscle of his abdomen and flat chest, as well as dark, almost black bruising that covered almost the entirety of his chest and dipping bellow the waist of his pants at his left hip. It looked painful. Extremely painful. He poked himself and hissed darkly. “I get fucking run over by a fucking motorcycle.” Poked himself again and then pushed down his shirt in disgust and grabbed for his beer again before it could get taken away.
“Does Une Bitch from Hell care stupid Earth hippies run me the fuck over? I don’t fucking think so. She’s just fucking pissed because I shot some guy in a fucking embassy. What the fuck? Nobody even knew I was fucking there.” He rested the chin on the edge of his glass and muttered lowly to himself, seeming to have realized that the volume of his voice had been climbing and he didn’t actually want to draw the attention of the few people in the bar, or make a scene. McJerry’s was a good place. He didn’t want to get thrown out.
Chin on the edge of his glass, he closed his eyes, taking deep, steady breaths, and opened them a few minutes later. After a moment he pushed himself back and released his grip on the glass while turning to Heero, loose smile playing on his lips. “We should probably head back.”
Heero nodded, glanced over at McJerry at the end of the bar, who nodded, and then turned his attention back on Duo who slid off the bench and walked with uncanny steadiness for a man who didn’t drink, toward the front door and out to the street. He turned right, heading back toward headquarters, but was stopped by Heero’s hand around his bicep. Turning around, he raised a brow. “Hey, I know I’m the one who did the drinking, but I’m pretty sure it’s this way.”
“My car’s in the garage across the street. It’d be better to be found not in the break room, than found in the break room with a blood alcohol level as high as yours.” Heero’s lips twitched into a smile as Duo hesitated, thought, and then finally nodded in agreement and allowed himself to be lead across the empty street and to the promised waiting car.
“You still have that guest bedroom?”
“Haven’t done anything with it yet.”
Duo made a small, pleased noise in the back of his throat as he hauled himself into the passenger’s seat of Heero’s large SUV. Sinking back into the seat, he propped his feet up on the dash and closed his eyes. “That bed is awesome. I still have the little crappy thing that came with the G14 apartment,” he filled in, not bothering with a seatbelt. He knew it’d bother the other man, knew just as well that he wouldn’t get razzed about it, at least not tonight.
“I thought you said you were going to get something new?” The car rumbled to life and with a soft jerk they backed out of the spot, shifted into drive, and were mowing down the street at a safe thirty five, towards Heero’s house.
“Yeah, well, I’m never there. Kind of a waste of money.”
From the driver’s seat, Heero snorted. “I’ve seen that thing. It’s not a waste of money.”
Duo let out a low chuckle. “Yeah, well, I’m still never there. Though… if I get suspended I might seriously think about it. Have to be in that place for six months...” He drifted off and lay still for a few long minutes, shifted, and started up again. “Bet Une would push for longer. You think she’d try to get Trevall to fire me?” He was happy for the inebriated feeling of intoxication, it made his voice steady, made it easier to actually voice his concern about loosing his job all together, even when the thought made his chest ache a little. It’d be like loosing one of the others. UCPA had become his life.
“Duo, you’re not going to lose your job.”
“Really? But I think she really hates me.”
“It’s just some jurisdictional issues. It’ll be cleared up by tomorrow.”
“Then why were you so ready to dish out the cash to get me drunk? Unless you’re planning on taking advantage of me?” He cracked an eye open, grin splitting his face and a laugh breaking out when the man beside him rolled his eyes and punched him in the face, leaving his jaw aching slightly.
“You looked like shit.”
It would never cease to be a wonder, the way Heero had managed to change and adapt in the years after the war. To hear a phrase like that coming from him, even now, was rare, and Duo wasn’t sure anybody else had witnessed anything quite like it. “Yeah, well, the job.”
Heero’s eyes flickered over to him, cutting him down to size in a matter of seconds. “Run over by a motorcycle?”
Maybe he had more to drink than he thought, he hadn’t really meant to give that whole little shpeel about that incident, much less show the bruises. Not that it would have mattered, Heero noticed signs of injury on his own, he would have seen it sooner or later. Nestled in his seat, Duo shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”
“You alright?”
“Yeah, just a few ribs. No internal damage except what Une’s done to me. Woman probably eats men for breakfast. Just snatches them off the street like the old lady in Hansel and Gretel, cuts them up and makes them into breakfast burritos.”
“You need to get some sleep.”
Duo let out a soft sigh of agreement. “Yeah.”
“It’ll be fine by morning.”
: End :