Punishing

VI

\"So...tell me again how Heero got that shiner?\" Quatre stood over his two subordinates tired and unamused.

Duo had called him very very early in the morning, snappily telling him to: \"Take care of Heero,\" or he\'d end up killing him.

The rims of Quatre\'s eyes were pink and irritated, and he hadn\'t shaved, but other than that he looked normal. Duo and Heero looked like they\'d had a catfight, and had both lost.

One of the few work blazers that Duo owned was torn at the seams of the sleeve, and his hair looked like it\'d been swung around in a wind tunnel.

Heero didn\'t look any better, in fact, he looked surprisingly worse. He had scratches on his left cheek and a black eye.

Just when Quatre thought he wasn\'t going to get any sort of a response from his riled workers, Duo spoke up, \"Well,\" he looked at Heero purposefully, \"this idiot here mixed sample B-9 with sample B-17, expressly against my orders.\"

\"I don\'t take orders from you,\" Heero interjected.

Duo made a face, \"We\'re supposed to work on this together, right? What you do puts my ass on the line, too, and I don\'t appreciate it.\"

\"As much as you may treasure it, I don\'t give a flying fuck about your ass. I knew what I was doing,\" Heero growled.
Duo laughed incredulously, \"Oh! That\'s great Captain Obvious! I kind of figured that out when you were busy at work mixing the goddamn samples!\"

Quatre didn\'t feel conscious enough to deal with their issues, and just let him at each other. So long as he was present, he was fairly positive that there would be no more fists flying.

After a while of heated banter, Quatre finally decided to step in, \"How much sleep have you two gotten in the past week?\"
Duo and Heero stopped their arguing and regarded him owlishly with sleep-starved eyes.

Face contorted in thought, Duo could only muster an, \"Ehm...\"

Heero\'s mouth opened, but he didn\'t seem terribly sure of the figure, either.

They both just only remembered slipping into the competitive mood on a particularly stormy Monday morning and had since been trying to outdo each other on hours and work, and in the muddled storm of excellence lost track of the time.

Quatre took a deep breath, \"Alright. Here\'s what I want you two to do. If you don\'t do it, you\'re free to resign.\" He teetered a bit, still fighting the desperate urge to collapse into a dead man\'s slumber, \"You two have a history of being at odds with each other, and with things (he held back a yawn) the way that they are now, you guys need to stop having these emergencies that you always drag me into. So...so, you two, go get some sleep. However! You\'ll both take up lodging in the company dorm, together, same room, no complaining (he added after seeing Duo\'s lips move in indignance). Every day, I\'m going to have the attendant check on you guys. If you aren\'t sleeping. If you aren\'t getting along. If you aren\'t in the same apartment. I\'ll know.\" He held up his forefinger to tap his forehead but was too drowsy to follow through with the action. \"I\'ll call (he supressed another yawn) tonight...I mean, this morning. You guys, go there now. I don\'t want to see you two until you\'re buddies...N-now, get!\" He took the cellphone out of his pocket and fumbled with it a little, all the while hawkishly watching Duo and Heero file out.

++

Sometimes he hated being a morning person.

After his exhausting episode with Heero and Duo, the pricks of awareness stabbed without remorse at his semi-conscious mind. It was four-thirty a.m., and thus, his mind reasoned that he could log in about four hours of work before heading to the courthouse. He\'d already appointed Milliardo C.O.O. in his abscence, but couldn\'t shake the uncomfortable feeling of self-depreciating idleness at leaving another person in charge of his business affairs (though, he could probably reason his divorce as being a branch of his work).

\"Well, Jack, this is where you and I differ,\" he mumbled, making his way to his office.

++

Maybe something as demented as Nine Inch Nails wasn\'t good to listen to before sleeping.

A base message from \"Closer\" had managed to penetrate his dreams and dredge up some odd past memories that he\'d rather not have entertained a mere three hours before seeing Mr. Quatre Winner.

Trowa may not have remembered his \"illustrious history\" with Quatre, but he could recall with fair enough ease and humility all of the nameless blondes that he\'d fallen for in his lifetime. His photographic (or, was it \'pornographic\') memory proved to be the makings of a subconscious skin studio.

He\'d just sprung to awareness after a particularly jarring dream in which all of the people whom he\'d ever had sex with or thought of having sex with magically appeared in the same locale at the same time. It was a tropical paradise setting (of the sort commonly seen on \'reality\' television) complete with alcoholic beverages up the wazoo. Everyone looked mostly naked and shamefully easy. The setting and scenario was right for a Hefner fantasy (if he were a little less hertrosexual and a little more bi leaning towards gay).

It was a twilight zone harem where Quatre seemed to be in absentia...along with Katie...and that hot guy that came to the college admissions office when Trowa was working there as a sophmore.

The frightening thing wasn\'t the abscence of the fantastic three, it was the crippling impotency Trowa felt at seeing all (most, actually) the people he\'d ever found to be attractive prone in front of him, and the subsequent lack of desire that he felt for any of them. It was as if he\'d been fast-forwarded into near-the-grave old age.

He took a scalding shower, then paced his apartment irritably, a towel spot welded to his waist.

\"Does this mean that I\'m shallow?\" he asked the air. \"Or, am I reading too much into this?\"

++

The judge was an old man. His hair was meticulously coiffed, his mustache trimmed to compliment his Colonel goatee, and his piercing gray eyes beheld his courtroom from behind a thick-framed pair of generic black glasses. The mouth that had delivered many verdicts over the years had been robbed of its humour, deflated into a thin nearly invisible line under the shadow of his brush-like mustache. The ears that had heard numerous cases in years past were set at a listening angle, slightly forward and angled down from his eagle perch.

His name was Judge Fredrick M. Dreiser, one of the most unsympathetic divorce judges on the bench to date.

Trixie had her work cut out for her, especially since she\'d jumped the gun to get her case out before her husband\'s. She had friends, confidantes, and bribed street urchins lined up to speak on her behalf.

Schapery told her that she could parade whomever she pleased up on the witness stand as long as she stayed off of it, herself; and kept her trap shut.

Trowa was betting on an impassioned outburst sometime during the court proceedings, as to when that would come, only time and fabulous circumstance would tell.

Even Schapery didn\'t look very confident going into court that day.

Contrasting greatly with the Trixie-team, Quatre and Wufei looked refreshed and ready to wage war. Trowa watched Quatre, but Mr. Winner was careful not to look at him. Even without Quatre\'s acknowledgement, Trowa felt assured that his youthful virility was still in-tact and was cheered anyway.

It was interesting to watch Quatre\'s posture; he folded his hands in his lap and raised his chin parallel to the ground, in effect, appearing submissive and defiant at the same time.

Wufei looked keen, like a wolf on the hunt. No one was wounded, but the predator in him smelled blood. The sharp sheen of his eyes proved as much.

++

What ensued was an eye-crossingly long proion ion of Trixie dolls with the same battery of friend phrases: \"She\'s a great lady,\" \"She\'s very nice,\" \"She treats the domestics well,\" \"Everybody likes her,\" \"She\'s like a supermodel, y\'know, she looks cold, but...uh...she likes hot doughnuts like everyone else.\"

Ofcouse, after number fifteen rolled off the lot, the judge was all but fed up. He warned Trixie (and Taylor) to turn up people with things of interest to say or to finish their piece for the sake of sanity.

This was around the time that Trixie insisted on taking the stand. She was so admant, and Taylor, by this time, was so sure that he was screwed that he gave her his blessing. If he was going to lose, why not lose big?

None of her friends had retained any of the pre-trial coaching that he\'d given them, and none had proved themselves credible witnesses, and when Taylor had prodded them, all that they could say about Mr. Winner was: \"He\'s a mean guy,\" \"He never was very nice to Trixie,\" \"He never came to any parties,\" \"I think he was having an affair.\"

Wufei hadn\'t even felt the need for an objection, Quatre didn\'t look phased, either.

++

Trixie strut to the stand as if she were on a catwalk. Trowa was mildly disappointed that she didn\'t strike a pose before sitting down. She swore her testimony and took her seat. She was wearing the only Gucci business ensemble that she owned and pearls around her neck and in her ears big enough to choke a cow.

Her blood red lips puckered a moment before she belted out her opening statement: \"My husband is a sex whore!\"

Trowa saw Quatre\'s left brow raise, but no open protest.

note(s):
1. drought of ideas=_= THANKS SARIL2 FOR HELPING ME THINK OF SOME STUFF! You\'re AWESOME!
2. Hefner = founder of playboy (THANK YOU VH1! My no.1 infomation station! [just kidding])
3. Nine Inch Nails - \"Closer\" has the infamous lyrics: \"I wanna f*ck you like an animal\"
4. the \"pornographic memory\" cheap shot joke was inspired by my sister\'s friend, David whose deep felt love for the female body and inability to pronounce some words made this gag possible
5. Sorry the chapter is short and choppy...I just hope that it\'s a little entertaining. It\'s the frankenstein creation of my persistent writer\'s block and Saril2\'s help/insistence that I get a move on (THANKS SARI!!!!)
6. Thanks for all the reviews!! Spiffness!