Punishing

disclaimer: I don\'t own Gundam Wing, its characters, etc. This is a FANfiction site, so, it\'s only reasonable to assume that this story is a work of FANfiction. If it was an ORIGINAL fiction, it would be in the ORIGINAL fiction section.

Punishing


His wealthy client worth gobs and gobs of money was Titiana Winner.

The \"tit\" part was about correct.

Trowa was at his wits end. He didn\'tw how how many raping stares he could stand and how many minutes he could go on without thinking of some crude purpose for his client\'s simply inhuman breasts. He wasn\'t attracted to their girth or shape at all, but besot with a more horror borne fascination that she probably took for his non-existent carnal fixation.

The fact that he practically had to molest her with words to get her to do anything didn\'t help any.

When she\'d first come to his firm seeking help in settling a divorce from her megalomaniacal husband, she\'d appeared in a bright red tanktop that read across \"PRINCESS,\" and cut off denim short-shorts. Trowa had to tell her that he found women in feminine suits extremely sexy before she even deigned to don a button down shirt.

Now he and his buxom client were waiting in a heavily windowed and all too small conference room for the other party to arrive to try to negotiate an out of court settlement.

What Titiana, or, rather, Trixie, as she liked to be called, got out of her money swaddled husband, Trowa didn\'t give a flying fuck. He figured her husband would be some shriveled up old man hunched back in a wheelchair with fuild bags up the wazoo wheezing about his undefined millions through an oxygen mask. She\'d probably had to raid a morgue to get him. A malicious smile threatened Trowa\'s otherwise placid face as he turned a blacn idn idly between his fingers.

His musings ran like a train off a cliff\'s edge when Trixie placed a hand over his. He could have sworn that he felt that part of himself atrophy and fall off and was greeted by further displeasure as Trixie\'s face came entirely too close to his. Her bright red plastic-like lips parting in a way that she might have seen as seductive but made his stomach turn.

\"Ms. Winner?\" he said sternly trying to inject some of his professionalism into the space between them.

\"Yes?\" she replied.

\"Your hand...\" he said trying to find some unoffensive way to tell her to take it back, \"it\'s not right. It doesn\'t, the situation doesn\'t look good if your husband and his attorney see this.\"

\"Oh,\" she flashed an un-innocent smile and set her bottom back in her seat. \"I was just going to tell you, remember the terms I want.\"

\"I remember them,\" Trowa assured her.

\"Good,\" Trixie praised him, her tone similar to the way a person praises a dog.

Trowa nodded with a forced smile. \"Don\'t worry,\" he said more to himself than to her.

Trixie opened her mouth to say more, but, just then, the door flew open. Trowa was quick to stand and motioned for his client to follow suit, which she did, albeit, reluctantly.

A lawyer that Trowa recognized almost immediately stepped into the room. His name was imfamous. Wufei Chang.

\"Mr. Barton,\" he nodded to him, an air of detatched superiority hanging about him.

Trowa bowed his head briefly, acquiescing to a power higher than himself, \"Mr. Chang.\"

Mr. Chang inclined his chin slightly, approvingly, then turned his eyes towards Trixie, \"Ms. Titiana.\"

\"Trixie,\" she corrected him, batting her eyelashes. She was a manhunter.

Mr. Chang remained unfazed and exhaled in unamused difference. \"Ms. Titiana,\" he repeated, the cold eyes behind his glasses impressing upon her the fact that she would be unsuccessful in trying to weasel anything out of him.

Trowa regarded him with a student\'s awe, wishing that he had that same prescence of authority.

That respect was short lived in lieu of the petrifying lust that lanced through Trowa at seeing the second person enter the room.

He was somewhere in the neighborhood of 5\'5\" maybe a little taller, willowy, with a face that could kill. He was tucking a small cellphone into the pocket of his business casuals and smiled affably at everyone, his steel blue eyes becoming half moons as he nodded to his two advesaries, \"Mr. Barton, Ms. Titiana.\"

Trowa swallowed hard, \"Mr...\" He began before belatedly realizing that he didn\'t know this person\'s name.

The stranger\'s rosy mouth formed a perfect little \"o\" as the cause of Mr. Barton\'s mum became clear to him. \"I\'m Quatre Raberba Winner,\" he said holding his hand out in a decidedly friendly gesture.

Trowa took it slowly, and was rewarded with a brilliant smile as Mr. Winner elaborated on his introduction, \"I\'m soon to be Ms. Titiana\'s ex.\"

Trowa couldn\'t help but mouth half-formed words in the confusion of the complete betrayal of all his earlier expectations. This guy wasn\'t a fossilized old geezer skirt-chaser in a wheelchair, he was an affluent young executive with supermodel stature.

\"It\'s a pleasure to meet you,\" Mr. Winner said kindly as he disengaged his hand, then suggested to everyone, \"Why don\'t we all sit?\"

So, everyone sat.

Trowa spoke first, \"My client is open to considering reconcilliation.\"

Mr. Chang raised a brow, \"My client believes that there is nothing to reconcile.\"

Trowa then brought a small sheaf out of his briefcase, \"Then, my client would like half of the marital assets and compensation for emotional distress.\" He pushed the papers forward.

Neither Mr. Chang nor Mr. Winner took it. \"My client feels that it is only fair that Ms. Titiana leaves this marriage with what she brought into it and twenty percent of the post-marital assets, the same generous amount that she has been using to supplement her luxurious lifestyle for the past four years up and into this very moment.\" He brought out his own sheaf and slid it over.

Trowa took it and looked it over. He almost fainted at all the zeroes he saw there.

He leaned over to Trixie and whispered hurriedly, \"It\'s a really good deal.\"

Trixie glanced green at her charming husband and shot back at Trowa, \"No deal! Fifty or nothing.\"

Trowa glanced overwhelmed at her charming husband and insisted back at Trixie, \"I implore you to reconsider.\"

Trixie\'s ears turned red as she repeated herself, \"Fifty or no deal.\"

Holding his tongue, he turned back to Mr. Winner and his attorney, \"I\'m sorry, but my client insists on fifty percent.\"

Mr. Winner nodded, turning the matter over in his head, then turned to speak with his attorney.
What Trowa wouldn\'t give to have switched places with Mr. Chang at that moment.

Mr. Chang turned back and folded his hands in front of him, \"My client would be willing to agree to twenty-five percent.\"

Trowa did quick mental-math and his eyes widened at the monstrous sum. urneurned to Trixie, but she shook her head.

He mouthed, \"Please.\"

She shook her head.

He sucked it up and turned to face Mr. Chang once more. He opened his mouth to speak, but was stopped short when Mr. Winner answered his phone, muttering apologies all the while.

He began speaking in a language that Trowa vaguely recognized as being middle eastern. At least, that would explain the accent.

Mr. Winner took out a legal pad and began scribbling notes in sanskrit, numbers and figures peeked out from time to time like stars between clouds. His mouth thinned into a hard line the longer he listened. From his briefcase, he retrieved a sleek looking PDA and a thin metallic glasses case. He put them on and set himself up a sort-of mini-office in a conference room in the middle of a discussion about the dissolution of his marriage.

On one hand, Trowa admired this about Mr. Winner, his dedication to his work; on the other hand, he resented the fact that Mr. Winner\'s preoccupation with his work stretched out the Trixie time. Not to mention, the glasses afforded him an extra sophistication that the simian portion of Trowa\'s brain found incredibly attractive.

It was about five minutes of uneasiness later when Mr. WInner fastened the cap back on his pen and began stacking his things. He turned to Wufei and whispered something quickly before turning to the two accross the table.

\"Please forgive my rudeness, but something has come up,\" he said standing. \"It cannot wait.\"
He held out his hand to Trowa. When Trowa took it, he felt something being pressed into his palm as they shook hands.


Mr. Winner forced a smile, \"You three may work out another meeting with my secretary.\"

He took back his hand and Trowa withdrew his closing his fingers around whatever it was that had been passed to him.

\"Bye Mr. Chang, Mr. Barton, Ms. Titiana,\" he said nodding to each of them in turn, taking up his things, and leaving.

Trowa felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room with his exit, and he sat deflated in his chair.

Mr. Chang was already calling Mr. Winner\'s secretary on the lone conference room vidphone.

Trixie looked pissed as she drummed a row of bright red polymer nails on the tabletop and chewed at her bottom lip.

Trowa sighed and looked at his hands under the table, gently unwadding the paper Mr. Winner had given him.

Was it a bribe?

No, he didn\'t seem the type.

A wave of relief and apprehension slithered the length of Trowa\'s bones spotting the phonenumber under Mr. Winner\'s neatly printed name. He held a hand over his mouth stifling any forthcoming sounds of excitement or fear and breathed deeply.

I can\'t just call him, he thought to himself. He looked over at Trixie, almost afraid that she\'d caught the show of emotions accross his face, but was relieved to see that she was still wrapped up in herself. He\'d meant to use the visual affirmation of her to ram home the idea that he shouldn\'t be calling her soon-to-be-ex-husband, but, since getting a good look at her, couldn\'t imagine why he wouldn\'t call her soon-to-be-ex-husband.

He stared at the card in his hand again a final time before stuffing it in his pocket.


tbc?


note(s):
1. Trixie was a character first cooked up by Lorena Manuel. She doesn\'t write fanfiction for Gundam Wing anymore :( BUT, she does have a book out. It\'s titled \"Pastoral\" an you you buy a copy, a portion (or all...can\'t remember) of the profits go towards homosexual support organizations (something like that). So, anyway, Trixie was thought up by Loreana and used liberally by the imfamous Fablespinner, and now borrowed by me.

2. Original inspiration for this came from Intolerable Cruelty. Not my favorite movie, but it gave me ideas.

3. I have no idea where the heck I\'m going with this fic. And, those of you reading \"On the Corner of West Elm and Bailey\" fret not, I\'m still working on that one. I just felt the need to dabble in something a little less heavy, if even for a minute :) Oh, and if you\'ve noticed any spelling mistakes, please overlook them. This word program that I\'m using at the moment doesn\'t have spellcheck ;>>

4. And, finally, please leave me reviews. I heart reviews