Continuity: Polite Acrimony
Length: Ficlet
Pairings: 4xD
Prompt: Liking?"Love me, love my ideas."
Teaser: "Arguing with you is like kicking puppies: sometimes necessary, always unpleasant. Just leave now before I lose my temper."
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5424671/3/Polite_Acrimony
Disclaimer: GW = not mine
Author's Note: Hope you like this.
Polite Acrimony
by mistress amethyst une
Liking?"Love me, love my ideas."
"If you don't quit bothering me, I will punch you."
"We both know you'd only end up hurting yourself if you tried to punch me."
"Listen, Quatre," sighed Dorothy, thoroughly exasperated. "I really don't have time for this. Arguing with you is like kicking puppies: sometimes necessary, always unpleasant. Just leave now before I lose my temper."
"You need to come home with me," he insisted. "You've been working fourteen hour days for the better part of the week, and it's not helping your mood in the least. At this point, all you need to be a full-blown villain is a swishy black cloak and an orchestra to play ominous music wherever you go."
"I need to be here," she retorted. "Our employees aren't complaining about the hours. If I punch out early, I give them a reason to."
"But Dorothy-"
"This is only until the week is up. Leave me be. Do I have to tell you 'The Parable of Minding Your Own Business' again?"
Quatre rolled his eyes, knowing she was going to tell him the tale whether he liked it or not. He had only been recently introduced to the bedtime stories General Catalonia had told Dorothy as a child. As much as he respected his deceased father-in-law, part of him was wracked with guilt over being relieved that he would never meet the man.
"There once was a poor pauper," she began, gesturing for him to take a seat. Defeated, Quatre plopped down onto the chair before her desk, pretending he hadn't heard the story countless times already.
Smiling, she continued, "Now, this pauper was constantly picking his nose. Day in and day out, he would have a finger up one of his nostrils even as fits of coughing gripped him. This was a terrible sight to behold. The old man spat and twirled his finger in his nose all his waking hours. Now, there was this merchant..."
Quatre didn't like this story at all. It was like his father-in-law was lecturing to him from the grave. Even in death, General Catalonia was adept at verbal assault. Besides, who told their little girl this sort of bedtime story? He would be damned if any of his children with Dorothy would grow up hearing "The Legend of the Shrewd Business Maneuver" or "Strangers Eat Little Boys and Girls." He especially would not have her telling them "The Tale Of The Stubborn Man Who Refused To Pay His Debt Even When He Had The Means To Do So." If unsanitized fairy tales were brutal, they had nothing on that story.
"And so the merchant walked up to the pauper and rudely chastised him, calling the poor man disgusting for his nasal habits," Dorothy prattled on, unaware that Quatre was only half-listening. "At this point, the pauper had a coughing fit on the merchant. 'Good sir, I'm dying of consumption. I have the right to do as I please!' said the beggar, grinning wickedly. Within a week, the merchant was dying of consumption, too."
Dorothy slumped down into her seat, grinning from ear to ear. Her opinion of a feel-good story involved the transmission of tuberculosis. Well, her questionable taste in literature was tolerable.
Quatre was resigned to the fact that there were some things about his wife that he would never quite decode.
"So," she smirked, "did I get my point across?"
She got her point across just fine. Quatre stood from his seat, walked up to her without a word and picked her up with minimal effort. Bewildered and now slung over his shoulder, she struggled against him.
"What do you think you're doing?" she yelped.
"Taking a lesson from Heero."
"Did you not get the point of the story?" she squealed as he hauled her down the hallway. "People are staring, you dolt!"
Calmly, he made it to the elevator and pressed the down button. "Let them. It'll build work ethic. I dragged their CEO kicking and screaming from her desk. Let's see them try to be lazy now."
"Quatre!"
The elevator doors opened, letting them in. He set her down once the doors had closed.
"I'm going back up there," she snarled.
"No, you're not," he shot back. "Dorothy, you need rest. Everyone will understand."
"Weren't you listening to the damned story? Mind your own business or suffer the consequences."
Quatre shrugged. "Guess I'm willing to pay that price. Dorothy, I love you. Loving you means not agreeing with everything you have to say."
She rolled her eyes. "I'm just going to have to make you hate me then."
She went for the elevator panel, trying to get past him so she could get off on the nearest floor. Before she knew it, he had pressed the emergency stop button.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she hissed.
"You're already tired," he declared, undoing the belt on his trousers as he moved toward her. "Guess I'll just have to tire you out a bit more."
Taking several steps backward, she soon found herself pressed against the elevator's mirrored wall as his arms embraced her like a cage.
She growled.
There was no way out of this one.
"Recreational activities during office hours?" she asked pointedly, trying to resist the urge to ravish the smug smile off his mouth. "That isn't very professional."
He kissed her then. "We'll take it out of leave time."