Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Compromise ❯ One-shot ( Chapter 1 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: WereWriter 
Do the pairings make sense to anyone not me?
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance | Type: One Shot | Uploaded On: 09.24.2008 | Pages: 4 | Words: 4.4K | Visits: 772 | Status: Completed
Do the pairings make sense to anyone not me?
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance | Type: One Shot | Uploaded On: 09.24.2008 | Pages: 4 | Words: 4.4K | Visits: 772 | Status: Completed
"Barton."
"Peacecraft."
The two men stepped onto the elevator.
Trowa glanced carefully at Zechs as they approached the frozen desert covering their underground base. He'd shaken off the very last drops of puberty since '95. The hair was a bit longer, too.
The eyes were the same, though. They'd probably still glow in the dark as soon as there was the tiniest ray of light penetrating it.
Trowa looked in front of him again.
Zechs glanced carefully at Trowa. Barton had stopped being a flesh-colored stick figure. True, the muscles were still oh-so defined, probably still so hard he'd hurt himself if he tried to onto them too tightly. And yet... the gangly body had filled out a bit, a bit of proper nutrition, a bit of a hormone boost. He no longer looked like the Incredible Hulk had been starved for a few years, but rather like a professional dancer with martial arts fantasies. Hair was a bit longer, but the style unchanged.
The eyes were the same, too, only both visible if you looked at him from the right side, in profile. Or from below. He remembered that emerald-colored glimmer in the dark, like malfunctioning green thermal beams.
Zechs looked in front of him again.
They arrived at the top of the elevator. Wind blew cold and hard over the frozen landscape.
"This brings back--" Zechs said.
"--memories," Trowa finished.
They looked at each other.
"I missed you. After," Zechs said. Trowa nodded.
"As did I. When the war was over."
They walked over the crackling crust of snow. There was a shuttlecopter arriving in an hour, three miles to the north.
"I--"
Trowa looked at Zechs calmly as the blonde started speaking. He stopped, looked away, waited a little. The brunette's attention didn't waver.
"No one could compare," Zechs said at last. "Still can't."
Trowa looked away, nodded almost imperceptibly. He was biting his lower lip, cheeks flushed, probably from the cold, eyes cool as could be. They walked for twenty minutes across the snowy wasteland.
"God damn it, Barton!"
Trowa chuckled, so quiet you could hardly hear it. His smile was as serene as the white desert around them.
"I need to say it?"
"Say *something*! At least when I'm telling you I haven't been able to screw anyone for the last three-and-half years!"
Trowa smiled a little wider and turned away again. Zechs resisted the urge to smack him silly.
"You weren't my first."
Zechs stared at Trowa in confusion. He'd figured that much about halfway through. No one learned that much tricks without some trial and error. Or that's what he'd told himself, still insecure at eighteen.
"But you were the last. And will be."
Zechs stopped dead in his tracks at the calm, matter-of-fact statement from the younger boy.
Excuuuuse me? Had he just--
He ran to catch up with Trowa.
"Did you just--"
"Yes."
"I thought you and Winner--"
"No."
Quiet again. No longer tension-filled with things unsaid, but... awkward. At least for Zechs, who wasn't used to communicating with his body, his eyes, stance, as Trowa was.
"Now what do we do?" he asked. Trowa shrugged.
"We fuck."
When had the boy become so utterly fearless? Maybe he should take up sleeping in lion cages and having Relena throw knives at him. Zechs found himself sputtering again.
"Pardon?"
"You're too stressed to do anything but think in circles. You are feeling insecure. Sex will remedy both, improving your ability to make clear, well-thought out decisions, most probably in my benefit."
"You sound like a certain blue-eyed friends of yours."
Trowa smirked wolfishly at him.
"Who do you think was the one who told me I had a shot at you, Merquise?"
*****
A paper cup tapped gently on the desk of one Heero Yuy. Steam came off the tiny hole in the white, plastic lid. A straw was very quietly unwrapped and pricked into the clear lid of a very large, very thin, transparent, plastic beaker. The wrapper went into the rubbish bin between Heero's and the other one.
The person who had been carrying the drinks elegantly slid into the seat of the second desk, facing the savior of the ESUN with a bored expression as he booted his computer with one hand and held the drink with the other as he took the first sip of the brightly colored juice mix, possibly a smoothie.
Yuy waited until the vitamin-laden liquid had been set down before tossing a pile of envelopes to the person across from him, never looking up. They were kept together by a brown rubber band and were unopened. The person sharing the office hardly glanced up, ascertained the thickness and suspected weight of the package, and caught it in a practiced movement. The band was snapped off and catapulted back at the brown-haired teenager's desk with a perfect classroom-hand-catapult technique. It hit a thirty centimeter long ruler sticking out of a pen cup and fell in with all the other bands in there. The other one, in the meanwhile, separated the piles Heero had sorted the mail into.
His colleague must have been early today: the mail bore the usual color-code Heero had designed to tell of the suspected contents of the letters, but the highlighters weren't lying in their usual haphazard heap that would get cleared up after Yuy had finished writing his report about his first daily attempted break-in into the Preventer computer system.
Heero looked up at the silence that was not part of their meticulously timed daily routine. The second topmost drawer should have been getting pulled out, a letter opener taken out with the slightest clunking sound as the metal cleared the wood, a gentle whisper of wood on wood as the drawer closed, followed by the methodical shuffle-rip of envelopes being opened. His office-mate stared disapprovingly at him.
"Did you at least eat?" WuFei snarled. Heero looked back at his forms, not replying. The Chinese teen pursed his lips.
"You have a wonderful technique in the bedroom, Yuy. You work with an efficiency that has me almost ejaculating in my uniform. Our teamwork is flawless. And, yes, your body is near-irresistibly delectable apart from being trained into perfection," WuFei said. Yuy's only reply was that he began to write faster, head a little lower to the paper.
"But you are so insecure I sometimes wonder *why* I fool myself into thinking I'm worthy of your attention," Chang sighed.
He stepped out from behind his desk after entering a few passwords. The computer loaded as he walked the few paces to Yuy's chair. He hugged him from behind with one hand and picked up Yuy's drink with the other. He sipped it. It was chocolate milk. Raising the lid, he discovered whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles.
Careful, delicate, coaxing courting had been necessary to get into this relationship with the infamous Heero-One-Night-And-That's-It-Yuy. Before WuFei, he'd never dated. He'd never gotten attached. Never gotten bouquets of origami flowers made from the latest edition of Guys 'n' Guns. He hadn't known how to react to his Chinese housemate showing a strangely tough soft side to him that the war had suppressed.
Their first date had been on the flight back from a mission. Dessert-flavored energy bars by the light of glow sticks on the crate in between them in the cargo area of a 'copter, headsets abandoned so as to give the illusion of privacy. It had been intimate, tender almost, and not the least bit sexual, while still more than just friendly. WuFei hadn't seen or heard of his partner for a week after that, excuses piling up one after another until it penetrated that Yuy didn't not want a relationship; he just didn't know how where to find the manual for one. Every big step WuFei pulled him forward into that particular unexplored territory was followed by two smaller ones back, ending up farther away than they'd originally started.
Thus, baby steps. Heero ordered the drinks for their morning, WuFei picked them up. They shared a tab at the coffee shop that they each paid half of at the end of the month. Careful, fleeting touches when they were alone which got more familiar and daring as time wore on. They learned to read one another beyond mere survival. WuFei tried not to batter at the rock-solid wall between him and Yuy's heart, opting instead to erode away the defenses instead.
Their first kiss that went beyond a quick brush of lips on skin had sent Heero running for the hills once more, only slightly more subtle than the first time. After that, WuFei had slowly applied new ideas verbally before trying them out. Heero still got the jitters, but the talking helped.
Chocolate Milk Deluxe meant Yuy was nervous about some upcoming new step in their relationship. As did Getting Up At Four AM For A Quick Run. And Leaving Flowers And Breakfast While Going To Work Before The Day Security Guards Do. And Not Looking After Himself. He could tick the symptoms off by heart, by now.
WuFei had racked his brain for days on end, ever since his lover had started ordering the rich beverage again last week. He hardly slept at night, merely worried. They had first slept together nearly a year ago. Their anniversary--September 4th, their quiet snack in the copter--had been three months or so back. They hadn't slept together--the awake kind of slept together--since the weekend before last. WuFei could only see one possible turn their relationship would take that Heero knew sort of how to initiate.
Moving On. Seeing Other People. Calling It Quits. Staying Friends. *Breaking Up*.
He put the lid back on the drink and hugged Yuy tighter, with both arms now.
"You can tell me anything," he deadpanned. "I don't care what it is. You're neglecting yourself, Yuy."
No reaction. WuFei didn't dare look in his eyes. He suppressed a shudder of dread. Blinked back tears. He couldn't lose Yuy. Not now. Not like this.
He'd spent weeks having nightmares about Yuy dying horribly as soon as they became a couple, back when he was still merely fantasizing about Yuy's possible homosexuality. He'd dealt with the fact that he'd probably lose Yuy through death. But the idea that he couldn't make him happy, couldn't fulfill his desires, couldn't make his life whole, and that he'd lose Yuy because of it hadn't crossed his mind until... Well, little over a year ago, when he'd first touched Heero sexually.
He just couldn't lose him like this, dammit!
"I can't stand to see you like this. It scares the life out of me," he admitted honestly, maybe too honestly. His voice was still oh-so level despite the fact that the very foundation of his existence was crumbling with each second that Yuy didn't react to him. He could live with his silence, as long as he got a reaction, even if it was just a quick glance his way, a twitch to indicate he was being listened to.
"I love you so much."
Silence. The last of WuFei's confidence got sucked away in the vacuum it created, taking with it the last dregs of his dignity, all his hope and most of his will to live.
"Talk to me, Yuy, please," he begged.
Seconds ticked away. Only the fact that WuFei didn't want to risk Yuy staying with him out of pity kept the head of the Chang clan from crying. He buried his face into the back of Heero's head.
"I can't yet. It's too soon," Heero said softly.
WuFei shook his head, Heero's short brown hair tickling his eyelids, his cheeks, his lips. He felt the bottom fall out of his stomach as he gathered all his resolve. Gods, this hurt!
"No, Yuy. Now. Time's not getting any better than now."
He untangled himself from his lover's embrace, swiveled his chair around to give the slightly smaller boy a lost look that most mass murderers lose before they turn twelve.
"But... It's... This is *work*. And it's not the twenty-sixth yet."
...He had planned it? 'Twenty-second, mission to Ecuador, twenty-fifth, return to Lhasa and debriefing at the Potala, twenty-sixth, quietly break up with boyfriend in private'?
"What are you saying?" WuFei asked, steel creeping into his voice as he stared suspiciously into those cobalt blue eyes. Heero looked around the nice, expensively furnished, but generic office and shrugged.
"This isn't romantic. It's supposed to be perfect."
There was a short pause.
"Right?"
Now WuFei was completely lost.
"Yuy--" he started, but Heero reached into his left shoulder holster. Black eyes went wide.
Yuy was going to shoot him?!
Yuy's hand came back from under the denim, hand held loosely in a fist. There was something small and vaguely cube-shaped in his hand. Small and dark grey. Gods above, Heero was going to blow them both up in the middle of PHQ. WuFei just froze and stared powerlessly as that tanned hand was brought slowly in front of his face. The wrist turned until delicate, clean, but ragged fingernails came into view, revealing glimpses of a tiny steel box with round corners and a dark grey matte finish.
The back of WuFei's mind as screaming at him to do something, anything, survive this, but the white noise at the front of his mind swallowed all sound.
Heero let go of the box, using his right hand to press a small button at the front of it and...
...fold the top back.
Inside, on black satin, was a simple, unadorned golden band.
WuFei felt as if he'd faint, adrenaline and complete confusion at as to what exactly this meant shredding his coherence to intelligently colored confetti. Heero's hand started to tremble just the tiniest bit.
"Chang WuFei, will you join me in civil union?" he whispered hoarsely.
******
Duo was still scowling, staring sullenly out into the rolling green plains of the L2 QCM574 Nature Zone. Above, street lightning twinkled in the murk of the night cycle. The horse he was being carried by didn't seem bothered by its rider’s prickly mood.
QCM574 NZ was abandoned most of the time, mainly because it was not a romantic, designer garden type of zone, but more of a plunk-some-dirt-and-grass-down-and-call-it-done type of zone. It was too far from the slums for junkies and too uninteresting for anyone else. You had to jog for nearly half an hour if you wanted to get out of earshot for some snugglings with a lover, and no motorized vehicles were allowed on the grass. There was no road. Anyone still in the mood for trekking back home after snugglings wasn't doing it right, in Duo's opinion.
Sort of the way he was, now, actually.
"Stupid," he muttered under his breath. He'd said it more than once already that evening.
He finally got off the horse. He patted its flank as he stepped forward, but the docile animal didn't try to run to its freedom when it noticed that the tail-sweeping, pink creature had at last decided to get off of his back.
Duo sighed defeatedly and sat down in a lotus position, just like WuFei had taught him, back during the war, in prison. The Chinese boy had thought meditation might introduce some calm into Duo's demeanor.
Duo went through the preliminary mental exercises and imaginings until his heart beat and breathing had slowed to the point where he would seem to be sleeping upright to any casual passerby. He'd been going through this ritual ever since WuFei had taught him how to at least physically get a grip. Now came the most important part, the part that would burn away all the frustrations, most of the anger, some of the sadness, maybe a couple of the insecurities.
He screamed.
It was loud and angry and wordless. When he got out of breath, he inhaled and started again, over, and over, and over, and over, until he lost track of time, and then some. After a while, the screaming became almost hysterical, and his breaths had to come sooner and sooner as his face got wet.
The horse, unfazed by its master's bout of emotionality, went to nibble on the grass.
He wiped angrily at the tears as he screamed again. New ones came. He tried to catch his breath to make enough noise to drown out the devilish voices in his mind, dragging him deeper and deeper into a vortex of self-loathing.
Finally, he sobbed. His ritual hadn't worked.
"Stupid," he whispered. "So, so stupid."
He went back to repeating that, softer and softer each time, as he curled in on himself, hugging his knees and rocking back and forth. After a while, he was just whimpering his misery into the night cycle of the steadily cooling colony.
Of all the things he'd done that night, that took the longest. The ride, the calming, the shouting, that had taken maybe an hour, all-in-all. The almost soundless aching took... longer. Much longer.
"Duo."
Years before, heck, mere months ago, it would have been a question. It *had* been a question.
Not anymore.
"I'm sorry I was late," Quatre said, business suit still rumpled from his long flight back. "I left--"
"A message," Duo said hollowly. "I know. I heard."
"I hate to tell you 'I told you so'. You pout when I do," Quatre smiled carefully.
He didn't even get a chuckle for that, let alone the usual indignant screech of 'I do not!'. Duo gave a tiny shrug.
"It's okay."
Quatre put his briefcase on the grass next to Duo's horse. He sat down next to Duo, not touching.
"Because I'm right? Duo, I could feel you being miserable from the docking station in the port."
Duo didn't react. He hadn't even looked up, bangs trailing over his knees as he seemed to be studying his own crotch. Quatre slowly coaxed him straight, into his lap. Duo turned on his side, staring at Quatre's stomach.
"Been missin' you since you left last. Cleaned the house. Cooked dinner. Real nice dinner, too."
"Duo..." Quatre sighed. "You knew I'd be gone a lot. You knew my schedule is a bit fuzzy at best. You were the one saying you didn't want to move in. That you wanted to date."
"I still want to," Duo said. "Don't you?"
"I ran here from Port DF5897 St. Roland. In dress shoes, Duo. I still want to."
"So what was the matter this time?" Duo asked softly.
"Shuttle was delayed, delayed, canceled after that. Next one was next week. My cell phone got crushed when someone dropped their luggage on it somewhere before the second delay notice."
Duo turned around again, so he could lie on his back and study Quatre's face. His steady date--boyfriend sounded so... Well, like a blushing virgin--had been at a colony of the L5 cluster. The Winner Private Shuttle of that particular collection of shrapnel with artificial atmosphere had been blown up during the war, together with WuFei's birthplace, and had never been replaced. And people there had gotten cautious with giving people access to anything if they lacked an L5 personal code. Even their most trusted, most important business partners. On second thought, especially them.
Of all inter-colony and colony-earth distances, the L5-L2 run was the longest, most boring flight. Flying it privately, with less than a full day's delay to commercial flights was...
Duo got up, straddled Quatre's hips and kissed him full on the mouth, misery forgotten. His baby was here now, and smelled, ever-so faintly, of new-vehicle.
"You bought a freakin' L25?" he grinned. New ride in the port, date in his arms, romantic twinkles in the sky, rubbers still in his back pocket... All he needed to make it perfect was some expensive confectionary delight.
Maybe Quatre had some in his briefcase. The blonde was wont to get a rather bad case of the munchies if he didn't get to fly himself where he wanted to go. Duo had always thought that was endearing, but hadn't pointed it out until their first date, last November.
"A L72, actually. Meant for a Venus-L5 run. Six-seater. Near-commercial speeds, all I could get off-the-rack, I'm afraid. Black metalwork, ebony interior. Leather seats."
Duo's eyes started to twinkle in anticipation. Quatre smiled up coyly at him.
"Even I'm not naive enough to think you'd forgive me thirteen hours late with only one message saying it'd be maybe thirty minutes. I was out of small change for a pay phone."
Duo opened his mouth incredulously to vehemently declare Quatre insane if he was making that shuttle a gift. The blonde instead stuck out his chin, pouting a bit while Duo gasped for air.
"I don't get a kiss well-done for remembering you're allergic to flowers?"
Duo finally found his voice.
"You bought me a *shuttle*? What did you fuck in L5 to warrant that kind of make-up gift?!"
Quatre shrugged.
"I knew I'd be arriving here midnightish. It's..."
He checked his watch.
"Two forty-three. That means I missed nearly three hours of your birthday."
He pressed a quick peck to Duo's lips.
"I knew I'd be late after the second delay notice. Hence, you get two gifts. I figured you'd get bored enough to use that key of yours and go snooping until you found your first in my bedroom closet," he smiled tenderly. Duo shook his head.
"I didn't," he said softly, slightly confused. This conversation was taking a few very sharp turns as Quatre steered them away from that god-awful loneliness he'd felt, away from that stabbing guilt the blonde felt despite that he had told Duo up front, and after, many times. Quatre eyebrows jerked up slightly in surprise, then he laughed.
"Did you get cake, too?" Duo asked as he sat up, slowly coming up to speed at the mention of his birthday and some extra, guilt-induced gifts. He'd been stood up by his boyfriend after two weeks without him, god-dammit, he thought with a grin. He deserved some spoiling. Quatre laughed again at that, shaking his head.
"The kitchen staff is making a couple special for the one and only object of my affections," he nodded with a mock-serious look, still chuckling a bit. "But I can hail us a cab to that all-night sweets place you like, whet your appetite a little."
There was something in Quatre's eyes as they left the more negative emotions behind. Something that said he wasn't talking about making Duo want more food. Something that said he was talking about what they'd started doing only last month, concerning very little clothing and a lot of calories being burned off. Duo's mouth felt a little dry.
"Your place," he said. His brain was long past the part where they called someone to pick up the horse, got a cab, spent an hour or so eating cake and drinking shakes with one foot in the other guy's crotch.
"My kitchen's a mess. And I'll die of embarrassment if we crack the tabletop again. The glass guy was pretty weirded out by how we'd 'put that much... uh, like... weight' on the middle of my big-ass kitchen table," Duo admitted. "He thought I broke it banging some seriously fat chick."
Quatre spluttered indignantly.
"*Chick*?" he demanded.
"'S what you get if you don't turn on the safety of your toys. One concussion blast gun going off against the ceiling and people start thinking you've got *boobs*," Duo teased. Quatre punched him in the shoulder.
"Idiot," he smiled. "C'mon. I think I can arrange for cake to go. We need to get you home and in bed, birthday boy."
Quatre got up and frowned when Duo did not. The braided boy pouted up at his lover.
"I'm not tired yet," he said petulantly. Quatre pulled him up firmly, shaking his head in exasperation.
"You'd better not be."
"Peacecraft."
The two men stepped onto the elevator.
Trowa glanced carefully at Zechs as they approached the frozen desert covering their underground base. He'd shaken off the very last drops of puberty since '95. The hair was a bit longer, too.
The eyes were the same, though. They'd probably still glow in the dark as soon as there was the tiniest ray of light penetrating it.
Trowa looked in front of him again.
Zechs glanced carefully at Trowa. Barton had stopped being a flesh-colored stick figure. True, the muscles were still oh-so defined, probably still so hard he'd hurt himself if he tried to onto them too tightly. And yet... the gangly body had filled out a bit, a bit of proper nutrition, a bit of a hormone boost. He no longer looked like the Incredible Hulk had been starved for a few years, but rather like a professional dancer with martial arts fantasies. Hair was a bit longer, but the style unchanged.
The eyes were the same, too, only both visible if you looked at him from the right side, in profile. Or from below. He remembered that emerald-colored glimmer in the dark, like malfunctioning green thermal beams.
Zechs looked in front of him again.
They arrived at the top of the elevator. Wind blew cold and hard over the frozen landscape.
"This brings back--" Zechs said.
"--memories," Trowa finished.
They looked at each other.
"I missed you. After," Zechs said. Trowa nodded.
"As did I. When the war was over."
They walked over the crackling crust of snow. There was a shuttlecopter arriving in an hour, three miles to the north.
"I--"
Trowa looked at Zechs calmly as the blonde started speaking. He stopped, looked away, waited a little. The brunette's attention didn't waver.
"No one could compare," Zechs said at last. "Still can't."
Trowa looked away, nodded almost imperceptibly. He was biting his lower lip, cheeks flushed, probably from the cold, eyes cool as could be. They walked for twenty minutes across the snowy wasteland.
"God damn it, Barton!"
Trowa chuckled, so quiet you could hardly hear it. His smile was as serene as the white desert around them.
"I need to say it?"
"Say *something*! At least when I'm telling you I haven't been able to screw anyone for the last three-and-half years!"
Trowa smiled a little wider and turned away again. Zechs resisted the urge to smack him silly.
"You weren't my first."
Zechs stared at Trowa in confusion. He'd figured that much about halfway through. No one learned that much tricks without some trial and error. Or that's what he'd told himself, still insecure at eighteen.
"But you were the last. And will be."
Zechs stopped dead in his tracks at the calm, matter-of-fact statement from the younger boy.
Excuuuuse me? Had he just--
He ran to catch up with Trowa.
"Did you just--"
"Yes."
"I thought you and Winner--"
"No."
Quiet again. No longer tension-filled with things unsaid, but... awkward. At least for Zechs, who wasn't used to communicating with his body, his eyes, stance, as Trowa was.
"Now what do we do?" he asked. Trowa shrugged.
"We fuck."
When had the boy become so utterly fearless? Maybe he should take up sleeping in lion cages and having Relena throw knives at him. Zechs found himself sputtering again.
"Pardon?"
"You're too stressed to do anything but think in circles. You are feeling insecure. Sex will remedy both, improving your ability to make clear, well-thought out decisions, most probably in my benefit."
"You sound like a certain blue-eyed friends of yours."
Trowa smirked wolfishly at him.
"Who do you think was the one who told me I had a shot at you, Merquise?"
*****
A paper cup tapped gently on the desk of one Heero Yuy. Steam came off the tiny hole in the white, plastic lid. A straw was very quietly unwrapped and pricked into the clear lid of a very large, very thin, transparent, plastic beaker. The wrapper went into the rubbish bin between Heero's and the other one.
The person who had been carrying the drinks elegantly slid into the seat of the second desk, facing the savior of the ESUN with a bored expression as he booted his computer with one hand and held the drink with the other as he took the first sip of the brightly colored juice mix, possibly a smoothie.
Yuy waited until the vitamin-laden liquid had been set down before tossing a pile of envelopes to the person across from him, never looking up. They were kept together by a brown rubber band and were unopened. The person sharing the office hardly glanced up, ascertained the thickness and suspected weight of the package, and caught it in a practiced movement. The band was snapped off and catapulted back at the brown-haired teenager's desk with a perfect classroom-hand-catapult technique. It hit a thirty centimeter long ruler sticking out of a pen cup and fell in with all the other bands in there. The other one, in the meanwhile, separated the piles Heero had sorted the mail into.
His colleague must have been early today: the mail bore the usual color-code Heero had designed to tell of the suspected contents of the letters, but the highlighters weren't lying in their usual haphazard heap that would get cleared up after Yuy had finished writing his report about his first daily attempted break-in into the Preventer computer system.
Heero looked up at the silence that was not part of their meticulously timed daily routine. The second topmost drawer should have been getting pulled out, a letter opener taken out with the slightest clunking sound as the metal cleared the wood, a gentle whisper of wood on wood as the drawer closed, followed by the methodical shuffle-rip of envelopes being opened. His office-mate stared disapprovingly at him.
"Did you at least eat?" WuFei snarled. Heero looked back at his forms, not replying. The Chinese teen pursed his lips.
"You have a wonderful technique in the bedroom, Yuy. You work with an efficiency that has me almost ejaculating in my uniform. Our teamwork is flawless. And, yes, your body is near-irresistibly delectable apart from being trained into perfection," WuFei said. Yuy's only reply was that he began to write faster, head a little lower to the paper.
"But you are so insecure I sometimes wonder *why* I fool myself into thinking I'm worthy of your attention," Chang sighed.
He stepped out from behind his desk after entering a few passwords. The computer loaded as he walked the few paces to Yuy's chair. He hugged him from behind with one hand and picked up Yuy's drink with the other. He sipped it. It was chocolate milk. Raising the lid, he discovered whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles.
Careful, delicate, coaxing courting had been necessary to get into this relationship with the infamous Heero-One-Night-And-That's-It-Yuy. Before WuFei, he'd never dated. He'd never gotten attached. Never gotten bouquets of origami flowers made from the latest edition of Guys 'n' Guns. He hadn't known how to react to his Chinese housemate showing a strangely tough soft side to him that the war had suppressed.
Their first date had been on the flight back from a mission. Dessert-flavored energy bars by the light of glow sticks on the crate in between them in the cargo area of a 'copter, headsets abandoned so as to give the illusion of privacy. It had been intimate, tender almost, and not the least bit sexual, while still more than just friendly. WuFei hadn't seen or heard of his partner for a week after that, excuses piling up one after another until it penetrated that Yuy didn't not want a relationship; he just didn't know how where to find the manual for one. Every big step WuFei pulled him forward into that particular unexplored territory was followed by two smaller ones back, ending up farther away than they'd originally started.
Thus, baby steps. Heero ordered the drinks for their morning, WuFei picked them up. They shared a tab at the coffee shop that they each paid half of at the end of the month. Careful, fleeting touches when they were alone which got more familiar and daring as time wore on. They learned to read one another beyond mere survival. WuFei tried not to batter at the rock-solid wall between him and Yuy's heart, opting instead to erode away the defenses instead.
Their first kiss that went beyond a quick brush of lips on skin had sent Heero running for the hills once more, only slightly more subtle than the first time. After that, WuFei had slowly applied new ideas verbally before trying them out. Heero still got the jitters, but the talking helped.
Chocolate Milk Deluxe meant Yuy was nervous about some upcoming new step in their relationship. As did Getting Up At Four AM For A Quick Run. And Leaving Flowers And Breakfast While Going To Work Before The Day Security Guards Do. And Not Looking After Himself. He could tick the symptoms off by heart, by now.
WuFei had racked his brain for days on end, ever since his lover had started ordering the rich beverage again last week. He hardly slept at night, merely worried. They had first slept together nearly a year ago. Their anniversary--September 4th, their quiet snack in the copter--had been three months or so back. They hadn't slept together--the awake kind of slept together--since the weekend before last. WuFei could only see one possible turn their relationship would take that Heero knew sort of how to initiate.
Moving On. Seeing Other People. Calling It Quits. Staying Friends. *Breaking Up*.
He put the lid back on the drink and hugged Yuy tighter, with both arms now.
"You can tell me anything," he deadpanned. "I don't care what it is. You're neglecting yourself, Yuy."
No reaction. WuFei didn't dare look in his eyes. He suppressed a shudder of dread. Blinked back tears. He couldn't lose Yuy. Not now. Not like this.
He'd spent weeks having nightmares about Yuy dying horribly as soon as they became a couple, back when he was still merely fantasizing about Yuy's possible homosexuality. He'd dealt with the fact that he'd probably lose Yuy through death. But the idea that he couldn't make him happy, couldn't fulfill his desires, couldn't make his life whole, and that he'd lose Yuy because of it hadn't crossed his mind until... Well, little over a year ago, when he'd first touched Heero sexually.
He just couldn't lose him like this, dammit!
"I can't stand to see you like this. It scares the life out of me," he admitted honestly, maybe too honestly. His voice was still oh-so level despite the fact that the very foundation of his existence was crumbling with each second that Yuy didn't react to him. He could live with his silence, as long as he got a reaction, even if it was just a quick glance his way, a twitch to indicate he was being listened to.
"I love you so much."
Silence. The last of WuFei's confidence got sucked away in the vacuum it created, taking with it the last dregs of his dignity, all his hope and most of his will to live.
"Talk to me, Yuy, please," he begged.
Seconds ticked away. Only the fact that WuFei didn't want to risk Yuy staying with him out of pity kept the head of the Chang clan from crying. He buried his face into the back of Heero's head.
"I can't yet. It's too soon," Heero said softly.
WuFei shook his head, Heero's short brown hair tickling his eyelids, his cheeks, his lips. He felt the bottom fall out of his stomach as he gathered all his resolve. Gods, this hurt!
"No, Yuy. Now. Time's not getting any better than now."
He untangled himself from his lover's embrace, swiveled his chair around to give the slightly smaller boy a lost look that most mass murderers lose before they turn twelve.
"But... It's... This is *work*. And it's not the twenty-sixth yet."
...He had planned it? 'Twenty-second, mission to Ecuador, twenty-fifth, return to Lhasa and debriefing at the Potala, twenty-sixth, quietly break up with boyfriend in private'?
"What are you saying?" WuFei asked, steel creeping into his voice as he stared suspiciously into those cobalt blue eyes. Heero looked around the nice, expensively furnished, but generic office and shrugged.
"This isn't romantic. It's supposed to be perfect."
There was a short pause.
"Right?"
Now WuFei was completely lost.
"Yuy--" he started, but Heero reached into his left shoulder holster. Black eyes went wide.
Yuy was going to shoot him?!
Yuy's hand came back from under the denim, hand held loosely in a fist. There was something small and vaguely cube-shaped in his hand. Small and dark grey. Gods above, Heero was going to blow them both up in the middle of PHQ. WuFei just froze and stared powerlessly as that tanned hand was brought slowly in front of his face. The wrist turned until delicate, clean, but ragged fingernails came into view, revealing glimpses of a tiny steel box with round corners and a dark grey matte finish.
The back of WuFei's mind as screaming at him to do something, anything, survive this, but the white noise at the front of his mind swallowed all sound.
Heero let go of the box, using his right hand to press a small button at the front of it and...
...fold the top back.
Inside, on black satin, was a simple, unadorned golden band.
WuFei felt as if he'd faint, adrenaline and complete confusion at as to what exactly this meant shredding his coherence to intelligently colored confetti. Heero's hand started to tremble just the tiniest bit.
"Chang WuFei, will you join me in civil union?" he whispered hoarsely.
******
Duo was still scowling, staring sullenly out into the rolling green plains of the L2 QCM574 Nature Zone. Above, street lightning twinkled in the murk of the night cycle. The horse he was being carried by didn't seem bothered by its rider’s prickly mood.
QCM574 NZ was abandoned most of the time, mainly because it was not a romantic, designer garden type of zone, but more of a plunk-some-dirt-and-grass-down-and-call-it-done type of zone. It was too far from the slums for junkies and too uninteresting for anyone else. You had to jog for nearly half an hour if you wanted to get out of earshot for some snugglings with a lover, and no motorized vehicles were allowed on the grass. There was no road. Anyone still in the mood for trekking back home after snugglings wasn't doing it right, in Duo's opinion.
Sort of the way he was, now, actually.
"Stupid," he muttered under his breath. He'd said it more than once already that evening.
He finally got off the horse. He patted its flank as he stepped forward, but the docile animal didn't try to run to its freedom when it noticed that the tail-sweeping, pink creature had at last decided to get off of his back.
Duo sighed defeatedly and sat down in a lotus position, just like WuFei had taught him, back during the war, in prison. The Chinese boy had thought meditation might introduce some calm into Duo's demeanor.
Duo went through the preliminary mental exercises and imaginings until his heart beat and breathing had slowed to the point where he would seem to be sleeping upright to any casual passerby. He'd been going through this ritual ever since WuFei had taught him how to at least physically get a grip. Now came the most important part, the part that would burn away all the frustrations, most of the anger, some of the sadness, maybe a couple of the insecurities.
He screamed.
It was loud and angry and wordless. When he got out of breath, he inhaled and started again, over, and over, and over, and over, until he lost track of time, and then some. After a while, the screaming became almost hysterical, and his breaths had to come sooner and sooner as his face got wet.
The horse, unfazed by its master's bout of emotionality, went to nibble on the grass.
He wiped angrily at the tears as he screamed again. New ones came. He tried to catch his breath to make enough noise to drown out the devilish voices in his mind, dragging him deeper and deeper into a vortex of self-loathing.
Finally, he sobbed. His ritual hadn't worked.
"Stupid," he whispered. "So, so stupid."
He went back to repeating that, softer and softer each time, as he curled in on himself, hugging his knees and rocking back and forth. After a while, he was just whimpering his misery into the night cycle of the steadily cooling colony.
Of all the things he'd done that night, that took the longest. The ride, the calming, the shouting, that had taken maybe an hour, all-in-all. The almost soundless aching took... longer. Much longer.
"Duo."
Years before, heck, mere months ago, it would have been a question. It *had* been a question.
Not anymore.
"I'm sorry I was late," Quatre said, business suit still rumpled from his long flight back. "I left--"
"A message," Duo said hollowly. "I know. I heard."
"I hate to tell you 'I told you so'. You pout when I do," Quatre smiled carefully.
He didn't even get a chuckle for that, let alone the usual indignant screech of 'I do not!'. Duo gave a tiny shrug.
"It's okay."
Quatre put his briefcase on the grass next to Duo's horse. He sat down next to Duo, not touching.
"Because I'm right? Duo, I could feel you being miserable from the docking station in the port."
Duo didn't react. He hadn't even looked up, bangs trailing over his knees as he seemed to be studying his own crotch. Quatre slowly coaxed him straight, into his lap. Duo turned on his side, staring at Quatre's stomach.
"Been missin' you since you left last. Cleaned the house. Cooked dinner. Real nice dinner, too."
"Duo..." Quatre sighed. "You knew I'd be gone a lot. You knew my schedule is a bit fuzzy at best. You were the one saying you didn't want to move in. That you wanted to date."
"I still want to," Duo said. "Don't you?"
"I ran here from Port DF5897 St. Roland. In dress shoes, Duo. I still want to."
"So what was the matter this time?" Duo asked softly.
"Shuttle was delayed, delayed, canceled after that. Next one was next week. My cell phone got crushed when someone dropped their luggage on it somewhere before the second delay notice."
Duo turned around again, so he could lie on his back and study Quatre's face. His steady date--boyfriend sounded so... Well, like a blushing virgin--had been at a colony of the L5 cluster. The Winner Private Shuttle of that particular collection of shrapnel with artificial atmosphere had been blown up during the war, together with WuFei's birthplace, and had never been replaced. And people there had gotten cautious with giving people access to anything if they lacked an L5 personal code. Even their most trusted, most important business partners. On second thought, especially them.
Of all inter-colony and colony-earth distances, the L5-L2 run was the longest, most boring flight. Flying it privately, with less than a full day's delay to commercial flights was...
Duo got up, straddled Quatre's hips and kissed him full on the mouth, misery forgotten. His baby was here now, and smelled, ever-so faintly, of new-vehicle.
"You bought a freakin' L25?" he grinned. New ride in the port, date in his arms, romantic twinkles in the sky, rubbers still in his back pocket... All he needed to make it perfect was some expensive confectionary delight.
Maybe Quatre had some in his briefcase. The blonde was wont to get a rather bad case of the munchies if he didn't get to fly himself where he wanted to go. Duo had always thought that was endearing, but hadn't pointed it out until their first date, last November.
"A L72, actually. Meant for a Venus-L5 run. Six-seater. Near-commercial speeds, all I could get off-the-rack, I'm afraid. Black metalwork, ebony interior. Leather seats."
Duo's eyes started to twinkle in anticipation. Quatre smiled up coyly at him.
"Even I'm not naive enough to think you'd forgive me thirteen hours late with only one message saying it'd be maybe thirty minutes. I was out of small change for a pay phone."
Duo opened his mouth incredulously to vehemently declare Quatre insane if he was making that shuttle a gift. The blonde instead stuck out his chin, pouting a bit while Duo gasped for air.
"I don't get a kiss well-done for remembering you're allergic to flowers?"
Duo finally found his voice.
"You bought me a *shuttle*? What did you fuck in L5 to warrant that kind of make-up gift?!"
Quatre shrugged.
"I knew I'd be arriving here midnightish. It's..."
He checked his watch.
"Two forty-three. That means I missed nearly three hours of your birthday."
He pressed a quick peck to Duo's lips.
"I knew I'd be late after the second delay notice. Hence, you get two gifts. I figured you'd get bored enough to use that key of yours and go snooping until you found your first in my bedroom closet," he smiled tenderly. Duo shook his head.
"I didn't," he said softly, slightly confused. This conversation was taking a few very sharp turns as Quatre steered them away from that god-awful loneliness he'd felt, away from that stabbing guilt the blonde felt despite that he had told Duo up front, and after, many times. Quatre eyebrows jerked up slightly in surprise, then he laughed.
"Did you get cake, too?" Duo asked as he sat up, slowly coming up to speed at the mention of his birthday and some extra, guilt-induced gifts. He'd been stood up by his boyfriend after two weeks without him, god-dammit, he thought with a grin. He deserved some spoiling. Quatre laughed again at that, shaking his head.
"The kitchen staff is making a couple special for the one and only object of my affections," he nodded with a mock-serious look, still chuckling a bit. "But I can hail us a cab to that all-night sweets place you like, whet your appetite a little."
There was something in Quatre's eyes as they left the more negative emotions behind. Something that said he wasn't talking about making Duo want more food. Something that said he was talking about what they'd started doing only last month, concerning very little clothing and a lot of calories being burned off. Duo's mouth felt a little dry.
"Your place," he said. His brain was long past the part where they called someone to pick up the horse, got a cab, spent an hour or so eating cake and drinking shakes with one foot in the other guy's crotch.
"My kitchen's a mess. And I'll die of embarrassment if we crack the tabletop again. The glass guy was pretty weirded out by how we'd 'put that much... uh, like... weight' on the middle of my big-ass kitchen table," Duo admitted. "He thought I broke it banging some seriously fat chick."
Quatre spluttered indignantly.
"*Chick*?" he demanded.
"'S what you get if you don't turn on the safety of your toys. One concussion blast gun going off against the ceiling and people start thinking you've got *boobs*," Duo teased. Quatre punched him in the shoulder.
"Idiot," he smiled. "C'mon. I think I can arrange for cake to go. We need to get you home and in bed, birthday boy."
Quatre got up and frowned when Duo did not. The braided boy pouted up at his lover.
"I'm not tired yet," he said petulantly. Quatre pulled him up firmly, shaking his head in exasperation.
"You'd better not be."