Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Magicians of Gundam Wing ❯ Dinner with Sally ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter 2: Dinner with Sally

“Say Fei,” said Duo, “did you want me to hang around for a little while and help you with that, ah, problem of yours before I take off?”

Wu-Fei frowned. “Did you have to remind me? It had stopped itching.” He twitched his shoulders uncomfortably. “This isn't fair. It hasn't been a whole year yet since the last time.”

“What's the matter?” Sally asked curiously.

Sally, Wu-Fei and Duo were alone in the break room at Preventer headquarters. Heero, Trowa, Quatre and Roku had already gone their separate ways. Heero, in fact, had seemed especially eager to put the vacuum of space in between him and Vice Minister Relena Darlian.

“Wu-Fei's got a rash,” Duo announced cheerfully.

“Duo!” Wu-Fei exclaimed.

“Is that from your accident?” Sally asked.

“You might say that,” Duo grinned.

Wu-Fei glared at him.

“You may as well show her, Fei. She'll probably see it sooner or later.”

“Is it contagious?” Sally didn't seem particularly concerned about the answer.

“No,” Wu-Fei grumbled. He glared at Duo again and took off his shirt.

“Oh, wow!” Sally exclaimed when he turned his back to her. “That's beautiful! You call that a rash? It looks more like a tattoo.”

“Look closer,” Duo said. “It's not ink.”

Sally leaned over and studied Wu-Fei's back. “It looks like… scales!” She slid a finger gently across the brightly colored pattern. “It's smooth, but so soft. That's really neat.”

Wu-Fei wriggled under her finger. “Oh, great! Now it really itches.”

“I'm sorry!” Sally exclaimed. She sat back.

“It's not your fault,” Duo said with a wicked grin. “He's about to start shedding.”

“Please don't say that word!” Wu-Fei moaned. He reached behind himself and scratched. “Crap! Roku left and he still has the oil.”

“Nah, I got it from him before he and Quatre took off,” said Duo. “Who's your best friend, Fei? I'm always thinking of you.”

“We need someplace private,” Wu-Fei said. “I'm not doing this where everyone can watch.”

“Do what?” Sally looked from one to the other with raised eyebrows.

“We gotta scratch his scales off and then oil the new ones growing in underneath.”

“How often do you have to do this?”

“Well, this is the second time, but we thought it would only happen once a year.”

“I'm starting to think I should have sat in on that briefing,” Sally said. “There's clearly something going on that I don't know about.”

“It's a long story.”

“I've got time. We're on vacation.”

“We can talk while we take care of Wu-Fei,” Duo said. “It'll go faster if there are two of us, anyway.”

Wu-Fei groaned. “Do we have to keep talking about this? Let's go somewhere and do it. The itching is really starting to get to me.”

“We can go to my place,” said Sally. “It's not far.”

“Good.”

At Sally's small apartment, Wu-Fei stripped off his shirt again and plopped down in the middle of the living room floor, where Duo and Sally got down to the serious business of scratching. The shiny little scales cascaded off his back like snow and formed a growing pile around his butt.

“This is amazing!” Sally said. “I've never seen anything like it.”

“We need to save the scales for Quatre, if you've got a container I can put them in,” said Duo.

“What for? What's Quatre going to do with them?”

“Oh, you know Quatre,” Duo replied airily. “He's always got some scientific experiment or other going on.”

“Like that son of his,” Sally remarked.

“Um, yeah, like that.”

“So just who is the kid's father? I thought Relena was going to have a cow.”

“Well, it's interesting. What Roku said is true. We're all sort of Roku's father.”

“And Quatre is his mother.”

“Yeah.”

“You know that doesn't make any sense, even when one considers artificial reproduction.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“And you're not going to explain it.”

“Well…”

“I am your friend.”

“It's just… well… it's really a long story.”

“There are a lot of scales to scratch.”

“Help me out here, Fei.”

“You dug this hole,” Wu-Fei replied.

“How about the condensed version?” Sally suggested.

Duo sighed. “Well, it sort of happened like this: Quatre got temporarily turned into a woman and she was really pretty and we all kind of spent a little time with her and she got pregnant and later on when Quatre was a man again he had Roku.” The words tumbled out of him really fast.

Sally stared at him. “Let me see if I got this right. Quatre turned into a woman, the four of you knocked her up and Quatre gave birth to a little boy?”

Duo flushed. “That's the gist of it.”

“I didn't know you guys were that randy.”

“It was sort of a special situation!” Duo said defensively. “You had to be there.”

“I'm glad I wasn't, if you guys were so eager you got another guy pregnant.”

“He wasn't a guy at the time!”

“Still…”

“Did I mention he was really pretty?”

“Quatre's pretty as a man.”

“Well, that's true but…”

“You're just digging that hole deeper,” Wu-Fei put in.

“Yeah, I think I'll shut up now,” Duo agreed.

Sally laughed. “You know, it's never boring around you guys. I'm looking forward to hearing the whole story. But I promise not to tell Relena, because if she finds out Heero did it with another woman, she may try to cut off his balls.”

“That's true.”

Sally stood up. “So, I'll get something for you to put the scales in, we'll get Wu-Fei thoroughly oiled and then we can have a nice leisurely chat over dinner. How does that sound?”

“Just great!” Duo said with a sickly smile.

“You shouldn't have mentioned keeping the scales,” Wu-Fei remarked when she was out of earshot.

“Yeah, it did sort of deteriorate from there, didn't it?”

“I thought you could tell what people are thinking. Couldn't you have just distracted her onto a different topic?”

“That's not easy to do when the person's only thinking about one thing.”

“Kind of like trying to distract you from wanting to have sex?”

Duo poked him. “That's rude, but yeah. Speaking of which, can we do that after we have dinner with Sally?”

Wu-Fei sighed. “It's my own fault for bringing it up,” he muttered.

Sally came back into the living room with a plastic container and lid. “I think this is big enough.”

Duo nodded. “That should work.” He sat back. “It looks like we're about done. How does it feel, Fei?”

“Better, but I really need that oil now.”

“Right.” Duo removed the little bottle from his pocket and pulled out the stopper.

“What's that made from?” Sally asked. “It smells odd.”

“We probably don't want to know,” Duo said with a grin. “Wu-Fei's a little sensitive about that sort of thing.” He poured some oil into his palm and smeared it onto Wu-Fei's back.

Wu-Fei emitted a long, happy sigh. “Oh, that feels so good.”

Sally lifted an eyebrow and Duo grinned.

“So what do you boys want for dinner?”

“Something vegetarian,” Wu-Fei replied immediately. “I am so sick of eating unidentified meat of uncertain freshness.”

“Anything's fine. I'm not picky,” Duo said.

“You can say that again,” Wu-Fei exclaimed. “Sally, you would not believe the things Duo was willing to put in his mouth just as if it were food.”

“It was food.”

“It was dead, that's all I'll agree to.”

“Well, if it's dead, you can eat it, right Sally?”

“I think I'll stay out of this argument. I'll make a vegetable stir-fry. I just went to the farmer's market yesterday.”

“Bless you!”

Over dinner, Sally resumed her relentless questioning.

“So, how did Quatre get turned into a woman?”

“It was sort of an accident.”

“I would imagine so. He never struck me as the transgender type, although he is awfully pretty for a man.”

“Trowa certainly thinks so,” Duo muttered.

“What was that?”

“Nothing!” Duo said quickly. “Anyway, Quatre was experimenting with a magic spell and it kind of went wrong.”

“Quatre was experimenting with magic?” Sally was surprised. “I know he is a skilled scientist, but magic? Isn't that a little outside his interest area?”

“You'd be surprised. Quatre's interested in a lot of stuff.”

“I guess so,” Sally said thoughtfully. “So, you said he had Roku after he was turned back into a man. How did that work?”

“We were told that the magic that turned him back accommodated his condition,” Wu-Fei replied. He frowned at Duo.

Duo shrugged. “I hear you, Fei, but she's just gonna keep asking.”

Sally looked from one to the other. “There's something else you're not telling me?”

Duo grinned. “There's a whole lot we're not telling you, but I suspect it's all going to come out sooner or later.”

“You're really making me curious.” Sally leaned forward. “You were obviously gone for longer than a day, even for the few things you've told me. So it must have been time travel. When did you go and for how long?”

“See?” Duo said to Wu-Fei, “I knew she would figure it out.” He turned to Sally. “We were in the past for about a year.”

“Only a year?! But Quatre said Roku is nine years old!”

“Well, Roku's pretty special, Sally. In actual age, he's around seven months old.”

Sally's eyes went wide. “No kidding?”

“Yup.”

“Well!” She sat back. “I wouldn't mind seeing that kid again, maybe examine him a little.”

“Be careful,” Duo said with a chuckle. “Quatre's just a little bit protective.”

Wu-Fei snorted. “A little bit! He threatened a dragon over that kid!” At Sally's sudden interest, Wu-Fei flushed with embarrassment. “Oh, shoot!”

“A dragon?” Sally asked with forced casualness. “You met a dragon?”

“Twice!” Duo assured her with a cheerful nod.

“Bloody dragon!” Wu-Fei muttered under his breath.

“You didn't by any chance get recordings of any of this, did you?”

“Sorry, no,” Duo said. “When we woke up in the past, all we had were our clothes. Even Heero had lost all his weapons.”

“Heero without weapons!” Sally exclaimed. “He must not have been happy.”

“Oh, he acquired more pretty quick. You know Heero.”

“Yes, I do.” Sally frowned thoughtfully. “So, you had an accident in your shuttle and woke up in the distant past with nothing but the clothes you were wearing. And this past had magic and dragons.”

“That's pretty much it.”

“So how much magic did Quatre learn?”

“A fair bit,” Duo said lightly.

“What about the rest of you?” Sally stared at them curiously.

“We didn't study magic,” Wu-Fei said quickly. “And there really isn't that much else to tell.”

“I doubt that,” Sally replied with a grin. “Want more stir-fry?”

“No thank you.”

“I'll have more,” said Duo. He spooned another generous helping onto his plate. “This is pretty good. You won't be offended if I season it a little, though?”

“Not at all.”

“Great!” Duo sprinkled on a liberal dose of pepper.

Wu-Fei sniffed.

Duo looked at him. “Oh, Fei! Man, I wasn't thinking!”

Wu-Fei wrinkled up his nose and then pinched it between his fingers in a desperate attempt to avoid sneezing. He failed. He sneezed and flame shot from his mouth, setting Sally's table centerpiece on fire.

“Oh, crap!”

“No problem!” Duo cried, “I got it.” He dumped his water glass on the flames, extinguishing them.

Sally stared at the blackened centerpiece with round eyes. Then she stared at Wu-Fei. “Did you just breathe fire?”

“Umm…”

“And you have scales on your back.”

“Well…”

“Just when did you turn into a dragon?”

“I'm not a dragon!” Wu-Fei huffed.

“He doesn't have wings or a tail,” Duo pointed out helpfully.

Sally looked at Duo. “So what interesting new skills or features did you pick up?”

“Who, me?”

“Yeah, Duo,” Wu-Fei grinned wickedly, “why don't you tell Sally what you can do now?”

“Oh, I don't think we need to go into that,” Duo replied sheepishly.

Wu-Fei grinned even more wickedly. Duo paled.

“You wouldn't!” Duo gasped.

Wu-Fei nodded slowly.

“You're a cruel man,” Duo shook his head mournfully.

Wu-Fei leaned back and folded his arms.

“This is so unfair!” Duo complained. “Why did Heero have to leave so quickly?”

“Would either of you care to explain what's going on?” Sally asked. Her face was alight with curiosity.

“Duo can hear people's thoughts,” Wu-Fei said.

“Aw, man!”

“You can? You can hear what I'm thinking?” Sally exclaimed. “I'm not sure if that bothers me or not.”

“It's not like I want to!” Duo said. “I can't help it.”

Sudden understanding dawned on Sally's face. “That's why you kept laughing in Une's office!” she said. “You could hear what Heero and Relena were thinking. Now that's something I wish I could have heard!”

Duo smiled. “It was pretty funny.”

Sally leaned forward. “You know, this could come in real handy when we're trying to track down revolutionaries. We might have to tell Une about this.”

“No!” Duo gasped. “I don't want people to know! They'll start avoiding me. Or worse, they'll start thinking even more.” He put his head in his hands. “That's what always happens, they try not to think about stuff and they just end up thinking even louder. It's deafening.”

“You may have a point,” Sally said thoughtfully. “We don't have to tell Une, but I do think you should consider using your new skills to help the Preventers.” She looked at Wu-Fei. “You, too.”

“What good is setting things on fire going to do?”

“I don't know, it just might come in handy.”

“I would also prefer that no one know about my, ah, condition,” Wu-Fei said, a little haughtily.

Sally laughed. “I wouldn't tell anyone. Who'd believe me?” She smiled at them. “I'll keep your secrets, boys, but I think you need to tell me everything.” She began ticking points off on her fingers. “Let's see: Wu-Fei's a dragon…”

“I am not a dragon!” Wu-Fei grumbled.

“Duo reads minds…”

“Not on purpose.”

“And Quatre does magic. What about Trowa and Heero? Can they do anything?”

Duo sighed. “You're just gonna keep after us, aren't you?”

“Yup.”

“Fine.” Duo heaved another sigh. “I'll summarize.”

Sally listened with great interest. “I almost wish I had gone with you. It sounds like you had an amazing time.”

“Some of it was fun,” Duo agreed. Then he yawned. “I need to get some sleep. I haven't slept since before we got back from the past.”

“You can use my spare room.” Sally pointed. “Wu-Fei, you can bunk in with Duo or crash in the living room.”

Duo grinned at Wu-Fei. “Fei can bunk in with me. I don't mind.”

“Great. Then I'll see you guys in the morning. Good night.”

“Night, Sally.”