Disclaimer: Hear ye!  Hear ye!  Know thou that neither Duo Maxwell, nor Chang Wufei, nor any of the names, places or concepts from Gundam Wing belong to she who borrowed them for but a fortnight (or perhaps longer) to write this fic.  No (permanent) harm was done to these anime creatures and they were returned to their natural habitats in good condition.  All aspects of Shin Kidousenki Gundam Wing belong to Sunrise, Bandai, Sotsu Agency, and associated parties.  The author was paid nary a farthing for this story and has nary a farthing to give to any who would try to sue her.  She is but a poor beggar…otherwise known as a college student.

Rating: oh… PG-15, I’d say.  I’m not sure how the rating system really works, though.

Warnings: M/M relationship (But no sex.  I know, I know… what’s the point, then?); um… a little ANGST,  bad LANGUAGE, LOTS of SAP, and sometimes I tend to wax poetic and get melodramatically long-winded.  I’m also a hopeless romantic, but I’m seeing a psychiatrist about that and he assures me I’ll be cured soon.

Pairing: 5+2, 2+5; 3+4, 4+3; 1…well, 1 has a lot of fun screwing with everyone’s minds. ^_^

Spoilers: Wufei’s past; little to nothing for the actual series

Summary: Five years after the war, the boys gather together for a special day.  With much encouragement from…everyone, Wufei comes to an epiphany, and decides to act on it.

Author’s note: This was written for people who had no idea what Gundam Wing was, so the descriptions and background information are more detailed than I normally write.  Try to bear with me.

He walked into his home and was assaulted by a wet pillowcase.

“Ano…” he began uncertainly, pushing the sopping fabric off of his stinging cheek.  Looking around, he took stock of the situation.  Sheets and other bed dress were hanging from clotheslines that dissected his living room into a myriad of geometric shapes.  All the windows were open, admitting a steady and thankfully warm breeze.

From deep within the bowels of the apartment, God’s voice emerged.

“Don’t talk in that Japanese crap!” God railed, sounding much like an ornery old woman. “I can’t understand what yer saying, and you know I hate that!”

Then white sheets billowed, and the speaker emerged, turning out to be an actual old woman and not Jehovah Himself, after all.

“Oh well,” he sighed with a little grin.  Guess he wouldn’t be meeting any deities today.

“And why the hell are you standing in the doorway like a gawking codfish?” the woman continued loudly, bright eyes lost in the folds of her face as she glared up at him.  He flinched at the sheer volume of her voice.

“Sorry, Mrs. Beatice,” he muttered, and kicked the door closed behind him as he continued past her.

He made his way to the kitchen through a treacherous entanglement of laundry—sheets, shirts, jeans—he blushed when he found his boxers hanging near the refrigerator.  She followed him as if attached by a wire, and ranted about his eating habits and his cleaning habits and his sleeping habits as he set the groceries on the table and went to take down his underwear, ears still burning.

“Mrs. Beatice,” he interrupted quickly as the need for oxygen forced her to pause and take a breath, “why is my laundry hanging up in the house?”

“What is that supposed to mean?!” she demanded at full volume, and he glanced with trepidation at the windows as they rattled, but they held.

He sighed quietly as her raving picked up speed again, this time focusing on the many and varied ways that he did not appreciate her presence and subsequent hard work.  He tucked his boxers under his arm and departed the room before any homicidal tendencies he had left in him from the war could resurface and direct themselves at his obnoxious, but generally well-meaning housekeeper.  Not that the little woman wouldn’t have been able to hold her own.  She looked small, but he bet she struck like a snake.  His lips quirked as he drifted from room to room with an eye out for any other embarrassing articles of clothing, and an ear out for sounds of pursuit, waiting for the inevitable decline of words as Mrs. Beatice slowly ran out of things to criticize.

She was getting low on ideas by the time he got to his room.  He deposited an armful of undergarments on the bed and checked automatically for the gun under his pillow.  Even after years of being a civilian, some habits just refused to be broken.  If he stopped long enough to think about it, it frightened him.  Instead, he decided to be amused by the fact that, though his hyper-efficient housekeeper had something demeaning to say about everything else in his life, she never once mentioned the gun, or any of the other aspects of the soldier that lingered in him, for that matter, though he knew she knew them all.  And it wasn’t because she was afraid, either, for which he was doubly grateful.  She just gave him the space he desired from that long and nightmarish episode of his life.

His revere ended when he heard the front door slam and an almost accusatory silence settle over the apartment.  He sighed, feeling vaguely guilty as he always did after one of her visits, and made his way back out to the kitchen.  When he got there, he was pleasantly surprised to find the groceries put away, and an envelope on the table in their place.  Curious, he picked it up and felt its weight.

A card?

He flipped open the unsealed tab and slid the card out.

YOU’RE TWENTY!! it read cheerfully, the bold letters printed inside multi-colored balloons.  And on the inside, simply: Happy Birthday!  He grinned, almost hearing his housekeeper roar the statement at him, pinched, irate look fixed on her face.  If she had been there, he would’ve hugged her.  It was signed: Mrs. Beatice.  And then, beneath that, scrawled another surprise in grudgingly small letters: The cake is in the freezer.

He laughed, an honest, warm sound that startled him.  Then, refusing to break his good mood by dwelling on just why it surprised him that he could laugh anymore, he hurried to the freezer and threw open the door to reveal a small, but adequately decorated ice-cream birthday cake.

“Yatta!” he exclaimed happily, slipping back into the more comfortable Japanese phrases, now that Mrs. Beatice was not around to hear them.  He took the cake out of the freezer and set it on the table, then went to look for a knife.  He had a lot of cabinet space in his kitchen and not a lot to put in them.  As a result, what little he did have had the annoying habit of disappearing into the dark recesses of drawers and cupboards, especially when he needed them the most.

He was exploring the uncharted regions of the space beneath his sink, when a sharp, angry rap at the door made his head jerk up, banging painfully against the counter top.  His hand grasp instinctively for the gun that was no longer tucked into his pants at the small of his back.  Cursing quietly and rubbing his head as he tried to settle his jittery nerves, he made his way toward the door.  It was probably Mrs. Beatice, come to reap from him what gratefulness was due to her.  Bracing himself for the onslaught of her voice, he opened the door.

A glaring Chinese man greeted him, arms folded defensively, chin lowered to make his glare and scowl more effective.

“Wufei—!” he managed, flinching at the fury/hurt in those dark, accusing eyes.

“Maxwell,” Wufei ground out.

Duo Maxwell, ex-Gundam pilot, noticed two things about his former comrade-in-arms with the small part of his mind that was still working.  First: the Chinese man was wearing a very military-like outfit.  On the heals of this thought came the conclusion that Wufei was probably the only one of them that wouldn’t have burned tire tracks away from everything even remotely army related after the war.  Second: Wufei was very, very pissed, and though the Asian ex-pilot had always been known for calm restraint under usual circumstances, when he was very, very pissed, he usually reacted with—

“Five fucking years, Maxwell,” Wufei all but snarled.  Duo noticed that Wufei had very white, sharp-looking teeth.  This inane little observation deflected his mind from a more important detail: that Wufei’s fast, hard-looking fist was swinging for his face.

Shit.  The ice cream’s gonna melt while I’m out, he managed to think mournfully as his head snapped back and the rest of him met the floor rather hard.  Then all was darkness.

Duo awoke slowly and painfully, to the feel of delicate fingers repetitively brushing his thick bangs across his forehead in a gentle gesture, and a soft, sweet voice saying in a mildly reproving tone, “Ne, Wufei, did you have to hit him quite so hard?” 

That summation of quiet sanity could only be Quatre Raberba Winner, and the short, huffed, “Hn,” from across the room could only have been the Chinese pilot, obviously still angry, but now in control.  The silent presence asserting itself at Quatre’s side was Trowa, which meant the precise, efficient movements in the kitchen had to be—

“Don’t worry,” the person from the kitchen called out mildly. “Duo’s head is hard enough to absorb the damage.”

“Not any harder than yours, Heero,” Duo returned, cracking his eyes open to look up into anxious aqua-blue eyes framed by a tidy sweep of white-blond hair.  He noted what changes five years had made on the young heir to the vast Winner estate: the tallness, the broadened shoulders, and the leaner lines of the still-cherubic features.  He still didn’t look any more Arabian than he had five years ago, despite his time in the desert—his hair was bleached white-blond and his skin was still pale-peach. Duo questioned not for the first time, whether the Winner family was actually serious when they claimed to be Arabian, or if it was just one big practical joke.  That didn’t sound like something the Winners would do, but any family with thirty children was bound to be a little odd.  He grinned at that, and it widened when he noted the lavender button-down shirt this newcomer wore.  Some things never changed. “Hey, Quatre.”  The smile turned a bit wry. “Long time no see, ne?”

“Through no fault of ours,” someone out of Duo’s line of sight reminded him.  Duo lifted his head from where it was pillowed in Quatre’s lap and angled it so he could see the speaker who was standing behind the couch at the blond boy’s shoulder.  Not much had changed in this familiar figure, either.  He was still tall, and stood poised like a soldier at attention, the brown hair swept forward over half of the angular face.  This was a man that could still look like a marine when dressed in puffy neon green pants and the over-exaggerated frills that made up his clown costume in the circus he and his sister spent the peaceful years working at.  Of course, Duo held the opinion that this man didn’t look any more like a clown than Duo himself looked like a soldier with his own outstanding features: a butt-length braid and an undefeatable grin.  The elegant eyebrow above the one visible green eye rose expectantly at Duo’s stare.

The braided ex-pilot felt a grin split his features. “Oi!  Tro-man!  How have you been?”

“Well,” Trowa Barton answered mildly.

“What about you, Duo?” Quatre asked anxiously as Duo sat up, rubbing the bruised part of his face where Wufei’s fist had connected, with a grimace.

“That’s Quatre’s way of saying: ‘Where the hell have you been all this time, and why didn’t you contact someone?’” Heero Yuy informed him as he appeared from the kitchen, long measured steps taking him to stand precisely before the injured ex-pilot.  Duo’s best friend and often-room mate was looking as good as usual.  The Prussian-blue eyes were still harboring dark, intense secrets, their color revealing a deviation in his otherwise pure Japanese heritage; the body beneath the disassembled remains of what had once been a three-piece suit still military-hard.   Duo’s thoughts took a sardonic turn as he noted that the stick was still lodged firmly up his best friend’s ass, though it looked to be at least slightly loosened.  Someone had trimmed his hair, Duo noticed, as Heero thrust a plate with a piece of cake on it and a fork into his hands.  Duo took the offering and swung his legs over the couch so he could sit up properly, wide eyes skittering over the five waiting faces, expression studiously innocent.

“Ano…” he stalled. “How did you guys get here, anyway?”

Heero snorted. “Mrs. Beatice.”

Duo blinked. “How does she know these things?”

“Probably hacked into your computer.”

“Heero, she’s a little old woman.”

“So?”

“Never mind.  So, you’re all here because Mrs. Beatice told you to come?”

Quatre beamed. “And to celebrate your birthday.”

Duo perked up. “Honto?”

“Aa.  Your presents are in the kitchen.”

Before the Arabian could finish his sentence, Duo was gone.

“Woo hoo!  You guys rock!  Arigatoooo!”

Quatre chuckled.  Heero snorted.  Wufei rolled his eyes and muttered, “Still a five-year-old.”  Trowa kept his comments to himself, but the exasperation/affection Duo tended to inspire in everyone he met twinkled in the visible green eye.  Then, with a collective grin—more visible on some than on others—the four boys followed Duo’s wake into the kitchen.

Duo was currently holding a package up to his ear, shaking it carefully.  His cake was melting forgotten on the table.  Heero, never one to waste resources, passed the piece on to Wufei, and then began to cut the cake up for everyone else.  When that was done, and Duo’s focus had turned away from deducing his gifts to eating, Quatre observed mildly, “It probably would’ve been better to put the candles on the cake and sing the song before we cut it up.”

Heero was shoving cake into his mouth with the regularity of someone used to eating army food, but stopped at Quatre’s observation, alarmed that his famously meticulous strategizing was in question.  Fortunately, Duo came to his rescue, grinning.

“Ah, that’s okay.  I never liked that song, and twenty candles would probably set off the fire alarms.  They’re really sensitive in this place.  So,” he continued, tossing his used paper plate into the trash, “now that the cake’s done, can I open my presents or what?”

In answer, Quatre chose the first package and handed it to him.  Duo bounced on his toes happily as he tore into the wrapping paper.  “…A tea set!”

The Arabian chuckled at his friend’s uncertain enthusiasm. “I was going to get you some music, but my sisters decided you needed that instead.”  He grinned. “And when my sisters decide something collectively, it’s not healthy to try and stop them.”

“It’s okay, Quatre.  It’s cool.”  He set the gift aside and picked up another one.  The next was Trowa’s contribution: two tickets to the circus.

Trowa’s comment: “My sister suggested a set of throwing knives.  But I decided your fellow tenants would probably hunt me down and hang me if I gave you that.  So Catherine says you can use hers when you come to visit.”

Then Duo opened Heero’s very practical gift of a new hairbrush and a bag of black hair-elastics, and Wufei’s very Wufei-ish gift of Jasmine tea.  Duo was properly ecstatic about everything—even the tea, which made the young Chinese man look uncomfortable, and made the American laugh.

After he had teased a blush out of Wufei, and the table had been cleared, Duo looked around at the four people he had spent one hectic, hellish year with who knew him better than anyone else, and bounced on his toes, practically bursting with happy energy and unable to figure out what to do with it all. 

Heero saw the danger and thought fast.

“Dinner!” he blurted, just as Duo—eyes twinkling dangerously—opened his mouth to suggest the next activity.  They stared at him.  Duo was so startled that his ever-moving tongue paused on a word long enough for Heero to forge on.  “Well,” he groped. “I haven’t had any yet, has anyone else?”

“Demo…we just ate cake,” Quatre protested.

Duo thought about this for a moment. “I’m still hungry.”

“You’re always hungry,” Wufei muttered.

Heero gave the blond pilot the hairy eyeball and adopted his best Perfect Soldier command tone as he said, “That settles it.  Wufei and Duo will make dinner.  The rest of us will be in the living room, planning out the rest of the evening.”

“Wait,” Wufei protested as Heero herded Trowa and Quatre out of the kitchen. “How was this decided?  Why am I making dinner?”

“And why is Heero planning what to do for the rest of the night?” Duo added, sounding alarmed.  The Japanese ex-pilot’s reputation for sucking the fun out of an event was well catalogued.

But Heero was ignoring them, and no one could pretend other people didn’t exist better than Heero.  He’d survived being Duo’s roommate for most of the war with his sanity (as it was) intact, after all.

“Don’t worry, Duo,” Quatre called as he was swept out the door. “We’ll help him.”

Silence descended.  But, in Duo’s presence, it never lasted very long.  “Something fishy is going on,” he muttered.  Wufei turned to share a look of trepidation with him, fine black eyebrows furrowed with a look of  true concern.

“Yuy is up to something.”

Duo grinned and shrugged. “No help for it, I guess.  Well.”  He slapped his hands together smartly, like a man ridding himself of two handfuls of dust. “Either I’ve got a reason to really start worrying, or this is going to be fun.”

Wufei sighed. “Where’s your apron?”

Duo laughed, and set to work.

“All right, Heero,” Quatre said as the three of them sat down on the couch in the living room, arranging themselves so they could see each other around the laundry still hanging up. “What’s going on?”

It occurred to Heero that one of these days he should remember that Quatre’s soft voice and sweet nature disguised a sharp mind that could sort through politics and plan war tactics with ease, and that he had matured five years since Heero had spent any real amount of time with him, even though he still looked far too young, and that even when he had been younger, the Winner heir had never missed much.

“I just thought we could use some dinner.”

Quatre stared at him with the patience and intuition of one who was the youngest in a family of twenty-nine sisters.  Heero countered by using his Perfect Soldier training to force himself not to squirm.

“What should we do for the rest of the evening?” he continued to fill the silence.

“Get drunk?”

This suggestion was a surprise, considering the company, and even more of a shock coming from Trowa.  Both Quatre and Heero stared, momentarily stunned, twenty-nine sisters or Perfect Soldier training notwithstanding.  Trowa only blinked his visible eye and did a very good impression of Duo in the throe of his “I’m the most innocent person in the world” act.

A shift in the wind sent a pillowcase snapping between them briefly, and allowed Heero the time to recover. “Good idea.  Anything else?”

Eyes narrowing slightly so Heero could tell that the issue had just been momentarily avoided and not dropped, Quatre suggested, “Watch movies?”

“Does Duo have any?”

“I think the real question,” Trowa said mildly, “is whether he has any that won’t leave Wufei passed out from blood loss.”

“Does he still get nosebleeds that easily?”

“This is Wufei we’re talking about.”

If Heero hadn’t been the Perfect Soldier, he might have winced.  Instead, he managed to hold his look of cool indifference that had won him many a poker game, gratified to see Quatre looking adorably bewildered. 

“Spin the bottle?” Quatre suggested finally, without much enthusiasm.

Trowa snorted, and Heero had to agree.

“Chess?” he offered, going for the other extreme.

“There are five of us,” Heero pointed out.

“Pictionary.”

“An odd number.  Someone would be left out, or the teams would be uneven.”

“How about Truth or Dare?”

A muscle jumped in Heero’s cheek—a nervous tick that had developed from the last time they had played that game.  His voice was cold and flat as he said, “I don’t think so.”

The blond ex-pilot was beginning to look frustrated. “Twister!”

Heero thought of the combination of Duo, beer, and possible backbreaking positions and shuddered. “No.  Besides, Trowa would have unfair advantage.”  That Trowa was a clown—and therefore, a contortionist—for a living was well known.

“Not my fault,” the banged one pointed out blandly.

Any reply that could have been made was stalled by Wufei’s horrified cry from the kitchen. “No!  Don’t put that in the—MAXWELL!!”  This was followed by a series of crashes that set the other three’s nerves on edge, the last of which was the sound of the swinging door adjoining the kitchen flying open and slamming against the wall as Wufei shoved Duo out into the living room with barely restrained violence. 

“And stay here until I need you!” Wufei ordered with no uncertainty, and disappeared back into the kitchen as the door swung closed.  Duo stuck his tongue out at the retreating back, but the Chinese man was already gone.  Turning to look at the other three, he grinned a bit sheepishly.

“Wufei’s really picky about what he puts in his food,” was the answer to the three identical expressions of apprehensive curiosity.  Heero snorted and Quatre shook his head with a slight smile. 

Trowa kept his opinions to himself, but smoothed the awkward moment by opening the forum to Duo with a quiet, “We’re trying to figure out what to do after dinner.  Any suggestions?”

Duo tilted his head and rubbed absently at a smudge of something unidentifiable on his cheek. “I guess baking cookies is out,” he said with perfect seriousness.  Quatre chuckled, and was awarded with a brief flash of Duo’s bright smile. “How about cards?”

“Cards,” Quatre repeated with some surprise, wondering how they’d missed that option.  “Good idea!”

Heero nodded approvingly. “Do you have a deck?”

Duo thought about it, scratching his head. “Umm…in the top drawer of my desk in my room, I think.”

At that moment, the kitchen door swung open again, revealing a somewhat mollified Wufei wielding a wooden spoon. “All right, Maxwell, get back in here.  And this time, ask before you start mixing things together.”

“Roukai!” Duo barked, jumping to attention and saluting.  Wufei made a half-hearted swing with his spoon in retaliation that didn’t come anywhere near the grinning Duo, then grabbed the long braid that arced toward him as the American dodged, and started dragging Duo back to the kitchen.

“I’ll get the cards,” Quatre offered.

“It’s the second room on the right,” Duo called as he backed through the door.  “Really Wu,” he was saying plaintively as the door swung shut, “I thought blueberries and curry would be good together.”

Wufei had known the moment that Duo had started whistling and taking things out of the refrigerator that there was going to be trouble.  He couldn’t conceive of any way the foods Duo put on the counter could be combined into something edible…at least, not without some time consuming preparation.  When Duo turned away from the refrigerator to the cupboard and started pulling out a variety of spices, Wufei studied the offering on the counter and tried to form a plan of attack.

Damn Yuy.  What the hell was he thinking?  What is he up to?

Actually, Wufei had been repeating those phrases to himself since he’d received a phone call two days ago from a secured line.  Yuy’s voice had been unexpected to say the least.  He hadn’t even realized the ex-pilot of Wing Gundam had known where he was, although, since he worked for the government, it wouldn’t have been all that difficult to look him up, considering the Perfect Soldier’s hacking skills.  The subject of the phone call had been even more of a surprise.

Duo?  No, he hadn’t seen the other pilot in years.  Birthday?  What kind of shit was Yuy trying to pull?  Of course he’d received the e-mail, but he hadn’t taken it seriously.  No, he wasn’t going.  Because he had work to do!  Yes, he wanted to see Duo, but the other pilot had obviously wanted to vanish, had never bothered to keep in touch, so why should he spend time seeking the braided idiot out?  No, he was not pining!  How dare Yuy suggest that, dishonorable cur!  Fine, he’d go!  But he wouldn’t be happy about it.

The conversation had ended with Wufei slamming down the phone, and then picking it up again and calling Sally Po to request some vacation time.  Sally had sounded suspiciously cheerful about letting him go, and when pressed, she had confessed that Quatre had called her up already and explained the situation.  She thought he needed a bit of a vacation, anyway, and besides she “knew how he felt about Duo.”

He had replied heatedly that he had no “feelings” for Duo whatsoever and stop smiling like that, stupid woman!

Sally’s smile hadn’t wavered as she had informed him that she would consider that last phrase a stress-related slip of tongue and not have him written up for insulting a commanding officer, but only if he left right now and started packing for the trip and didn’t come back until he’d worked things out.

So he had stormed out of the office, vehemently denying what seemed to be common knowledge to everyone else.

He was in love with Duo Maxwell.

It was irrational and insane and completely at odds with everything he’d ever believed about himself and relationships.  It was, however, the truth, and though Wufei was often slow in admitting it, once he’d accepted the truth he couldn’t deny it, nor could he avoid acting on it.

But cooking?  With Maxwell?

If ever he had needed a reason to not start a cozy, domestic life with the braided ex-pilot, this was the time to find it, and he had more than enough opportunity, as Duo started combining food and spices with abandon until Wufei finally settled on curry and directed him away from the pot and to the cutting board with an armful of vegetables.  There Wufei made the discovery that the young man who had once called himself Death was frighteningly good with knives, and he elected not to watch the flying cutlery.  He concentrated instead on mixing the curry and cutting the chicken.  Through it all Duo had, of course, talked.

“I’m really glad you guys are here.”

There was a note of relief in Duo’s voice that made Wufei look at the other sharply, noting signs of stress that he hadn’t noticed before: shadows under the eyes that were harder than he remembered, and fine lines around the mouth that didn’t seem to smile as easily or as often as it had before.

Duo noticed his slip, and continued in a lighter tone. “I don’t really get to cook for anyone these days.”

Wufei was willing to let it slide, not sure how to deal with his own problems and knowing, then, that he had no business trying to help someone else with theirs. “That alone has made the world a safer place.”

Duo waved a spoon with some sort of sticky-looking concoction on it at him in a threatening manner, but he was grinning.

“Ah, how I’ve missed your humor, Wu-man.”

Wufei was distracted lifting the pot of whatever Duo had been mixing away from the burner before it boiled over and responded without censor. “I’ve missed you, too, Maxwell.”

Oops.  Had he said that out loud?  He had meant it to be a casual statement, a simple continuation of the conversation, but it had come out much more heartfelt than he had intended.

Duo gave a startled little jerk, eyes widening, and managed to hit himself in the face with the spoon in the process. “Honto?”

Wufei turned away from the stove and was greeted with the sight of Duo, expression like a startled deer, bangs falling endearingly into his eyes and a smudge across one cheek with a spoon poised in one hand and nearly laughed out loud.  Instead, he reached out to the stunned young man and made a vague attempt to rub the…whatever off of Duo’s face.

“Aa,” he confirmed softly, feeling the affectionate smile softening his features, fingers unconsciously turning the touch into a caress.  He looked into deep purple eyes that were crinkling at the corners with a warm smile, and knew abruptly that he was going too far.  To break the mood, he deliberately cleared his throat and inserted dry sarcasm into his tone. “Well, I wasn’t going to tell you.  I figured your head would be swollen enough by our coming out here in the first place.”  He’d seen Duo flinch as he lifted his hand away and frowned. “Your cheek still hurting?”

Duo gave him a wry look. “You did hit me rather hard.”

“Not as hard as I wanted to,” Wufei growled, sticking his head in the freezer.  The silence behind him was a surprise.  He was expecting a cutting rejoinder, but when he turned around, he found Duo studying him with a peculiar intensity, like someone trying to mentally work through a maze.  Unsettled, he made short work of breaking up the package of frozen blueberries he’d found—keeping them in the plastic bag—and wrapped them in a towel. 

“Here, put this on it,” he said, thrusting the towel into Duo’s hand and turning back to the chicken.

“I can’t cut vegetables with only one hand.”

“We have plenty of vegetables.”

Duo settled back against a wall with that famous lounging pose of his, one arm folded across his chest, the other lifted to press the towel against his cheek.  Wufei recognized it from the war.  Whenever Duo had been trying to work through a particularly difficult problem, he had always found the nearest solid object and done his best to mold his spine to it, purple eyes serious in an unsmiling face.  Wufei had never had that regard leveled at him before, though, and found it disconcerting.

“Would you mind not staring at me like that, Maxwell?  I’m wielding a sharp object here and you’re distracting me.”

“Why are you so angry?”

The knife jerked, nearly cutting his finger. “I’m not,” he insisted finally, quietly.

“You are.”

He lowered his chin a notch and mumbled almost into his shirt. “Not at you.”

“Liar.” Duo’s voice was affectionate. “Repressing emotion, Wufei, that’s not healthy.”

The familiar teasing tone put him back on firm ground, and he responded easily. “Healthier for you.”

Duo’s laughter loosened the remaining tension in the room as he came off the wall only to flop back against the counter and smiled across the space of the stove at him, though Wufei affected not to notice. “Wow.  I’d forgotten how much fun this could be.”

“What?”

“Just hanging out.”

“We never did much of that during the war.”

“Yeah, but what little we did…I got used to it.  It was nice.”

“Mm,” Wufei agreed, dumping the chicken into a pot to boil, adding the vegetables shortly after.

Duo leaned over a bit. “Chicken stew?” he guessed.

“Curry.”

“Doesn’t look like it.”

“I haven’t added the spices,” Wufei informed him, frowning at the pot that was sitting idle on an unlit burner since he rescued it from boiling over. “What were you making?”

“Dessert!”

“Hn.”

Duo grinned.  “Just something I throw together whenever I’m in the mood for something really sweet.  Wanna know what’s in it?”

“Not if I have to eat it later.”

More laughter that made Wufei want to respond in kind. “Don’t worry.  It hasn’t killed me yet.”

Wufei snorted and begun mixing curry spices, one part of his mind idly wondering how Duo’s kitchen had come to be so well stocked.

“Everything tastes better with a little sugar!” the young braided man insisted. “Take your curry for example…”

Wufei was so busy measuring that he had failed to realize the significance of that loaded remark, until he caught movement out of the corner of his eye.

“No!  Don’t put that in the—MAXWELL!!”

By the time he responded, Duo had managed to dump half the bag of blueberries into the pot of chicken and vegetables.  In his haste to stop the grinning idiot his elbow caught the handle of the knife he’d set on the counter.  It spun off the edge and arced gracefully for his foot.  With a yelp, he jumped out of the way just in time, the leap slamming him up against the startled and laughing Duo, who stumbled and tried to catch his balance with a flailing movement that scattered blueberries across the floor.  They ended up sprawled on the ground, Wufei bracing his arms on either side of Duo’s head, Duo still laughing and now breathless.

“Stop scowling at me like that, Wu,” Duo had gasped, humor sparkling in indigo eyes.  His fingers were scrabbling out of Wufei’s line of sight, like a desperate man casting for one last weapon to use in defense of certain doom.  Wufei wasn’t paying much attention.  His focus had narrowed to the heat of the body beneath his, his gaze dropping almost unwillingly from the twinkling eyes past the pert pixie nose to the wide mouth so close the breaths blew the fine strands of his hair to tickle his cheek. “Here,” Duo brandished his find, “have a blueberry.”   And he slipped the fruit between Wufei’s lips before the other could think of something coherent enough to stop him.

Wufei chewed with great determination, frightened at how close he’d come to kissing Duo right then, holding tight to the anger that was threatening to melt into something very unmanly at any minute, and removed himself deliberately from where he was sprawled against Duo’s prone body, dragging the other up with him by the arm as he went.  Hoping the other would take his silence to mean he was fighting against the need to shout obscenities, he swept the braided ex-pilot out the door, making sure to put sufficient snarl in his voice when he ordered Duo to stay put.

Alone again, the lingering annoyance faded quickly, even while he observed the mess Maxwell had left in his wake.  Duo seemed to always have this effect on him.  He’d whirl in, smash Wufei’s meticulous planning to bits and then whirl away again, laughing, while he left Wufei to clean up.  And yet, Wufei couldn’t stay angry with him.  Duo could lay to waste as he liked, and Wufei would never even flinch.

Dangerous, this power.  Wufei feared it.

But why?  Why?  You love him, that’s obvious.  He cares for you.  You could be happy, you really could.  Why be afraid of that?

Because there had been someone else, not all that long ago, though now it seemed as distant as a waking dream.  Someone else who’d gotten under his skin, who’d blown apart his tediously planned life, who’d forced him to love even though he didn’t want to, had never wanted to.  She’d had Duo’s fire, impetuousness, and ability to fill the hollow parts of his soul, fuel his passion with her own.  She’d jerked him out of his sheltered existence, lifted him above the fog of forced indifference, and cajoled him to dance, breathless, on the razor’s edge.

Then she’d been stupid--gloriously, bravely stupid--and died her hero’s death, leaving him staggering from the blow of her absence, alone.

And he couldn’t do that again.  He couldn’t.  He wouldn’t be able to survive another Meiran.  He’d let her become the focus of his world: his duty, his family, his wife, and she’d been all that and more.  Her death had ripped something out of him, leaving him empty except for the bitterness and helpless anger.  Her death had changed him.  She’d wanted a warrior for a husband.  He’d held her as she bled in his arms and granted her this last thing—put aside his pen and picked up her sword, and there had been no turning back after that.

Even now, he reflected sourly, after the war was over and Meiran had been avenged, he was still waging her war, filling the emptiness in his soul with her bright spirit and fighting because she couldn’t do it herself.  He still owed her that much.  So now he was in the Preventers, the combined military force that had collated from the factions left after the final battle and determined war would never happen again—fighting for justice and peace.

Fighting for peace.  The irony of that thought never failed to amuse that cynical scholarly part still left within him.

Absently, he lifted his hand to touch the pendant lying warm against his chest under his uniform jacket, and it reminded him, suddenly, of the differences between Meiran and Duo.  His wife had been a warrior.  The sword was hers, though he carried it in her name--fought for her, killed for her, because that’s what she would have done had she lived and he died.  Duo was a soldier, and though he’d never hesitated in battle, he’d hated it, all of it, had fled as far as he could from it as soon as it was possible. 

Duo’s intense focus could be gentled into something less desperate within his laughter.  And though sometimes his continuous humor seemed childish, Wufei believed that it was, in truth, a show of a greater maturity than the other pilots, himself included, possessed.  Certainly more mature than the testosterone-driven temper tantrums that carried many soldiers through a battle.  Though he would never admit that to Duo’s face.

He was smarter, as well, though something in Wufei balked to admit it.  It was blasphemy to compare his wife unfavorably against anyone else, and yet, he couldn’t stop.

Well, if not smarter, then certainly more worldly, and stronger.

He could survive, would survive.  It could work—them, together.  If Duo wanted it.

Wufei blinked, a sudden clenching in his gut leaving him short of breath.  Duo had always been easy with affection, and now that the Chinese ex-pilot considered it, he couldn’t recall a time when Duo showed him any special attention.  Well, he did tease Wufei more than any of the others, but that wasn’t exactly the kind of thing that one based a deep, meaningful relationship on.  In fact, now that Wufei’s inner eyes were fatalistically focused, it saw that the only one that Duo paid any real attention to was Yuy, and maybe Quatre.  But Quatre didn’t really count.  Everyone was affectionate towards the soft-spoken blond man.

Wufei finished picking up the blueberries, was distracted by a brief scrounge for the trashcan, and then returned to his cooking.  Fortunately, he’d thought to remove the blueberries from the pot even during all this deep thinking.  He smirked.

Zen while cooking.  Mm, he was honest with himself, more like brooding.  He grinned suddenly.  Brooding with Wufei.  Tonight at seven, he’ll show you how to make curry while simultaneously thinking Deep and Meaningful Thoughts about old loves and new!

He made a face and dumped the spices in.  Stirring the mix with determined gusto, he blew softly at the fine strands of hair that had escaped his tight ponytail and his eyes landed on Duo’s “dessert” still sitting ominously on an unlit corner burner as he heard the braided ex-pilot’s ruefully amused voice beyond the door. 

He took a breath and touched the necklace pendant under his shirt again, steeling himself.  Duo had given it to him during the war, to “keep him safe” he’d said, convinced that Wufei’s luck needed more bolstering than his own.  He wouldn’t have given it to just anyone.  That had to mean something.

You’re a coward, Chang, he told himself. That’s Duo.  You’ve trusted him with your life before; this isn’t all that different.

With that in mind, he went to retrieve Maxwell so they could finish dinner.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“Come on, Wu.  It’s not so bad.  It’s not like we haven’t done this before.”

“Maxwell, that was under a completely different set of circumstances.  It was war; we were under a lot of stress, and if I remember correctly, very drunk.”

“Like we’re not drunk now?”

“Not nearly enough.”

“Don’t worry, Wu.  No pressure.  Just go with it.”

“You’re not helping, Duo.”

Heero glared at them. “Are you doing it or not?  You’re not the only ones here, you know.”

“Fine,” Wufei growled. “Do you have any… threes?”

“Go fish.”

Wufei grimaced, drank his beer and reached for the communal deck in the middle of the table.  Pulling a card got him a three anyway; he paired his match and set them on the table before taking the new beer Duo was handing him.  He set his empty bottle under his seat and squinted at the glass massed there, trying to count. “What am I on?”

“Medication?” Heero suggested, the flat seriousness of his tone somehow sounding amused.  Duo giggled.  Wufei sat back up so he could glare at them, unsure how a twenty-year-old man could giggle and have it sound natural, or how anyone could be drunk at two o’clock in the morning with hair coming unbraided, wearing a scruffy open flannel shirt and scruffier undershirt, smile, and still be so beautiful that Wufei found his glare turning into a glazed, owlish look as he watched Duo sweep straying hair behind his ears.  Gods and minions, he was drunk.

“That’s not what I meant.  Oh, never mind.  I probably should be on medication.  How did you talk me into this again?”

Heero tossed Trowa a quarter.

Duo eyed them. “What was that?” 

Heero shuffled his cards and avoided eye contact, but Trowa said steadily, “I bet Heero that Wufei would try to blame playing Go Fish on us.  I won.”

“Good call, Tro.”

“Barton!”

“Mou, Trowa,” Quatre mumbled from the banged man’s shoulder where his head was pillowed, “that was mean.”

Bright silver disappeared between Trowa’s long fingers.

“Any fives?” Heero asked.

“Go fish,” Trowa answered, rediscovering the coin behind Quatre’s ear and smiling just a little when the smaller man beamed at him.  Heero finished half his beer and pulled a card from the deck.  The rules had started out being half a bottle per loss, but during the night everyone but the Perfect Soldier had let that amount dwindle until it was hardly more than a sip.

It was Quatre’s turn.  He rubbed his eyes, tried sitting up a little, and then stared at his cards as if he wasn’t sure what to do with them anymore. “What time is it?”

“A little after two.”

“In the morning?”

“Well, I hope so.  If it were afternoon, I’d be scared.”  Duo studied his friends and smiled. “You can crash here for the night.”

“Duo, are you sure?”

“Yeah, no problem.” He waved his fanned cards dismissively. “I was planning on it as soon as you showed up.  It’ll be a little cramped, but it’ll be fine.  The couch can be a bed.” 

“I’ll get sheets,” Wufei offered, folding his cards and stacking them on the deck.

“Past the bathroom on the left.”

Quatre was practically asleep already, leaning comfortably on Trowa, who was gently pulling him to his feet and herding him toward the back of the apartment. “You can take the bedroom,” Duo said.  Had the blond man been awake enough, he would’ve protested, but Trowa only nodded gratefully and led him away.

“They really are cute,” Duo said.  Heero swept the cards together and didn’t comment, but one corner of his mouth curved in agreement. “I’m glad they got together.”

“’Bout time for it,” the Japanese man muttered.  The American slanted him a shrewd look and leaned back in his chair.

“Kinda weird how it happened, ne?  I mean, shuttles don’t break down a lot and it was just lucky that Quatre’s landed on L3 when Trowa’s circus was visiting.  And all those problems they had… a three week delay is a long time, ne, Heero?” 

“If you say so.”

“Must’ve been difficult.”

Heero finally looked up, and his eyes were laughing. “Not so difficult.  The shuttle’s pilot owed me a favor.”

Duo laughed. “Heero!  Are you trying to play matchmaker?”

“Who’s trying?  It worked. Serves them right for trying to get us together during the war.” Heero slid the deck back inside its cardboard box with a flick of his hand. “You’re my best friend, Duo, but I’m not going to date you.”

“Ditto,” the braided man agreed affectionately. “We’d drive each other nuts.” His head dropped back and he contemplated the ceiling. “Three weeks.”

“Trowa is stubborn.  Fortunately, so is Quatre.”

“Hai, hai.  Almost as stubborn as…” The name caught in his throat and Duo felt self-conscious prickles heat his cheeks and the tips of his ears.  Heero could see right through him.

“Aa.”

He stood restlessly, and then had to lean his hands on the table and wait for the world to settle, concentrating on the soft clinks of glass as the Perfect Soldier collected bottles and carried them into the kitchen.  “Heero,” he said carefully, staring at his fingers spread out on the table. “Mrs. Beatice didn’t really send those e-mails, did she?” Weighted silence answered him.  He grinned a bit. “Sneak.”

“Playing fair doesn’t accomplish anything.”

“What about… what about you?” he asked, to deflect the pressure of Heero’s eyes.  He could feel his friend trying to stare a hole between his shoulder blades. “Are you going after anybody?”

“No.” Heero paused. “I don’t think so.”

“What about Relena?  What happened to her?”

“She grew up.  Admitted her feelings to someone else.” Duo turned to see him shrug and toss an empty chip bag in the trash. “Don’t you think it’s funny, how some things change—” Heero pinned him with that famous intense look, full of meaning. “—and how some things just… refuse to change?”

Looking at his best friend, Duo was suddenly angry, angry and confused, his hand tightening into a fist. “Dammit—”

“Okay,” Wufei reported as he walked back into the room, muffled by an armful of bedclothes that piled up past his nose. “Trowa and Quatre are almost settled, but,” Wufei balanced his load in one arm so he could hold out a pair of smiley-face boxers to Duo, “they say though your underwear is cute, they don’t want to sleep on it.”

Duo ducked his head, anger turning into embarrassment as he snatched his underwear back. “Oh yeah.  Um, I’ll go see to that.”  He hurried off. 

Wufei dumped his armful of clothes on the couch and began separating them into sheets, pillowcases and quilts.  Heero watched, projecting a sense of waiting until Wufei snapped, “What?” just to make him stop.

“It’s sweet.”

For a long time, Wufei’s brain didn’t even register the words, because they weren’t anything he’d ever have expected to come out of the taciturn Japanese man unless Heero was eating sugar.  When he finally did hear them, all he could think to say as he stared at Heero blankly was, “Huh?”

Heero grinned.  It was rather alarming. “This reluctance between the two of you.  It’s sweet.” Then the scowl came back with vengeance. “It’s also stupid.”

Now that was more like it; if the topic had been war tactics and not… relationships, Wufei might have almost believed he was having this conversation with the person he knew least out of his four friends.  “How… what do you…” Really, that he could form words around his shock at all was surprising.  Finally, his sense of propriety kicked his brain back into higher functions. “I don’t think it’s your business to judge.”

“He’s my best friend, Chang.”

Wufei gritted his teeth. Little shit—

“I’m the one who’s going to have to listen to him whine if you don’t do something soon.”

They glared at each other.

“It’s not that…It’s just because…I can’t—I can’t believe I’m talking to you about this.”

Heero folded his arms and didn’t back down. “I can’t believe you let it get far enough that you have to talk to me.”  He looked as unhappy about it as Wufei felt.  That was somewhat reassuring.

“What am I supposed to say to you?”

“I think I’m supposed to say something to you,” Heero said, glaring for all he was worth.  Wufei waited.

“You don’t have any idea, do you?”

“Shut up.”

The Chinese man sighed and resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose.  He’d forgotten what talking to Heero could be like, and why he’d started to avoid it if he could after the first few times.  There just wasn’t enough aspirin in the world. “Listen, Yuy, I appreciate the concern but… but I know what I’m doing.”  Prussian blue eyes conveyed disbelief with very little effort and a lot of force. “I think,” he amended.

“As long as you’re doing something.”

Wufei might have replied if he hadn’t heard the soft padding of Duo’s socked feet on the carpet coming back. The braided boy yawned and rubbed a hand through his bangs as he stepped into the room.

“Man,” he muttered. “I’m beat.”  He stopped and passed a suspicious look between the two of them, the version he gave Heero longer and sterner than the one directed at Wufei. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” they answered simultaneously, which, of course, convinced Duo of the opposite.

“Yeah, right.”

“I’m going to take a shower,” Heero announced, and left as quickly as it was possible without looking as if he were running.  Wufei still had the desire to shout Coward! after him, but restrained as Duo turned a demanding look on him. 

He took a breath.  Here goes nothing. “Tea?”  He blinked.  That wasn’t what he’d been trying to say at all.

Duo looked as confused. “Now?”

Well, might as well go with it. “Yeah,” he said, and felt his tension loosen as it earned him a smile that warmed deep purple eyes.

“Sure.  Why not?  We’ll use Quatre’s tea pot.”  They went back to the kitchen and Duo dug the tea set out of the box while Wufei put water on to boil.  The smile sharpened into the familiar, harder grin as he set out the saucers and cups. “I can’t believe he got me a tea set.  Sometimes I’m glad I don’t have sisters.”  He popped open the ornamented tin sitting on the table and the frowned into it. “How do you make this without tea bags, Wu?”

Wufei opened drawers until he found a spoon and walked over to Duo, who stood shaking the tin to hear the soft rattling of the dried jasmine inside.  “Here.”  He held out his hand. “Give.”  Duo handed it over obediently and Wufei scooped two spoonfuls of jasmine into the pot, then snapped the tin’s lid back on and turned to toss the spoon into the sink.  It hit the rim with a clatter then settled in the bin.  “Now we just have to—” He turned back and nearly yelped as he came face to face with a bright splash of red and gold. “What?”

Duo peeked out from behind the book he was holding up to Wufei’s face point blank. “Ne, do you like it?  It’s a book!”

“I can see that.” He pushed it away a little so the blur on the cover separated itself into a gold outline of a dragon on a red flag, flying against a backdrop of blue sky and green mountains.  Across the top Hand of the Dragon was written in coppery letters. “This is—”

“Yeah, I know.  I felt so bad when I lost the copy you lent me.  And then, a couple of weeks ago I saw it in a used bookstore and bought it.  I was going to mail it to you, but it fell behind my bed and I kinda forgot about it.  But Trowa and Quatre found it tonight and you’re here so I don’t have to mail it, I can just give it to you.  I know you like books, and you don’t have enough of them.  So…I hope you like it.” As Duo paused to catch his breath, he pushed it into Wufei’s hands, beaming. “Do you like it?”

He bought me a book.  Wufei found himself holding it as if it were something that could break, and Duo’s hands were warm over his, not letting go.  He bought me a book. “Thank you, Duo.  Demo… I’ve been missing this for years.”

Duo hung his head a little. “Yeah, well.  Better late than never, ne?”

“Aa,” Wufei agreed softly.  Now, now, do it now. “Um…  This…” He set the book carefully on the table and yanked at his collar to undo the first button and pulled out a thin gold chain. “I guess I should return this, then.  It’s yours.  I’m sorry I kept it for so long, but…” He lost his train of thought as he struggled with the clasp.  When it finally came undone, he held the necklace out, trying to meet Duo’s eyes, but coming no closer than a spot just to the side of his right ear. “You disappeared and I couldn’t find you.” It really hurt more than it should have to say those words.  The small, gold cross dangled silently between them.

He was finally able to look Duo in the eyes and see the startled wonder there. “You… you kept it.”

“Of course I kept it,” he snapped, anger like he hadn’t felt since the end of the war when he’d first discovered he couldn’t find Duo anywhere closing a tight, hot fist in his chest. “It was the only thing you left—you just left and didn’t tell anyone and I thought…” The words weren’t coming, refused to flow. They just sat in his throat and burned until he felt his eyes prickle.  He’d always been able to do this before, rant on and on about justice or peace, but it had been like something rehearsed, someone else’s words read off a paper, and now, when he wanted to speak without a script, when he wanted to speak the truth, the words stuck fast. “Well.”  He pushed his arm forward, rattling the chain a little so the cross bounced. “I don’t need your luck any more.  You can have it back.”

Duo lifted his hand and closed the necklace and Wufei’s fist in long fingers.  He met Duo’s eyes accusingly, and froze when he saw the gentle expression, the little smile.  He couldn’t move as Duo stepped in and circled his waist with strong arms and pulled him in close, until their bodies met, hips and chests and Wufei’s arm closed in around Duo’s back tightly, hand still clenched around the necklace.

“Thank you,” Duo said to Wufei’s shoulder, words warm on his neck.

“You could have died,” Wufei said, breathing in sweetness and faint salt. Apples and the ocean. 

“I’m sorry.”

“You could have already been dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

Wufei tightened his arm until he was sure the embrace hurt, but Duo didn’t protest.  “I loved you and you died.” His voice was so soft, he wasn’t even sure if he’d said the words out loud, and rather hoped he hadn’t.

“Not me.  That wasn’t me.  I’m still here.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know.  But stay.  Stay with me.  I’ll stick around if you do.”

Was it that easy?  It didn’t seem as if it could be.  Something had to happen.  They were Gundam Wing boys, nothing in their lives were easy.  And for a moment, everything in Wufei balked, trying to scramble away from this hole he’d dug for himself and was prepared to jump into that had become so much deeper than he’d intended it to be.

“I have a whole room where you can put books.”

Then again, maybe, some things were just meant to be simple.  And it really wasn’t that difficult to relax again, and let Duo’s body fit against his like a matching puzzle piece.

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” he confessed quietly.

He felt Duo’s smile against his neck.  “There’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”  Had he been able to look the braided man in the face, he would’ve been alerted by the telltale sparkles in Duo’s eyes, but as it was, he didn’t sense the mischief coming.

“Nani?”

“This.” Wufei blinked with surprise as he felt a hand close around his ponytail. “Yoink!”

“Duo!” he shouted as his hair fell forward in a sweep across his shoulders.  He made a grab at the tie Duo dangled above his head, but missed, and Duo took the opportunity to flee past him.  “Duo!  I’m serious, give that back!”

A slender blond man stirred awake as the two careened past the bedroom door, and lay listening as a door opened further down the hall and Heero’s voice told them both to knock it off, under no uncertain terms.  And dammit, what moron had left the water to boil over? 

He smiled in the dark, and could sense more than see his brown-haired lover do the same.

“I think they’ll make it, don’t you, Trowa?”

Trowa considered keeping his opinion to himself as usual—Quatre knew how to interpret his silences—but then decided the topic was too important, and the answer too clear to keep to himself. “Yes,” was all he said and all he needed to say.

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