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"On the Wings of an Eagle"Written By: Kaeru Shisho Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Gundam Wing
or its characters, nor do I make any monetary profit off this story. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: AU, male/male pairings, language Pairings: several Summary: When Trowa Barton and Duo Maxwell pay Quatre Winner a visit, he coerces them into archeological site destruction and matchmaking A/N: My deepest thanks go to the kindness of Snowdragon and WaterLily for editing and encouraging me to complete this. Sequel to For a Lark "On the Wings of an Eagle " Chapter Six I Guess That I'm the Lucky One When I returned from my bathroom adventure, the others were filing into the grand hall to feed. "Here comes Trowa!" Winner announced. "Lord, I was afraid he'd fallen in," Merquise commented about my tardiness. Funny. Winner looked confused. "Fallen into what?" Merquise rolled his eyes and smiled with a patronizing manner I'd hate if it were me, which it would never be. "The toilet. Wasn't that where he'd gone?" "Oh!" Winner chuckled. The dinner bell rang and the herd lumbered to the trough, everyone but Duo. He bounced to my side and grabbed my arm, shepherding me to the dining hall in style. I pulled the veil of bangs from my face and batted my eyes at him. "Muuh!" I lowed. He joined me with his own bovine bellow. "Mooooooo." Style. Yeah, and class, but most of all it was a glorious moment where Duo shared his unerring, outgoing sense of humor with my rather bubble-like one. The food was good, but I could eat crap and regularly had until Duo started cooking for me. I could heat a can of beans, soup, chili, hash, tamales. I could boil water and pour it over a tea bag, freeze-dried coffee, ramen. I could reconstitute eggs and—no, I couldn't. We were awaiting dessert and drinking a dark, fragrant sludge Rashid called "coffee" and Duo kept calling "heaven, baby," when Yuy Pissant put in his appearance. Chang, who'd been extolling the virtues of honey from Chinese pear trees, only from blossoms growing on the south side of the trees, if you believe that malarkey, went pristine-sheet-white, snapped shut his mouth like a nervous clam, and suddenly stopped talking, refusing to say any more. Winner and Rashid greeted him politely, Merquise dipped a royal chin, I sipped and wished him gone, silently of course. Duo stood up and shook his hand. "Hiya, 'Ro. Long time no see." "Duo." "Say hi to 'Fei," Duo insisted. "Hi." "Yuy, you look we-ell." Yes, his voice cracked. And here I thought Chang was past puberty. The two men gave the impression of looking at one another through slippery air. Using their averted vision, they looked askance at one another, fleeting looks, glancing off the images, peeking without looking, slipping sideways glances out of the corners of their eyes. Very juvenile but also rather you-deserve-it, painfully cute. "Would you like some dinner?" Winner was pushing plates and cups toward the empty seat. Nothing there to tempt me, but Yuy stepped closer and gripped the chair back. "Later." He concentrated his intensity on Duo. "I need a moment. With you." No way did I want that to happen, but I felt defeated when Duo agreed to go with him. Well, this would be it, then, wouldn't it? Yuy would reveal his miraculous change of orientation and make-over as a gay man in love with Duo Maxwell. Duo would be unable to fight the feelings he'd harbored for the war hero since the day he'd met him, in spite of his real, though lesser, feelings for me. Who wouldn't trade up if they could? "Sir, the Blue Room is currently unoccupied. Bashir may enter to arrange flowers at the sink, but he's nearly deaf. Combat damage. Very unfortunate." "Fine. The Blue Room. C'mon, 'Ro." Duo nearly, but not actually, touched Yuy's arm to lead him away. He did touch my arm. "Be right back." To let me down gently, sure. But the twisting in my stomach meant I wasn't accepting defeat elegantly at all. I just might upchuck chow all over the beautiful carpeting if I didn't act. I wanted Duo to insist I accompany them, but he didn't. Man, I hated feeling this way. I loved Duo with all my heart. I didn't want to lose him. Well, so why was I letting fucking Yuy just waltz in and claim his prize, my prize? Hadn't I proven my worth to some extent? Guess not. Not really. Duo just found me. I'd made no effort to win him. I hadn't been as emphatically anti-gay and turned on Duo at his coming out as Yuy, but at the time I hadn't shown much support and shorn up Duo either. Then only conclusion being that I didn't deserve Duo any more than Yuy, so I should just let Duo chose. I hated this. I just stood there, not moving, and let Duo walk away with Yuy without challenging them or anything. I wanted to scream, punch Yuy out, claim Duo, for starters. More rationally, I wanted to listen in to that conversation, but how? Rashid caught me up by the arm and pulled me aside. "This way." "What?" I asked as he led me into a room the size of a closet. It was a closet and much too small for me and him to fit without being far closer friends, much less the other man in the closet with us. "Put this on." Rashid said to me as he pointed toward what another of his men was holding: a Maguanac costume. "Amid, help him with his disguise." The room expanded to vast dimensions the moment Rashid left it. "This goes on first," Amid said, helping he step into a loose purple jumpsuit. He wrapped my waist in a dark blue scarf and handed me a matching vest. "This won't fool Yuy," I told him. Honestly! Did they think the ex-pilot wouldn't see my face? "Not done!" Amid clicked his tongue. Well, I was just trying to help, pointing out the obvious. On went a round, little hat and a quick hair repair. Not enough. Then a pair of round glasses with darkly tinted lenses. That would help. Then he plastered a great dark brown moustache over my lip. Well, that did the trick. He held up a tiny hand mirror for me to check the results. Not bad, if it stayed on. "Flowers. We'll carry them in. One end of the room has a table and sink. Come now." He wouldn't arrange for the fake moustache to fall off would he? Would he? All right, say he wouldn't. The thing could fall off anyway without Amid or Rashid's scheming it to. I had to concentrate on blending in, passing into that room without drawing attention. "So, 'Ro, I get that you didn't come here to punch me out again, and that you're sorry you did a long time ago. Oh—must be...ah... Bashir... and, ah--?" Amid bowed slightly and supplied Duo his name. "Amid." He placed himself between the others and me and held up his bundle of flowers. "We won't be long." "No problem, amigos. We're just having a friendly chat." I was glad to hear that and busied myself with a vase and foam stuff, copying what Amid was doing up to the flower arranging part. Yuy glared our way and edged Duo further off, nearly up against the window. He sure had become more tolerant in his old age; I was surprised Yuy didn't order us out of the room. Now, I'd never stuck a stem in a vase, but I had seen a lot of bouquets done up for Valentine's Day. I was also adept at fitting in for the infiltration assignments I had done during the war, so, with my disguise (still!) firmly in place, I picked out three long skinny flower stalks and stuck them into the green foam: one in the middle and one each at right angles at the sides, in a triangle. "What is that you are doing, Master Bar--?" "Bashir. I'm supposed to be deaf, remember," I said under my breath. "You interested in my offer now, are ya?" Duo asked Yuy. "That's not the way we—" Amid began. I hushed Amid. Yuy was saying something. "You are an attractive man, Duo, but if I had designs on you, do you think I would have helped hook you up with Barton?" Maybe, if it was to soften him up. "How would I know? It's not like I get how your mind works. The only one of us that gets you is 'Fei." I didn't catch Yuy's expression, but I detected a hitch in his breath. I stuffed great mounds of blue flowers into my creation, balancing it all, and then looked for green things for contrast. "You are mixing hydrangeas with glads?" Amid asked, obviously with some disapproval. I think it looked okay. "With gladness," I said. "Wufei," Yuy whispered. I missed their next interchange, and then Yuy raised his voice a little. "How did you get Barton to notice you? No, not notice... he couldn't not notice you; I mean, how did you get him to, ah—" "Make a move? You don't think I took charge?" "No, I assumed you'd wait for him, to be sure." "The laurel—" Amid bumped my arm to get it closer to the big flat leaves rather than the more delicate fern I wanted. I preferred the fern, still, and took that. I hoped Duo preferred me to the hot guy next to him, but why should he chose the ordinary over the exotic any more than me? "It took awhile to work out who was what and who wanted what and all. We had time and nothing else to do and it was kinda painful, angst-ridden, awkward fun, the suspense and all." "That you considered fun? Sounds excruciating, and it worked out?" It did for me. "You betcher sweet ass, it did. Tro's everything I could wish for and more than I deserve." Duo actually said that right to Yuy's face. My smile nearly split my face. White roses, I knew the name of those, would work fine with the other flowers and made me think of Duo at Valentine's time, so I dotted the arrangement with a dozen or so and smiled. "That's... spectacular, ma-as—" "Bashir, you dolt," I whispered. "Ah, Bashir, yes. I didn't see it at first, but your taste is exquisite." I tried to shush the good man up. I didn't want to draw attention our way. Didn't matter, since the other two were absorbed with their chat. Yuy asked, rather loudly, "Doesn't it bother you that he's still carrying a flame for Winner?" No! I was most certainly not carrying anything for Winner, especially a blazing... thing! Duo, bless his ego awash in security, laughed. "If ever he was, I blew it out. And believe me, I know how to deliver a top notch blow-job, heh, heh." A wave of heat coming from deep inside me nearly torched my brain. I wasn't one to blush, much, but I sure was doing it now. That was intimate stuff to overhear! Intimate stuff to share, also, Maxwell... "Okay, Barton, you can get out of that ridiculous getup now." I coughed and nearly up-tipped my flower arrangement. Yuy knew it had been me all along? Had Duo been reassuring me as well as trying to impress Yuy with how good our relationship was getting along? I felt pretty silly, but I'd been a clown in the circus, so it was no big deal. Duo skipped up first and slammed me with a delicious coffee-flavored kiss. When he pulled away, I saw a moustache dangling from his hair, and snatched it before anyone else saw it. Yuy saw it, I think, though, from the smirk on his face. He didn't say anything, however. Smart man. I'd been saving up a punch to be delivered to his face. Amid a flourish of flowers, Amid, took off. "I want the big blue bunch of flowers in my room," Yuy called out. Real comedian. "Yes, sir!" "Heero's gay, 'Tro. How about that, eh?" "I'd been told," I said without thinking. I hadn't wanted to admit that to either of them. Yuy, naturally, lit on my faux pas immediately like the predator he was. "Who told you?" "My sister said it was a rumor." Hopefully this wouldn't get back to Cathy, although she hadn't said it was a confidence. Now that I thought about it, it had almost been as if she'd intended for me to pass on my information. Well, consider it passed. Much like gas. "How did Catherine pick up on that rumor?" Yuy asked. "Relena told her, she said." "Relena." Yuy ground out all three syllables just to get them right, I guessed. "I thought I could trust her." "Um, what did you do?" Duo asked. "'Cuz if she was crushing on you while she was dating Quat, I could see the disappointment building." "She was. I don't know, I never gave her any encouragement, but then I never gave you any either." "You must exude sexual intoxicants," Duo said. He was joking, some. Yuy gave him a snarly look. "Whatever. I told her I wasn't interested in a romantic entanglement with her or any woman. Then she labeled me 'gay' and had a fit about all the men in her life turning to each other and not her—something equally stupid." "...Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd, nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd—" "I know!" he snapped off my recitation, right at roots. Ouch. "Just telling your secret to Cathy was a rather mild reaction, I think," Duo said, helping me untie the rag at my waist. "There was a story over the shuttle news we watched on the way here -" "From the now-that's-fury dept," I said. I wadded up the vest and jumpsuit and held the roll together with the handy waist tie. "Heh, heh, yeah, the joke practically wrote itself," he chuckled. Yuy was thrumming with impatience. "The story?" "Yeah," Duo beamed at him. "Okay, this was over in China, apparently a mobile phone retailer was abandoning his marriage, and his wife was upset about this, so much so that she gathered up like 400 new phones that her husband was trying to sell and set them on fire on their bed." I had no idea what Yuy was going to say or do, but I would have given up on any serious confrontation by this time and gone back for that dessert. "What propellant did she use?" he asked. What the hell? Duo, God love the guy, didn't blink or flinch. "Kerosene." Rashid stuck his head past the door and announced, "My apologies for the interruption, but dessert-- it is about to be served. Tonight, it's a flambé, and Master is holding the show for you to join us." "Better some fruit getting fried than me," Yuy muttered on his way out. Au contraire. What better fruit, than him, I wondered? A/N: The "...like a Woman scorn'd" quote from William Congreve, in The Mourning Bride, 1697
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