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"Magnetic Fields "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: Yaoi, AU Pairings: 1x2 Summary: All Duo wants is for Heero to be happy,
with him would be perfect, but then Heero brings home a fiancé. "Magnetic Fields " My problem lay in the fact that I was in love with my best friend, who, as life would have it, seemed oblivious. Perhaps it was just as well. Lovers came and went, especially same-sex couples, so said the odds-makers. As friends, we could go on and on... for all time. We had good times together, although I couldn't interest him in taking up pool, my hobby, and he couldn't get me interested in collecting guns, but that was all the good times we didn't share. Unresolved, the problem would eventually bite me in the ass, I knew. Heero was a good, solid sort of man, not boasting of a magnetic personality. I mean, he did have a fair amount of damped-down magnetism. I felt it hovering away just under the surface, but I was a south-pointing magnet while he was more of a due north. He certainly seemed to have an impact on everyone he met, but not usually good. Most people were norths to his north, thus being repelled. Not that he wasn't easy on the eyes. He was handsome in a nerdy way, not a pretty boy or a jock or a stand out, really, except to me, naturally. I was attracted to his exotic eyes, ungroomed hair and blunt manner. We both worked at a men's clothing store. I, having the more outgoing personality, was the top seller, while he, having a keen eye for bargains, was our top buyer. We'd been working together for three years-mostly happy years for me, while retaining my fixation on him. He appeared happy while retaining his indifference for me beyond that of platonic friendship. Sustaining my hopes was the fact that it seemed remote for Heero to form any attachment with anyone, male or female. He had his gun hobby and his work and me for his social life. That seemed sufficient. And then on one of his buying trips to the Middle East, Heero returned a changed man. I got a hint of his transformation a week prior to his return via an oddly uncomfortable phone call. "Hullo." "Heero? How are you, man?" "Fine. It's hot here. Dry as toast." "As expected." Why was he calling me?- I wondered, although I didn't mind. "Everything okay?" "Yes. Good. Great, even." "Well, that's... super," I said lamely holding up my end of the conversation. I should have said my goodbye and hung up. It would have saved me a shitload of sleepless nights. "I, uh, met someone here." "Did you? I expect that's to be expected, right? Making new connections in the world of cotton shirt factories?" "I guess. No, it's not like that. It's someone I like, I think." "You like. Oh! As in like, like?" "A nice fellow my age." "Oh, well. That's-" devastating, you bastard, "-something. Good for you. Branching out. Coming home soon?" "Yes. I am." "Good! Well, enjoy yourself. Goodnight!" Then I hung up. Then! Why not the minute earlier! (o) I heard no more from him and counted that as a good thing. This "nice fellow" was just an aberration in the magnetic field, I decided. However, my problems, it seemed were only starting. It was the tip of the inescapable iceberg I'd heard forecasted time and time again. "Duo," he called me up the evening he returned home to his apartment. "Heero, you're back?" I greeted him warmly. "Yes, I am and I have a great surprise for you. Can you come over?" "Now?" It was late, even for me, to be out when work began very early for us the next day. "Now. I won't keep you long." That he didn't. He kept both the promise to surprise and the one not to keep me long. "I'd like you to meet my intended, Quatre Winner," he said by way of introductions. ! The Winner name preceded him. I'd seen his picture plastered on magazine covers. This was a very well-off, charismatic young man. What the hell was he doing with Heero? I liked Heero. Check that-I loved him. Most people liked him to some degree, but at the same time, I was shocked to the core that he should have attracted and become engaged to someone so... quickly. As I observed before, he wasn't magnetic, and magnetism, I thought, was the chief quality a charming man like Quatre would have demanded in a boyfriend. From what I'd surmised from my reading about Quatre, he was an ardent, vivid man with an intense capacity for hero-worship, and I would have supposed that something more in the nature of a plumed knight or a swashbuckling corsair would have been more his ideal. Still, where the demand is greater than the supply, and maybe lately the Middle East was thin on selections of knights and corsairs? Possibly, Quatre had to take the best that he could get? He certainly looked content with Heero. "Hello!" I shook the young man's hand with pleasure I'd pulled out of somewhere. He was very light-blond hair, pale skin, and bright blue eyes that twinkled in the artificial overhead lights of Heero's apartment. "Staying long?" I asked, hoping I'd heard the "my intended" part wrong and he wasn't. He gave me a curious look then laughed. "Heero warned me about your sense of humor! I should think I'm here for a lifetime, ha, ha! For a while, though, I have a room at the Ritz until we set a date." "Date?" I was stunned stupid, you see. "For our wedding!" Well, I wished them a good evening, good luck, and all, and took off. I'd never expected my friend to do anything so rash. I had been giving him his space, plenty of room and time to grow into a relationship with me. What an idiot I was! I was stung by how wrong I'd been about him and hurt intensely at losing him to a very nice young man. Nice. Hell, Quatre Winner was an incredible catch. Over the next few weeks, I got to know Quatre well and liked him more and more. I mean, I hated him on principle, but it wasn't his fault that Heero favored him over me. If I hadn't been in love with Heero myself, I would have been thrilled for the both of them. I felt the pain deeply, but hid it well. Such then was the state of affairs when an old acquaintance of Heero's burst on the scene. Quatre and I had met for lunch, and since it was such a fine day we ate in the park a short walk from Chang Clothiers, where Heero and I were employed. We were enjoying our reprieve from the stuffy indoors and customers, his were hotel folks at the Ritz, where not only did he reside but he worked in some level of management. It had turned out that his family owned the Ritz and several other hotel businesses, which alone wasn't a surprise, but that he actually worked was. My admiration for Quatre had grown enormously. I also hated him, but that was all about my obsession for Heero and had nothing to do with anything Quatre did. Love, hate... I walked a fine line and it wasn't a rigid one. "There's Heero!" Quatre pointed out by waving his sandwich in the general direction he wanted me to look. I ducked some flying coleslaw. "So it is," I mumbled with my mouth full. Heero spotted us and broke into a run. I could tell he was excited, a thing which was unusual in this self-possessed friend of mine. "Good news!" Heero greeted us. "I have exciting news!" I cringed, sorry to say. No news was good news, when it came from his lips, I'd come to learn. "Oh?" "Barton's back! Quatre, you'll love him. He's an explorer." To Quatre's blank look I explained, "Trowa Barton is one of Heero's best friends. A school chum." "Oh!" Quatre recovered nicely and smiled brilliantly. "I can't wait to meet him." "And you will!" cried Heero. "He's... amazing! The best! He landed yesterday. Just home from Central Africa. He's an explorer," he said smiling back. "Goes where no man has dared to go." I said this seriously. "An explorer!" I heard Quatre breathe, as if to himself. I was not so impressed as he was. Explorers were one thing; Barton was more of a mercenary than anything. Have money, will work. It has always seemed to me that the difficulties of his life had been greatly exaggerated-generally in the telling by Barton. Try making a go of it day in and day out in an ordinary sort of way-that's hard work! Such was my thinking; however, we are not all constituted alike in this world, and it was apparent from the flush on his cheek and the light in his eyes that Quatre admired explorers. "I called him back at once," went on Heero, "and insisted on his coming down here and staying. It's been two years since I last saw him. You don't know how I have looked forward, Quatre, to you and Trowa meeting. He is just your sort. I know how romantic you are and interested in adventure and all. You should hear Trowa tell his stories about taming the lions... and the tiger attack!" "I should love to!" whispered Quatre, his eyes glowing. I suppose to an impressionable young man locked away in the desert, with only the shifting of the sands for amusement, those things really might be of absorbing interest. "When do you expect him?" I asked. "Tomorrow afternoon, he said." "I'll bet he'll be surprised to hear that you're engaged," I said. I assumed Barton was also in love with Heero from the way Heero talked about him way too much and was hoping for a little one-on-one time-alone. Well, good luck with that! The line starts after blondie... and me. Heero beamed, such as he could. "Yes. He's such a confirmed bachelor himself. He told me once that he considered the wisest thing ever said by human tongue was an old gypsy proverb: 'He who takes a mate into the tent, lands himself in the circus.'" Heero frowned. "Something like that. You must get Barton to give it to you in the original; it sounds even better." I watched as Heero checked the time, and, seeing as it was time to return to the shop, marshal himself, reining in his excitement, and returning to his serious demeanor. In contrast, I saw Quatre's eyes flash, and there came into his face that peculiar set expression which men knew, men like me who'd been passed up, booted out, and broken up with. A challenge to be met. I thought about what was to come all the way back to the clothing shop, and one thought led to another, giving me material for thought to last me all day and into the silent watches of the night. I was fond of Heero Yuy. Despite everything. Very fond. I could see trouble ahead for him as plainly as though I had been a palm-reader, thinking still of gypsies and rough-edged rovers. As wise as the proverb Heero had translated from the gypsies, wiser still was the quaint old one that I made up: "Never introduce your fiancé to a buddy." In those seven words is contained the wisdom of the ages. I could read the future so plainly. What but one thing could happen after Heero had stirred up Quatre's imagination with his stories of his friend's romantic career, and added the finishing touch by advertising him as a one to avoid relationships? He might just as well have asked for his ring back at once. My heart bled for Heero. (o) I happened to call at Heero's apartment on the second evening of Barton's visit, and already the mischief had been done. Trowa Barton was one of those lean, sun-bronzed men with smoldering eyes-well, one eye, the other was veiled by a playful fall of brown hair. He looked what he was, the man of action and enterprise. He had the wiry frame and strong jaw that completed the explorer look, and Heero beside him seemed but a poor, soft product of our central-heating and air-conditioning civilization. Heero, I should mention, was part Japanese with a disorderly mop of dark hair and sometimes reading glasses lending him a geeky look. If there is one time more than another when a man should not wear glasses, it is while a strong-faced, keen-eyed wanderer in the wilds is telling a privileged, impressionable young man of his adventures. For this was what Barton was doing. My arrival seemed to have interrupted him in the middle of narrative. He shook my hand in a strong, silent sort of way, and resumed: "This time I was there to collect a few rare animals. The natives seemed fairly friendly, so I decided to stay the night." I made a mental note never to be even the least bit friendly to explorers lest they decide to stay the night. I watched my friends' faces. Heero seemed torn between studying a weapons catalogue and listening to Trowa's tale; the catalogue winning out. Quatre looked... transported. I missed most of the story, being more concerned about the emotional turmoil. If Heero had a magnetic field, compared to Trowa's at that moment, it was very, very weak. "-I'd set out my traps and waited. Sure enough, a tiger full on a thousand pounds lay tangled in one the next day." "And what did you do then, Mr. Barton?" asked Quatre, breathlessly. "What? Oh," he answered carelessly, "I shot it with a sedative and hauled it back to the jeep." "Alone?!" "Yes. It's a matter of geometry, leverage, tipping it up and rocking it just so...walking it back and forth." "But how dreadfully dangerous!" "Danger?" Trowa Barton chuckled lightly. "That's the job. I do what's necessary, but there's always a few risks. Talking of danger, it was like this-" I could bear no more. I made some excuse and got away. From the expression on Quatre's face, I could see that it was only a question of days before he gave his heart to this romantic newcomer. And Heero, poor Heero, seemed so unprepared. On the plus side, if there was one, Trowa seemed more enamored of Heero's fiancé than of Heero. (o) On the following afternoon, Quatre called me and told me that the worst had happened. I hadn't known him long and was surprised that he confided in me. "You're my best friend here in town," he said, sniffling. "I have no one to talk to about this!" Well, damn. How could I refuse? I invited him to meet me in the park in half an hour, but he wanted to be unseen so we agreed on my apartment. I found another salesman to cover for me before taking off from work, and headed out. "I want your advice," he said. "I'm just wretched." He wiped at his eyes, but managed to control the flood of tears threatening to burst forth. I did my best to calm him by describing my last winning series of shots at Arnie's Pool hall. Tranquility won out. My tale seemed to do the trick, drying him up. He yawned once or twice and looked me directly in the eyes. "I love Trowa Barton," he declared. "Ah," I said, switching gears like the quick-witted man I was. "I feared as much." "It zeroed in on me like a...a... beam cannon last night after dinner. I was at Heero's. Trowa's staying there, you know." I knew. "We were walking in the patio, around the pool in the complex common area. A very nice place." I knew that, too, being an old friend of Heero's and having joined him for a swim there on occasion. Heero taught me how to swim, in fact, and I started to reminisce about his hands on me... "-then suddenly," Quatre's eyes went large and glassy, "I felt giddy and found myself in his arms, pressed up against his-" "Close, huh?" I interrupted his careful account of the romantic encounter. I did not want to hear the details. My imagination could do that just fine on its own. "Very. He told me how he felt and kissed me. I kissed him. We-" "Kissed, yeah. Gotcha. So, where was 'Ro all this time?" I wondered. "Indoors, cleaning his gun collection or cataloguing it. One or the other." Of course. Where else? I sighed. For a moment, I confess, I was inclined to abandon Heero's cause. A man, I felt, who could stay indoors polishing and cataloguing guns while his fiancé wandered in the moonlight with explorers deserved all that was coming to him. I sighed again. I loved the blockhead. I could do this for him. I pulled myself together and overcame the feeling to leave him in the lurch. "Have you told him?" I asked. "Of course not!" "You don't think it might be of interest to 'Ro?" "How can I tell him?" Quatre moaned. "It would break his heart. I am awfully...fond... of Heero. So is Trowa. We both would rather die than hurt Heero!" Too late for that, I thought to myself. The man should have drowned himself in the pool and saved us all a lot of trouble, seemed to me. "Trowa is the soul of honor!" Eh? I thought that was going too far, but then, Quatre hadn't met the clothing shop's owner, Chang "For the Honor!" Wufei, so I excused that excess. "He agrees with me that Heero must never know." "Then you aren't going to break off your engagement?" My feelings were at war. I was angry at Quatre and the oh-so-honorable Trowa, sorry for Heero, and yet... a spark of optimism was warming inside me too. "I couldn't," Quatre said. "Trowa feels the same. He says that, unless something can be done, he will say goodbye to me and fly away to some far, distant land, and there, in the great stillness, broken only by the howls of the prowling jaguar, try to forget." Well, gag. But then that earlier tiny spark kindled another idea. "When you say 'unless something can be done,' what do you mean? What can be done?" I prodded. "I thought you might have something to suggest." I sensed a twinge of frustration in his tone, like I was letting him down, or something. I shrugged my shoulders as if to say: "You dug your hole, find a shovel, bud." Quatre seemed determined to make it my problem. "Don't you think it possible that somehow Heero might take it into his head to break the engagement himself?" "That's unlikely. He is devoted to you (sadly, for me)." Quatre sighed wistfully. "I'm afraid so. Only the other day I dropped one of his prize pistols and jammed the trigger, and he just smiled and said it didn't matter." Like hell it didn't, I thought to myself. "Yes, I can do you one better. The other day he asked me to play tennis with him, secretly, to get better." "Tennis?! But he detests tennis." "Exactly. But he's going to learn it for your sake." "Oh, dear." Quatre looked weepy again. "I am not worthy of him." No, indeed. His words ignited a useful idea in me, though. "Suppose," I said, "we could convince 'Ro of that... unworthiness." "What do you mean?" Of course, we could just tell him the truth and then Heero would know exactly how unworthy he was, but that might be cruel, too cruel for me. "I mean, for instance, he could be made to believe that you were... a dipsomaniac." "Oh, but I am and he's all right with my walking in my sleep." "I meant an alcoholic." "I don't drink! Not at all! It's against my religion and I won't pretend I do!" But cheating on your boyfriend is acceptable? Got it. "Drugs?" I suggested. "No. He hates drugs and we made clear from the beginning that neither of had any part of it. He wouldn't believe I could keep that secret. There must be something else." "I have it!" I said. "A kleptomaniac!" "Stealing things? That's terrible." "But not out of the question or out of character." Since you've stolen his heart... I was sure this would do the trick. Heero once took some auto parts from me and we had a big row over it. He only borrowed them out of desperation, he claimed, not stole. I wasn't available to ask and he needed them immediately, so he borrowed. He'd left me a note, which I never found, but he was certain he had. He was adamant about that. Stealing was very wrong in his book. "You don't know you do it," I assured Quatre. "Then how can I tell him I do it?" Quatre asked, being a thoughtful sort and reasonably doubtful. "You don't tell him. I will tell him. I will inform him tomorrow that you came over and when you'd gone I discovered you'd taken my..." I glanced around the room. "my lighter." I never used it, since I didn't smoke, but it was a gift from Heero and that made it a treasure. He thought I might want to "light a candle", or something. "It's shaped like a gun," he noted with a frown. "I'd rather have your notebook. Here. It's small and fits in my jacket pocket." "You don't get either!" I snapped my electronic notebook out of his hands. "I merely tell him you stole the lighter." "He won't believe you." It was my turn to sigh. "Right. What he will do is insist on confronting me with you and ask you to deny my charge." "And then I am to admit I stole the notebook-?" "-lighter. Yes." "-lighter- oh, that's right- and then I release him from his engagement." He sat a while in silence while I hid my notebook away in another room, just in case. I did start to wonder if this is going to hurt Heero very badly. Would Heero be sad and lonely and lose all faith in humanity? Maybe it would be better for him to know the truth? But being cheated on was worse, certainly! Wasn't it? I decided pretty much it was and when I returned, I could tell my words had made an impression. "I think it's a splendid idea, Duo! Thank you very much." He rose and moved to the door. "I knew you would suggest something wonderful." He hesitated. "You don't think it would make it sound more plausible if I really took the... now where did that notebook go?" "It would spoil everything," I told him, firmly. His eyes dropped to the floor. That, however did not worry me. The carpeting was nailed down. "Well, goodbye, then," he said at last. "You bet," I replied. "I will see Heero tomorrow morning at the tennis court, so expect us at the Ritz around lunchtime?" (o) Heero was, as usual, punctual, arriving exactly on time. He made a face at my all-white ensemble and tugged at his own short-shorts. "Hate these." "Well, spandex biking shorts are a no-no courtside. Sorry." "Hn." "Let's start with the serve..." Sometime later he surveyed his blistered hands with somber disgust. "It's no good," he said. "I'll never like this game. And I don't want to either." "Hey, buddy, you're really good at it!" He was and I wanted to encourage him, but my words just seemed to make him angrier. "I may be, but I hate it. It... it's so... stupid! Hitting a rotten little ball with an out-sized fly-swatter! If I want exercise, I'll hunt. There's something in that! There's no use wasting any more of the day out here." "All right." I wasn't a big tennis fan myself and was glad to change venues. "I meant to keep it a secret from Quatre and get good enough to partner him for some idiotic doubles match he's keen on. I tried to like his favorite sport. Let's go to the Ritz and let him know it's just not going well. He may as well find out now how -" He had given me my cue. I put my hand on his shoulder and spoke as sorrowfully as I could muster. "'Ro, I'm sorry, but speaking of Quat, I've got some bad news for you." "Cat? What news? Oh, about Quatre, you mean?" "Prepare yourself for a shock, 'Ro, my pal. Yesterday afternoon, Quatre stopped by to see me and when he had gone I found that he'd pinched my notebuuu...blast it... my lighter. The silver one you gave me!" "Stolen your blasted lighter? Quatre?" "Yes. The one you'd given me for my birthday last year." "Oh, well, that's... intolerable," said Heero, but in a voice so low it didn't register until I'd gone on with the rant I'd prepared. "Just think of it!" I went on to paint an ugly picture of their future together. "One day it's my lighter, the next... something from our shop! Maybe Chang will have you arrested as an accomplice!" "Would he do that? Chang?" This seemed to really disturb him. Good. Time to shake things up a little. "Our boss could. But that's not important. You'll lose your job; he'll end up in prison, or tie up all your money in the court system, or...or...worse yet, force you to have to sell your gun collection to pay the costs! I'm talking about Quatre, man! The poor dude can't help himself. That's what it's like with those crazy impulses, though. It's a compulsion to steal whether he needs the stuff or not." "Yes, I see. Do you think... that it draws us closer?" He touched my arm in such a tender way I nearly crushed him in my grasp and told him I loved him. But of course, there was no way this could have brought him and me closer together. He meant Quatre and himself, not him and me. I was touched by the sentiment. Heero was pure gold and loyal to a fault. I could imagine him envisioning their future chained together, breaking rocks, or digging ditches with the other inmates. Some stupid thing. He might even think of that in some way as a romantic outcome! "Being jailed would be a poor way to start your lives together, I'd think," I said. Holding back my own heartache, made me more aware of that of the others. Poor Quatre! If I didn't step in and do something fast, that poor guy would be staring down years of a bleak future, parted forever from the man he loved, never to enjoy his favorite sport with his life mate... watching the gun collection grow and grow... Poor Trowa! He had already booked his passage for Africa, or so he claimed, and spent hours looking in the atlas for deserted islands on which to lose himself. And what of me?! How would I ever get a chance for happiness? Damn if I knew if I would, but I doubted I would taking the dishonest way. I despised lies. This was all wrong. I couldn't bear deceiving Heero in this way. Just look at him, wracked with turmoil! I plunged my hand into my jacket pocket and rummaged around until I located what I hoped I'd hidden away there, out of Quatre's reach. "Say! What have I got in my pocket?" His face turned from stricken to geeky-bemused. "A gold ring?" "No!" I didn't think him very funny at all. "My lighter! I must have misplaced it. Oh, I am really sorry, 'Ro, for accusing Quatre of stealing. Really! He'd been looking at it and I just assumed. Shit, I feel awful, I mean, falsely accusing-" "It's all right, Duo. Don't give it another thought. I mean that. Forget it. I already have." I felt better, not great, but honest, anyway on my walk back home. Maybe Quatre and Trowa's mutual infatuation would get old and fade? Then it would be a good thing that Heero didn't go and break things off over a lie. He'd have me to thank. Idiot that I am. (o) In the fervor of human affairs, there comes at last the crisis. We may emerge from it healed or we may plunge into still deeper depths of soul-sickness; but always the crisis comes (Thank you, Mr. Wodehouse, for putting this spot on). I was privileged to be present two days later when it came in the affairs of Heero Yuy and Quatre Winner to be sure. After dinner, Trowa had headed out to purchase a few necessities before his leave-taking in a short, but as yet unspecified, to me, at least, time. I was stretched out on the couch, half listening to the sports show on the TV and half eavesdropping on Quatre and Heero's conversation. Heero was leaning over his kitchen table, pouring over plans and diagrams. All concerns for Klepto-Quat were completely swept from his mind and replaced by new more neurotic ones. "You see, I can turn the whole guest room into the additional storage space I need. I knew I'd done the right thing when I bought out the Merquise collection!" Quatre stamped his foot. "Heero," he said, tensely, "I want to ask you one question." Heero kept one finger on the blueprint and looked up. "Yes? You think I can add one more level with a rolling ladder?" Quatre looked at him steadily. "Are we engaged, or are we not?" "Engaged? Oh, to be married? Why of course. I tried figuring out the corner, but, what do you think, if it was on a curve-?" "This morning you promised to take me for a ride and play tennis at that new club. You never appeared. Where were you?" "The EBAY auction was closing. I was here making certain I got in the last bid on the Merquise gun collection." "Guns! I'm sick of the very word!" A spasm shook Heero. "Hn." "I'll give you one more chance. Will you take me for a drive this evening? We'll have to put off the tennis for another day." "I can't." "Why not? What are you doing?" "I have a contractor on the way to make these changes. Like I told you." "I'm tired of being neglected like this!" Quatre cried out. He stamped his foot again. I did see his point. It was bad enough for Quatre being engaged to the wrong man, one that I was head-over-heels for, but then to be treated as a mere acquaintance. Quatre's conscience kept him true to Heero, while fighting his love for the "soon to be gone yet still skulking around" explorer. Heero accepted the sacrifice with an absent-minded carelessness which would have been galling to anyone-he probably wasn't even aware of how close he was to losing Quatre! "We might as well not be engaged at all. You never take me anywhere!" Quatre summed it up clear enough for even a social dolt like Heero to comprehend the importance of the moment. "I asked you to come with me to the county gun show," Heero shot back, gamely. "I'm not interested in guns! Why don't you take me dancing?" Quatre cried out. "I can't really dance." "You. Could. Learn." "I did try tennis, but the shorts... I'm certain dancing requires particular clothes I'd hate, too." "But you work for a clothier! Don't you love what you do? Don't you like clothes?!" "Well, yeah. I do like buying them, but only for others to wear. I like these." He picked at his green tank top which he wore at home with his ever-present bike shorts, not that I minded the show... "Heero! Stop! My mind's made up. You must choose between gun collecting and me." This was a momentous occasion, and I felt I shouldn't be present. But what was I to do? I was sure they'd forgotten me, sunk into the couch, so I continued to lie still, fake sleeping, and listened for Heero's reply. "But, um, I just bought the entire collection of Zechs Merquise! The former Prince of Sanc! You can't expect me to give up collecting when I'm at the top of my game." Oh, Heero... he just did, bro'. Quatre's sigh filled the room with angst. "Very well. I have nothing more to say. Our engagement is at an end." "You're breaking up over this? I'll be miserable... who'll help me choose wood stains?" Quatre Winner snorted, which I thought was out of character. "Here is your ring," he announced, and swept from the room. (o) I stretched and yawned, making a big deal of reappearing. For a moment after Quatre had gone, Heero stood very still, pale and drawn, looking at the glistening circle in his hand. "Bear up, 'Ro," I said trying to encourage him. He looked at me piteously. "I'd pictured me in my chair, babies littering the floor, dinner warming in the kitchen, and now-" "Babies?" I wondered at that. I'd often mentioned wanting children in my life, at some time, but this was the first I'd ever heard of it from him. "And yet-" he said, pausing as he thought. An odd, bright look had come into his eyes. His face returned to its natural golden complexion, and he seemed his old self again. "And yet, who knows? They might have all turned out to be tennis players!" He smiled at me. Way to rally back! I was relieved that Heero was not devastated. I should have been the least bit suspicious. (o) Quatre and Trowa were very happily married soon after and very happily settled at the Ritz, with their honeymoon taken in some exotic locale. Guess Trowa, Explorer Extraordinaire, sold out to the Hotel Hottie. Heero was free and not deeply troubled by the past events, not down in the dumps, moldering in his failed relationship or drowning in a pool of blood from a broken heart. I should have been happy; at least, relieved! But I wasn't. In a way, my problem hadn't gone away. Even though being in love with my best friend wasn't the heart-stopping problem I thought it was now that I wasn't sharing him with a fiancé, it was still unresolved. Heero's magnetic field seemed intact, drawing me in as strong as ever-and I was the only one aware of it. Ha! The joke was on me. What happened next, I did not see coming. Heero knew about my affliction, as I'd come to think of my love for him! I learned of this at a nice little coffee shop over coffee, spilled coffee. "I like you, too, just so you know," he said. "TOO?!" I'd been shocked and dropped the entire damned cup on the table, drenching Heero's croissant and nearly staining my slacks. "Then you don't deny it?" he asked with a sly smile. "EH?!" When did Heero learn sly? "I didn't believe him at first," Heero was rattling on. (Imagine him doing all the talking for a change and you'll see why I was still in shock.) "HIM?" The "him" Heero spoke of was Quatre. Thinking he'd do me a good turn- I could only assume this- Quatre had told Heero I loved him and if he knew a good thing when he came across it he should stick with me. How had Quatre uncovered my secret? And for how long had Heero known? "He said he could tell the day I introduced the two of you- how you felt, that is." "He could, could he?!" I found my voice at last. Jesus Christ! I hadn't even known whether or not Heero might be gay! "There was no way he could have guessed that about me." "That's what I told him!" Heero said, pleased. "I told him nothing had ever come of the moves I'd made on you, so the plan probably wouldn't work. You and I were just going to go on being friends-" "What wouldn't work? Say w-what? Hold on there, buddy." If I wasn't careful, something important was going to get past me here. "Moves? What moves did you ever make on me?" "Remember the swim lessons? I couldn't keep my hands off of you." Well... damn. "I thought that was just my over-active imagination," I muttered. He continued to itemize other small moments throughout the last few years of our acquaintance which had meant mountains to him and clearly passed me by. I was looking for grand events and missed his subtle ways. "When I saw how perfect Trowa and Quatre were together, I was sure you did too and would do something," Heero said. "Save me from a life of loneliness, or something." "I did! I stayed out of it. I thought it would work out." I'd hoped it would. "I wanted you to be happy. God, Heero. What's going on?" He sighed in a very irritating Quatre-like way. "Start at the beginning," I suggested. "In the beginning, God made..." Heero paused to smile at me. I may have detected a drop of shame in his expression. "Sorry." Funny guy. "Your first meeting Quatre would do." "All right. I met Quatre while on that buying trip to the Middle East." "I figured out that part. Go on." "One of the factories was owned by the Winners. He was finishing up his internship there, and offered to show me around." "You can skip the talk of business and get to the part where he romanced you under the moonlight with waving palm trees-" "It wasn't like that!" Heero insisted, his tone hurt. "There were sand dunes and we took a jeep to a nomadic tent and had tea." "-then he basically jumped you and you decided it was true love forever," I summarized to get it over with. "It must have been the highlight of your trip." "Who's telling this story?" he asked me. I waved him forward, conversation-wise. "Go on." "We got to talking about our lonely lives, his due to isolation in a wasteland of heterosexual males and a plethora of sisters, and mine due to-" he gazed over into my eyes meaningfully, "-my inability to get anywhere with you." "Well." I stopped at that, not knowing where to take it. "Like I said, he was finishing his internship at the cotton factory and eager to-" "-get the hell out of Dodge. Right." "Pretty much," Heero agreed. "I told him I had a great friend, just his type, and promised to hook them up if only he could come up with a scheme for me to follow to get your attention." "You're telling me Quatre came up with the idea of you bringing home a fiancé?" "A boyfriend. I came up with the fiancé part, a mistake. I went too far there, I see that, but after calling you to say I'd met someone and not getting much of a reaction, I thought it needed more punch when we met next." Punch to the gut. "The idea was for you to see me as a potential...something in your life. That if someone as grand as Quatre Winner saw something attractive about me, so might you." I might have groaned. "And naturally Trowa was game to meet the heir to the Winner billions, and so he came on cue to sweep Quatre off his feet." "He was doing me a good turn," Heero attempted to remind me, but I was no fan of Barton, so it did no good. "Which was all going spot on. You were supposed to swoop in and claim my mildly damaged heart, but you couldn't leave Quatre the fall guy for long." "That's right. Nice guy that I am, I refused to cooperate in what amounted to a big lie." "A very, very nice guy who I'm sure is too good for me." "Not too good, just a bit dense. God, 'Ro, I've been drooling over you ever since the day I met you." He may have gone misty-eyed at that. "You were so good to come over and see my collection." "Stupid me," I laughed. "I thought, man, I'd hoped it was a come on, a heavy-handed one, but it turned out that all you really wanted to do was show me your shiny guns." "For a start!" Heero frowned a little. "I had more thought out." I sighed, remembering. "Guess I didn't give you much of a chance to do more." "Not after you shot me, no." "That was just an accident, you know!" "Oh, I know. I forgave you and everything." He smiled at me and reached across the napkin-littered table to reach my hand. "You still up for teaching me pool?" (o) After that things fell into place for us. Heero took to the geometry of pool once he put his mind to it, and, although I wasn't the biggest fan of gun collecting, there was something about co-owning the gun collection of the former Prince of Sanc that launched my rockets. But all that was nothing to sharing our first kiss. Nothing. Magnetic fields merged and everything. Happy Valentine's Day! The End.
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