"Meditations on the Colour Blue"

Written By: Waterliliylf

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing. All rights remain with Bandai, Sotsu and associated parties. No profit being made here.

Rating: NC 17

Warnings: Sap, angst, fluff

Pairings: Wufei/Zechs get together. Background 1x2, 3x4

Summary: When Wufei takes a sabbatical to finish his new book, his aim to write loses focus due to noisy neighbours...but is that such a bad thing when one of them happens to be a handsome prince?

"Meditations on the Colour Blue"

 

Chapter 5:

'This is beautiful! I never imagined it would look anything like this.'

Wufei was stood stock still as they rounded the corner of the marina and walked out on to the beach, seemingly transfixed by the long, lovely curve of white-gold that stretched in front of them.

It was a view Zechs loved; one he saw from his bedroom window first thing every morning and last thing at night, but for once it failed to hold his attention. Not when he was similarly transfixed by the lovely curve of Wufei's ass, when it wasn't hidden by those hideous, sloppy linen trousers. The things were more like pyjamas than anything else; definitely not garments that should ever be worn in public.

Or in private, come to that, he decided, wondering what Wufei wore in bed. Nothing, hopefully.

It had taken time to convince him that he'd be more cool and comfortable if he borrowed a pair of shorts; not Zechs', which would have been swimming on him and negated the point of the whole exercise, but a pair of Duo's. It had been time well spent, though. He'd seen Wufei's bottom with those deliciously small, wet black briefs clinging to it, and there was simply no excuse for keeping anything that perfect under wraps. Still; he'd only arrived the night before; he probably hadn't got around to unpacking most of his clothes yet.

'Didn't Quatre send you any photographs?' Zechs asked, surprised that anyone would come to one of the most famous coastlines in Southern Europe and not have any idea what it would look like.

Wufei shrugged uncertainly. 'I think he did. I didn't pay much attention.' He bent and unlaced his trainers, looping them carefully around his neck and wiggling his toes in the soft sand, scooping up a handful and letting it fall through his fingers.

'Oh! That feels so good!'

From anyone else, Zechs would have taken that as a pick up line, but Wufei seemed genuinely enthralled by the soft grains of sand against his skin.

He was so refreshing; the perfect antidote to all those young men who fawned over Zechs for his title and his looks. Not that he hadn't taken advantage on occasion, particularly in the first year after Treize had left. It had palled soon enough, though; the endless parade of men who saw him as a way to get their pictures published in a trashy magazine, or as a passport to instant celebrity.

Wufei would never be like that; he'd probably run a mile sooner than allow a stranger to photograph him.

It was so very refreshing, being with someone who didn't seem to care who he was. And Wufei obviously didn't; he'd been spitting mad and utterly enchanting the previous night, with his complaints about the loud music.

Such a shame that he'd bolted so soon.

He was nothing at all like the retiring young man Quatre had described. His friend's emails had made Wufei out to be solitary to the point of being reclusive; socially awkward, and totally driven by his work. Zechs had promised to check on his new neighbour, and Quatre had warned that Wufei had an urgent deadline to meet, and interruptions probably wouldn't be welcome.

Still, the two had only met a couple of times, and Wufei had probably been uncomfortable around his ex's new lover. That would have been a horribly awkward situation, Zechs imagined. At least, Treize had never put him through something like that.

The Chinese man was a little shy, certainly, but he'd plainly enjoyed Duo's company, and he'd been fairly unfazed by Heero.

'I don't think I've ever been on a beach like this before. The coastline near home is all rocks.'

'Never? Didn't you go to the seaside when you were a child?'

'My parents never really had time. As far as they were concerned, the school holidays were for extra study.'

'Holidays are for having fun,' Zechs said firmly. 'And, yes, I know you're here to work and all that, but no one with the best will in the world can work twenty four hours a day.'

'Perhaps not,' Wufei graced him with a small, soft smile. 'It's so beautiful here. And so quiet. I can't believe it's so empty.'

Zechs laughed, leading the way down the beach. 'It is now, because it's early April. Wait 'til July and August. It gets horribly crowded. Even then, you can walk a mile or so up the coast and find somewhere fairly secluded. A lot of people like to stay near the marina, where the bars and restaurants are. It's also 'clothing optional' the farther you go from the road.'

'Honestly? It's a nudist beach?'

'Only if you want to strip off.' And he found himself really, really hoping Wufei would. 'It's not compulsory.' He smiled. 'Southern Europeans tend to be much more unselfconscious about that sort of thing. Most women go topless on the beach, and some men…' he smiled, 'like to go bottomless.'

Wufei blushed; charmingly, Zechs thought. 'Have you ever done that?'

'On occasion, yes. You should try it sometime.'

His companion shook his head firmly. 'Certainly not. My family would have collective coronaries if they even suspected I'd done such a thing.'

'Well, they'd never know,' Zechs tempted.

'My ancestors would!'

Hmm. Interesting that it wasn't a personal objection as such. 'If you ever do fancy it, there are some very secluded little spots along the coast that we go to sometimes. You needn't worry about an audience watching you.' Well, only an enthralled audience of one. 'Heero would never let Duo strip off in public, so we know some places that aren't generally visited.'

'Heero does seem to be slightly possessive.'

Zechs, who occasionally suffered from that particular vice himself, nodded. 'Saying Heero is slightly possessive is rather like saying that the Pope is slightly Catholic.' Or that you're only slightly beautiful. 'Heero is very, very possessive. Believe it or not, he's become a lot more restrained than he used to be. Duo's taught him how to relax a great deal.'

And I could teach you how to relax. If you'd let me.

Wufei nodded, bending to pick up a small shell and examine it like it was something precious.

'May I see?'

'Of course. It's so perfect! I'll have to get a book on shells. I really know nothing about nature, I'm afraid.'

'You can borrow one from Heero. I don't know if anyone mentioned it, but he's a marine biologist; he's got a whole library of nature books.'

'I would like that.' Wufei placed the shell, very carefully, in his pocket, and Zechs couldn't resist taking his hand.

'Zechs!' The Chinese man gasped, glancing quickly around to check that there was no one watching them. There wasn't; there were a few other people on the beach, but the elderly couple by the water's edge were engrossed in throwing sticks for their golden retriever, and the young couple climbing the sand dunes were engrossed in each other.

'It's all right,' Zechs murmured. 'I promise, no one will even bat an eyelid. I've seen guys doing much more than holding hands on this particular stretch of beach.'

'I've never done anything like this before,' Wufei confided softly, 'held hands with someone on a beach.'

'Do you like it?'

'It's….acceptable. Rather nice actually.' His smaller fingers curled around Zechs' hand. 'You do seem to have Duo's gift for relaxing people. Well, me anyway. Zechs, was he serious about taking me out in his boat tomorrow?'

'Absolutely. If Duo says something, he means it. You'll find that out when you get to know him. Will you go?'

'I shouldn't really.' He looked rather wistful all the same. 'I'm supposed to be working. That's the reason I came here?'

'Do you always do what you're supposed to? Don't you ever want to do something purely selfish?'

'Yes to your first question, much of the time. But I do indulge myself occasionally.' He squeezed Zechs' hand slightly.

'Am I an indulgence?' He couldn't remember the last time he'd talked, flirted so naturally with another man. Wufei quite obviously didn't care about the fact that was distantly related to half of the royal families of Europe, or graced the social pages of newspapers on a fairly regular basis. Wufei was talking to him, not to a title, and it made the conversation more intimate than many discussions he'd had with men he'd dated for weeks on end.

'Oh, yes.' The look from those dark eyes was very direct. There would be no games with Wufei; just candour and honesty. How the hell had Trowa, who'd seemed like a sensible, intelligent person, ever been fool enough to let this one go?

'Good. Now we've established my place in your life, will you permit me to indulge you a little more?'

Wufei hesitated for a moment, and then he was the one to step forward. Zechs could taste the salt-spray on his skin, on his lips. The heat of his mouth compared to the cool breeze from the sea. This time, he kissed Wufei to the soft sounds of the lapping waves, and a seagull shrieking high overhead.

There was no shyness either. Wufei threw his head back so Zechs could press kisses down the sweet curve of his throat, and let both hands roam over Zechs' back, and just melted against the taller man.

Barton, you're an idiot. Thank you.

'If you keep indulging me like that, I'm going to be very spoilt.'

'Oh, I imagine I will. You'll just have to get used to it.' Zechs kissed him again, taking advantage of the other man's distraction to slide one hand through all that silky, jet-black hair, and slip off the little elastic.

'Zechs! It's far too windy for my hair to be loose,' he scolded, adroitly taking back the tie and securing his hair. It was well worth the rebuke to have seen him like that, though, even for a minute, with that hair whipping around his face. He looked so different with it loose; nothing like the prim and proper professor he obviously tried so hard to be, but quite deliciously wanton.

Such lovely hair; it would look beautiful spread around him on a pillow….

'You are utterly adorable, do you know that?'

'I'm nothing of the sort!

'Oh yes, you are. Really, Wufei, don't you know that you should encourage compliments from your boyfriend, not dismiss them?'

'Are you my boyfriend?'

Zechs gave him a stern look. 'Well, I don't know anything about your personal standards, but I don't make a habit of holding the hands of random strangers in public. Or kissing them for that matter.'

Wufei laughed at him, those gloriously dark eyes gleaming. 'Neither do I, actually.'

'I'm very glad to hear it.' Zechs took his hand again, and led him along the beach. 'Since that seems to make us officially a couple, I'd better warn you; I have slight tendencies in the possessive direction myself. Nothing as severe as Heero, mind you.'

'How severe are slight possessive tendencies?' Wufei wondered aloud. He was smiling faintly, though, as if he didn't wholly dislike the idea.

'Very mild, actually. I would take exception to any other man blatantly hitting on you in my presence. And I would very much dislike seeing you encourage them.'

It had been one of Treize's favourite power games; that overt flirting in public with anything that moved. Particularly if they'd had a disagreement over something; a good way to put Zechss in his place and show him that his lover had plenty of other options.

'I would never permit such a thing!' Wufei sounded affronted at the very idea of it. 'I don't call that possessiveness, really. Or if it is, it's something I suffer from also. I'd hate to see you flirting with someone else,' he said frankly. 'It would be disrespectful!'

It was an admission that took Zechs' breath away; the sheer openness of it. The young man whose hand he was holding - whose hand he had no intention of letting go - might be a little reserved, but he was achingly honest about what he wanted. This relationship was going to be based on sheer trust.

'I promise, that would never happen. I can't imagine even noticing anyone else if I were in your company. I certainly wouldn't want to be with them.'

'Really?' Wufei was gazing up at him with the most heartbreakingly hopeful expression on his face. Dear Gods, what had Barton been about; not to have showered this beauty with reassurances and compliments?

'Really.' He took a deep breath, trying to work out how best to say what he had to. 'Wufei, I haven't exactly been celibate in my life, but I have always been faithful to my partners. Always.'

Wufei just nodded; Zechs would have missed that tiny gleam of relief if he hadn't been watching him closely. What did that mean; that someone had cheated on him in the past? Surely not Barton; Quatre would never want to be with someone who had treated a partner so shabbily.

'Would you like to sit for a moment? I love the view from here.' They both sank down on to the warm sand, not touching apart from that light clasp of hands.

'This always my favourite place when I was a child. We used to come here for holidays every summer; Relena and I used to live in bathing suits for days at a time.'

'She's your sister?'

Zechs nodded. 'She's four years younger, but we've always been very close. Tell me about your family. Do you have brothers and sisters?'

Wufei shook his head. 'I'm an only child. My parents found bringing up one son to be time consuming enough. They're both doctors and very focussed on their careers. I was brought up to believe that academic success was the most important thing in the world.' He hunched one shoulder. 'Doing well at school was about the only thing that got their attention, let alone their approval. I'm afraid I was a terrible swot as a child.'

'It sounds a rather….unappealing existence for a small boy.' Zechs chose his words carefully. He couldn't very well start to criticise his boyfriend's parents, but his childhood sounded appalling.

'Oh, it wasn't that bad. I was a bookworm anyway. And I have a huge extended family; practically a clan of its own, so I did have plenty of companions. My second cousin, Meilan, is exactly my age, and she's always been something of a rebel. On the rare occasions when I did get into trouble, she was usually the cause of it.'

'I think I like the sound of her,' Zechs approved, eyes sparkling. 'Tell me, how did she lead you astray?'

'Use your imagination,' Wufei groaned, sinking down on to the sand. 'When we were twelve, we stole a bottle of her father's best brandy and drank it all; at fifteen, we went joyriding in her neighbour's vintage Mercedes; We were terrible, really. She was always thinking of the most outrageous things for us to do.'

'Hmm. I like the idea of you doing outrageous things. Are you two still friends?'

'Oh, yes. I don't see her very much though. She studied Geology and she's working in Australia now. We phone every week or so.' He draw a small pattern in the sand with one finger; Chinese characters that Zechs couldn't read. 'She's going to be thrilled when I tell her about you. She's always telling me I need to meet somebody.'

'I like her more and more. Does your family know you're gay then?'

'Oh, yes.' He gave Zechs one of those adorable little smiles, which invited him to share a secret joke. 'I was so worried about telling my parents; that they'd consider I was letting down the family or something. They're quite conservative. But they were fine; I think they were much more upset when I told them I was planning to study history instead of science. After that, they weren't overly worried about the gay thing. And I have many, many male cousins, so there are plenty of people to carry on the family name.'

'That does help. I've never even begun to count my distant cousins, but they all appear out of the woodwork when they want their gardens landscaped.'

'Why did you choose landscaping as a career?'

'I didn't, not really.' He looked out to sea. 'I – ah – imagine you know what happened to my parents.'

'Yes. I'm terribly sorry.' Wufei pressed his hand, just a warm, gentle pressure of his fingers.

Zechs squeezed back. 'My father studied law at university. It's something of a family tradition, so that's what I decided to do. I wasn't particularly interested in the subject, After two years, I realized I was totally miserable, and a very close friend convinced me that I should choose my own life. I'd always enjoyed gardening. It was one of my mother's passions; I can still remember following her around our garden at home when I was very small, and helping her. I took a course at a horticultural college and when I graduated, I just set up on my own.'

'Do you enjoy it?'

'Very much. I like creating gardens out of nothing. And you? Why history?'

'It's always been the thing I've been most fascinated in. as I said, both of my parents have very demanding careers so I was mostly raised by my grandfather. He was a very accomplished amateur historian, so I grew up surrounded by history books. I am starting to think, though, that I've been spending rather too much time thinking about the past.'

'The present is important,' Zechs murmured. 'Your parents must be very proud of all you've accomplished.'

Wufei shrugged. 'Now, perhaps. They were furious when I decided to major in oriental history, rather than what they considered to be the more important subjects. I suppose they've finally accepted it.'

'And what about you? Can you see yourself staying in a university for the rest of your life?'

'I don't know really. I like teaching; far more than I'd thought I would, actually. And I love writing; that feeling that I'm creating something out of my head.' He shook the head in question. 'It's so odd. When I'm at home, I spend hours writing every day; I resent anything that takes me away from my computer. I've done absolutely nothing today and I couldn't care less. It all seems a million miles away at the moment.'

Zechs slid an arm around his waist. 'Sometimes it's good just to live in the present, don't you think? To take a little break from routine?'

'That is what I seem to be doing at the moment.' Instead of pulling away he relaxed into the other man's embrace.

'I was an indulgence a few minutes ago, and now I've been demoted to a mere break?' Zechs teased. Wufei felt so incredibly good against him, especially when he twisted around and began to press tiny kisses along his jaw line. No, he was nothing like the cold, prim figure Quatre had described; very much the opposite.

'You're an indulgent break,' Wufei parried with one of those glimmering smiles and the most adorable little wrinkling of his nose, and nuzzled his mouth against Zechs'. 'Is it all right for me to do this? I know you said you wanted to take things slowly.'

'I never meant that we couldn't do anything.' Zechs arched back as Wufei found that sensitive - oh, very sensitive - little place in the base of this throat and grazed it with his teeth. 'And slow can be good sometimes, don't you think?'

'Oh, I see. That's rather different, then.' He kissed his way - achingly, agonisingly slowly - back up the column of Zechs' neck, until their mouths met.

It undoubtedly made him a total masochist, but there was something very appealing about what Wufei was doing. He was almost sure nothing was going to happen; there were a few people walking up and down the beach, after all. There was nothing to stop any of them from deciding to explore the sand dunes. It was thrilling all the same; it was the first time in so long that he'd enjoyed a little above the waist action for its own sake.

Wufei blew gently into his ear, and then fastened his teeth around the lobe. Nibbling gently at first and then giving a little nip to the soft flesh, before suckling it gently.

God, he couldn't remember the last time anyone had teased him like this.

'I have absolutely no idea where I had the ridiculous notion that you're shy,' he murmured, and Wufei gave a throaty little laugh, switching his attentions to the other ear, and dropping a kiss on his mouth en route.

It shouldn't have been such a surprise. After all, it was Wufei, in the end who'd initiated their first kiss. Then he'd been all set to ravish Zechs in his own kitchen before lunch. And damn, that had felt good; that lithe, supple body writhing against his.

He hadn't lied when he told Wufei he would prefer not to rush things, or only a little. He didn't want this to be a quick fling, based on nothing more than mutual desire, and he really didn't want the other man to do anything he might regret.

'Well, you did catch me off balance this morning. I was practically naked in the swimming pool, and you appeared out of nowhere. Of course I was embarrassed! And I thought you were with Duo, but you still seemed to be flirting with me.'

Zechs grinned. 'Ah, I think I see this possessive streak coming out now. I'm sorry; I should have explained at once that I was totally single and available.'

'I hope you don't customarily introduce yourself to strangers in that fashion,' Wufei said tartly. 'But I note that you used the past tense there.

'Oh, very much so. Ever since I saw you in this deliciously skimpy little briefs of yours.'

He still had that perfect vision firmly stashed in his mind; the wet material hugging the curves of ass and hip, and the enticing bulge between his legs. Oh, he wasn't likely to forget that any time soon. It didn't compare to the reality, though, of the lovely young man pressed against him.

Waiting was going to very difficult, but hopefully worth every minute of the sweet torture.

~ * ~

Chapter 6

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