"Three for Joy"

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: R

Warnings: Romance, angst, sap, friendship

Pairings: 5x4 and (possible) 1x2. Copious references to past 3x4.

Summary: As far as Wufei is concerned, he and Quatre are a perfect example of two's company, so when Trowa moves back to Sanq will three be a crowd, or just possibly, a joy to embrace?

Author's Note: Writing this story truly has been a joint effort. The original idea came from Standingontherooftops (as compensation for having broken her brain in a previous story) and she also suggested the personalities and pairings and gave huge amounts of positive feedback as it progressed. Kaeru Shisho gave me most of the plot, as well as many, many suggestions, edited many, many times, and then persuaded me it wasn't long enough so the whole process had to start again. All of this wonderful support meant that I was free to get on with the really fun business of actually writing and had massive amounts of fun.

Dedication: This story is affectionately dedicated to both the ladies mentioned above, without whom it would have been finished in half the time.

"Three for Joy"

Chapter 7

It had been one of those bloody, grindingly awful days where everything had gone wrong. Even Quatre's morning phone call had been a disappointment, with bad satellite reception, and Quat rushing off to attend a meeting. In between bursts of static, and apologies, he'd said that as he was on L4 anyway, he'd decided to extend his stay for a couple of days to visit a new satellite that was under construction.

Then, at lunchtime, Trowa had called to say he'd be out on a date that evening so Wufei would have the house to himself. Oddly enough, that had hurt a bit; he'd got used to Trowa being around. After that first day, he'd stopped his nonsense about seductions and just been a pleasant companion. They'd taken turns to cook, and played chess and watched TV. In Quatre's absence, it had been nice having someone else around.

Now, he was going to have to spend the evening alone, and to cap it all, his key had managed to get stuck in the front door.

Wufei twiddled the damn thing carefully, resisting the urge to just kick the door in, when suddenly it opened.

'Hey!' Trowa beamed at him.

Wufei nodded, shifting his laptop bag to his shoulder. 'I thought you said you were going out.'

'Change of plan. Are you OK?'

'Rough day.' Wufei shrugged. 'Some clueless new agent typed in the wrong password on his computer and screwed up the security codes for a whole department. I had to reset them all manually and then hold the guy's hand after Une was through with him.'

'Since when do you have to baby-sit newbies?'

'It's all part of the fun of being part-time,' Wufei answered wryly. Une had taken it badly enough when he'd handed in his resignation as a field agent; she really hadn't been happy when he'd asked to go part-time. As a result, he mostly ended up with jobs no one else wanted to do.

'Ouch. Never mind. What you need is a glass of wine, a bath, a backrub and dinner, not necessarily in that order.'

'A bath sounds like a fairly good idea.' He'd been planning on his usual shower, but a bath suddenly sounded perfect.

'Good. You go on up; I'll put dinner on.'

The bath had been a good idea, he admitted ten minutes later. It was nice to lie back in the steaming water and block out every memory of the day. Except talking to Quatre, naturally. They'd been talking a couple of times every day, but between the time difference and their respective schedules, the conversations had been mostly snatched and short and still a little bit tense.

He'd be back on Monday, though, and they could sit down and talk properly without one of them having to rush off somewhere else. Hopefully. Hopefully that was what Quat would want too.

Oh Gods, Quatre. What if it wasn't what he wanted? What if he decided he could do better for himself or that he just wanted to be alone? Or with Trowa? They'd been perfect together, those two, and they obviously still had feelings for each other. Wufei shivered, despite the warmth of the water, and then the door opened.

'Relax, Chang.' Grinning at his floundering attempts to cover himself, Trowa set two glasses of wine down and sat on the floor, back fortunately to the tub. 'I've seen plenty of guys naked. You've nothing to be ashamed of.'

'That isn't the point. I have a partner.'

'Yeah.' Trowa twisted around to look at him, his most obnoxious smirk firmly in place. 'I've seen him naked plenty of times too. He's hot.'

'That's not the point!'

'You said that before,' Trowa pointed out, infuriatingly bland. 'Can't be the wine going to your head, since you haven't had any yet. Try some?'

He took the proffered glass. The wine was a New Zealand white; cold and clear and good enough to make him feel slightly better disposed through Trowa. 'Thank you.'

Trowa took a sip of his own. 'I want to go and live in your wine cellar. Can I?'

'I'll be locking you in it, if you don't start behaving yourself .'

'Oh, please.' Trowa grinned at him. 'No wonder Quat's spoilt, if that's your idea of a threat.'

'He's not spoilt,' Wufei said automatically. 'And at least he has better manners than to burst in on people in their own bathrooms.'

'I thought I was being nice, bringing you wine and all. And at least I'm not actually in the bath with you.'

'Don't even think about it, Barton.'

'Hard not to,' Trowa's eyes gleamed. 'You know, this wouldn't be an issue if you liked bubble baths, the way Quat does.'

'It wouldn't be an issue if you had an ounce of modesty or courtesy.'

'But then I'd be boring, and you wouldn't get to be shocked by me.' He swung back around and clinked his glass to Wufei's. 'You do realise that for all your outraged modesty, you haven't actually told me to leave? And, incidentally, may I say how glad I am that you're not a bubble bath fan? Am I having that sort of effect on you? Or were you thinking about Quat?'

Naked, in clear water, there was hardly any point denying it. Wufei drew his knees up to his chin and glared.

'Don't worry,' Trowa purred. 'I'm sure he'd be flattered to know you're thinking about him like that. He should be.' He winked. 'I would.'

Oh, that was getting far too close to home. 'I'd really rather you didn't talk about Quatre like that. He's not yours anymore.'

'There is,' Trowa said lazily, 'a quite ridiculous school of thought out there that says Quat belongs to himself.'

'Ridiculous, yes.' Wufei found himself grinning. This whole situation was, really, and he wasn't nearly as outraged by Trowa's behavious as he should have been. The wine, probably. Briefly, he wondered what Quatre would say if he suddenly materialised into the bathroom. Nothing, probably. He'd assume that one of them was tired or injured or sad or needed company in some way.

'Isn't it?' Trowa smiled back; that pure, genuine smile that didn't get out of the box too often. 'You know, since he is your personal property, you should show him a bit more often. Put your foot down sometimes.'

'That's kinky, Barton.'

'You know what I mean.' Trowa refilled both their glasses. 'It wouldn't kill either of you if you got assertive now and then. Yeah, the guy's a freaking genius and an empath and he's probably going to end up running the entire universe, but God, he hasn't enough sense to come in out of the rain.'

'He likes it. He likes raindrops.'

'He wouldn't like it so much if he got double pneumonia,' Trowa said. 'You know, I thought you'd be able to handle him. He admired you so much during the war; you never took any crap from him. I guess you've changed a lot.'

Wufei nodded; actually, he prided himself on most of the changes. He had female colleagues and friends whom he both admired and respected. He rarely lost his temper anymore, thanks to meditation and discipline and Quat's influence and a brief stint of therapy. He'd learned to talk about things rather than flying into a rage, and that all actions had consequences. He'd had nothing to lose during the war, because he'd already lost everything.

Now, he had Quatre.

'When you were fifteen,' Trowa said abruptly, 'you didn't live your life like everything was a safety net.'

'I've no idea what that means. What exactly in my life is a safety net?'

'Everything.' Trowa shrugged. 'Your job; Quat. You don't even like working at Preventers, from what I can see. You should be finishing your Masters as soon as possible, so you can get on with writing or teaching or whatever would actually make you happy and instead you're doing this stupid part-time job that you're way too good for, because Preventers took you in after the war and you feel you owe them, or you have to earn some money or whatever stupid reason you have. And Quatre; you're so terrified of losing him that you won't even have a proper argument with him; you won't tell him anything about how you feel without trying to work out how he'll take it first.'

'I don't.'

'You do. The pair of you are driving me insane. You can't even have a stupid little row without convincing yourselves the other one is going to walk out. You're both fucking miserable and you're too scared to talk about it in case you make it worse.'

'You've been talking to him?' He didn't know why it even came as a surprise.

Trowa looked just a little discomfited. 'Well, yeah. A couple of times.' He took a gulp of his wine. 'He's exactly like you. Saying all the stuff to me that he should be saying to you.'

'That's personal!' Wufei glared at him. 'I'd really appreciate it if you didn't discuss me like that.'

'Relax, 'Fei. I've been listening to him, that's all. He's needed someone to talk to. The same way I listen to you talking about him. I haven't been discussing you. And no, I don't tell him anything you've said, the same way I won't tell you about him.'

'Oh.' Wufei deflated a bit. 'Sorry. He is feeling awful about all this, isn't he? I wish I wasn't so bad at relationships,' he said dejectedly, imaging poor Quat on the other side of the world, alone and lonely and desperately sad. 'This is all my fault; I started it. He doesn't deserve to be treated like this.'

Trowa burst out laughing. 'You've been spending way too much time with him, you know that? You're even channelling the guilt now. Don't be stupid. For God's sake, you two had a fight. That happens. You both said some stuff you regret. Memo to Chang; that happens too, when you're angry about something. It doesn't mean you're going to break up. Couples have rows; they say sorry; they have amazing make up sex and get on with their lives. That's what normal people do anyway.' He shook his head. 'As for what Quat deserves, as you put it, he deserves a boyfriend who's going to be honest with him and tell him like it is. This whole thing started because you were trying to get him to stop working so hard, which he does, and he got defensive because he knew you were right. That's what he does. But it doesn't mean you stop telling him the truth. Hell, most of the universe will tell him black is white, just because he's Quatre Winner and they'll tell him anything they think he wants to hear. You're his lover. You're supposed to be the one person who's honest with him.'

Trowa started to say something else, something that would undoubtedly be annoying and provocative and far too perceptive but he never knew what it would have been because then Wufei leaned over and kissed him.

He hadn't meant to; he'd meant to snap at Trowa to shut up talking about things he knew nothing about, but Trowa had been grinning at him, in that insufferable, superior, obnoxious way of his, and for years, when Wufei hadn't been indulging in fantasies about punching him, he'd imagined kissing him instead.

Trowa, who could be halfway sensible sometimes, didn't say anything, after. Nothing at all. He didn't need to. There was nothing, nothing, he could say to make a difference.

He'd kissed a man who wasn't Quatre, wasn't the love of his life. Oh, it wasn't like he hadn't ever thought about it, and felt bad enough about those ridiculous fantasies. But this….

'It was my fault, 'Fei,' Trowa said quietly, laying one hand on his shoulder. 'Not you. I was pushing you. Anyone would have snapped.'

'Don't,' Wufei said roughly, pushing him away. 'Just don't.

After a minute, Trowa put one hand over his; this time Wufei let him, needing that little point of contact in a world that had whirred upside down in a heartbeat. He'd forgotten how Trowa did that. He'd done it before, after all, when they were both fifteen.

Wufei had guessed – suspected – known deep down – that he was attracted to other boys, but he'd never dared to admit what it meant. No one knew; of course not. Such things weren't talked about on L5. He'd known, since childhood, what was expected of him. Marriage, and children to carry on his family's bloodline and serve the ghosts of his ancestors. Anything else would be unthinkable.

And then Trowa Barton had kissed him in the middle of a war. Had wanted more than a kiss, except that Wufei had panicked and Trowa, of course, had gone back to Quatre.

'Hey,' Trowa said, very gently. 'Wufei, stop. It's OK. You're missing Quat, and I was being an ass. That was all. Stop torturing yourself over one stupid thing. I'll move out. Now. Whatever you want. I'll go back to space.'

'It wasn't stupid. Yes, I do miss him, more than anything, but I'd miss you too.'

'OK. OK. I'm not going anywhere. Not if you want me to stay.'

Wufei nodded fervently, fingers clutching at Trowa's hand. This was insanity, really.

'I didn't know if you even liked me, sometimes.'

'I didn't, sometimes,' Wufei said wryly. 'Mostly because of how you'd treated Quatre. And then you didn't even have the decency to stay in space; you had to come back and be part of our lives.'

'Yeah, well.' Trowa hunched one shoulder. 'I missed you guys. All of you. You and Quat, 'specially.'

'Oh.' Trowa's mouth looked like it had just been kissed, very hard. Impossible not to touch the red, swollen lips with the pad of one finger. 'Was this why you came back? So I'd do this?'

'That was a bonus,' Trowa mumbled. 'I don't know, 'Fei. I got sick of it; moving around all the time. I just wanted to be in one place for a bit. That's all.'

'Really?' Wufei titled his face up, looking into Trowa's eyes.

'Not really, I guess. I missed you. I thought maybe I'd stayed away long enough that you wouldn't mind me being around a bit. I thought we'd been getting on OK. I knew you two were having some issues and I thought maybe I could even help a little bit. At least be around if either of you needed someone to talk to.'

Wufei laughed harshly, a sound with not one shred of joy or humour in it. 'This is supposed to be helping us? You planned this?'

'No! You know me, I don't plan stuff. That's what Quat does. 'Listen, let me say this one thing. You think Quat and I had the world's greatest romance. I loved him, sure. But I always knew it wouldn't last. I know I messed him up when I left; I just wanted to check he was OK. Both of you.'

Wufei sniffed. 'Well, we aren't.'

Trowa rolled his eyes. 'You had one fucking fight. You both need to learn to relax a bit more without feeling the world is going to stop if you have a bit of fun. But you're good together. You put up with all his crap; you support whatever he does; hell, even his sisters like you.'

'Some more than others. What did you mean, you knew it wouldn't last between you?' Wufei leaned closer against the rim of the tub, cradling Trowa's head in the crook of his shoulder.

'Quat was never really a soldier. You know that. Sure, he was good at it, but he hated it. And he wasn't like me; he had a life to go back to. He was nothing like me. He'd never had to fight to survive; never had to do stuff that'd give him nightmares. He was like this pure little angel, you know? Perfect. And then there was me.'

'He isn't perfect. You know that,' Wufei said wryly. Trowa, in his arms, was shivering slightly. 'You still love him, don't you?'

'Well, yeah.' Trowa looked surprised at the question. 'Come on, could you ever stop?'

Wufei shook his head. 'He loved you. I think he still does.'

There, he'd said it, acknowledged the deepest fear in his life. He'd never said it aloud before. Nothing happened.

Trowa pressed close for a few more seconds, then pulled away slightly. 'You should get out of there before you turn into a prune or something. And I should go check on dinner.'

'Trowa.' Wufei's arms tightened around the other man. 'Wait. Just a minute. Don't you think we should talk about this?'

'Nothing to talk about.' The answer was blunt, bitter. 'Is there?'

'I don't know.'

'You have Quat. Better that we just forget about all of this. Right?'

Wufei nodded, jerkily. Trowa was right. Clearly. Of course.

'Just…here's one other thing for you to forget.' Trowa just had to lean in a couple of inches. The kiss was nothing like when they'd been fifteen; this was careful and tentative; a plea. 'Oh. There is one more thing. I'm really sorry I didn't just jump you when we were kids.'

'I wouldn't have let you,' Wufei said at once, affronted.

Trowa stood up, grinning. 'Yeah, you would, if I'd handled things a bit better. I was an idiot when I was fifteen. I should've gone after you, that night.'

'Why didn't you?' It wouldn't have made any difference, really. The boy he'd been, back then, all pride and prickliness and so positive that he didn't need anyone else, hadn't been nearly ready for anything resembling a relationship.

Trowa looked down at him, hair tumbling over his face. 'Like I said, I was an idiot. I rushed you and then I got pissed when you ran off. I should have tried talking to you; we might have been able to make friends, maybe.' He shrugged. 'Or more. Who knows? We might even have worked, maybe. We were pretty alike back then.'

That was a dizzying prospect; an alternative world where he was with Trowa Barton. 'Too alike,' Wufei said when he managed to find his voice. Both too lost, too lonely. Too full of anger and pain and misery and pure loneliness. Looking back, they'd both needed Quat. 'Anyway, you had Quatre.'

'Back then? Not really. We'd fucked, sure. We weren't a couple or anything.'

Wufei winced. 'Don't say it like that. Don't you have any idea how much you meant to him? From the start? How can you just reduce it to sex?'

'Because it's the easiest way to cope with not having him any more,' Trowa snapped. 'What d'you want me to say, Chang? That meeting him was the best thing that had ever happened to me? The only good thing, pretty much? That the world fucking stopped, when he came out of Sandrock and looked at me?'

Such pain, Wufei thought dazedly, watching him. He'd been there for Quatre while he tried to put together some semblance of a life after Trowa, and so had Heero and Duo and the girls.

Trowa had been alone, mostly.

'You wanted to kill yourself, didn't you? When you joined Preventers?'

Trowa nodded. 'Why the hell not? Nothing left, was there? And I deserved it, the way I'd treated him. Thought I might as well try to make dying mean something. Heero taught me that, in the war. And if I was the one taking all the black ops, it meant the rest of you didn't get pressured to.'

'But you stopped. You resigned. What happened?' Wufei whispered.

'Quatre.' Trowa looked at the glass of wine in his hand, as if unsure as to where it had come from. 'He's always been the one saving me. We started talking a little bit. Well, not talking so much. Writing.'

Wufei took a deep breath. 'I know. We had a massive row about it. I couldn't believe he was in touch with you. I was furious with him.' Furious and jealous and utterly terrified that Quatre would take Trowa back.

'There was a mission in Brazil,' Trowa gazed into his glass, sloshing the dregs around. 'It went wrong. I nearly died, got beat up pretty bad. Quat called me, in the hospital. I thought, I don't know, that something had changed, that maybe we could get back together. I was pretty out of it, on drugs. I don't remember exactly what I said but I guess I asked him for another chance, and he said you guys had hooked up.'

'But we hadn't!' Wufei remembered the occasion, remembered Duo calling to say Trowa was in hospital in Rio, and in a critical condition. Duo had been the only one to fly out to Rio to see him. 'That was only a few months after the war. Nothing had happened between us.'

Not really. A kiss, and some promises. They'd agreed from the very beginning to take it slowly, to give the precious, half-formed thing that was growing between them time to develop.

Trowa actually smiled, at that. 'I thought you guys had long, meaningful conversations about relationships and shit. That wasn't the way he saw it. You might want to ask him sometime; as far as he was concerned, the two of you were a serious item.'

For the second time in an hour, the world upended itself. He'd always believed he'd been Quatre's second choice, the person he'd settled for since he couldn't have Trowa. 'I didn't know that,' he faltered.

'Yeah, well. He's a smart guy. Way too smart to put up with someone who'd hurt him. Of course, he fell for you. Anyone would. Hell, you two were practically made for each other. I should've seen it a mile off.'

'He loved you,' Wufei said firmly. 'Trowa, I know things went wrong but he loved you.'

Trowa bent down, flicking one finger against Wufei's cheek. 'You're adorable. No wonder you're the one he picked. Like I said, he's a smart guy.' Trowa winked at him, heading for the door, and then swung back. 'Stop starting at my ass, Chang. It wasn't meant to be.' Another wink, impudent. 'Would've been fun, though.'

Taking his chances on becoming a prune, Wufei stayed in the bath until the water was uncomfortably cold, and then took his time drying off and dressing, thinking. When he walked into the kitchen, Trowa was setting platters on the table.

'Hey. Good timing; I was just about to call you.' He sounded perfectly normal, if a little more determinedly cheerful than usual.

'You didn't have to go to all of this trouble.'

'It's OK; I don't get to do domestic stuff much, so it was fun. Well, it was once I'd figured out just how to work your oven I think I kept pressing the buttons that teleport people into space. And then I had to work out all the gadgets you have and what the hell some of the stuff in your fridge actually was. I'd have been quicker with a camp stove and a pack of emergency rations.'

Wufei made himself grin back. This was how they were going to play it then. 'I think our camping stove is in the garage somewhere.'

'Now you tell me. Oh, talking of camping, I forget to say before, Duo was talking about him and Heero going on a hike on Friday night; staying out overnight. He wanted to know if we'd be interested.'

'That sounds fun.' Better than staying at home with Trowa anyway. Wufei suddenly thought of something. 'When did you talk to him? He's on a training course today; they're not supposed to take calls.'

'Right.' Trowa looked, very slightly, embarrassed. 'He called me, actually. Said he'd heard from Heero that you were having a rough day and could do with a bit of TLC.'

Unable to help himself, Wufei started to laugh. 'TLC. Is that what you call it?'

Trowa hesitated, a casserole dish in one hand, and then laughed himself. 'Fuck. Exactly how weird is all this?'

'Oh, very,' Wufei assured him. 'And Duo had no business telling you to look after me. You were supposed to be going out on a date; you shouldn't have had to cancel that.'

Trowa put his dish on the table. 'Please. It was just some guy. No one important. Duo was worried about you. I'm glad he called.'

There was a question hidden in there somewhere. Wufei took a deep breath. 'OK. I'm glad he did too.'

'You going to tell Quat?'

That was the question, in a nutshell. Wufei sat down; there was more wine on the table and he took a sip. 'I don't know.' That was a lie; of course he would.

'Don't.' Trowa said it with total certainty. ''Fei. I get that it was a mistake. He doesn't need to know. He'd just tie himself up in knots trying to find a way to make it his fault, and it's not.'

'No, it isn't,' Wufei agreed wretchedly. 'Trowa, my head hurts. Do you think we can just have dinner and not talk about all this?'

'Poor baby. Of course we can. We'll do anything you like. And then we should call Duo and let him know that we're on for the weekend.'

~ * ~

Chapter 8

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