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"Other Lover"Written By: t-shirt Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and its characters are
copyright to Sunrise, Bandai, Sotsu Agency, and associated parties.
I make no money with this fic. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: Post war canon/Get together fic, Lemon,
slightly OOC Hiiro ^-^, mild angst, fluff, sap and all sticky combinations
thereof Pairings: 1x2x5 Beta’ed by the lovely Mechante Fille ^-^ *snugs*
Summary: Hiiro follows his heart and finds his
feet at Duo’s door. However, before his plan to secure the long haired
boy’s heart can come to pass he is confronted by the presence of Wufei
by his side. Hiiro finds, in his determination to see to Duo’s happiness,
that choice doesn’t always have to be this or that. Sometimes, happiness
is simply a matter of compromise. " Other Lover" Ch 2 Sounded wonderful, glorious, just exactly what my weary soul required until I discovered ‘we’ included Chang Wufei. It occurred to me that my assumption that it would just be Duo and I was a selfish thought since Chang had been present during the invitation but I couldn’t help feeling disappointed that I was to be denied the simple pleasure of devoting all my attention to Duo. We greeted each other, Duo going so far as to rise and grip my arm as I took my seat, whereas Chang merely nodded his acknowledgment of my arrival. Orders were placed, drinks delivered but the awkwardness normally present during those first few minutes of staking ones claim in a crowded restaurant never seemed to dissipate. “So,” Duo’s slightly anxious tone cut through the gelatinous silence that had descended upon us. “Where did you go? I think Une had every agent available on a mandatory A.P.B. from the moment you disappeared.” His laughter was a welcome sound but sounded odd to my ears for some reason, strained, perhaps even a touch forced. I caught an imperceptible flick of his eyes in Chang’s direction and felt my investigator’s hat slip down over my ears as I replied, “Wandering mostly.” Oddly, Chang casually refilled his water glass, leaving mine unattended. “Find anything interesting?” Duo asked, sipping the water Wufei had so generously supplied him. “A lack of a need for me,” I chuckled, raising my glass in a silent toast to peace. He smiled warmly, the smile I remembered with great fondness, then his eyes flicked toward Change again and as it disappeared my stomach began to feel empty. “Well,” he chuckled, donning a mask I hadn’t seen him wear since the end of the first war. “We could use all the help we can get.” It pained me to look into the faux calm in his eyes. “It’ll be good to have another field agent around. Une’s about to run us to death since Quatre and Trowa took off.” “They quit?” I poignantly asked of Wufei who had until that point managed to expertly exclude himself from the conversation. “Inter-agent fraternization is frowned upon within ranks,” he supplied. The waitress came with our meals at this point; mine a savory salmon and lemon broccoli florets, Duo had chosen a small steak and Chang linguini in clam sauce. A meal as diverse as ourselves and I had to wonder how five young men so different from stern to stem had ended up stitched to the same banner. “Quatre finally got in his pants,” Duo tastefully reiterated, thinking perhaps that I hadn’t understood but it made me glad I hadn’t commented yet because the comment made us all laugh out loud. “They were only part time anyway,” I chuckled, enjoying a small fleck of my tender fish. “Yeah,” Duo smiled, cocking his lovely head to the side just so. “How’d you know that?” It is times like these when my ability to cast a roguish smirk is most appreciated because it fueled a light in his eyes that shown brightly in his smile. “They’re in the papers every other day,” Wufei cut in, stealing that light away. It was most displeasing. “You have no sense of mystery,” Duo teased, rolling his eyes for me to see. “They look happy together,” I commented catching Duo’s eye. I knew it was too much to hope for, to think that perhaps my lonely heart had at last found a home that would accept and nurture but I couldn’t help it. My need for him was so strong, just to be near him, to hear him speak my name and know that I had in some way brought him joy. These were the things I had come to feed on during the short time we had been together and I longed to fill my gullet to bursting again. “They are,” Duo confirmed, trimming the fat off the remainder of his steak, medium rare with just that slice of velvet red down the center. “Quatre and I get together pretty often for lunch but Trowa’s more apt to turn up in the gym. They both still have their badges, just not on active duty.” He spoke on and I listened though my eyes were fixed to the delicious movements of his lips as he cut a small piece of meat in two and raised it temptingly to his mouth. It slipped between his teeth with surprising speed, utterly unaware of the sanctity of its last resting place. “Have you been to see Relena yet?” Wufei asked, shattering the most delectable dream but all thoughts of goodness and prose seeped despondently from my mind when his delicate touch retrieved the abandoned morsel of medium rare flesh from Duo’s plate. I watched my dreams shatter one by one as it made its dolorous journey toward Duo’s mouth, the tender lips parting willingly to accept the offering. When next I could draw breath Duo was scowling in a scolding manner at our Chinese companion but Wufei’s mouth was steadfastly clinging to the smirk upon his lips. “He only just got back,” Duo said, though the sound of his words seemed very far away. My gaze sought Wufei, hoping to find evidence of a joke in his eyes but received nothing more than the heavy weight of a dark message hidden within. They were together. “I doubt he’s had time to scratch his ass.” I had missed my chance. “Hey, if you need any help on finding a place or anything…” Chang Wufei was intimately involved with Duo and demonstrated this fact by slowly taking his hand. Duo allowed the contact just long enough to keep from angering his … what? How far had this gone? “…bet Une’s already got you sighed up to go off planet…” How long? “… dame’s always lurking around a corner. Think’s she’s our mama now or something…” How serious? “Duo?” “What?!” he snapped, slamming the handles of his knife and fork into the table cloth. Wufei calmly smiled and glanced at the minced meat on his plate and Duo had the decency to offer an adorable blush with the gusting sigh that fluttered his shimmering bangs. The utter resplendency of the moment brought it all back into sharp focus for me. I really didn’t care if Chang had attached himself to Duo; it was nothing more than I longed to do myself so I understood his need in a very intimate way. His presence was irrelevant to my ultimate goal but it was obvious my presence threatened him which was upsetting Duo and that was reason enough to call it a night. I stayed long enough to shift the conversation back into neutral territory to give Duo a moment to unwind, then made my excuse of being tired after a very long day. It was obvious Duo was not happy about my departure which made me ridiculously happy and a vein stand out on Chang’s temple but all in all the evening ended on a very amiable note. It wasn’t until the next day that I realized Duo hadn’t been as flagrantly appeased as I had first thought when I found him in my office at seven-thirty a.m. “Morning,” he smiled, ducking in with a pair of coffee cups, one of which was filled with black sage tea, something he had learned I valued during a mission we shared in Indonesia near the beginning of the first Eve War. He’d bought a load of supplies from a street vender that I refused to partake of due to the potential of viral infection but he caught me the next morning stealing a box of black sage tea and never forgot. I laughed as he sat it on my desk as I recalled I almost shot him when he grabbed my arm. “Thank you,” I smiled, pushing my keyboard away to savor the melancholy cup of kindness and simply look at him. He paused, oddly confused by the action, glancing warily at the computer communications device before shaking it off and taking a seat on the corner of my desk. “Has Une outlined your schedule yet?” A casual question that poorly masked the underlying truth of his visit. “Where’s Chang?” I smiled at my tea when the mask suddenly melted. “He works out at home in the morning…” “Home?” Damn it. His mouth opened to spill a plethora of words but released exactly nil. “You live together?” “Listen,” he finally collected his tongue to say. “I know all this probably seems weird to you, what with Quatre and Trowa running off to a rabbit hole together but…” “Do you love him?” “Who?” he evaded. “The man you’re living with,” I smiled. My attitude tilted his eyes until his head came to lean along with them. “That’s a bit personal don’t you think?” he asked, looking so adorably confused. “I’ve pulled shrapnel out of your ass,” I reminded him, setting my half empty cup down as I pushed smoothly away from my desk and stood. “It doesn’t get much more personal that that, does it?” There had been a time when I knew without a doubt he would accept me with an open heart simply because of the way he trembled whenever we touched. There were times when resisting the temptation of drowning myself deep inside his radiant light was almost impossible to bear but I had always been a soldier first, my needs were not high on the priority list. However, the war was over and he was standing there, right there in front of my eyes with that same look of unconditional acceptance in his clever, amethyst eyes. “That was a long time ago,” he replied, though the words were soft and only barely present in his eyes. “Not so long,” I smiled, letting my heart guide me where it willed and finding myself within easy reach of his succulent mouth. So supple that mouth with its round lower lip, the sleek shelf of the upper dangling moistly above as flesh released flesh freeing a hot breath from within. “Hiiro?” he whispered, gifting me with the trembling tenor of my name. “Duo?” “SHIT!” he barked jumping so hard we both ended up with coffee down our pallid chests. “Hey, Fei,” he wore the jester’s mask again as he kindly handed me his handkerchief as I handed him mine. “What’re you doing in this early?” “May I speak to you for a moment?” “Speak to him here,” I suggested, grinning at Duo until he realized he was rubbing my handkerchief all over my wet chest in the presence of his boyfriend. “Privately,” Chang snipped, looking fit to pull the ears off a hog. “Considering what you want to say most probably has a great deal to do with me, remaining would be the better option.” “It’s ok,” Duo sighed, dropping my soggy, stained handkerchief onto my desk. “We need to get ready for a meeting anyway.” “You understand the nature of our relationship,” Chang stated clearly, stepping in to close the door. “Fei,” Duo sighed heavily. “Just leave it alone.” “I believe so,” I replied, apologizing visually to Duo as the conversation was already upsetting him. “I thought you wanted to talk to me?” Duo snipped. “Then you will understand why I don’t appreciate your advances.” “What?!” Duo gasped. “What advances!?” “Regardless,” I replied. “Unless Duo openly rejects them they will continue.” “You left,” he felt compelled to remind me whilst Duo’s jaw hit the floor. “Again, irrelevant.” “Hiiro?” “We’ve built a life here.” “All things change.” “Hiiro?” “I won’t give up.” “Nor I.” “Excuse me!” Duo snapped, stepping in front of me and I couldn’t help but smile at his utterly perplexed expression. “Did you just confess feelings for me?” he asked in a very textbook way, his astucious eyes widening as my lips curled. “Son of a bitch.” “Duo, we’re late,” Wufei stated curtly. “I’ll catch up,” he replied, slowly sinking to sit on my desk again. “Duo?” I felt bad for Wufei, truly I did, but two things I knew for sure. If Duo cared enough about him to have become his lover there was no way in hell he would desert him no matter what happened. And, I was so thrilled to see Duo so completely off balance by my confession it was all I could do to keep from shouting joyously to the sky. “Please, Fei,” was all he had to say to send the disgruntled Chinese agent on his way. He took a long moment to attend his sodden shirt before he simply asked. “Since when?” “I’m not really sure,” I replied honestly, retaking my seat so I wouldn’t tower over him. “Is that why you came back?” I could see his lips trembling, the lashes of his eyes fluttering as his mind worked quickly to form a conclusion. “Partially,” I nodded, then amended at his skeptical gaze. “Mostly.” “Jesus,” was his prayer. “Why the hell couldn’t you have said something before?” “I was unaware of the depth of my feelings when I left.” “I had no fucking clue,” he groaned. “You know that right?” “Yes.” I clung to it like the lifeline it was because a part of me needed to believe if he had he would have waited for me to get my head out of my ass. “Nothing’s ever easy with you,” he chuckled. The urge hit me so hard, possibly due to the near miss moments before, that I suddenly swooped out of my chair and gracefully took him in my arms as I replied, “This is.” His lips were silken honey, so sweet as they slowly parted, his hands warm, delightfully uncertain upon my arm but my fingers and palms knew exactly what they wanted, what they craved and hungrily devoured any little part of him they were allowed to touch. This was what I wanted, what my soldier’s heart desired, a purpose worthy of life sacrifice, a reason to continue to exist, to fight, to live. “S…stop,” he rasped pushing me away, denial of the most grievous kind as his mouth pleaded fruition and his body begged continuation. “I need to think,” his sweet voice granted my aching heart hope and allowed me to comply. “Duo?” “Jesus,” he chuckled, clinging to me where he stood upon foal’s legs and I gladly aided his weakened knees. “And here I thought I’d gotten over you.” The comment was disappointingly sobering. “Lucky for me you’re heart is true,” I smiled, allowing him to sit on my desk again. “It’s not feeling too hound-doggishly loyal at the moment,” he sighed, wiping his face. “Sorry,” I offered but it was insincere at best. “Not your fault,” he sighed again. “Things just seem to work this way in my life.” “Would you rather I leave?” Had I not fully understood what the answer would be I would not have had the strength to ask. “No.” he smiled. “I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to do now.” “How about a game of horse?” He laughed, full bodied and honest, a sound I had sorely missed. “I need to go find, Fei,” he sighed at last, which was no less than I expected. “After lunch then?” I persisted, drawing another somber smile from his tepid mouth. “One-thirty,” he agreed, leaving me with a belly full of hope and the stolid remnants of my desire slowly making room in my boxers. The day could not pass quickly enough. I had arrived unwittingly thirty minutes early to the court in the lower levels of our grand tower to find its glistening expanse devoid of company. Had it remained so I felt I would probably have warmed up sufficiently to spank Maxwell in a most audacious manner; however, such was not the case. “Hiiro?” The squeak of my sneakers proclaimed the startlement in my eyes when I turned to fine one Trowa Barton striding languidly toward my position on the court. He’d grown, as impossibly unnecessary as it seemed. “Tell me we’re not about to fight another war,” he smiled, tossing the ball under his arm into the floor with a loud smack of leather meeting laminated pine where it bounced with expert precision into my hands. “Not to my knowledge,” I replied, taking the moment to turn and vault the ball over my left shoulder, feeling quite satisfied when it swished with a soft thatch through the hoop a half court away. “Then I take it you’ve joined up?” he said, waiting for the ball to rebound and roll back toward us where he collected it with a rolling flick of his toes. “According to Une I joined up about six months ago,” I chuckled, still feeling slightly pumped from my lonely workout before his arrival. “I’m a little surprised you’d want to carry a side arm again,” he commented in his straight forward, honest sort of way. I watched him do a very fine lay up, feeding my adrenalin on the sound of his successful goal before darting in to collect the roving ball and sporting one of my own. “There are many ways in which to shoot a person that does not result in their demise,” I smirked. “Or maybe we could just talk them down?” Duo’s laughing reprimand was pure music to my ears, so much so that I completely missed noticing that Trowa had thrown me the ball and danced dizzily when it rebounded off my skull. “Hiiro!?” Duo gasped, rushing to my aid while my unlikely assailant mercilessly laughed his ass off. “You ok, man? What the hell was that?” he chuckled, offering me his shoulder which I latched onto with great enthusiasm. “Ambush,” I snickered. “I believe swift retaliation is due. Double team?” While Trowa was curiously distracted by the adjustments in my attitude and speech I found myself graced by the glinting grin of Shinigami. A moment later the ball in our opponent’s hand was no longer contained in his tenacious grip and Duo’s sublime body, small though it may be, sailed gracefully through the air to slam dunk the leather bound orb with reverberating finality. The game quickly escalated into an all out free for all adequately hiding my giddy joy at simply being near him and if he appeared just a little drunkenly elated then nobody mentioned it. Trowa used his towering height to embarrassing advantage but Duo managed not only to score regularly against him but left me with no recourse but to lay some audacious calculations on the ball. “Is that even legal?” he laughed, making the sweat in his bangs glimmer with the rolling motion of his fit form. “It is unless you can find a rule against it,” I grinned, catching the extra ball Trowa sent bouncing my way while we gathered at center court. “Maybe we should have them add it,” Trowa mused, a sparkling light dancing in his emerald eyes. “Rafter rebound,” he grinned. “It’ll be right under the ‘goal post bank shot’.” The tinkling sound of a merry jingle lilted up from a softly sagging bag sitting quietly along a side bench, instantly calling Duo away. The smile on my lips was bright and unrestrained, something that had once been far beyond my reach yet refused to now relent and all due to the vibrant liveliness of Duo Maxwell. “It’s good to see you,” Trowa offered, beaming much the same addendum my way. “I’ve read about your work with Quatre,” I replied, noting the smallish flicker of his gaze. “You work well together,” I smiled then, noting the light return before a tiny glance at where Duo was conversing with his back to us on his cell phone. “Thanks.” It was all that was needed and more than enough. “Hey,” he grinned on a sudden inspiration. “Quatre’s invited Duo and Wufei out to the house this weekend for some quality time. You’re welcome to join us.” “I wouldn’t want to impose.” Was it too soon? What of Wufei’s consideration? Would they share a room? “Quatre will come hunt you down if you refuse for no better reason than that,” he chuckled. A ponderous point. “Then, in the interest of sparing myself his righteous wrath, I accept.” “Whose righteous wrath?” Duo wondered, jogging with considerable less spring in his step back to join us. “Our lanky protagonist’s sunny spouse.” Duo snorted so hard I thought of the hanky in the left back pocket of my pants, but the pants in question were a third party to an ensemble grossly unfit for a basket ball court or the whole of Preventer’s headquarters for that matter so it did me absolutely no good. “D’ju just make that up?” he laughed, once again shimmering like a morning star. “On the spot,” I assured him, doing my damnedest to reflect his good humor. “Hiiro’s going to join us for the weekend.” Perhaps, too soon. “Yeah?” Where had the sincerity of his smile gone? “You might want to give Quatre a call before I do,” Trowa snickered. “Oh, shit,” Duo gasped softly, eyeing me as with grandiose surprise. “He’ll kill me!” Trowa was gallant enough to show me to the showers while Duo corrected his grievous error for which I was just as glad when Duo showed up not two steps and a hop behind us, dropping clothing like Fall leaves in Winter’s breeze and I, in my single minded simplistic craving for all things Duo, dropped the soap. I believe Trowa may have taken the stuttering pause of my limbs as I bent to retrieve the waxen loaf objectionably, but I wasn’t about to turn and grace him with the explanation for my need to remain forefront to the wall. Well, there was one thing I desired from Duo that was easily understood. However, as it were, the growing interest rearing its pointy head upon my lower person as he danced about in the glistening spray, his hair thick with weighted water making the serpentine braid cling to parts of his anatomy I would have sold a body part or two to touch was a bit difficult to explain in present company. But, oh what a wonderful view. He spoke as he lathered, leaving me speechless in return but he was never one to feel dependant upon the other’s input to carry on a conversation. The information was lengthy enough to keep us entertained throughout the soggy ordeal of suds and spray and incognito aspirations. I was given the ‘low down’ on several of the building’s inhabitants and nuances. Beware of one Emilia Dursk as she was known to smuggle several different species of one size fits all condoms on her person at all times, being fully prepared to exercise them given a modicum of opportunity. The ‘meatloaf’ in the café was to be avoided unless in search of a doorstop and the lower level was the domain of someone referred to only as ‘Batman.’ Further elaboration on this was withheld, marking me ‘it’ in the usual game of ‘fickle the newbie’. His delightful commentary, coupled with the way his hands kept moving malleable patches of wriggling bubbles along warmly sunned skin made it quite impossible for me to leave the security of my stall on less than three legs, so when he offered a towel I politely declined with a shake of a conditioner bottle in explanation. He looked as perplexed as Trowa though our tall shower mate seemed less confused by the why than the possible ‘what if.’ Whatever they thought, I was left to the blessed relief of the five ladies who, as usual, played their parts brilliantly to a chorus of luridly fresh memories of Duo’s slippery silhouette. The next few days went by in a blinding flurry. Une appeared to have a database brimming with case files that were in desperate need of one or more of my particular skills, and she demanded within my natal forty-eight hours that they be immediately addressed, if not sooner. The upside was being given absolute authority, easing the path of fruition, the down, I would need a battalion at my disposal to put more than a scratch on the workload by the weekend for which I was determined to have utterly sweet freedom. I got to see Duo for a moment the next morning before leaving for Paraguay to recover what was left of the idiot detail I had advised two day’s prior. There were only three of them left alive but I managed to extract them, albeit not entirely in one piece, but breathing and repairable, and made it back before the end of the next day. However, a tentative plan of coercing Duo to take dinner with me fell flat when Wufei arrived at his office just moments before I arrived at mine and the two-some left before I could finish my report. The week progressed from there. One small bit of advice: Never try to explain the inner workings of a transient, semi-coagulant explosive to a group of hyperactive nineteen year old Preventer agent wanna-be’s. Quantum Physic’s is apparently not a required course in public high school. After I demonstrated my singular skill to stupefy the impressionable youth of our glorious city, I was dumped on a deep space freighter whose crew was blessedly unaware of my nefarious presence as it would have been necessary to incapacitate the lot of them had I been discovered, which in turn dumped me on a decrepit resource satellite where the un-prosecutable illegal actions of the resident commander were summarily halted by a mysterious explosion. It took most of the rest of the week to secure transport back to Earth and return my mysterious personage without alerting the disgruntled inhabitants, dumping me in my one room, yet-to-be-used-for-more-than-a-nap bachelors apartment only hours before the upcoming pilot reunion. Whipped does not even come close to how I felt. If per chance, Duo had been anywhere within my field of vision when I stumbled into the darkness of my tiny, scantily furnished abode, I believe whole heartedly that I would have fallen upon him and nestled happily for days. However, the apartment so graciously assigned to me by our loving Commander was as empty as the last time I had stood upon the doorstep, so I dropped my badge on the generic table by the two peg key holder/coat hanger on the wall and headed for the shower. The pistol I rested on the ledge not caring that it was dusted with overspray as old memories surfaced due to my recent activities and bade me keep it close. I was exhausted, ached in places I couldn’t recall having neglected and smelled of dank dusk long forgotten in the bottom of a dark cargo hold. I felt charred, wrung out, invigorated and alive and I simply could not wait to see Duo again so one might imagine my disappointment when I showed up to a quite Duo-less dinner party.
~ * ~ tbc... |
