Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ 3 Ties That Bind ❯ Fourteen ( Chapter 14 )

“What are you doing here?”

We all turned to look at Quatre, who was the last to move into my apartment, meaning the last to see that Som was sitting quietly in the corner beside Heero.

“Som’s a good boy,” Selena dismissed the demand. “My husband might be an ass, but Som is a good boy.”

“I said I was sorry,” I repeated for the millionth time.

“Yes, dear, I know,” she returned, turning back to the stove.

I looked away from everyone.

“I should just go,” Som muttered, starting to slide of his seat.

“Sit, stay,” Heero’s words were laconic, but I did see him holding the boy firmly to the chair. “We’ll only have issues if you start hanging out with him by yourself.”

Selena sniggered as Tro elbowed the king.

Som frowned at him.

Quatre moved across the room slowly, studying us all seriously. He stopped beside me and I stifled my urge to just turn and attack him.

I felt like shit. I felt like a piece of shit. It’d been two days since my mistake, and while Selena was still pissed at me, she’d relented and let me sleep with her in the room again.

Not that I really slept anyway.

The others didn’t even have the good grace to let Som melt away. I could tell he was trying, but they kept summoning him after his work day to hang out with us at one house or another.

They said mistakes happen and just pretending like it didn’t happen wasn’t going to change anything, but it did help things flow smoothly. They said that Som didn’t need to be punished for my indiscretion and that they still liked him, even if he was easy.

That’d been Heero’s addition.

“So, tell me,” Heero muttered, considering the boy. “I want your complete honesty here.”

Som nodded, frowning slightly.

Heero’s expression…

I started to straighten, opening my mouth to tell him to shut up as Quatre focused on me with that same skeptical look he got every time something about Som came up.

“Does he still taste like peaches?”

Poor Som blushed red, looking away from Heero with tears in his eyes.

Selena started laughing delightedly, leaning over…to kiss my throat…and bite me.

I would have shoved her off if I didn’t think it’d piss her off, and she pulled away with a shrug as everyone else laughed…well, Som was still staring at Heero in disbelief. I pressed a hand to my throat, feeling slightly betrayed by them all.

I didn’t want my wife to be angry at me forever, I didn’t even want her angry with me at all…but dismissing it to joke and act normal left me in a place that I didn’t know.

I didn’t know how I was supposed to react to this shit…

“Very funny, Heero,” Quatre spat…and turned to walk away.

“Get back here,” Heero ordered almost negligently. “You take yourself too seriously.”

“I think he tastes like peaches,” Selena noted to Som, turning back to the food.

“I’m gonna go,” Som muttered, moving to slide off the stool again.

“No, just…”

“Just let him go,” I snapped at Heero. “Shit, you getting’ off on embarrassing him or something?”

“Yep.”

I stared at Heero, who stared back at me.

“Fuck you,” I spat, turning toward my bedroom.

“Duo, calm down,” Selena protested, moving to grab my wrist. “Heero gets it, Trowa gets it…it’s just you, Quatre, and Som who don’t get it.”

“Get what?” I snapped back at her.

“I told you before I wasn’t going to leave you for sex out of wedlock, remember?”

I knew my cheeks were flushing.

“You said you’d tell me if you slipped and you did. No harm, no foul…not on any real level. Shit, I figured you’d at least make out with the kid before I had our son, I just wish you hadn’t been fighting with me before it happened.”

I looked away.

“So come on, relax,” she muttered, grabbing my hand. “Heero’s trying to get his point across to Som that he’s not a bad person. We all know you’re an asshole.”

I had to grin slightly at that, giving her a look.

“It’s okay,” she muttered, touching my face with her hands. “Like Heero said, it’ll be when he’s trying to be alone with you that we’ll start to raise eyebrows.”

“You’re horrible,” I muttered, trying not to laugh at that.

“I know, and I married you, so deal with it.”

I smiled at her, watching her go back to the food before looking back to Som.

He looked away from me.

“I think Selena deserves a lot more credit than we give her,” Quatre noted darkly.

“And you deserve less than we give you, so it all evens out,” Heero agreed.

“Come on, Som,” Relena muttered, gesturing to the boy. “Let’s go get the kids and their stupid dogs.”

“Hey,” I protested, “Fei isn’t stupid.”

“I know I’m not,” Wufei retorted.

Som started to smile, hesitated, then grinned abashedly to Wufei.

“I meant the dog,” I informed the Chinese man. “You’re an idiot.”

“Hey!” Wufei protested, happily rising to the offense.

I grinned slightly at him, settling against the counter as Relena led Som away.

Something told me that I was in for a damn long winter.

- -

“What do you mean? He has to have gotten to him by now!” Jun protested, slamming his hands down on the desk. “It’s been three months!”

“Amazingly enough,” Sunan returned, “we’re on the phone.”

Jun snorted, studying the Asian man with narrowed eyes.

“I’m coming over, genius,” Sunan informed him. “We can’t argue properly over the vid. I’ll be there in five seconds.”

“But, Sunan,” Jun protested.

“But nothing, Jun,” Sunan retorted. He knew full-well that Jun’s phone lines were tapped. He wouldn’t be entirely shocked if the man’s apartment was bugged…though at the same time, Winner seemed smarter than that. He’d have to have some pretty good reasons to pull that one off. “I’ll come up…turn the brat’s music on and come up so no one can hear us.”

“Oh, don’t start the music,” Jun protested, groaning some.

The vid clicked off and music started pounding out some industrial beat.

“The thing I like best about Cowalles,” Sunan added as he bounced into Jun’s apartment a few moments later, “is that there are so many teenage boys that people don’t even notice the damn music.”

Jun glared at him, rising from his seat.

“What I was saying, though,” Sunan swept on as he closed the doors and moved to close the curtain, “is that there are these sticky little things called marriages. Knights tend to hold that kinda shit sacred, so no matter how you try to twist it, it’s not gonna be easy to get someone in there to cause a scandal.”

“I don’t appreciate your humor,” Jun retorted.

Sunan grinned at the man, dropping onto the couch. “You’re the one being impatient. By this time he’s joined the normal army so he’ll have to work carefully. Just remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

“But that’s about as long as it took to crush it,” Jun retorted, looking out the window tiredly. “What’s his last report?”

“Som hasn’t called,” Sunan returned, rolling his eyes slightly. “He’s not stupid enough to give them a trail to follow.”

“He knows what he’s supposed to be doing,” Jun snapped back. “I’m paying you good money for this.”

“You’re the one who decided on scandal,” Sunan retorted. “I still don’t appreciate that.”

“Your son is bi, it won’t hurt him.”

Sunan snorted in disgust. “I don’t care, the sooner we get him out of there the better, but he has to do things in ways that work for him. I’ll call him later to see what the hell is going on.”

“Is calling him such a good idea?”

“I’ll just say I’m a friend of his mother or something…that she’s worried about him. Come on, I thought you were freaking out about no reports.”

Jun sighed and shook his head.

“Hey, come on,” Sunan suggested, “my boy can pull this shit off…he’s had the same training as those damned pilots. Sooner than you’ll know it, Maxwell will be laid out in his own blood and we can all dance on his grave.”

- -

I sniggered as the vid beeped, moving across the room to hit the button.

“Sir Maxwell?”

“Yes?” I asked curiously as the group turned to look with interest.

“There’s a Sunan Ryu on the line, looking for…”

“What?” Som demanded, moving across the room to stare at the woman.

“…looking for you, actually,” she returned, frowning slightly.

“Wade?” Quatre asked, moving up behind.

“Hey, sir,” she muttered with a smile.

Quatre looked to me in disbelief, then turned to look at everyone else.

“Put him through,” I suggested, moving out of the line of the camera.

“Som?” a man demanded, then blinked at him.

“Dad?” Som returned. “What the hell?”

The man opened his mouth, then started to shake his head.

“I’m kinda visiting with friends right now,” Som noted, glancing at me briefly.

I grinned and leaned forward so the camera picked me up.

The man stared at me.

“This is Sir Duo Maxwell,” Som added in a slightly tight voice. “I’m in his apartment for supper.”

The man blinked at his son, then smiled briefly at me in a way that actually made me nervous. “Sorry, I’ll call you later…what’s your room number?”

“We can transfer you to Wufei’s apartment,” I suggested, looking between them.

“No, just use the set down in the commons,” Wufei suggested. “You’ll be going by there around seven.”

The man studied the screen in confusion. The vid was in the back corner of the living room.

“Call back around seven, dad,” Som added quietly, looking away a moment. “I don’t have a vid in my bedroom.”

“You can borrow a cell,” I suggested, pulling mine out.

“No, just let him talk to the man later so he doesn’t feel pressed,” Quatre suggested. “We can give him a phone pass so he can hang out when everyone else is gone. He hasn’t talked to his father in three months, and you owe him at least that.”

I frowned at Quatre, then shrugged and nodded my agreement.

But why was Q suddenly being Mr. Nice? He usually went in the opposite direction when something like this came up with Som.

“All right,” Som muttered, meeting my eyes briefly before moving forward and setting his hand on the button…and grumbled something that sounded almost pissed in the language he’d been speaking to me in before.

The man’s face changed to offended, and Som hit the button.

“Who was that?” Quatre added.

“My…dad,” Som turned to look at him.

“Where did you say you were from?” the blond added, thinking.

“Colony L…”

“No, your earth residence.”

“Cowalles,” Som frowned at him.

Quatre nodded at that, then turned back to the pot-pie Hilde had stolen my kitchen to make.

Som frowned more at Quatre, glanced briefly at me…and then moved rather quickly away from my person.

So what was going on now?

- -

“What the fuck?” Sunan demanded harshly of me.

I looked away from the vid, shaking my head.

As a matter of course, the vid calls from the commons were tapped.

“What’s going on?” he growled. “What’s happening?”

“Nothing is,” I returned. “I’m going through basic training.”

“So that’s why you’re up in his personal apartment?”

“Dad,” I started.

He shook his head, giving me a mildly disgusted look. “How much longer?”

“I don’t know,” I muttered, meeting his eyes again. “I couldn’t tell you.”

“And you refuse to report, why?”

“I don’t get the opportunity,” I snapped. “You heard them. This is a special favor.”

He made a disgusted noise, looking away.

“I’ve gotta go,” I muttered, swallowing. “I’ll go into town next chance I get.”

“Fine,” he spat…and disconnected.

I hated that I wanted to cry again.

I disconnected from that call, thinking over what I’d been told. Most recruits were given very specific orders. To call their mother or to call their father. They’d be able to talk to one person for any amount of time, but the phrasing around my permission was very vague. Before I’d gone into the vid room I’d had to wait for them to call up to Duo…Duo’d issued me the pass. Duo’d said I could receive any call or make any call I needed to for the duration of two hours, and the man had noted I was favored.

He had no fucking idea.

I rubbed at my eyes as I dialed my mom’s vid number.

“Som!” she exclaimed as she answered. Her smile was beaming. “How are you, baby? What’s the matter?”

“I…” I hesitated, looking down and shaking my head. “Nothing.”

The king had ordered me to silence.

“That’s a lie if I ever saw one,” she retorted. “How are you? How’s earth?”

“It’s getting really cold,” I noted, raising my eyes to hers again. “They keep the colonies from getting below fifteen, but it’s gotten down to ten.”

She grinned. “They don’t control the earth’s temperatures, you know.”

“I know,” I retorted.

“How’s your father?”

I looked away and shook my head.

“I told you,” she noted dryly. “What did I tell you?”

“Dad’s a manipulative asshole,” I quoted back to her.

“Am I wrong?”

“No.”

She made an amused noise. “How goes things, then?”

“I made a mistake,” I noted, raising my eyes to hers. “I hurt some people.”

“You’re guilty?” she asked curiously.

I nodded, pressing at the center of my forehead. “I don’t want to do this no more.”

“Som,” she said quietly, “if you quit now, you know what will happen.”

“But I can’t do it,” I protested, shifting forward to look at her. “I can’t…Mom…”

“You know what will happen,” she persisted. “You can make your own decisions, but you have to remember to weigh the options.”

I nodded, swallowing hard.

If I backed out now, it’d be a black mark against any future jobs. If I backed out now, Swathe would be apt to hire an assassin on me.

“Do you have friends?” she asked quietly.

I nodded.

“Do you have friends who care about you?”

I hated that I couldn’t just tell her what was going on. I hated that I couldn’t just tell her that Duo cared about me and what happened to me so I couldn’t kill him, let alone throw him into a public scandal.

Before I’d realized he didn’t speak Thai, I’d told him what was happening anyway…

“Can you make it?” she asked quietly, looking to something in front of her. “If you decide to give it up, can you take care of yourself?”

I nodded.

“You’re your own man now, Som,” she noted, looking to me. “Make your own decisions.”

I nodded at that, rubbing at my eyes.

“I love you,” she informed me. “Let me know how things work out. I won’t expect a call from you.”

“All right,” I returned, swallowing again. “You’re not disappointed?”

She smiled slightly at me. “We all have our limits. You didn’t know yours before.”

I nodded at that.

She disconnected.

I sat a long moment in the little stall, thinking about that and all the ramifications of actually going through with the plan.

The end result was me killing Maxwell. The scandal had been Tomé’s idea, and Jun was deciding to blame it all on him since Tomé hated Duo.

To begin with I shouldn’t have given them my real name.

I climbed out of the stall tiredly, moving toward the entrance of the room…and saw Quatre walking away.

My stomach soured.

“You’re to return to barracks, Ryu,” the man on duty ordered.

“Yes, sir,” I returned, saluting him briefly as I looked after the blond…who was gone.

I headed for my rooms.