Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ 3 Ties That Bind ❯ Sixteen ( Chapter 16 )

“Well, he’s certainly deflated,” I noted, watching Ryu as he sat near Wufei and talked. The teen had been very self assured and present after his day off, but it’d disappeared as the week carried on. Now, it looked like he was forcing himself to move most of the time.

“What?” Duo asked, looking back to me, then across the room at the pair. “You can’t exactly claim this is a happy resolution,” he noted.

“No, beyond that,” I countered. “He’s making himself laugh.”

“Q,” Duo muttered seriously, setting the cups he was holding down without looking at me, “he blames himself for what happened. He thinks this is all his fault, and I can’t get him to believe I’m not trying to punish him.”

Several things chased through my mind at that point, including that he shouldn’t be so worried about the boy’s emotional state—but that wasn’t even genuine. I was worried about the kid, and worried about what might be going on at his homes. His mother had seemed willing enough to accept him dropping out of the military, but his father…

Other than the fact that his father was listed as having dealings with Swathe…

I shook my head slightly. “I don’t think he believes you’re trying to punish him,” I noted quietly, relenting slightly. “You need to stop apologizing to him.”

It was the first, and probably the last, time those words would cross my lips.

I could tell that the others thought I was overreacting, but there was something about the fact that Duo had cheated that incensed me.

Not Duo. Anyone else in our group, but not Duo…

And what that really meant was that he could leave again. If he could cheat on Nira, he could disappear again…and this time he probably wouldn’t come back.

I stared back at him as he stared at me, wondering how much of my thought process he could read in my eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly, moving in to have me pinned against the counter.

I avoided his eyes, allowing the dominance.

“I’m serious,” he protested, setting the filled cup he was holding next to me as he looked my face over. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” I muttered, picking the cup up to drink out of it.

“Quatre,” he protested, moving so we were eye to eye. “Don’t lie to me.”

“Why not? You lied to me.”

“What?” he protested. “When?”

Had he actually lied to me?

Not that I could remember.

I looked away again.

“You’re actually starting to piss me off,” he informed me in that same quiet tone. It was very reasonable and reassuring, like nothing could go wrong.

The fucker.

I shoved at him, meeting his eyes.

“What?” he protested, catching my wrist and changing the motion of the hand holding the glass so the liquid inside it didn’t actually spill onto my shirt. “Q, what’s wrong?”

“I hate to interrupt, and all,” Ryu muttered suddenly, making us both jump and focus on him, “but that tone of voice and the manhandling don’t exactly strike me as innocent anymore.”

Duo was away from me in a heartbeat.

I stared after him, then looked back to Ryu, trying not to stare at him.

How had we not heard him?”

“How do you move like that?” Duo protested at the same time.

“I…move,” Ryu noted in mild amusement. “Where are the cups?”

“Oh,” Duo started to move toward where...he’d set the cup I was using. He blinked at me, then the cup, then looked around until he found the empty and moved to fill it.

“That tone of voice is hard to resist, you know,” Ryu added, leaning against the counter behind me.

“It’s a dominance thing,” I noted, rolling my eyes as I shifted out of his personal space. “He, Heero, and Wufei have it so well practiced that you don’t even realize they’re using it until it’s worked.”

“Wufei doesn’t do it so much anymore,” Duo muttered, setting a cup beside Ryu and turning for a third. “And we don’t practice it. We’re dominant. That’s as far as that one goes.”

I snorted.

“Something about Jun’s goons covering my mouth and nose with a chloroform rag kinda interrupted me,” Wufei noted sardonically. “Something about a gun at my head made me lose that dominance kick…you two can have it.”

“What?” Ryu demanded almost breathlessly.

“Oh…shit,” Wufei sounded startled, and looked it when I met his eyes.

“We don’t talk about that,” Duo noted, setting that glass by Wufei.

“No…what do you mean?” Ryu protested.

Wufei shrugged, taking a drink. “You’re around enough that you’re almost one of us…aside from not being alone with Duo, anyway…I suppose I can tell you if you agree to keep it to yourself.”

“Are you sure?” Duo asked quietly.

Wufei thought a moment and shrugged. “Sure, why not?” He looked back to Ryu. “When Relena passed the throne to Zechs until she turned eighteen, we all broke and ran…we were seventeen…well, I was eighteen, so was Tro. Anyway, she lied and promised we’d come back in a year, and we went the anywhere-but-here route and ended up in Deniel. For her own safety, Relena wasn’t supposed to leave Sanq, and we all kinda decided to hang out…mostly,” we both directed dirty looks to Duo.

“Dude,” Duo protested, frowning at all of us, “Tro went to Mexico.”

“Yeah,” Wufei rolled his eyes, looking back to Som. “Anyway, Duo took off with some hippie nun for the colonies, and Trowa kinda ran to Mexico. I actually wandered to China for a while, but there was nothing going on there, and the only thing I even have that’s close to family left anymore is these assholes.”

Ryu ducked his head in acknowledgment.

Everyone knew about L-5.

“Rounding that one out, I got a fake I.D. and started working at a bar at nineteen. It didn’t take me long to get good at it…and I’m very good at what I do.”

“Wufei, you can’t fuck him, I already have,” Duo muttered, digging into the fridge.

Wufei sniggered evilly, and I gave the man a disgusted look.

“But he’s my pimp, isn’t he?” Ryu asked curiously.

“What?” I asked blankly.

All three of them were wide-eyed in a way that suggested this bit-fact had slipped their minds.

“Fuck,” Wufei dug into his pocket and pulled out his wallet.

“I could rape you so hard,” Ryu noted wickedly to Wufei.

“No!” Wufei protested, pulling out a bill and throwing it at Duo like it was unclean.

“What?” I demanded, looking between them.

Ryu started laughing a throaty laugh that didn’t sound so innocent as he usually appeared.

I stared at him.

“Holy shit,” Duo breathed, taking the money and shoving it into his pocket. “Ho-o-oly shit.”

“What?” I asked narrowly, looking to the recruit. “Tell me, now.”

“Uh…” he hesitated.

“That’s an order, Ryu,” I snapped at him like any one of his officers might.

“Don’t tell him,” Duo retorted.

Ryu was instantly torn.

Wufei snickered a bit. “You have to promise not to freak out, Q. You do that and I’ll tell you.”

I narrowed my eyes at him

“Just leave it,” Duo ordered through clenched teeth.

I gave Wufei another look and nodded. “I swear it.”

“Halloween night, right?” Wufei asked. “What was my costume?”

“A…pimp,” I noted, raising an eyebrow.

“Ryu’s one of my dogs, huh?” he asked, flicking the boy’s hair. “I dictate his life. I could tell him not to shit and it would be a reasonable order for him to obey.”

“I don’t think that’s really reasonable,” Ryu noted, making a face.

I nodded a bit.

“We were fucking around before Jacob got the leash,” he noted, grinning a bit as I remembered just how much fun Jacob’d said they’d had that night. “I told Duo it’d be fi’ty for Ryu and he gave me a fifty.”

I looked between them in disbelief, then focused on Ryu with wide eyes.

The kid grinned at me, then rolled his eyes. “It really wasn’t related.”

“I don’t think it’s funny,” I informed him.

“You don’t have to,” Ryu returned. “Without my consent, you can’t press charges on either of them…and there’s no way in hell I’d give you the green light.”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“You don’t have to like me,” the boy noted, his humor changing to a kind of cold distance I’d seen in Duo many times. “You don’t have to approve that your friends like me…fuck, you don’t even have to pretend to like me…but you have to be at least civil to me, and I’ll be civil to you. We can meet at that happy medium, can’t we? We’re both men.”

I blinked at that since the last comment had been said like a man would say it…shit, like Duo would have said it. Ryu had that dominance in him, but he submitted to the higher powers…no less that Trowa or I would.

There was no way in hell that shit was my equal.

I moved in, backing him down as I stared into his face…until he did look away, submitting to me.

“Do you feel better now?” Wufei asked skeptically.

“Yes, actually, I do,” I returned, moving back to lean against the counter. “You were getting to the part where you flirted with a man that turned out to be the worst decision of your life.”

“I’m more apt to argue that trying to win Miguel over took that cake.”

“That was Duo’s fault,” I returned dismissively.

“Oh, please,” Duo retorted, “I just wriggled into fissure that was already there and pulled it apart.”

We all looked at him in disbelief.

He grinned sweetly, moving to lean against the counter himself. “So…Jun?”

“I used to flirt with money,” Wufei noted to Ryu, making a slightly flirtatious face to prove his point…it was a cute one, anyway. “Jun Martin was the leader of Swathe and stationed in Deniel…and Swathe was a rather large syndicate. That was big money,” he noted, making a gesture in front of his chest that I didn’t entirely appreciate. “He comes on strong and presses hard, expecting everyone to submit…Jun, I mean.”

Ryu nodded, thinking about that.

“I was still dominant myself, so I flirted with him a bit and then got bored with him because he wouldn’t play right. He wasn’t used to teases and I was a huge tease.”

“Was?” Duo asked me.

“What’s with the past tense?” I agreed.

Wufei ignored that. “First time I met him, I thought he looked like fun,” Wufei mused. “Granted, I was depressed because some guys from work were going to see extended family, and my extended family stopped at the twinkle in my eye, if you get what I mean…so I wasn’t entirely rational when he started trying to sweet-talk me.”

“Hey, baby, you smell good?” Ryu offered in a very come-on fashion.

“Yeah,” Wufei agreed sardonically. “You know the type?”

Ryu gave Duo a very level look. “Intimately.”

Duo gave him an ‘I don’t know what you mean’ look, pulling himself up slightly.

“Don’t pretend he’s even like that,” Wufei made a dismissive gesture at the knight. “He’s more like to grab you and bite you.” As he said the grab part, he grabbed one of Som’s arms lightly.

Ryu grinned at that slightly.

“I like it when he moves in slow,” Wufei added, moving into the boy’s personal space. His movements were almost measured, but there was a flow to it that made it look entirely natural. “When he meets your eyes before he does anything…he do that to you?”

“Wufei,” Duo protested at him.

Wufei laughed wickedly since Ryu was definitely interested in his lips, moving away from the boy.

“How…I mean…” Ryu looked between them.

“We used to make out all the time,” Wufei explained. “When Jun really started hassling me, Duo decided he was my boyfriend…it’s fun to have Duo as a boyfriend in a packed club with hard liquor and hard music,” he grinned at Som slightly. “Unfortunately, you’ll never know that.”

“I dunno, I was all but making out with him on Halloween,” Duo mused.

“I love how you just pretend that cheating on your wife doesn’t matter,” I snapped at him.

“I love how you look disturbed because you know exactly what Wufei means,” Duo noted, moving in at me like Wufei had just done to Ryu.

“Uh-uh,” Wufei muttered, stepping around Ryu to push Duo back. “I’m not in the mood to have to fight you off.”

I tsked at him.

“What?” Som asked blankly.

“Duo is incredibly violent,” Wufei explained, making sure Duo moved away from me and taking his cup to drink from. “You saw it at the hearing,” he noted. “He was about to jump the table to kill Quatre…which makes me wonder why Q has a death wish,” he noted more to me than them as he turned to dig into a cupboard.

Duo…twitched. I’d seen him do it before, when he’d been controlling himself. His shoulders would flick back and he’d move his neck…it was actually akin to stretching, but I could tell he wasn’t controlling it.

He was watching me.

“…so Jun struts his wanna-be-hot ass into the club and moves to my section, so I start playing, you know?” Wufei looked up from a container of mixed nuts he’d found long enough to see Ryu nod. “And I just kinda…solicited…a few tips from him…but evidently that excited him, because he never went away after that.” Wufei thought about it a long moment, then shook his head. “He was a bit clingy, a bit needy, and way too demanding for me so I commenced to dismissing him…and that exploded in my face.” He shuddered slightly.

“Why do you say that?”

It almost seemed like more that curiosity.

“He got me passes to the Burn when Duo was in town when we were…oh…twenty-two?” he shook his head. “I think I was twenty-two…anyway…as soon as we get there…mm,” he looked to the recruit again and offered him the canister. “I should probably note that all the bartenders of Deniel would die to work in the Burn VIP area. You get paid by the hour, base-line minimum wage, but the people don’t pay for their drinks. You pay for it, so if you’re good enough to work there, you can pay your alcohol tab off with tip money and have your hours and whatever other tip you managed. Only thing was that if you hit five-hundred dollars shy consistently enough, they thank you for your work and pick up on someone new.”

“Give me,” Duo muttered, taking the can.

“Anyway…as soon as we got there,” Wufei took another drink as he thought, “the bouncer tells me Mr. Martin wants to see me,” he rolled his eyes, but I could see something else in his expression. “So Duo and I concede and head upstairs…because there was nothing else we could do at that point…and the asshole had a proposition for me.”

Duo was tense again, stretching his neck muscles with his jaw clenched…and I remembered the night in question.

Wufei had been just shy of terrified.

“What did he want?” Ryu asked quietly, his eyes wide.

“He…wanted me to dance at a party for him.”

“Dance?” Ryu asked blankly. “Like…the waltz shit?”

“No, like a stripper,” Duo snapped, slamming the canister onto the counter. “Leave that one.”

Ryu blinked at Duo in confusion a moment, then looked back to Wufei.

Wufei had that haunted look in his eyes as he studied the far couch. “Did you know that intimacy had a price tag?”

“Wufei,” Duo started in that would-be-reassuring tone…and it took on a different note with his anger.

Wufei looked back to Ryu and shook his head. “When I explained that the dancer thing had been a practical joke on a straight friend, Jun started throwing numbers at me. When I refused and we went to leave, he pulled a gun on me.”

I looked away, hearing the raw note of my friend’s voice.

That was when he’d lost his dominance. Not when he’d almost been kidnapped. After that night with Jun…

“What happened?” Ryu asked in an almost too innocent tone…a tone of knowing but wanting verbal reassurance.

“He just wanted to fuck,” Wufei noted with a sigh, sitting back on the stool again. “Maybe if I’d done it, none of the rest would have happened.”

Duo swatted the canister with one hand, since it had been set on the counter, and turned away as the thing slammed into the wall beyond Ryu. The boy stared at him with wide eyes.

Yeah, kid, look at your idol, see how human he is…

Duo had his hands on his hips.

Wufei was studying his own lap. “You think I’m right?”

“No!” Duo snapped, turning to grab his glass. “I think you’re being stupid.”

“If he’d have gotten over it then…”

“Then he would have just taken you over,” Duo snarled, moving like he’d go to Fei and changing his mind. “Don’t be stupid, don’t even think that your submitting to that bastard would have gotten us anywhere.”

Wufei looked up, shaking his head at Duo.

“No,” Duo snapped, gesturing at him a bit violently. “Don’t give me that look or any of those tried and true lines of yours…it’s not happening. It wouldn’t have happened then, he’d have just made you…made you his,” the word was spat in complete disgust.

“That’s why he hates you,” Ryu realized slowly, blinking at the man. “That’s…because of Wufei?”

“No, he hates me because I repeatedly made a fool of him,” Duo snapped, turning back to the cup he’d sat down and raising it to his mouth. “He hates me because I’ll kill him.”

Ryu looked between Wufei and I in amazement as neither of us responded to the notice.

“I certainly hope you don’t expect us to argue,” I muttered at him pointedly. “I wouldn’t want to stand against Duo any day.”

“You do it all the time,” Duo snapped, almost looking over his shoulder at me.

“Grow your braid again,” I retorted, looking him over. “That look works best with the braid hanging down your back.”

He snorted, turning to look at me.

“I guess…” Wufei muttered, thinking. “If I’d have just let him fuck me he would have done it all the time…or tried to. I refused him and he shoved a gun to my back that I thought he meant for Duo’s head. He had no idea who he was fucking with…and with that dumb shit talking to Tomé…scandal,” he guffawed. “Like Duo’d do anything uncouth with some pretty little girl…other than spoil her.”

The moment the words crossed Wufei’s lips, Som’s eyes widened just enough to indicate being startled.

He moved like we did.

Sally said Blue-boy’d had our training.

The kid said he was from Cowalles, and Jun lived in Cowalles…Sunan Ryu was known to have dealings with Swathe back in the day…and Sunan lived in Cowalles.

I studied the boy seriously a long moment as I wondered if we had an assassin in our very midst.

“Doesn’t matter anyway,” Duo noted darkly. “I managed to make the scandal happen without some pretty little girl child.”

“But Ryu didn’t press,” I noted, looking to him. “Ryu conceded seduction, denied punishment, and would probably love it if we let him just sit with you alone for an hour.”

Ryu gave me a look.

“That’s not a bad thing, kid,” I noted, my mind clicking into familiar patterns.

When Wufei spoke again, it was in a musing tone that hinted the words weren’t supposed to be out loud. “Jun had no idea who he was fucking with, even when he did realize the Cheshire Cat was the Gundam pilot of nightmares.”

Duo half laughed, turning to look at him.

“Needless to say, Jun is on our bad side…him and all his cronies,” I noted, studying the boy’s face. “He took a few shots at Wufei’s head over the years and we tend to tear apart those who attempt one of our own. Even with this shit with Duo, I’d still tear you limb from limb if you tried to hurt him.”

Duo sniffed slightly enough to show appreciative amusement.

Ryu blinked at me, then nodded.

“Get me those nuts,” I suggested, indicating the canister on the floor with my head. “I’m sure Wufei would love the stress relief of re-telling the sordid tales of Jun Martin, and it might do you good to hear what we’re working against fist-hand…I mean, you joined the army, and it’s syndicate bastards like Jun we’re protecting the country against.” He passed me the can and I popped some nuts into my mouth, moving around the breakfast bar.

I was going to have to apologize to Sally…and I got the distinct impression I really needed to make sure Duo wasn’t left alone with the boy.

And anymore, that wasn’t a moral complaint.