Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ 3 Ties That Bind ❯ Seventeen ( Chapter 17 )

“What do you think?” Quatre asked curiously.

“About what?” I returned tiredly.

Quatre made me tired…he really did.

“About Ryu,” he returned.

I focused on him, narrowing my eyes a bit.

“You think he’s gonna stay in?” he pressed.

“Seems like it,” I thought over how he’d reacted when I’d asked and how he’d been acting with us in general. “I don’t know…I think he’d have dropped out by now if he was going to.”

Quatre nodded, thinking about that.

“You have that look, you know…that sneaky conniving look.”

“Yeah, I’m conniving,” he agreed negligently. “Think you can find it out before it comes to fruition?”

I studied his face a long moment. “What does it have to do with Som?”

“Som?” he asked sweetly. “Surprised you haven’t started calling him baby yet.”

“I know it’d make you upset,” I explained almost negligently. “There’s still time.”

He snorted and almost smiled at me.

“I guess it’s game start, huh?” I asked, grinning wickedly at him. “I’m already under the boy’s skin, so that’s where I’m gonna start looking. What’s your time frame?”

“Today, tomorrow, tonight…a month,” he smiled at me. “It’s hard to tell with hormonal eighteen year olds.”

“They aren’t usually so unstable,” I mused, thinking that over.

“Perimeters being that you don’t outright ask him,” he noted, studying me. “That’s not just some flippant rule, either. It is imperative that he doesn’t realize what’s going on.”

“Imperative?” I repeated, pretending to be impressed. “I see you’ve been studying that spelling book I gave you…it has definitions, right?”

“Hahaha,” he retorted, shoving me away as he started by, “oh, and Duo? Don’t go away alone with him.”

I tsked at that in disgust.

He grinned at me…and walked off down the hall.

So he was getting over his issues if he was willing to play conniving-bastard with me…that was a start.

- -

“Give me that, huh, baby?”

I turned to look at Duo…and realized he was talking to the kid.

I raised my eyebrows at him as he blanched completely.

Wufei started laughing hard.

Som finished passing Duo the canister of nuts they’d been sharing, giving us all a wide-eyed look.

“That’s beautiful, Duo,” I noted. “Now he can really say he’s one of us…don’t eat all the cashews.”

“Asshole,” Quatre informed him.

“What?” Duo protested, his cheeks slightly flushed, though he was showing no other signs that he’d just called the kid an affection.

“I wasn’t serious yesterday when I said that, you know,” Quatre retorted.

“I didn’t mean to say it,” Duo snapped back.

“Sweetheart, just stop talking,” I suggested, moving to sit between he and Som since the kid was almost at the end of the couch and my husband was in the armchair. “I know you won’t cheat on me again, but some of your friends aren’t so sure.”

“Would you leave him then?” Som asked curiously.

“You,” I said pointedly, meeting his eyes, “should not be asking that kind of question when I know you’ve chased him around to be alone with him.”

He stared at me.

“I like how you just reacted to it, too,” Wufei noted in high amusement. “Just kinda…passed him the can.”

“My mom calls me that,” Som explained, looking down. “She calls me baby more than my name…so I just…”

“You’re a good kid,” I reassured him, ruffling his hair…as a pain lanced through my abdomen. “Ouch…” I noted, leaning slightly forward.

Everything froze.

“Nira?” Duo asked, sitting forward on his seat.

“It’ll pass,” I informed him, moving slightly forward on the couch myself so he could take my hand and the pressure continued…and I felt something wet…and…then it seemed like I peed. “Duo…” I breathed.

“Damn,” Wufei noted with dramatic understatement. “I guess I might…go get the car.”

- -

Where Hilde’s labor had taken hours, Selena’s labor took almost moments.

Duo’s normal panic mode had kicked in so the hospital was under the same sweep as it had been for Hilde, and he’d driven his wife to the hospital before anyone else was ready.

With Hilde, the doctors’d had time to give her the epidural, but Selena was just short of full labor as she was hauled into the maternity ward.

After all the shit going on, hearing her pain had probably torn Duo apart.

“Yeah,” Duo muttered to the baby boy in his arms, “you’re just a perfect little thing, aren’t you? Just like Ashley…just like your sister…”

I allowed my eyes to drift closed slightly as he continued talking to his little one. Selena was beyond out on the bed, which meant Duo got to make the next set of important decisions, but it wasn’t more than getting the kid’s footprints.

“Oh, open your eyes…” Duo breathed. “Let me see what color…come on…oh, there you are…”

No one would ever doubt that he loved his children.

“I have to work,” Som muttered tiredly. “I have to get up at dawn.”

“Huh?” I asked, sitting up and looking around before blinking at him. He had the blood-shot tired thing going on.

“I don’t have a way back to the palace,” he explained, blinking at me. “Heero made me come and Wufei left before I could say anything.”

“Day off,” I dismissed it, settling back in my seat.

Duo sniggered. “Take him home, Tro. I know how to take care of babies.”

I laughed at that, blinking at my friend a moment before yawning hard. “I don’t think I could drive home.”

“I can drive,” Som suggested.

“You just want to get away because he’s being all fatherly,” I retorted.

Duo tsked.

I sniggered slightly, looking over to the boy…who wasn’t looking at me.

“Hey, that was a joke,” I informed him.

“Can we go home, sir?” he asked, meeting my eyes again.

I sighed and rose to my feet, resting a hand on Duo’s shoulder. “Heero just wanted to be sure there were two Asians,” I teased the recruit as I grabbed my jacket. “Had to keep the count right.”

Som grinned at me, rolling his eyes as he pulled on his own jacket.

“Be careful,” Duo suggested, looking up to us as we headed out the door. “Come back if you want,” he added to me.

“I think I have baby duty,” I disagreed, kicking Som lightly on the ass. “Get moving, Ryu. If you crash my rig, I’ll crash you.”

- -

“So I’ll take the first month and a half,” I mused, looking at the calendar, “and you can take the second.”

“What?” Duo asked, looking up to me from where he was holding our daughter.

“What, what?” I repeated, blinking at him.

“You want me to take time off?” he asked blankly.

I stared at him in disbelief. “In spite of old world beliefs, a woman’s place is not to be the only one with the child.”

He tsked at that. “No…that’s not what I mean.”

“What, then?” I asked, irritated with him more.

He groaned and rose to his feet…walking away from me.

“Duo!” I snapped.

“Shut up, you’ll wake her up,” he snapped back, looking back to me from where he was standing in Ashley’s door.

I tsked at him in annoyance, debating if I felt up to fighting with him.

Not yet…I was still tired.

He disappeared into the bedroom and came back out without our daughter, closing the door to her room. “You want me to take time off?”

I raised my eyebrows at him.

“I’m going insane enough as it is, and that’s with me working,” he added irritably, dropping next to me on the couch. “Don’t make me not work.”

I stared at him.

He gave me a disgusted look, rising to his feet and pacing toward the window—he had that same aggravation he’d had the day he’d asked if I was mad at him.

“I’ll take care of him after that,” I reassured him. “But I want to work off the baby weight.”

“Selena…” he snapped my name, then hesitated, moving forward.

“Duo!”

His hand stopped just shy of slamming into the window…his shoulders tensed and he shifted his neck around slightly, curling his nails against the glass as he looked down.

“What’s the matter?” I demanded, rising to my feet and moving toward him. Dean was laying in his bassinette by the chair, sleeping soundly. “There’s more going on here…”

“What did you think I was trying to tell you?” he nearly snarled under his breath.

I stopped, staring at him. He usually uncoiled somewhat when I approached him. He hadn’t shifted in the slightest.

“What?” I asked uncertainly.

“Oh, that’s right,” he noted, turning on me with hard eyes. “You freaked out and thought I meant to leave you.”

I stared at him.

He shook his head in disgust, turning away from me and stopping by the bassinette.

He had been about to walk out before he’d seen the baby.

I stared at him.

He pressed his hand to his mouth a moment, then turned on me. “I’m going out of my mind, Selena,” he said seriously, moving toward me again. “I’m…I can’t sleep at night, I don’t want to eat…I get the paper part of my job done by noon every damn day and follow Heero around like a fucking puppy for no reason at all.”

I settled where I was standing, looking down.

“I tell everyone to do what they already know to do and I sit pretty in my office signing official documents that mean shit…but they have to have my signature to do anything at all…I can’t sit here and do this job, Selena. I can’t stand watching the world go by, and that’s so fucking selfish…”

I focused on his face sharply as I understood exactly what his problem had been…almost for years now…or had it been years?

When Duo’d been Michael Ocean, he’d been chasing down my brother with a holy vengeance, but I’d interceded and he’d come up short when it came to the moment of doing. He’d taken back Deniel to save Wufei, and then they’d fought tooth and nail to regain Newport. He’d been alive then, full of life and constantly thinking about their next move, the next big thing to tackle…they’d swept across Sanq and destroyed the syndicate powers. Even before that, he’d been fighting hard against the different military factors…he’d even given up everything he had to go help a nun.

For the last eight years or more, he’d been holding a position of power that kept him penned down and didn’t really do anything.

“…I can’t stand how…selfish it is,” he admitted, looking away from me, moving toward me. “I can’t stand that I want more when I have everything…a great wife, the perfect children…better friends than any man alive could wish for…my daughter’s in school and thriving…we make more money than I thought we ever would…people listen to me when I say something…and I’m bored. I’m stagnant…I’m not moving forward…there’s no where left to go.”

“Duo,” I started.

“This has been my problem,” he cut me off, turning back to me. “This has been the issue I couldn’t get over…this has been what has me stressed. I thought if we could go away for a while…go somewhere new and different,” he moved in to grab my hands. “I thought if we did that, if we left here a little while, that it’d help. That I could get back my perspective…and then you misunderstood me, and I didn’t know how to say any of it…”

“Linguistic genius,” I noted, studying his eyes as I leaned against him.

“But it’s not like we can actually go anywhere until April anyway,” he gestured toward Dean. “I don’t want to put him in harm’s way…and you were so pissed at me…”

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, touching his face as I studied his eyes. “I’m…sorry.”

He looked away a long moment, then shook his head. “I never meant anything to come of Som. I never thought I would…”

“You told me,” I reminded him. “It happened and you told me. That’s all I ask for.”

He looked away again.

“That night…you were so distant from me that I couldn’t look at you without being scared you did want to leave…for real. You wanted to bring Ash back to the apartment, but I wanted to go cry…I was being a petulant child.”

“But…I did it, Nira,” he whispered, tears filling his eyes again, looking to me. “Quatre told me to just sleep at his place, and I decided to hit the church first to calm down…and…”

“Why was he even out there anyway?” I demanded dryly, looking away. “What business did he have in your place?”

“He was just curious…”

“I’m warning you now that while I don’t see that boy as a threat, there is a line where your insistence and arguments will be too much,” I noted, studying his face. “Lust is one thing, but emotional attachment is something else altogether.”

He stared at me.

“Just keep it in mind with your little friend,” I snapped, turning away from him and moving toward the window. “I don’t mean anything…I like Som, really…but why was he at the hospital?”

I couldn’t help but be jealous of the boy. It wasn’t anything too severe, he was a good kid…but he’d been the only person who’d ever taken any of Duo’s attention off of me. I’d always figured that Duo would stray at some point, but I thought it would be some one night stand that meant absolutely nothing to him, and this went beyond that limit.

“I don’t know,” Duo said evenly. “I didn’t tell him to come, I didn’t tell the others to bring him. He said that Heero told him to come, so take it up with him.”

I turned to stare at his receding back in disbelief as he stormed from the apartment.

It only took him a few moments to be out the back of the palace, and he started for the church before stopping and staring in the direction…before turning and heading into the woods.

I shook my head, wishing I were feeling stronger so I could slap him and get the fighting part over with…but there was no way I could stand against him when I was taking pills to dull the pain.

We’d both just have to deal with it.

- -

“You have no idea how annoying it is,” Som muttered to me tiredly as we moved around the castle grounds. “I can find some really great guys, but for some reason they all seem to be married.”

“All the good ones are taken,” I noted. “Wufei tells me that all the time.”

He grinned briefly at me and shook his head. “There’s a very serious difference.”

“Oh?”

“You’re straight,” he shrugged. “You can tell.”

“That’s an interesting thing…didn’t realize bi guys had gaydar.”

He sniggered, elbowing me briefly.

This was an interesting development.

Sunday afternoon, Duo had been giving Som a very considerate look, and it hadn’t been the type to make us worry. He’d obviously been considering something and it’d made Som somewhat paranoid. Quatre was running around doing his little “sneaky” thing where he asked everyone what they thought of a matter before agreeing haphazardly and leaving the matter lie, and those two things said something more was going on.

Monday, Selena’d had Dean, so nothing had really come of it, but Duo’d disappeared into the forest last night after having a serious conversation with Nira, and I got the definite impression he’d be spending even less time with the recruit.

At any rate, I’d been collecting Som after his work day ended and walking around with him, because he didn’t have anyone he could talk to man to man now that Duo was out of his picture. We all knew Wufei was a little too interested in the boy’s person to be of any help what-so-ever, so I’d decided with Heero’s approval to take the kid under my wing. It had been obvious to us from his tone of voice when he’d hung up with his father that he didn’t get along with the man…and if anything Duo’d said was remotely valid, he had a very serious father complex…meaning his hadn’t been there when he’d needed one and he was looking for one.

“No…it’s like…when I talk to you I can tell. The first day I got here, Wufei kept giving me looks…so I’ve been teasing him, because he’s funny…and Duo initially gave me a look…and I dunno. You listen to what I say and care about it, but it’s not the same as when Duo would listen and care…”

If the kid hadn’t been ten when Duo initially got back and was single…

“…you seem more like you’d help instead of suggesting courses of action…which is help, but…”

“I think I understand,” I noted.

Yes, I was a father. My daughter was just barely younger than him.

No matter what way you looked at it, it was fucked up that the boy was only eighteen.

“I can talk to you,” he noted, slowing slightly. “I don’t worry about something I say offending you…because the stuff that I think would bother you the most…you make jokes.”

I grinned slightly at that and nodded.

“Every relationship I’ve had with a guy…they’re always older,” he confided, looking down again. “It’s so stupid, because I know they’re married, but then they start talking in that tone…and I can’t refuse.”

“I suppose this is the part where I remind you that Duo is a manipulative bastard.”

He stopped, raising his eyes to mine—it was such an innocent and earnest look that I grinned in an encouraging way to get him talking.

“My mom says that about my dad all the time,” he muttered, looking down.

“I see,” I noted. “Kinda like him calling you baby and you realize after what he’d done.”

He laughed a little at that, giving me a look.

“We all talk,” I explained. “We don’t really keep secrets from each other. Wufei thought it was hilarious that Duo was attracted to you, but none of us ever thought he’d cheat on Selena.”

He almost stopped, looking away.

“If you want to take the blame for that, go right ahead,” I noted, raising an eyebrow at him. “Just keep in mind that Duo made first claim and his right precedes yours.”

That got me a look that quickly turned amused.

“I don’t care that you’re attracted to him, I don’t care that you might have even offered yourself to him. He’s responsible for his decisions, and he seduced you. You’ve said enough for us to know that you were doing everything short of refusing him and he still talked around you. We all know how that goes.”

He nodded, looking away again.

“I know it might seem odd to you…all of us just keeping you around…but you should probably realize by now that Duo’s tried to seduce all of us…all but Wufei. Wufei would give in without a moment’s hesitation, so there’s no challenge there…my jackass friend likes challenges.”

“I don’t think I was much of one,” he muttered almost petulantly. “You know, it really sucks. If I’m as big an asshole as that when I get older I’m gonna kill myself.”

And enter the teen.

“I mean…I trust them and open up, and let them in my guard…and they all turn around when they’ve had their fun and tell me that they’re married, that they shouldn’t have done it…that I need to just…go away.”

That actually caught my attention.

“But Duo hasn’t said that yet,” he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest and moving to walk even with me. “I think his wife will make him, though. I think she’s fine that we fucked but it bothers her that he cares about me. He said he wanted to do right by me but he couldn’t offer me more than an apology, and as soon as she realizes that she’s gonna get pissed…he was saying he wasn’t going to leave her for me.”

“When?” I asked, thinking over the past several months.

Som stopped, looking up to me with wide eyes.

“I thought so,” I noted, rolling my own. “How the fuck did you get alone with him?”

“I…did what he asked me not to,” he explained.

“Went out to the church?”

“No,” he said quietly. “He hasn’t said anything about the church. He just keeps telling me he’s not going to be alone with me.”

“What did he tell you not to do?”

“I had a day pass?”

I turned to study his face, then grinned tightly at him. “I’m not Quatre to fly off the handle, you know. I’m not Wufei to tease about secret meetings…or even Duo, who really means to keep you at arm’s length. You can tell me anything you need to tell me. Heero and I both think this is fucked up and want to help you.”

“Heero?” he asked quietly. “The king cares?”

“You’re not a normal,” I explained. “You’re smart and talented, and if what I’ve seen of your father tells me anything, you could use an adult male who’s not gonna fuck you to hear you out. What do you mean, you did what he asked you not to?”

“I wanted to ask him about something,” he muttered evasively. “But I didn’t want anyone around to hear it…and he said no, and after we’d talked for a while he told me that he was going to a strip mall and asked me not to go there. I don’t know the town, so I just kinda wandered and ended up there when he was.”

“All right,” I noted. “I can understand that. What made you decide to talk to him? What was so important you couldn’t ask it in front of Wufei?”

He gestured vaguely, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter, I got my answer. Nothing happened,” he added almost too quickly. “He was annoyed that I’d gone there anyway.”

“Okay,” I said evenly, “if you’re going to start lying to me, I’m going to stop talking to you.”

He stopped, looking very torn, but I kept moving. After a moment, he darted forward to walk with me again. “I…I kissed him.”

“I see,” I met his eyes. “Don’t do that anymore.”

He shook his head in agreement in a way that suggested to me that he didn’t want me to stop talking to him.

So it was working. Good.

Poor kid.

“He was annoyed,” he admitted, moving to walk with me again. “Trowa?”

“Yeah?”

“If…I told you something, do you think I’d get in trouble?”

“You are eighteen,” I reminded him. “That means legally liable. Unfortunately, I can’t swear complete secrecy to you.”

He had slowed and stopped for a moment before moving to catch up with me again. “Trowa?”

“Yeah?”

“If something happened…and…and I needed help…would you help me?”

“We all would,” I noted, meeting his eyes. “I’m sure Duo’d be first on the scene.”

He looked away. “If it was…bigger than that, though,” he muttered. “If…I was in danger.”

…and this would be what Quatre was conniving over.

“Would it endanger our children?”

“Maybe?”

“If we could manage it, we’d do it, son,” I muttered, draping an arm over his shoulders. “We’ve saved the world, huh? What’s a little babysitting for a friend?”

He smiled almost shyly at me and shook his head, pulling away.

“I think Selena’s not so worried as you think,” I added, considering it. “She and my wife tell each other everything, so my wife would warn me if she was feeling like you were stepping on her toes…you about ready to go in? It’s kinda cold out and Wufei talked Hilde into making her pot pie again and I’m fairly certain that we can get some hot chocolate…then watch Ashley kick Duo’s ass at chess.”

He grinned at that, glancing sidelong at me.

“You play chess?” I asked curiously.

“Sorta.”

“Good, I’ll kick your ass.”

He snorted. “You wish…”

“Cocky little soldier, aren’t you?” I teased, smacking at him and dodging his return blow. He started laughing, moving at me again.

Life lesson number one, everyone needs someone they can count on.