A/N: A short something for ChronicWhimsy because she's a lovely and amazing person.
A/N2: Edited by the amazing Ro and beta read by the wonderful Kangofu-CB
A/N3: Title from the album by Stars (maybe one day I won't do song things for titles, but today is not that day).
Warnings: fluff, language
Pairings: 1x2x5
Nightsong
Wufei was busy.
He was the kind of busy that meant he had showered once in the last three days. The kind of busy that meant the smell test was the only way he knew if he was putting on clean clothes at this point. The kind of busy that meant he didn't know if he had had breakfast today or if he was just remembering yesterday… or was it the day before that? The kind of busy that meant he debated whether or not he should take the train home and endure the forty-five minute commute out to Long Island or if he should just… sleep at work. The kind of busy that meant he got home at four in the morning and discovered that his roommates had taken the time out of their busy schedule of having sex all over the apartment to hang a banner over his door that read Vacancy.
The kind of busy that meant he didn't even take it down. Or remember to snark about it the next morning when Meilan pushed a cup of coffee into his hands and Trowa presented him with a piece of toast and a 'have a good day, sweetie' that would, in other weeks, have Wufei snarking back at him.
He was the kind of busy that was too busy to deal with this on top of everything else.
This, of course, being Duo Maxwell.
Sure, he was an amazing lighting designer. Amazing in that he could make a few gestures with his hands, say a string of words that in no way should have made any sense, grin at you, and you got it. Amazing in that he could sit at the lighting console for an hour and have rough looks for every single cue. Amazing in that he could press a single button and transform the entire world from dark and dull to magnificent and brilliant with life and color.
And sure, he was funny. Funny in that he found humor in the smallest, blackest moments. Funny in that he managed to make even the lamest pun seem like comic genius. Funny in the way that he always laughed way too hard at other people's jokes, genuinely delighted at even the most offhand rejoinder or complicated anecdote.
And he was thoughtful. Thoughtful in that he kept buying Wufei coffee whenever he went out. Thoughtful in that he kept giving the interns snacks. Thoughtful in that he insisted on giving Wufei his hoodie when Wufei, after spilling one of those free coffees all over himself, sat shivering in the dark for two hours during tech because the director insisted on cranking the thermostat to subarctic temperatures. Thoughtful in that he remembered it was Wufei's birthday and pulled the entire cast and crew together to sing happy birthday to him and make him blow out candles and wish for something. Thoughtful in that he just so happened to have an important question to ask the director right in the middle of the director dressing down Wufei for daring to enforce a union break and telling the actors to take ten instead of working through.
And he was handsome. Handsome in that just a slight tilt of his lips had Wufei staring and mumbling about cake crumbs when he was caught staring. Handsome in that he wore his clothes so casually, so confidently that he managed to make a faded Mets t-shirt look good. Handsome in that when he did turn to Wufei, laughing and grinning and eyes dancing, Wufei genuinely didn't even remember his own name.
And that was the problem.
All of it.
Duo Maxwell was as close to perfect as a human being could get - closer, really, than should be allowed. And Wufei was too busy for this ridiculous crush.
Not only was he stage managing the show that Duo was designing at the hole-in-the-wall Off-Off-Broadway theatre, but Wufei had finals coming up at graduate school, and he simply didn't have the space in his head or his anxiety-riddled heart to deal with a gorgeous, grinning Duo Maxwell asking him to hang out that weekend.
Especially not a Duo Maxwell whose boyfriend came to see the invited dress rehearsal. A boyfriend who looked like some kind of professional athlete or model or something - whatever job required flawless muscle tone and perfectly-chiseled features and ridiculously unruly hair.
So Wufei dragged himself off to Long Island after listening to the director, Treize, rail again about how things needed to be done precisely his way, and he didn't care that the Union rules meant Wufei couldn't call the actors in early on opening night after they had already exceeded their hourly limit for the week anyway. And then Wufei clumsily jumped up to pull down the Vacancy sign, and he laid awake in his bed and stared up at the ceiling and couldn't scrub the mental image of Duo and his boyfriend, Heero Yuy, out of his mind.
Duo had insisted on introducing them after the run, had slipped Wufei a half-page of notes on the lighting cues - two were called a line too early; one called a line too late. Duo was changing seven of the cues in the morning, and he wanted to let Wufei know what to look for and what to change in his prompt book - and had asked Wufei to join them for a drink. Heero had smirked as he shook Wufei's hand, had said something like 'Duo speaks highly of you' or 'Duo talks about you a lot' or 'Duo mentioned you existed once.' Something along those lines. Something that had Wufei awkwardly shaking Heero's hand while staring at a red-faced Duo. The handshake had gone on for a long time. Too long. Until they were just holding hands and Wufei was as red-faced as Duo, and Heero was still just smirking, confident and gorgeous, and Wufei had been jerked out of the endless depths of his blue eyes by Treize calling out his name sharply.
The next day was the show opening. Wufei didn't have to be there until later. He had the chance to sleep. The chance to catch up on schoolwork. The chance to do laundry.
But Duo had mentioned going in early to reprogram those cues…
When Wufei arrived at the theatre, Duo was already there, sitting alone in the dark booth and staring out across the dark theatre, manipulating pools of light onstage with a flick of his wrist and a tap of his long, talented fingers.
Wufei joined him in the booth, and Duo looked up with a startled, warm smile.
"Hey. Figured you would sleep in. You've been working your ass off on this show."
"We all have," Wufei shrugged.
Duo snorted.
"Not like you. Stage Mangers kill me - I don't know how you manage to keep your cool and not go crazy, figuring out all of this shit, dealing with crazy directors and crazy designers and crazy actors."
"The designers aren't so bad this time around," Wufei shrugged. In truth, he didn't often 'keep his cool' - it was one of the things his professors chided him about most frequently. Wufei had the annoying habit of being right most of the time, and insisting on doing things the right way. It earned him the respect of a lot of people, but also the ire of others. Others like Treize.
"Yeah, just the one crazy one, huh?" Duo smirked at him again, and offered up an untouched portion of a bagel.
Wufei took it and tried to figure out who Duo was referring to.
"The costume designer isn't really crazy. She's just… a little odd. And the scenic designer is fine. The sound guy… He's a sound guy." Wufei shrugged and ate a piece of the bagel. It appeared to be an everything bagel, with plain cream cheese and bacon. He had never had that particular combination. It was… odd and yet, really good.
"I meant me," Duo muttered, and looked away from Wufei to type in more commands on the lighting console.
On the stage, the lights changed again, throwing a blue glow onto Duo's face as he stared at the look critically.
"You're the least crazy person working on this show," Wufei scoffed.
Duo spared him a disbelieving look.
"Really? It's the last day, Fei. You don't have to worry about pissing me off or hurting my feelings or whatever. I… You're a professional, and I'm sorry."
It was Wufei's turn to give Duo the disbelieving look.
"What are you talking about? What are you apologizing for? Changing seven cues on opening night? The last show I did, the lighting designer was still programming the show when the house opened. This is nothing."
Duo frowned.
"Not- No. I'm- I've spent the last week flirting with you like crazy, and you just- I thought maybe you were just tired or- You didn't seem like you weren't interested, but… I mean, I asked you out twice- Well, I asked you out once, and then Heero asked you out- And you said no, and I'm just… sorry that you had to deal with me being totally unprofessional and obnoxious about liking you."
Wufei stared at him.
Duo hadn't seemed the type for practical jokes, for lying. But this…
Duo sighed and turned back to the console.
And Wufei continued to stare.
"You like me?"
"Yeah," Duo growled. "That's what I-" He cast a glance over his shoulder at Wufei.
"You didn't realize? You- All this time you… Oh my god." Duo rubbed his face over his hands. "Oh my god. You didn't even realize I was hitting on you. Shit. I figured you were out of my league, but I didn't- This is fucking embarrassing."
Duo shook his head and gave a bitter laugh. He typed in a few more commands, and onstage the lights turned off.
Wufei watched Duo save his work and then shut down the console.
He watched Duo stand up and smooth down his clothes, and then their gaze met when Duo looked at him again.
"I'm sorry," he said again.
And Wufei still hadn't wrapped his head around the words, around Duo, before the other man was gone, leaving Wufei alone in the dark booth with half of a half-eaten bagel in his hand.
He decided to stay at the theatre, spending the morning and early afternoon doing schoolwork on his computer, and then doing a very thorough clean of the booth before sweeping and mopping the stage and prepping it for the show that night.
And he still had enough time left over to sit in the booth, staring at the empty theatre. Enough time to berate himself for being an idiot. Enough time to go over every interaction he had had with Duo the previous week and realize that Duo was, yes, awesome and nice and thoughtful and handsome, but Duo had been trying to get Wufei's attention, had been flirting with him. That whole time.
Meilan had called Wufei dense more than once. She had, in fact, given up on asking him out when every single one of her attempts to casually invite him to study or go out for coffee or dinner had been rebuffed by Wufei because he didn't have time to waste by sitting around talking to a beautiful girl who made him forget his own name half of the time.
The same thing had actually happened with Trowa, when they had first met. Wufei had been out at a bar, one of the few times he had joined the cast in a post-rehearsal drink, and Trowa had been at the same bar, had flirted with Wufei and tried to ask him out, and Wufei had figured Trowa was simply angling for free tickets to the show and had given them to him - and on opening night he had introduced Trowa, who had seemed bizarrely interested in talking to Wufei instead of the much more interesting cast members, to Meilan. The two had hit it off immediately.
And rarely wasted the opportunity to remind Wufei that he had no game whatsoever.
This, it seemed, was yet another example of that.
By the time the cast started to arrive, Wufei had worked himself into an irritated funk, and he was unnecessarily terse with his assistant and the stage crew as they went to work.
Things only got worse when Duo showed up, twenty minutes before the house was open to the public, with Heero in tow.
They both looked perfect - Heero in a gray suit and green v-neck t-shirt that looked perfectly tailored on his perfect body. And Duo, dressed in a black button-up shirt, black trousers, black tie and black vest, looked charmingly nervous and painfully handsome.
He came up to the booth, where Wufei had taken refuge for a few moments to drink a cup of tea and berate himself for acting like an adolescent.
"Sorry, I just- I realized this morning I forgot- I was sort of pissed at myself, so I just took off. I didn't tell you about the change to cue 78? I added in a three-second follow."
Duo was fiddling with the buttons of his vest as he spoke, and it took Wufei a moment to force himself to concentrate on Duo's words.
He flipped open his prompt book and made a notation in the script beside the highlighted 'cue 78.'
"Thank you."
"Yeah, sure. Uh, I mean, thank you? I know it's a pain to have last-minute changes when you've got everything else to worry about too and- sorry. Again. About the… about flirting with you and making you uncomfortable."
Duo looked a little desperate, his cheeks red and his eyes lowered, his head bowed just the slightest bit.
Wufei's mind was temporarily taken over by a completely inappropriate thought.
He had known Duo was gay, had even assumed he was a bottom, especially after meeting Heero. But the way Duo was standing there, leaning in the door, practically submissive, created such an explicit mental image in Wufei's mind of Duo, naked and trapped between Wufei and Heero, Duo sucking on Wufei's cock while-
"So, yeah. I'll leave you to it. I- Have a good show. Break legs."
Duo gave a weak half-wave and an even weaker half-smile.
"Wait."
Wufei felt his cheeks heat as the word escaped, as Duo perked up and looked adorably hopeful.
"Yeah?"
"You didn't make me uncomfortable. Your flirting."
Duo offered him a slighter broader smile.
"That's good. I- I like you, Wufei. I mean, obviously, I like you. But I enjoy working with you. I hope I get to in the future, and I won't- I won't bother you with that again."
Wufei was making a mess of this.
Meilan and Trowa, if they were here, would have started miming eating a bag of popcorn and would, no doubt, be shaking their heads at him.
"You didn't bother me. You- I didn't realize you were interested in me. I thought you were simply being nice."
Duo nodded.
"Yeah. I… I get that now." Duo sighed and shrugged. "I didn't… Hell, it doesn't matter. You're not interested, and I-"
"I am interested, Duo."
The long-haired man's face nearly split with the size of his grin.
"You are?"
Wufei had to huff and roll his eyes.
"Yes. I am. But-"
"But." Duo's lips quirked. "The word I hate the most in the English language."
Wufei had similar feelings about it.
"But," he continued anyway, "you've got a boyfriend? And I'm… I'm not good with people."
"Oh. Heero and I- I mean, we're… We kind of have an open relationship? He travels a lot, and so do I, and- But that's… Look, it's complicated. But he's- I mean, he thinks you're cute as hell, and he's been teasing me about asking you out all week, and he's… I mean, he's interested in you too. I mean, in you being with us? If you… if you were interested in that? He doesn't mind, though, if… if you're not. If it's just me. But you sort of made it clear you weren't interested in either of us and…"
Wufei had never been part of a threesome, despite Meilan and Trowa offering more than a few invitations to join them.
His earlier mental image resurfaced, and Wufei had to battle back his arousal.
"I…"
Duo held up a hand.
"Sorry. It's- I mean, that's… a lot, right?" He chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. "Just. Have a good show, okay? And if you're interested… I mean, you've got my number? And we'll be at the opening night party? If… Yeah."
"Okay." It seemed the safest thing to say, considering that all Wufei wanted to do was throw aside his prompt book and drag Duo onto his lap and kiss him until they both forgot what they were even doing in the booth in the first place.
He watched Duo walk away, watched him look over his shoulder and offer a slight smirk. He watched Duo rejoin Heero, watched Heero bump their shoulders together and Duo smirk up at him, and felt his own heart do a strange, twisty thing that made him feel a little breathless. Especially when Heero looked up at the booth, smirking himself, the expression entirely different than it had been on Duo's face.
The show…
Was not perfect.
Wufei had had opening nights that were very close to perfect - cues called in the right places, no accidents or flubbed lines or missed costume changes or broken props or forgotten scene changes - and that night was one of them.
It was also a blur, and as soon as Wufei hit the button on the lighting console one last time, to bring up the house lights after the curtain call and the well-deserved standing ovation for the cast, he sat back in his chair and sighed in relief.
Battling thoughts of Duo and Heero for two hours had been a bit more challenging than he had expected. Especially after intermission, when he had spied the two of them in their seats, had watched Heero lean over and give Duo's ear a playful bite before Duo turned his head and the two of them exchanged a brief kiss. They had seemed completely oblivious to the world around them.
Wufei had been both envious and entranced. They looked perfect together.
And they wanted him.
Meilan and Trowa had come to see the opening of the play that had sucked so much of his time and energy for the past month, and he walked with them to the bar hosting the opening night party after shutting down the booth and turning off all of the lights in the theatre.
They complimented him on a job well done, teased him about finally getting to come home and make use of the room he paid rent for, recommended he renew his metro pass since he had no doubt eaten through most of it over the last few weeks.
Wufei was only half listening to them, and while he felt guilty about it, there was no denying the fact that his entire focus was on getting to the bar and finding Duo and Heero and-
And what?
He had spent the show thinking about them, had spent two hours debating whether or not this was a good idea, trying to figure out where this could lead, what this could even be and-
And as soon as they walked into the bar and he saw the two of them at one of the high cafe tables near the windows, Duo laughing and Heero smirking, Wufei realized that he simply didn't care.
"I'll catch up with you later?" He barely even looked at Meilan and Trowa as he said it, and he realized, from the expression on Trowa's face, that the man had actually been talking to him.
Meilan and Trowa both looked more amused than irritated, and Meilan made a 'go on' gesture with her hand.
Feeling a little self-conscious under their watchful gaze, he walked over to Heero and Duo's table.
"Hey!" Duo sounded thrilled, his eyes bright and his cheeks flushed and his lips wet from the beer in front of him.
"Happy opening," Heero raised his own glass in Wufei's direction.
"Thank you." He looked back at Duo. "Happy opening. The show is beautiful."
Duo shrugged.
"It's… I tried. It's a great show. An amazing team. And-"
"Duo, just accept the compliment. You're an excellent designer."
Duo bit his lower lip, listening to Heero's words but shrugging again.
"You are," Wufei enthusiastically agreed.
Duo offered up a small smirk.
"Thanks. I- Thanks. But you- you did an awesome job! You called it perfectly!"
"No," Wufei argued, "there was a cue in the second act that I-"
"No, no. Well, I mean, yeah. It was just a little off, but no one except you and me will ever know." Duo gave him a conspiratorial wink.
"I'll get it right tomorrow," Wufei promised.
"Thanks."
Duo was still smirking at him, and Wufei noticed that Heero, too, was looking at him.
Expectantly.
Right. They were interested in him.
And Wufei…
Wufei was too busy to sort through all of his feelings and hangups and anxieties. Too busy to stand there and flounder around all night while he tried to figure out just why they were interested and what they wanted from him and what he could possibly have to offer either of them.
"Mind if I join you?" he gestured at the empty chair situated between them.
Duo's lips curved upwards, and Heero's dark eyes damn near sparkled.
"We were hoping you would."
-o-
