Author Note: I do love Wufei, and do not mean to insult him in any way, but it's so easy and it's all in good fun and, yeah you don't really care anyway, you should probably just read the thing. In case you've read any of my other fic, this is different. There is no angst (slight Wu-babe stress is as close as you get here folks!) gasp There is no yaoi as a main part double gasp. Yes, I have gone slightly (more) strange, dum de dum.
Anniversary
Wufei sat in an uncomfortable position on the training mat at the far side of the gym. To the world, his meditative façade held. To the world, he was at peace, harmonised with the surroundings, the clean hard wooden floor, the stark white washed walls and the bright fluorescent strip lights above him. But he was not calm, he was not even attuned to anything in particular, his mind swam with rubbish like whether he had paid the gas bill this week and how long would it take him to get home given the main line from the gym to his neighbourhood was closed for a wiring fault.
This wasn't how it was supposed to be. The ritual workout after a day of paid peacekeeping employment was designed to keep his body toned and to clear his mind. But it wasn't working today. He knew why. He'd forgotten some, and he had a feeling it was more important than any gas bill. From the way Sally had looked at him the morning. Expectantly and with no small amount of hope in her eyes, that faded exponentially as he'd bid her farewell at his office door, having followed the usual morning routine. What was it?
He'd checked his diary as soon as he'd sat down at his desk. There was no birthday he'd missed, no anniversary, well, it was almost 15 months since their first date, but it wouldn't be exactly the time until next week, and Sally was virtually never so sentimental. They'd both agreed at their one month celebration that they'd stick to years after that, provided there were any to enjoy. And enjoy one they had. So it was not that. His multicultural dairy contained several notices of romantic holidays such as Valentines Day, but none of those were for another fortnight at least. He'd even racked his memory to determine if there was a significant event in the wars that would be coming around now, but nothing came to mind.
In short, Wufei was stuck. He'd even stooped to asking Barton, after they'd swapped information on a current case that afternoon, and the quiet acrobat had been no wiser about a potential event than Chang was. Wufei was coming to the conclusion that he must have been mistaken.
Perhaps the woman was hormonal? Would she expect more of him for some reason because she was chemically imbalanced this week? But Sally wasn't due for over a week yet, he reminded himself, with no small aversion to the squick factor involved in knowing such things about one's girlfriend. It was safer though, he had discovered, to avoid Sally about three days before the actual date each month, as she became a snarling, evil beast for said days, far from her usual sensible self. This he could accept given that she was so much more logical and grounded the rest of the time Nature was at fault, not her. Had she been flaky and emotional like Relena, he would have objected, but one day he could cope with. He wasn't always calm himself, he conceded, so she could be forgiven for minor fluctuations.
Unfortunately, while he wasn't sure that women had to be regular all the time, and this was the only remotely feasible explanation he had yet come up with for Sally's unusual behaviour this morning. He needed to check whether she could have become hormonal early this month. Barton was with him as he came to that conclusion. Unfortunately, Wufei realised, Barton had even less experience with women than Chang himself, only really knowing his sister, and possibly some of Quatre's sisters, Wufei supposed, none of whom qualified as likely fountains of knowledge on such non-sibling safe topics. The only woman Wufei would even consider talking to about such things was Sally, who he could at least trust to be professionally clinical about it, but she was out for obvious reasons.
Coming up with a big fat nothing by lunch break, Wufei left his office for the hour, atypically, as he usually worked while eating, disliking the noise of the cafeteria intensely, and sought out someone he could ask about such things with. The list was down to Maxwell. Yuy had been disqualified by virtue of it being impossible to tell, in Wufei's opinion, whether Relena acted any differently at any time of the month, due to her being overly emotional at all times and therefore not a sensible comparison. Hilde, by comparison was at least sensible, if annoyingly talkative and gregarious, like Maxwell himself.
Wufei found Duo sharing a lunch table with Hilde and Noin, who seemed to be discussing something with each other without requiring Maxwell's input. Chang deduced it was probably clothes or something else so girly that even Maxwell wasn't interested in it. Which provided a perfect opportunity to enquire with Duo about possibilities for Sally's odd behaviour. It went something like...
"Maxwell, I need to talk to you."
"Sure thing Wu-man, just let me finish this," Duo turned back to his burger, which was oozing some horrible, sick-coloured goo that Wufei didn't want to even imagine the origins of.
"Now, Maxwell!"
"Back off Wu, come on, gimme five measly minutes, wouldya?"
Wufei saw that he was going to have to resort to self-sacrifice to get his way. "Duo, can I talk to you? Please?" Mid-bite Duo stopped and raised an eyebrow at the Chinese man, who was clearly fighting the urge to yell at him. His eye glinted mischievously.
"That 'please' didn't sound very convincing Wu," he drawled.
With a grunt of suppressed annoyance, Wufei dragged the startled American bodily from the table and to the far wall, away from prying ears. Having explained his predicament, he waited for Duo's reaction. He was both relieved and surprised that Duo didn't fall about laughing, but instead looked thoughtful.
"Um, I dunno, Hilde's never gotten ansty about doing the nasty when she's due. I should probably ask her." He made to leave but Wufei grabbed his arm to halt him.
"No! You can't just ask her, she'll tell Sally!" Chang glared until Duo paused and nodded.
"Yeah, with the gossip network in this place it'll have mutated into a convoluted story about Sally dumping you for Hilde cos you only wanna do her when she's flooding and Hilde secretly prefers blondes or something like that." Wufei's eyes bulged at that prospect, and then he remembered who he was talking to.
"Yes, and don't think I don't know that you are usually at least partly responsible for such circulated drivel, Maxwell." He glared until Duo backed down on his ready protests and only came back with an innocent 'would I?'
And so lunch break had brought Wufei no closer to understanding Sally's subtle hints this morning.
The afternoon was spent trying not to get so distracted from work that he actually undid progress on the current case and, despite some unreadable looks from Trowa, he succeeded reasonably well. But this left him in the gym, with twenty minutes before he had to set off for home and present Sally with the fact that he had no idea what he'd missed now. Trowa spotted his plight and paused on his way out of the door, his bag slung carelessly over one shoulder, crouching down on the balls of his feet to advise.
"Get her chocolates and take her straight to bed. Make her happy enough, and she'll not even notice that you never wished her a 'happy whatever the event is'." The tall pilot suggested. Wufei opened a non-meditating eye and looked at Barton sceptically.
"Works on another blonde I know," was Trowa's final comment, before he hopped up and strode from the gym. Well, far be it from Wufei to doubt that his lures in the bedroom were any less distracting than Barton's. With no other plan, he grabbed his bag and headed for the showers. Jogging from the gym smelling muskier than usual, he dived into the nearest store he found likely to sell chocolates and grabbed Sally's favourites, at least he knew what they were, even if the reason they were required still eluded him. Continuing down past his usual stop to catch a train on a line which avoided the main line problems, Chang decided that dragging Sally to bed immediately was actually quite a good idea anyway, and by the time he stepped out of the station at the other end of the line was quite looking forward to it.
Three hours later ...
Sally propped herself up on an elbow and pushed her heavy hair away from her face. Grinning as she caught her breath, she looked appreciatively over the bronze chest of her lover. Her Dragon had earned his name tonight she decided, as she basked in the afterglow of their intimacy. She lazily reached for a rich dark chocolate which had been hurriedly discarded on the bedside table as Wufei had stripped her off in the blink of an eye and proceeded to thoroughly ravage her, much to her pleasure. Just as good as their first time, and that was saying something; the intense, almost frantic way they came together over and over was no small feat to contend with. Suckling on the chocolate Sally smiled indulgently as Wufei looked up at her with heavy-lidded eyes, dishevelled and decidedly gorgeous. Sally congratulated herself on her choice of man and swallowed the last of the sweet she'd been playing with, dropping a kiss on her lover's forehead.
"My, my, what was all that for, dragon?" Sally teased, grinning as Chang's eyes widened in worry. His sex-adled brain couldn't even counter with an easy 'I hope you know'.
"I... you...er...you..." he stammered before she took pity on the boy and kissed him, on the lips this time to quiet him.
"Don't worry love, I'm not cross. Especially not after that!" she grinned again with a tricky glint in her eye. "After all, it is the anniversary of our..." he gazed at her expectantly as she paused to consider her wording. "Our full and uninhibited consummation of our relationship."
Wufei's mouth hung open but no words seemed willing to form. Sally chuckled softly at his inarticulation and dropped another kiss on his forehead, slipping out of bed and donning her silk bathrobe. She paused in the doorway of their bedroom.
"I'm going to take a shower. You know, if we really want to form a tradition, you should be joining me around now." She walked off down the hall, leaving Wufei to regather his senses. It took all of five seconds before his brain realised the opportunity presenting itself and coaxed his body into movement, dashing out over the piles of sloughed clothing to follow Sally into the bathroom.
Owari.
Well that was... pretty silly really. Don't know what came over me. Normal angsty service will be resumed as soon as possible, unless anyone actually liked it, in which case, please leave a note to say so! Thanks for reading!