Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and all its characters © Sotsu Agency, Sunrise, and TV Asahi. All fanfics are not for profit.

A/N: Now that I think my muse is back to give me a bunch of mini plot bunnies in my head, I'm starting a new 4xD ficlet series called Love and Other Explosive Items. To date it's composed of Blind Spot, Paramour, and Etymologies (see my profile/story page for the links. Enjoy! :)

The Shippables
by kokopelle

He shouldn't have gotten too excited when he heard the Circus was also planetside. He shouldn't have phoned Trowa and invited him over tea to catch up. He shouldn't have put him and Dorothy in the same room together, because that was perhaps the worst mistake he has ever made in his life…so far.

Too late now.

"Well," Trowa said with a mock-deadpan voice, "based on what you said it is possible that fangirls may find me very 'shippable' with Quatre."

"Yes. Who could blame them? I would ship you two, too, if I stayed long enough in Miss Relena's school to join her fanclub-turned-exclusive Shippers' Club to introduce your pair." Dorothy placed her smirking face on her cupped hands before tossing a meaningful look between the two boys. "Actually, I ship you now. I think I can be the Captain of the Trowa-Quatre ship."

"All right, enough," Quatre half-snapped, putting down his teacup on the table. "Remind me again how we jumped from chatting about your MS chess marriage proposal to this…this shipping thing?"

He said the term as if it was the dirtiest word to ever roll off his tongue. Trowa hid his smile behind his own teacup while Dorothy didn't even bother controlling her giggles.

"Well, we were discussing about your Space Heart's blind spots when it comes to romance, about mind-reading, and about using the ZERO system in combative and non-combative environments," Dorothy recounted with a wink. "Then we talked about this old movie where the characters have to be…drive, drill compatible?"

"Drift compatible," Trowa supplied.

"Yes, drift compatible before they can work together to maneuver some pre-colonial mobile suits to battle extraterrestrial Godzilla knock-offs. Or something like that." She shrugged. "And then I wondered about how you guys worked together before. Let's face it, with you as an exception, the other pilots seem to have sworn an oath about not working with any other living thing while going through Operation M."

"Quite true," Trowa chimed in. He looked like he was about to say something about the pilots, but he instead continued Dorothy's mini-backtrack. "She mentioned something about Relena's fangirl group at St. Gabriel that transferred to Sanc Kingdom School of Pacifism just to… do their thing. You and Heero were the only guys who enrolled there, and the girls were thrilled."

Quatre liked that Trowa was peeling himself off his blend-in-with-the-wallpaper kind of role that he somehow took during the war, but it somehow gets on his nerves when the guy uses his rediscovered talkativeness over things like this. Quatre couldn't find a way to stop the two when they tag-team.

Oh, who was he kidding? He could barely stop Dorothy alone.

The lady in question sighed. "Oh, if you'd only let me tell just one story from the Shippers' Club…"

"Never mind," Quatre thre back. The recipients of his glare were unfazed; Trowa was trying to keep telltale signs of his amusement from escaping his expression while Dorothy wasn't even trying.

"The girls thought Heero was your bodyguard at first," Dorothy sing-songed.

"I knew that," Quatre muttered. "I found it funny at first…"

Dorothy nodded. "And then it turned into shipping, the term they use to root for a—usually—romantic pairing. You'd think everyone would have the right mind to focus and prioritize things because of the war, but no. Never underestimate the power of fangirls. Aside from principles of Pacifism, one of the most unforgettable things I learned at Sanc is that fangirls can turn into the greatest spies and stalkers—their level of determination can power a nation, I'm telling you. They'd track down all the information they can gather on you and write thousand-word manifestos or even fiction. I was tempted to give them Romafeller's info on you and Heero, but it's fun to watch them work. With their limited resources, all they'd ever got was that you're an heir of a resource colonial empire and that Heero is a namesake of a dead pacifist. But that was enough. If you'd like, I can still get a copy of this one AU fic…"

"AU?" Trowa and Quatre asked in unison.

Dorothy shrugged. "Alternate Universe. It features Heero as a very handsome ninja and Quatre as an adorable fairy prince."

This time Trowa permitted himself a long, cracking laugh—a rarity even to this day, but Quatre didn't care and just dropped his head on the table with a thud.

"It's true," Dorothy assured them. "Anyway, ship wars still occurred. The Heero-Relena ship existed even before I studied at Sanc. It turned out that Heero also enrolled at St. Gabriel around Miss Relena's birthday in 195. The girls have a picture of the two dancing in a campus ball to back their ship up. You should've looked up the e-shrines they created back then. Bottom line is, their ship is more powerful than the Heero-Quatre one."

"Fortunately," Quatre mumbled.

"But since the Heero-Quatre shippers of the group threw in the towel, I know I have to build one up again, even if it's just for myself." Dorothy's evil smile was what Quatre first saw when he lifted his head. "I think the Trowa-Quatre ship is very cute."

"Oh, shut up."

Trowa snorted. "If you think about it…"

"Don't," Quatre warned. "Just don't."

Seriously, how could Trowa even find the humor in this?

"Quatre, the possibilities are endless," Dorothy said with a flourish, her voice filled with held-in humor. "I could pair you up with Maxwell or Wufei too, but the chemistry is not the same. You and Trowa click together with zero effort."

Tired, Quatre stared down at his now cold cup of tea. "Is it too late to turn down your proposal to me?"

"Let me guess—so you can propose to Trowa instead?"

…He just wasn't in the mood for this today. "I hate you."

Trowa and Dorothy snickered at his plight. He let them continue having fun at his expense and did his best block their soundbites when they ping-ponged opinions about "cross-overs", emotional character-centric meta-essays, and the general quirks of a crazy fandom.

And then a thought popped in his head. "You think they would find us shippable?"

The conversation came to a halt. Although still looking comically confused, Dorothy was the first to find her voice. "You're not listening, are you? Pilots 03 and 04 are an unsinkable ship. I can imagine hordes and hordes of fangirls supporting it." Trowa's chuckle in the background punctuated the serious statement.

Quatre waved his irritation away. "I meant you and me."

The silence that followed stretched a little too long. Trowa tried to break it by clearing his throat.

"Many people might not see us as a ship," Dorothy finally replied, and it seemed like she was thinking hard about it. "First of all, we're poles apart. Our first meetings during the war weren't good—memorable, yes, but not the sticky sweet kind of memorable. There's no sappiness or spark, no hint or foreshadowing of a possible romance. Many would even think we're a mismatch of the worst kind. We're just…we're simply not a fangirl's ship material."

"Oh."

"But look where you two are now," Trowa said in an undertone.

Dorothy slapped Trowa's arm playfully. "Can you keep your thoughts to yourself? I'm trying to make an anti-manifesto here. I'm summoning a fangirlism-generated wind to make your ship sail farther."

Quatre groaned and put his head back on the table. Humoring her for a minute wouldn't do the trick. She still wouldn't give him what he wanted to hear. What did he expect? Dealing with this woman was—and never would be—easy.

Suddenly he felt Trowa touch his arm gently. "But count on it, Quatre: I'll be the first shipper to support the Quatre-Dorothy pair."

Dorothy feigned horror. "Barton!"

"That is," Trowa continued, "If you promise to make me your best man."

And then it was Quatre's turn to chuckle. Dorothy swatted Trowa's arm again, who just ignored her protests about Titanic-ing his own ship and drank his tea with a self-satisfied smile on his face.

"When you chose to discuss shipping first when you arrived, I was beginning to change my mind," Quatre quipped. "You can say I've kept my end of the bargain even before you made deal, because yes, you're going to be my best man. That's my decision from the start. There's no other choice, actually."

Dorothy giggled. "And that's why I started to ship your bromance so hard. I was thinking he'd choose Heero, but he insisted it be you."

"Sweet," Trowa commented.

"See? Shippable."

Quatre slumped to his seat again, but this time Dorothy leaned in and pecked a kiss on his lips. He tried to keep the frown, he really did, but the smile still cracked on his face. He placed a butterfly kiss on her nose, and the two burst out laughing when they heard Trowa's stifled suggestion about getting a room.

PS: I think Pacific Rim is awesome! Someday, I know I'm gonna find a fic featuring drift compatible Gundam pilots fighting together. :)