a/n: New chap! It's all due to all the lovely people who gave me reviews, so thank you all! *Throws kisses at all reviewers* In other news, I've been reading episode summaries of GW.man, is this an AU ^_^;; Oh, and for those of you who were *so* looking forward to the bath scene.I apologize, but I am in no way qualified to write smut and would probably pass out from all the blood rushing to my face (*blushblushblush*, in other words) if I tried. Add that to the fact that Treize is injured and Wufei had to end up still wearing something the next morning, and it equals no smuttiness. Ah, well, there will be many more opportunities! Also, this chapter contains several freakishly long paragraphs of dialogue. Do not be intimidated!

Chapter Two: In which Duo gets a surprise after breakfast, and Wufei does a
LOT of explaining, a.k.a. The Get Together Story

Most of the time any safe house the five boys occupied together was full of the sounds of people being awake by ten o'clock in the morning. Wufei usually rose quite a bit earlier, and Duo would have much preferred to sleep until lunch time, but the general consensus was around ten, with Duo sleepily traipsing in about half an hour later than the others. When the braided boy thumped downstairs this morning, he found Quatre in the kitchen nursing a cup of coffee and a bowl of Grape-nuts over a paperback book. Sounds of the television drifted in from the living room, indicating the probable position of the other three. Duo sighed when he saw that no one had made any pancakes and pouted a bit to himself, just for practice, as he banged open a cupboard to look for cereal.

Settling on Cinnamon Toast Crunch as probably containing the most sugar, he poured an oversized portion into a normal-sized bowl and carefully filled it with milk right up to the brim. Next, after slurping a couple of spoonfuls of cereal and depositing the bowl smoothly on the kitchen table across from Quatre so that a minimum of milk ended up on the floor, was coffee. Duo hooked his "Fabricati Diem, Pvnk" mug from the rack and filled it more-or-less halfway with coffee, making up the difference with milk and several quite generous spoonfuls of sugar. He then plunked himself down in front of both his cereal and Quatre, who was engrossed in his book and hadn't even noticed that Duo was in the room.

"Morning, Q," Duo greeted him. Quatre didn't even look up, only grunted. Duo could tell that the noise had been a reflex rather than any sort of acknowledgement and sighed, rolling his eyes. The blond boy tuned things out to an incredible degree when he was reading anything, be it sci- fi or a textbook; even Trowa usually had to call him at least twice before he could get a polysyllabic response.

Duo decided that further attempts to converse with Quatre would be a waste, and slurped down his cereal in record time. At least, for anyone else it would have been record time. For Duo, it was just the way he ate. The cereal bowl clanged into the sink, and he paused as he entered the hall, looking at the door of the room they had put Treize in. He hesitated a moment, torn between the urge to go find Heero and the urge to see if Treize was awake yet, and finally decided that his boyfriend could wait. The braided pilot crept up to the door in front of him and eased it open as quietly as he could. He slipped through carefully, without a sound (Duo believed in making use of the element of surprise whenever possible), and closed it equally silently behind him. It was only then that he turned around and saw the occupants of the bed.

He froze dead in his tracks, eyes widening in shock and horror, unable at first to take in the sight he had been presented with. Wufei, the same Wufei that he had lived with and worked with and played jokes on and laughed with for months, the same Wufei that Duo had *thought* he knew, was in bed with *Treize Kushrenada*. And there was no doubt that he had gone willingly; he and Treize were snuggled together the way that Duo and Heero. . . Duo shook that analogy out of his head before it got a single word farther. He WOULD NOT think that.

As the American pilot watched, horror-stricken and disbelieving, Wufei stirred and opened his eyes. His liquid black gaze settled on Treize, and the Chinese boy gave the sweetest smile that Duo had ever seen to the ginger-haired man lying next to him. His amethyst-eyed watcher felt an unexpected surge of guilt, as if he were spying on something very private and precious, but then Wufei caught sight of him. Immediately his obsidian eyes went wide and he scrambled out of bed, being careful not to disturb Treize. Duo was grateful to see that the other boy was wearing boxers; while being flashed by Wufei was not the worst way that Duo could think of to start a morning, in these circumstances it would force Duo to draw a conclusion that he was struggling very hard (against the face of recent evidence) not to draw.

"Duo," Wufei started after a long, uncomfortable silence, moving backwards to clutch a bed-knob in an uncharacteristically nervous gesture, "It's not what you think."

The chestnut-haired boy raised a disbelieving eyebrow and looked pointedly from Wufei, standing beside the bed wearing only his boxers, to Treize, who was apparently still asleep but had rolled over to take advantage of the warm spot that Wufei had left in his wake. The black-haired boy blushed faintly as Duo's eyes turned back towards him, making a record-breaking two exhibitions of nervousness in one morning.

"All right, maybe it is what you think. But I haven't betrayed anyone, I swear!"

"So explain to me how I missed the part where *sleeping with your fucking enemy* isn't betrayal, Wu-fei."

The Chinese pilot flinched at Duo's deliberate pronunciation of his name; the braided boy only used anyone's full name when he was truly, truly angry, and there had been hurt as well as fury in his biting sarcasm. Wufei's hand tightened on the dark wooden bed-knob.

"I haven't told him anything, Duo. Never anything about our missions, or what our plans were, or where we were. Never. I swear." His knuckles whitened, bright against the near-black wood even in the dim light cast by the morning sun through the translucent curtains of the bedroom window.

"How did this happen?" Duo's arms were crossed and his voice was still flat and angry, but the hurt was receding slightly and Wufei, listening intently for any sign of reprieve, caught a hint of. . .resignation? Acceptance? Something, and Wufei began to talk, propelled for the first time since realizing that Duo was in the room by a faint hope that he might actually get through the next few minutes with his friendship with the braided boy intact.

"It started after that first time I dueled with Treize. You remember?"

Duo admitted, with a cautious nod, that he might recall something along those lines having occurred, yes.

"After he beat me. . .I couldn't stop thinking about it. About him. I hated him then, I really did. He'd defeated me, shown me how weak I truly was for the first time in years, and I hated it. And on top of that, he'd shown me *mercy*. He thought I was so weak, so unthreatening, that he didn't even bother to kill me. At least, that's what I thought at the time. So I hated him, and I hated myself, and I thought the only way to fix it was to kill him. So, about a month later, when I was at a safehouse close to a base where intelligence said that Treize was staying, I infiltrated his quarters, in the middle of the night, with no orders of any kind.

"I don't know how it happened, even now, but I managed to make my way through the base and ended up standing maybe two feet from Treize's bed without having set off any alarms or alerted any guards. So I pulled my knife (I didn't want to use a gun; that would have made too much noise), and then. . .I just. . ." Wufei shook his head, his slackened grip on the bedpost tightening again. "It was like I was suddenly standing outside myself, and I saw what an incredible hypocrite I was. I mean, I'm always talking about justice and honor and I was about to kill the most honorable opponent I'd ever fought without even waking him up, much less giving him any kind of chance to defend himself. I was standing there, with the knife in my hand, pretty much frozen, when the moon broke through the clouds (it was pretty cloudy that night, I remember) and came through the window behind me, and I saw *him*.

"I don't know how I'd missed him up until then. I guess I was really focused on Treize, but still, I can't believe I didn't see him. Zechs always takes up more space than I think is humanly possible, and his hair gets everywhere." Wufei smiled fondly. "I remember once, after I'd spent the night with them, I found this really long blond hair in my. . ."

"Stop, right there, please," Duo said, almost cringing. As if it weren't bad enough that Wufei seemed to be 'with' Treize, he was bringing Zechs into it! "Bad, bad picture. Get back to the moon coming through the window, you sounded marginally on track up 'til then."

Wufei grinned wanly, his hand relaxing from its convulsive grip on the bed- knob. "Well, anyway, the moon caught his hair and it just. . .I don't know, lit up. And I saw it, and then I saw him, lying there looking like one of those ancient Greek gods. I mean, Treize is handsome, and he attracts people with sheer force of personality, and I love him, but Zechs is *gorgeous*. And then he started to move, and I would have frozen in my tracks then even if I hadn't already been frozen. Treize usually works too hard and stresses and sleeps like a log when we can get him to sleep at all, but Zechs. . .I swear, he wakes up if a mouse sneezes in the wall. On top of that, he has a sixth sense about people spying on him. There was one time. . ." This time, Wufei caught Duo's warning glare and smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. Back on track. So, Zechs started to wake up. He opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling for a second, and then he saw me.

"Now, if I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a strange person holding a knife over my lover, I'd jump them on the spot, no questions asked. But Zechs didn't, and to this day he's never been able to explain to me why. Maybe he saw me hesitating, maybe it was just a hunch, but instead of attacking me he just sat up slowly and carefully, as if I were a wild animal he didn't want to frighten off. He told me later that every muscle in his body was tense enough to hurt right then, but it didn't show. He looked completely calm and controlled.

"For a while we just stared at one another, and the silence stretched out. Then Zechs smiled, the tiniest smile possible, and said, 'I hope your arm isn't getting tired yet.' Because I'd been holding the knife over Treize the whole time, you see. And somehow, with that smile and that one sentence, there was no longer any possibility of me killing either of them. I lowered my knife and sheathed it, feeling like a complete idiot and cursing myself for my weakness. I would have walked off right then, but Zechs spoke again. 'I'm Zechs Merquise.' That stopped me, sure enough. I mean, I knew who Zechs Merquise was, but I hadn't connected the masked man who was always fighting Heero to the man in the bed. But now I made the leap, and I was shocked. It was like the fighter and. . .whoever this was were two completely different people. Zechs with his mask on is inscrutable and stoic, Zechs without his mask is. . ." Wufei shook his head. "still stoic, or at least he tries to be, but his eyes give him away every time. He lets a lot more of himself show without that thing; it's like he opens up and lets go of himself a little. Plus, he's incredibly handsome. Anyway. I decided I owed him some kind of answer, so I bowed, just a bit, and said, 'Chang Wufei'. Just two words. Then Treize woke up.

"Zechs gave him the most beautiful smile I'd ever seen, and Treize smiled back, and I had a weird feeling, like I wanted them to smile like that at *me*. I shook it off pretty fast, though, because then Treize saw me and his smile changed. He didn't stop smiling completely, though, and then he said, 'Do you want me to go and get my sword, or should I go back to sleep?' I didn't answer, mostly because Treize sat up as while he was talking and the sheets slid down and, well, he. . ."

"STOP RIGHT THERE!" Duo yelped. "I so did not need that mental picture! Bad, bad, bad!"

Wufei actually laughed at that, and Duo gave him a rueful little smirk in return, uncrossing his arms. There was a pause as the braided boy, apparently resigned to the fact that this was going to be a long story, fetched the chair Wufei had been sitting in last night from the corner of the room and perched himself backwards in it before turning his attention back to the storyteller. "So, keep going! Just. . .skip that particular part."

The Chinese boy continued, grinning. "Okay, so, I didn't answer him, just bowed, a little lower then when I'd bowed to Zechs, and left, blushing like a maniac. I stopped outside the door though, and I heard them talking a little. 'You know,' Treize said, 'That's the second time I've met that boy and I don't even know his name.' I could almost see Zechs smiling when he answered. 'It's Chang Wufei.' Then I left, properly, down the hall and out of the base.

"After that I didn't see either of them for about a month or so. We were never in or near the same place at the same time, and I was always busy on missions anyway. But I couldn't stop thinking about them, both of them. I knew I should be thinking about how to kill them, but instead all I could get through my head was how I was going to see them again. I told myself I was stupid and weak at least a hundred times a day that month, but it didn't seem to make any difference. And then I ended up at a safehouse, with Quatre, I think, about six miles from a camp where I knew Zechs was stationed.

"Well, after a month of waiting, I wasn't about to let an opportunity like that pass me by, so I snuck out of the house when Quatre was asleep. . .god, that makes me sound like a teenager going out after curfew. . .anyway, I headed for the camp. I got in, actually managed to get all the way into Zechs's tent without anyone even seeing me (their security was so lax, I couldn't believe it), and found him. He was sitting at a computer, typing something, I didn't see what, with his mask-helmet thing lying on the table next to him. I just stood behind him, not saying anything, for a few seconds, until he stopped typing and rubbed his temples.

" 'Head hurt?' I asked. It just popped out; I hadn't meant to say anything. Zechs sighed and said, 'Unfortunately, quite a lot,' and then he turned around and smiled at me, a little rueful smile. Remember what I said about him having the sixth sense about people spying on him? He wasn't even surprised to see me, he didn't so much as twitch when I spoke. It's really incredible. He even caught you a couple of times, Duo."

Duo frowned thoughtfully, chin resting on his arms, which were in turn resting on the back of the chair. "I don't remember him ever catching me."

Wufei grinned, an honest-to-goodness grin this time. "That's because he didn't do anything about it. Wasn't there a time when you were eavesdropping and you saw him turn around and look right at you?"

Duo nodded, slowly. "Yeah. . .yeah, I remember that. Scared the crap out of me, I thought the game was up for sure."

"Well, it would have been, if Zechs had any inclination to turn you in. Which I guess brings me back to my story."

There was vigorous nodding from the boy in the chair. "Yes, *please* let it bring you back to your story, O Off-topic One."

Wufei rolled his eyes, but continued. "Anyway, he smiled at me, and I was completely. . .clueless, I guess. I mean, what was I going to say to him? 'Hi, I find myself strangely attracted to you, any idea why? Besides the fact that you're incredibly gorgeous, of course.' I would have sounded like a complete idiot, so I just stood there looking at him, feeling like a deer in the headlights. Not to mention a complete idiot. Zechs could probably tell, so he started talking, not about anything that I didn't want to talk about, and he didn't ask why I was there, which was something even I didn't know. No, he just asked whether I wanted a cup of coffee. I said I liked tea better, and why was he drinking coffee this time of night anyway? Which got us going, and in a few minutes we were talking like we'd known each other for years about stupid stuff like the merits of tea versus coffee, and the dangers of sleep deprivation. It was uncanny. You of all people should know, Duo, that I don't exactly open up to people, but with him, it was. . .different. I couldn't tell you what, or how exactly, but with him and Treize it was always easy to just let go and be myself, and that's something I'm not good at at all, normally. Anyway, the conversation somehow got around to Quatre and his caffeine addiction, which led me up to all of you. I didn't tell him we were Gundam pilots, but I think he guessed. We swapped a lot of stories; I'd tell him about some stunt Heero pulled, or your latest practical joke, and he'd tell me something stupid Treize had done as a kid, like the time they were messing around in Zechs's tree house and Treize fell out and broke his arm while he was trying to reach one of the higher branches. I hadn't realized how long they'd known each other until he told me that story; I mean, they've been friends practically since they were babies. It made me feel kind of like an intruder sometimes, like I was an outsider because they had all these memories of each other and stories about that kind of thing and I didn't know any of it. It was funny, though, hearing Zechs talk about it- since Treize was older, he was always pulling all kinds of stupid stunts trying to impress Zechs, stuff I just can't picture Treize doing unless Zechs is talking about it. Then I can almost see how they both were, then. . ." Wufei trailed off. Duo waited for a second, then cleared his throat pointedly.

"Cute as this trip down memory lane undoubtedly is, I don't think you've gotten to the end of the story yet. So, you visited Zechs and you clicked. Next?"

Wufei blinked, coming back to the here and now. "Oh, right. Sorry. Well, without going into. . .embarrassingly sappy detail, we talked until almost sunrise, then I hightailed it back to the safehouse before Quatre woke up. It was only about a week after that when I ended up yet again just a few miles from where one of them was staying; Treize, this time. By then I'd pretty much forgotten about hating myself or thinking about wanting to kill them. I mean, sometimes I'd think about us being enemies, and feel guilty, but mostly I just wanted to see them, either of them. So, I snuck out to visit Treize (again, sounds like a curfew-breaking kid). It seemed like I knew him already, even though we'd only met twice, once to duel and once when we didn't exchange more than one sentence. It was all of Zechs's stories that pulled that off; it's probably why he told them in the first place. Anyway, Treize wasn't at his computer by the time I got up there, which was pretty late, but he wasn't in bed either. He was doing paperwork, looking about half-asleep and really tired. Zechs and Treize both do a heck of a lot more deskwork kind of stuff than we do, but I sometimes think Treize does more than anybody in the *world*. When he saw I was there, he blinked (which was more of a surprised reaction than I'd gotten from Zechs, anyway), and then he smiled, like he was actually happy to see me. It was kind of. . .strange. I'd made Treize smile, and. . .some part of me. . .wanted him to keep smiling. Especially since he was looking so worn out. So I teased him. I mean, I didn't really know much about him, or anything, and I'm not nearly as good at teasing people as you, but I had lots of ammunition from my talk with Zechs, so I teased him about that stuff. And he teased me back. We. . .bantered, I think is probably the best word for it. And then we just talked, and after we'd had a particularly good laugh about a story he told me about Zechs when he was about three and got into his father's office and smeared ink from the fountain pens all over everything, he stretched, and smiled at me, and said "I haven't been this relaxed since the last time Zechs was here." Then, all of a sudden, I got shy. Well, not shy, exactly, just a little guilty thinking that here was my enemy, right in front of me, and instead of trying to kill him, I was making him laugh as best I could. He must've seen it, because he asked me what was wrong. I just shook my head, though. I didn't think I could even put into words what exactly was going on in my head, much less do it without spilling the beans about anything. And then he said, "You know, even if you are a Gundam pilot, which I highly suspect you are, I don't care. I won't ask you to betray anyone, or tell us anything you don't want to tell us. I. . .I'm not sure what it is, but. . ." He trailed off there, like he couldn't quite put into words what he wanted to say, and something has to be pretty darn complicated if Treize, master of eloquence, can't get it out. That was the first time I guessed that he and Zechs felt something like what I was feeling, and it made me. . .bashful. I don't know why. Anyway, I bowed and left, right then, and it was about two months before I saw them again, and then they were together, in bed, like they'd been the first time. Treize woke up first, which almost never happens, and when he saw me. . .he looked. . .relieved. And hopeful. "I thought you weren't coming back," he said, and I. . .melted. Then Zechs woke up. He looked from me to Treize and back." Wufei grinned. "Then he said, "Look, are you coming to bed, or what?" You can probably guess the rest."

"Yup," Duo said thoughtfully, then, after a long pause, he sighed and smirked at his friend. "Well, I guess I can't blame you too much for attracting pretty boys like flies to honey, even if the pretty boys in question are on the wrong side. So, what's T-man doing here?"

"An excellent question," a new voice from the direction of the bed interjected, and the boys turned to see Treize propped up on his good elbow and watching them with an amused gaze. "However, if you're finished with that quite sweet and nostalgic stroll down memory lane, I need to go to the bathroom rather badly and find myself unable to walk there unaided at the moment. Once I return, I assure you I'll tell all the gory details, Mr. Maxwell."

"How long have you been awake?" Duo demanded as Wufei took the hint and helped his lover out of bed. "And it's Duo, not Mr. Maxwell, that makes me feel really old, like somebody's dad or something."

"Long enough," Treize grunted as he moved. "Since the part where Wufei and Zechs were trading stories, including embarrassing childhood ones about me. I'll have to do something about that when I see him again."

Wufei got Treize to the bathroom and shut the door behind his lover, leaving himself alone with Duo. He gave the braided boy a rather rueful look. "So, am I forgiven?"

"Baka," Duo told him fondly. "Didn't I just say you were forgiven, before he of the aristocratically arched nose butted in?"

Wufei smiled, relieved. At that moment, his laptop began to vibrate, buzzing against the shelf where he had set it. The boy's face lit up and he dove for it, flipping it open and settling on the edge of the bed to peruse the machine.

"You have a buzzer for e-mail?" Duo asked incredulously, correctly guessing what the vibrating computer signaled.

"Not exactly," Wufei answered distractedly. "I set it to go off for two e-mail addresses only."

Duo made the connection. "I'm guessing the owner of one of said addresses is here, and so Sexy Zechsy just sent you a message. Have you told him that Treize is with us?"

"Last night," the Chinese boy confirmed, nodding. "I couldn't very well leave him dangling; he's been at least as worried as I have."

Duo moved over to read over Wufei's shoulder as the reply popped up on the screen.

TO: sundance@kid.the

FROM: silver_kitsune@destructo.joi

SUBJECT:

Of course I want to join you! Tell me your location, *please,* if you can. What's Tigger's status? I swear, Daemon, you'd better get me there as soon as you possibly can!

Lone Ranger

Duo blinked, re-read the message, and burst out laughing. "Tigger? *Tigger*?! Triezy's code-name is *Tigger*?? That's *great*!"

"What?" Treize demanded from his position leaning against the bathroom doorframe, where he was observing the proceedings. "What's so funny?"

"N-nevermind," Duo giggled, attempting to get a grip on himself. "It's nothing. Whooh. 'Tigger.' Heh." With a final deep breath, he got back under control. "So, do I have permission to tell the others that the most honorable stripy one is back in the land of the living?"

"Yeah, I guess," Wufei answered. In the doorway, Treize's eyebrows drew together in puzzlement and he mouthed "Stripy one?" to himself before shrugging and starting to limp cautiously back towards the bed. Duo left the room, still grinning, as Wufei went to his lover and helped him make his way across the room, where the older man eased himself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. They heard Duo's cheerful voice ring out in the hall.

"Hey guys! Str- I mean, T-man's awake! You got stuff you wanna ask him, or what?"

Treize smiled a little ruefully. "Let the interrogation begin," he said with a sigh. "I hope I make it out alive."