Author's Note: This is the last chapter of Sir Maxwell's Guide to the Honorable Sport of Dragon Hunting. It is not, however, the end of the series. There'll be other 2x5 stories in this universe, though I think I'm going to focus on Trowa and Heero next. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me so long, everyone who has left comments and encouragement. You are extremely appreciated.

Warnings: Language

Pairings: 2x5, 1x3, 4xR

Wufei's room was stark, like his apartment had been, like he was. Clean lines, white walls, barely any sign that anyone lived there at all, just the books he had piled around and the computer in the corner of his desk.

I looked around, he watched me look. When I sat down on the corner of the bed, he didn't complain. I tried to think of something to say, something that wouldn't be a test, or worse, a need. The silence was something you could taste, like the way the taste of blood hangs on the air after you've spilled enough of it.

"What do you want?" He was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed, wearing his arrogant scholar expression. Irritation traced the edges of his words like powder burns but I heard something else beneath it, heard Trowa, waiting on Heero's want.

"And then you give it to me? Is that how this works? Is that how people like us do things?" As apologies went there were probably better places to start but I was already trying not to yell. "It's not like that. We weren't like that. Don't ask me what I want. What do you want?"

"Duo." And the clipped exasperation he wrapped around my name was so familiar it could have been the weight of a gun in my hand. "You knocked on my door. If you don't want something, why are you here?"

"Oh." Too much work explaining. So I did my best Trowa imitation instead: shrug. "I thought we'd talk.

"We're talking." Already, the familiarity was gone. He was Lord Chang all over, cold as a night on L2.

"Oh, fuck you."

Silence again. Funny, really. Because we'd done silence. We'd done him standing around, glaring. But I've never seen much point in shaking hands with the person you're fucking. It's not honest.

And it was funny, the way he looked at me. Like I'd buy the Lord Chang act anymore. Like I didn't know him well enough to see that behind the stick in the ass posture was a guy who wanted nothing more than to tear my goddamn throat out. Yeah, I didn't know how he likes his tea and fuck if I remembered whether or not he prefers kittens or puppies. But Quatre was wrong. I knew the color of his skin in shadow; I knew how easily that skin bruised. I knew how he tasted and I knew the sharp hissing sigh of his voice as he came. You know someone like that, know them raw and open and cut to bone, and poses and cold words only go so far.

God, sometimes it's so hard not to laugh. You get so you're drowning in it all: anxiety, need, the instinct to run. I started laughing and that was it. I lost it. Just shaking with it, not making much noise but giggling like a clown on speed. Wufei managed this real offended, 'how dare you laugh at Lord Chang the Mighty' look and that just made it worse. I fell off the bed. Rolled onto my back and just stared up at him, grinning.

He looked a little like he wanted to kill me, a lot like he wanted to fuck me. Mostly, most importantly, he looked like he got the joke. He's got this short, rough chuckle, almost soundless. And he's got a smile like a lit fuse. We laughed at each other, me on the floor my head by his ankles, and him looking down, thinking about grinding his foot into my throat. I snaked my hands up, grabbed him behind the knees to bring him down, the great Lord Chang toppled by a street rat. He rolled, wouldn't let me hold him, wouldn't stay close, but he didn't stand back up.

Staring again.

"This isn't how it works," he said. He'd settled into his usual pose, crosslegged on the floor. I pushed myself up onto my elbows, rested with my back against the wall.

Hadn't I already said that? I tapped my foot against his ankle, the closest I could come to kicking him without moving. "We used to be alright."

He didn't say anything to that, just looked at me, and that was almost enough to set me laughing again. Yeah. We'd never really been alright, neither of us, for as long as we'd known each other and before that. We just weren't alright people. Never would be. What we had, what we'd had before, anyway, hadn't been alright.

I said, "Okay, not alright. But, I figure--" And I knew that soon I'd be bargaining because Duo Maxwell sure as hell wasn't going to be begging, and I was already trying to decide what I could give up to get things back the way they were.

"Duo, stop." He said, and I did. Not because he sounded severe and unforgiving but because he'd used my name for the second time since I'd walked through the door and that felt like progress. But he didn't say anything else and that left us just sitting there, stopped.

We never used to stop. I mean, I bet Quatre and Relena spend hours just sitting around being companionably silent, but it wasn't really my style. I'd always come to him out of too much silence and solitude. I'd wanted loud. We sat there and maybe I was supposed to be existing in the moment and really feeling it. Mostly I was going over the exercise with Heero the other day and thinking about how to best upgrade Deathscythe as a result.

"You think you can just wait around for me to give up?" He spoke with so little emotion, I wasn't sure whether it was a question or not, decided to pretend it was.

Fuck him. "I'm not a goddamn disease, Wufei. You liked being mine." Wrong thing to say and I knew it.

"Yours?" The word burned the air as he spit it out. I'd managed to piss him off pretty good, more than once, but it sounded like the coming fight just might make it to the top. And for once, I didn't want it.

"No. I mean--" I meant he was mine. And why couldn't he want that? Trowa wanted to be Heero's. But that thought, that conversation, still left me feeling sick. Not what I wanted. But that didn't, I mean, I could want him without wanting him to be some fucked up puppet. Wufei looked about ready to storm out if I didn't start talking, his room or no. "Listen. Fuck. I'm sorry. You want me to go?"

"Yes." He still sounded just about ready to eat my lungs. But when I started to stand up he shook his head. "Stay."

I sat back down, readjusting to close the space between us. He didn't react and that seemed about the best I could hope for. "Didn't you?" I asked.

"It wasn't like that." He said. And I was pretty sure I'd said that already, but I kept quiet because he still looked like he wanted to talk. Funny that we could both say the same shit and still be fighting. "You never wanted it to mean anything. Why do you care so much, now?"

"You know, I think I've talked to the others more in the past couple weeks than I did the entire war?" I asked. "Relena, too."

He didn't react to the subject change, "And?"

"Turns out they're all crazy. I like talking to you better."

"You're saying I'm not crazy?"

I smiled. "Nah. But you're my kind of crazy."

He got quiet again and I slid closer to him. There were a lot of reasons I could give for that. But mostly, I was thinking that I might not have another chance. He didn't move away. The quiet felt good this time, like something to hold onto. We seemed to be doing better with silences than with words. We could have touched, if either of us had leaned just a little. We didn't touch.

I said, "Quatre says you like me because of how I drink my tea."

"What you do to tea is disgusting, Duo. You destroy it."

Well, that was fair. I destroyed most things. But there went any plans of tea drinking my way to forgiveness. "So what do you like about me?" The silence that followed lasted long enough to be an insult. I have good traits. Trying to find something nice to say about me shouldn't require deep meditation. But he didn't say anything. Bastard. "You know, if you can't think of anything nice to say about someone you were fucking for years, I think maybe you're the one with the problem."

"You're—alive."

Alive. Yes. A pulse as my best feature. Though, surviving the war? Not easy. I shoved him, started to push myself up to my feet. He grabbed my wrist. Sure, I could have pulled away, but I didn't.

"I've never known anyone as alive as you. You burn." He didn't sound like he meant it. Didn't sound like he meant anything. The words were cold, like he was describing mission specs.

What I wanted to say was, 'what does that even mean' because it didn't mean anything, as far as I could tell. What I did say was nothing because even I know that sometimes it's better to shut up and look pretty. So I did, which meant more sitting, and his hand was still wrapped around my wrist. It felt comfortable and it felt like being cuffed to the floor and mostly it felt like he wasn't leaving yet. That mattered and I wished it didn't.

"Duo, I can't--"

Which sounded so much like the end that I couldn't let him finish, "Why not? We had fun. Let's just do that. I mean, what's wrong with it? The world is fucked and so are we but at least we made sense together."

He was laughing by the time I finished but this time, I wasn't in on the joke and I hated him for it. He said, "You're an idiot, you know that?"

And I really did try to stand that time. Tried to jump to my feet without thinking of his hand around my wrist and ended up flat on my back when he jerked my arm. And then at least he had a reason for laughing.

"Yeah, and you're a bastard." I told him without even bothering to sit up.

"I can't fight with you." A rush of words and I couldn't say how he looked when he said them. By the time I'd pulled my attention from the ceiling he was staring at the wall.

"Yeah?" And for once it felt like maybe we got each other. It'd been easy before. And we'd done too much fighting to waste energy against each other.

"Yeah." But he sounded tired when he said it. Like he'd given up. Something twisted like sharpened steel in my gut when he said it like that.

"I won't do it again, you know." Which was how I knew I wouldn't be leaving. Duo Maxwell doesn't lie.

He shrugged, like it didn't even matter. Like it'd never mattered. But it must have. There wasn't any other reason for him to have pulled away.

"Quatre's in love with Relena." I said it to say something. I said it to see his face. I said it because it wasn't us. Wasn't what we did. But it was nice to know someone could.

"Yes. They compliment each others strengths." He turned to look down at me. He wasn't smiling anymore, but at least he was seeing me.

"You think it'll work then?"

He smirked, "Did you go to all this effort so that you'd have someone to gossip with?"

I would have said something but he kissed me then. It was wrong, at first. Soft and pleading as a prayer in the dark. Then his teeth found my lips and his fingers tangled themselves into my hair and it was the same as it'd always been when I ground up against him.

Yeah. Same as it'd always been. And we were neither of us fine. But why should we be?