Note: A huge thank you to KS for editing, and to everyone who was kind enough to comment on Chapter 1.

Pairings: Refs to 3x4, past 6x5,

Running on Empty:

'You're not my type.'

Zechs was still fuming hours later. Jumped-up, ungracious, rude little colonial! It wasn't the first time Zechs had been turned down, obviously, but the first time it hadn't been done with charm and genuine regret. Not that it had happened very often; he was used to being the one who was courted and more than one of his suitors had called him a fairy tale prince.

A rather predictable compliment, but charming nonetheless.

And that mechanic, that nobody, from L2 had dared to say that Prince Milliardo of Sanque, one of the most eligible bachelors in the universe, wasn't his type.

Unthinkable.

Except, of course, he hadn't been able to stop thinking about it. Those four little words had drifted around his brain during lunch at the French embassy, and an official visit to a newly opened wing at the children's hospital, and a speech to a graduating class from the university.

He hadn't been able to stop thinking about Duo's utterly irresistible grin, either, or how much he'd enjoyed driving him around.

Fool.

Well, even if Duo had turned him down, there were still plenty of men who found him more than attractive.

Zechs decided, on impulse, not to go home for dinner. He would go to the restaurant two of his friends had recently opened instead, and sit at that lovely table they reserved for him; the one overlooking the waterfront. Lucrezia would fuss over him, as she always did, and he would eat Trowa's newest creations and perhaps flirt a little with Otto, the head waiter, who had a ridiculous crush on him.

When Lucrezia Noin swung open the restaurant door, however, she looked like she wanted to cry.

'What's on earth is going on?'

'Oh, I'm so sorry!' she gasped. 'Everything's gone wrong today! That new chef we hired is a disaster. He actually turned off one of the refrigerators last night, and a whole batch of desserts was ruined, and then he almost cut his hand off when he was filleting a chicken, because he wasn't paying attention. I thought Trowa was actually going to finish the job for him, he was so angry! So now Tro has to do all the cooking, and then the main dishwasher stopped working and the plumber still hasn't arrived, and we've got a critic from the Sanque Times coming for dinner! I'm so sorry, but we're reserving your usual table for him.'

'That's no problem,' Zechs said graciously. 'Of course, that's more important. You should have called me. Is there anything I can do to help? I can wash up or chop vegetables or something if you like.'

'You're wonderful. But no, it's fine. I would have called, but I know what your schedule's usually like. Quatre came over for a couple of hours after lunch and the two of us washed up manically by hand.'

'Well, next time call me if you have those sorts of disasters. I'm involved in this too, remember? Even if I'm busy, I can send someone over from the palace.' He gave her a quick hug. 'Lu, stop looking so miserable. I'll come over tomorrow and we'll go through the applications again. We'll find someone! Now, tell me about this critic. I thought they were meant to be anonymous.'

'Well, they are, really, but one of Quatre's nieces is doing work experience at the paper. She was doing some filing yesterday and she saw print-out of an email about us, that we're on their list of new restaurants to review with today's date mentioned. Apparently the woman who normally writes their restaurant reviews is on maternity leave, but they've got someone filling in for the next six months.'

'Who is she? Do you know her?'

'He, actually. No, I'd never heard of him but I looked him up on-line and he's very well known in the Colonies. And I've printed out some photos so we all know what he looks like. Pretty cute actually. He presents a cookery show and he's published a couple of books. He's from L3 or somewhere.'

Zechs laughed. 'Oh, well, in that case you hardly need to worry, do you? I can't imagine they know much about fine dining in outer space. He'll probably complain if you don't serve him canned spaghetti in tomato sauce.'

'Goodness, I hope that's not what he wants because we don't have any. Zechs, I really want this to go well! If we get a good review in the Sanque Times, we'll be made for life! If he disses us, we might as well just close down and open a fast food franchise.'

'Now, you're being silly,' Zechs scolded, putting both arms around her. 'You've been open less than a month; you know perfectly well that it takes time for restaurants to build up custom. And it's not like Quatre or I are going to start demanding immediate profits on what we've invested. '

'You're right.' She took a deep breath. 'As usual. Now, where would you like to sit?'

Zechs chose a small table by the window, accepted the menu and a glass of water from a faintly blushing Otto, and sat back to look at the day's specials. There! He hadn't thought about Duo for all of ten minutes. Excellent. Of course, if Duo hadn't been such a churlish character, and hadn't had the temerity to be with someone else, he could have had the lovely young man sitting opposite him right now. He'd probably never been in a restaurant like this in his life; it would have been such a pleasure to introduce him to gourmet cooking, and fine wines and ….stop it now, Zechs.

No, he wasn't going to think about Duo any more. He was going to have a lovely evening and….

Just like that, Duo walked through the door, with Otto bowing so low that his forehead was almost sweeping the wooden floor. Zechs did a double take; no, he had to be mistaken. Except he wasn't; Duo had changed into a very nice designer suit – and dear gods, if he'd looked delicious in denim, he was positively edible in Armani – but it was unmistakably him.

Noin was practically dropping curtsies as she showed him to his table – Zechs' table – welcoming him to the restaurant, thanking him for his custom, making sure he was happy with his table.

She'd be offering to bear his children next, Zechs thought sourly. What the hell? And Otto was bringing him a glass of champagne, which Zechs certainly hadn't been offered. Right, this had gone more than far enough.

Duo was beaming up at Noin who was reeling off the day's specials when Zechs walked over. Huh, so it was just an indiscriminate smile, then.

'I guess my cover's been blown, huh?'

'I'm afraid I don't understand, sir.' She was blushing though.

Duo sighed. 'Come on. It's pretty obvious you know who I am. Like, it's dinner time, but the best table in the house just happens to be free. And no one else seems to be getting free champagne.'

'Yes, what exactly is going on?' Zechs interrupted. 'Noin, I don't know who you think this person is, but he's certainly not someone you need to fuss over like that.'

'Zechs, what are you doing?' Noin asked despairingly. 'Mr. Maxwell is here as a journalist for the most respected paper in Sanque.'

'He's not your Mr. Maxwell! He's called Duo and he's just a mechanic. He doesn't know anything about reviewing restaurants.'

Noin groaned as Duo looked up at them. 'Oddly enough, I have two names. It's normal in my culture. One of them's Duo, the other's Maxwell. Do you want to see some ID as proof?'

'But…you work in a garage!'

'I mess around with cars as a hobby, and I'm looking after my friend Howard's garage as a favour while he's away. I'm actually a chef and a writer. Is that too complicated for you to take in or will I repeat it in words of one syllable?'

'Please, Mr. Maxwell,' Noin cut in, throwing Zechs a perfectly vicious glare, 'I have to ask you to excuse my, ah, friend. He's been under a lot of strain lately. He doesn't really know what he's saying. He apologises if he's caused you any offence and he'll do anything to make amends to you. Isn't that right, Zechs?'

'Fine,' Zechs grated. 'I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do?'

Duo, unexpectedly, grinned. 'Sure. You can sit and have dinner with me.'

'What? I thought my company would be the last thing you'd want.'

'Yeah, well, I hate eating alone, and I hate people grovelling over me. I really hate that.'

'I see.' Zechs let Otto pull him a chair and arrange a snowy linen napkin over his lap. It wouldn't hurt to give the man a little treat, and it would make him so happy. 'I don't make a habit of grovelling.'

'I got that. I'm guessing that you're the one who's used to having people fawn over you, right? Don't you get sick of all the bowing and scraping and Your Highness this and that?'

Zechs went slowly red. Damn. He hadn't blushed since he was a teenager, and now twice in one day because of this damnable man. He hadn't even noticed that Otto had used his title. 'You know who I am?'

'Well, duh.' Duo's eyes rolled alarmingly. 'I told you I'd been reading about the history of Sanque. It didn't occur to you that I'd have checked out the royal family? Yeah, I knew who you were from the start. I thought maybe you liked going around incognito or whatever, and then needling you got to be sort of fun.' Something beeped, under the table. 'Excuse me a sec. That's my pager; I'd better get it.'

The moment he'd walked out of the room, Trowa erupted into it. 'What the fuck is going on, Peacecraft?' he demanded. 'How do you know Duo Maxwell?'

'It's complicated,' Zechs hedged. 'And I don't really know him at all. We just happened to meet this morning.'

'Whatever.' Trowa glared at him. 'We need him to give us a good review, Zechs. Do you have any idea how many businesses fail in the first six months? We can't afford any extra money for advertising, and you and Quatre have already invested enough in this place. If this Maxwell guy gives up a good write-up, it'll be worth a fortune. So you'd better be nice to him, got that?'

'I'll be perfectly civil, as I hope I always am to everybody.'

'Screw civil!' Trowa snapped, his eyes taking on that weird hazel-gold glow they did when he was getting worked-up about something. It was odd, seeing it happen without Quatre being around. 'You're going to give him a blow job under the table if that's what it takes, but he is going to write a glowing piece about us. And if you mess it up, I'm telling Quatre. Got that? I want you to charm Maxwell's socks off, or I'll be serving Peacecraft Carbonara on tomorrow's lunch menu.'

'Fine. Fine. just stop looking at me like that. I promise to schmooze him for the rest of the evening. Is that acceptable?'

'Well, make sure you do,' Trowa muttered, looking at Zechs as if measuring him up for cuts of meat.

Oh dear.

When Duo came back, Zechs jumped up to hold his chair, his most charming smile firmly in place.

Duo gave him a sceptical glance. 'You don't have to be all nicey-nice to me, you know. If the food's good here, I'll give the place a good review. I wouldn't trash them just because their friend's an ass.'

Zechs valiantly ignored that. If Maxwell wanted to spend the entire meal insulting him, then he would put up with it for his friends' sakes.

'The food's very good, actually. Are you ready to order now?'

'Yeah, I'm good.' Duo looked at his watch. 'I have to meet someone at eight. D'you think we can put up with each other for an hour or so? If you'd rather eat by yourself, that's OK.'

'I'm sure I can survive.' Zechs found he was smiling back; not a put-on smile this time, as he motioned Otto over to take their orders.

Duo sat back, taking a good look around. 'This is a really nice place, isn't it? I love the wooden floor.'

'Thank you. It's the original oak floor from this building so it's over two hundred years old. The previous owners had painted over it; it took us ages to get it scraped and waxed back to this condition.'

Duo raised his eyebrows. 'Sorry, you mean it took ages to watch the decorators doing it, right?'

'No, we did it ourselves. I've invested some money in the business, and I offered to pay for professionals, but my friends refused. It was good fun, actually.'

Duo took a sip of his champagne. 'Can't imagine you doing something like that. Sorry.'

'Well, I hadn't imagined Howard's replacement would turn out to be a rather well known chef. Even on L2.'

Those blue-violet eyes narrowed to slits. 'Excuse me. Exactly what is that supposed to mean? When I said you didn't have to be nice to me, I didn't mean it was open season for you to insult where I come from.'

'I didn't mean to insult you,' Zechs explained. 'But the European countries have culinary traditions that go back for centuries. I'm sure you're a perfectly good chef, but you'll have to admit that by Earth standards, your cuisine is hardly going to be comparable. The shortage of fresh ingredients alone must mean you can only have a limited repertoire, although I imagine you do very well within those limits.'

'I'll admit nothing of the sort!' Duo shot back. 'God, do you have any idea how patronising you sound when you say stuff like that? As a matter of interest, just how many times have you been to L2? Or any of the colonies?'

'Never, as a matter of fact.'

'Fancy that. So you've got no right to start mouthing off about our limitations. You know nothing about where I come from! You've probably seen it mentioned a couple of times on the news, and you think it's full of criminals and prostitutes, right? Well, it's not perfect, but it's getting better and it's not because of do-gooders on Earth giving us hand-outs so they can feel good about helping the poor little orphans once they stay on L2 and don't grow up and want to come to Earth looking for jobs.'

'Your highness,' Otto looked positively anguished as he sidled across the floor. 'I'm so sorry but Chef asked me to inform you that he's working on tomorrow's menu.'

Shit.

Granted, Zechs didn't really think Trowa would take his dismembered body and use it for pasta sauce, but it was hard to know with someone who'd once tamed lions at a circus, and was Heero Yuy's best friend to boot.

No point taking chances.

Zechs gave a smooth smile. 'Please tell him I'll keep that in mind.'

'Man,' Duo drawled as Otto walked away, 'that guy practically pisses himself when you smile at him. And he's cute. Why don't you make a move on him?'

'Otto?' He'd never even considered it seriously. 'For one thing, it would be complicated. He works for my friends. And I'd rather prefer not to have a partner, who ah, reacts like that when I look at him.'

'No? I thought that'd be exactly what you'd want in a partner.'

'Well, it's not.' If he let himself think about it, that was exactly why he'd broken up with so many past boyfriends. He tended to take that sort of adulation for granted, but it got a little wearing all the time. It was probably why Duo was so refreshing, rather like Wufei in some ways. In fact, he was the first person since Wufei who'd challenged him, rather than just fawning adoringly.

He grinned at Duo. 'If you met my last boyfriend, you wouldn't say that. I doubt he's ever deferred to anyone in his entire life.'

'Is that why you broke up with him?'

'I didn't break up with him. It was a mutual decision, and we're still very good friends.' And it still hurt, in some ways. Zechs took a sip of his own wine. 'We were together for nearly six months. He found it terribly hard dating the prince of Sanque. He's a very private person; he hated it that journalists were writing about him, and that we were photographed when we went out together.'

'Yeah, that kind of sucks,' Duo agreed. 'You get used to it, though, right?'

Zechs nodded. 'I've been used to it practically since I was born. My first nanny was fired because she sold photos of me to a newspaper. I don't suppose you can imagine what that's like?'

Duo's glass - fortunately empty -slammed down on the table. 'Actually, I can. You'll find this hard to believe but I'm a pretty big deal where I come from. And it's not just because I happened to get born into the right family with a sliver spoon up my ass. It's because I worked for everything I've got!'

'Please, Your Highness,' Otto groaned almost tearfully, materialising at their table with a tray of starters. 'Mr. Maxwell, I hope you enjoy your appetisers.'

'Thank you,' Duo smiled at him. 'They look delicious.' He picked up his soup spoon, and looked over at Zechs. 'If you'd rather move to another table, go on. You're a condescending asshole, but that doesn't mean I have to behave like a jerk in return.'

'Is that actually meant to be some sort of apology?' Zechs wondered, tasting his own soup.

'No, it isn't!' Duo took a mouthful. 'Oh, this is really good. Look, maybe we'd be better off eating separately. I'm seriously on edge about something, and I'm not really great company.'

Zechs buttered two slices of walnut bread and handed Duo one. 'Would you like to talk about it?'

'Nah. It's OK. I'm just meeting this guy I told you about after dinner, and it's a while since I've seen him and I'm kind of nervous.'

'That's understandable. How long have you known him?'

'Nearly four months. He lives here so we've been doing the long distance thing. Then I got offered this temporary job on the paper here; the girl who normally reviews is a friend of mine, and it seemed like a good idea to try living together for real.'

'And now?'

Duo shrugged, suddenly looking very young and very vulnerable. 'Now, I'm here. It's scary as hell. And Sanque is …kind of weird, you know. Everything's so old, and I don't always understand people's accents, and it's freezing now that the sun's gone down.'

'If you're cold, I can ask Otto to light the fire.'

'Could you really? I've never seen a real fire before, only on TV.'

'Of course I can.' Zechs called Otto over. 'Duo, in case you didn't realise, they'd probably burn the restaurant down if it would make you happy, just so you'll write a good review for them.'

'Well, if the rest of the food's anything like their pumpkin soup, I'll give them a belter. Oh, that's so pretty.' He gazed, apparently entranced, at the leaping flames. 'Wow. I had an artificial fire in my apartment back home but it was nothing like this. I could sit and watch that all night.'

And I could sit and watch you all night.

Damnation, where had that thought come from? It was nothing less than the truth, though. The flames coaxed a little warmth into Duo's cheeks, sparking metallic-gold lights in his amazing hair. And he was smiling with pure wonder.

Why the hell had some other man got to see him first?

'I have a log fire in my library at home,' he said finally. 'I love it; it's almost like having company.'

Duo raised his eyebrows. 'You can't be telling me you're lonely, surely. I bet you're surrounded by people non-stop. You must have a gazillion butlers and chambermaids and stuff in that palace of yours.'

'I suppose so. But they all work for me; that doesn't make them friends. My sister's away at university in Paris, and most of my friends have found partners at this stage, and naturally want to spend time with them.'

He expected Duo to come back with some barbed retort; the other man just gave him a faintly shadowed smile in return. 'Yeah, I know what that's like. It's tough, right? Oh, thank you.' This last was to Otto, returning with their main courses. 'Please tell the chef the soup was wonderful, and I'd love the recipe for that nutmeg foam.'

'That was very nice of you,' Zechs remarked. 'Trowa's probably been throwing knives at the kitchen door since you walked in.'

Duo laughed out loud at that. 'I used to have a restaurant; I know what it's like to have food critics come in.'

'You don't have it anymore?'

'Nah. Oh, this salmon is really good. I sold up a few months ago. I had too much on; I was doing my TV show, and writing a kids' cookery book and my sous chef offered to buy me out. I'm still part-owner but I'm not really involved with the day to day stuff. Solo's got his own ideas for stuff; it's not fair to him if I keep interfering.' He picked up a loaded forkful of mashed potato with roasted garlic. 'So here I am. I feel I've fallen down a rabbit hole or something. I guess I'll get used to it.'

'Is it so different from L2 then?'

'Hell, yeah,' Duo informed him emphatically. 'I mean, I like most of it; this town is gorgeous and I love being by the sea. It's just sort of lonely, and my boyfriend travels all the time with his work, so I'm going to be rattling around this massive mansion of his by myself a lot. Plus I know exactly two other people in this whole country and Howard's away and Hilde's about to have a baby any day.' He shrugged. 'Sorry. You don't need to listen to my crap. How's your duck?'

'Excellent.' Zechs obligingly allowed the subject change, cutting off a small piece and dipping it in sauce before offering the fork to his companion. 'Why don't you try some? For your review.'

The challenge in Duo's eyes was belied by faintly flushed cheeks, but he leaned forward and daintily accepted the food. 'You're right, it's good. I like the sauce. Sometimes they get it too sweet.'

'A little astringency can be a good thing,' Zechs agreed. There was a tiny drop of sauce at the left corner of Duo's mouth; he leaned forward and wiped it clean with his napkin.

The blush, charmingly, deepened. 'You coming on to me again?'

Zechs slid the napkin over Duo's pale skin slowly, making it a caress. 'Just cleaning you up a little.' He lowered his voice. 'If I'd been coming on to you, I would have licked you clean.' The other man's tongue stole out, just far enough to touch the place where Zechs had touched him.

'You're staring at me.'

'In Sanque, one is permitted to look.' He hadn't pulled back and nor had Duo. It would be so very easy to lean a few inches forward and press a kiss to that delicious mouth.

'Where I come from, looking at someone like that would get one something sharp and pointy in one's guts.'

'How fortunate we're not on L2 then,' Zechs parried.

'I've already told you, I've got someone.'

'So you did. And he's a fool, leaving you alone like this.'

'He trusts me!' Duo snapped.

Dear Gods, he was just beautiful. All that passion in the most exquisite body imaginable. 'I didn't mean to imply otherwise,' Zechs murmured. 'He's a fool not to want to spend every possible moment with you.'

For the first time since they'd met – was it really only a few hours? – Duo was actually thrown off balance. There was one glorious, heart-stopping moment when their eyes met, to the total exclusion of anyone and anything else in the universe; one of those moments where anything seems possible.

Then Duo was on his feet in an explosion of hair and superb tailoring, and the moment shattered.

'Time for me to go, I'm afraid. Can you tell your friends the article will be printed on Saturday, and I can promise it'll be good. Thanks for letting me moan. See you?'

He made into half a question before rushing out.