Disclaimer - all the usual stuff, they're not mine. Sadly.

Note - if Trowa seems OOC in this, he does have his reasons.

The Worst Boyfriend Contest:

(AKA - what Heero did to Duo; what Quatre did to Trowa)

It probably shouldn't have felt as weird as it did, having Trowa Barton eating breakfast in our kitchen later that morning.

He'd been a fairly regular visitor to the apartment Wu and I had originally shared, and he'd stayed with me in Florida for a few long weekends. But our relationship had always been based around the fact that he was Quatre's boyfriend and I was Quatre's best friend.

I wasn't quite sure where we stood without that common denominator.

When I say he was eating, I use the verb in the context of ...not actually consuming food. He was pushing eggs and toast around his plate and occasionally lifting a forkful to his mouth, but so far he hadn't actually eaten anything.

He wasn't even looking at his meal, all his attention focused on the painting opposite. Admittedly, our kitchen art collection is a bit different from the still lifes of food and flowers that most people seem to hang in their kitchens. The painting that had Tro so absorbed was one of Zechs' huge oils.

It was Zed's first serious attempt at what the critics have started calling 'Deconstructive Art'. He'd spent weeks painting the most elaborate cityscape imaginable, adding all these infinitesimal, finicky details that you could only see through a microscope, and when it was all as perfect as it could be, he'd destroyed it.

Submerging the whole scene in swirling layers of colour; colours that screamed pain and blood and chaos and fear, but if you looked long and hard enough, you could just make out the original design.

And if you looked a bit longer and harder, you could see the shadowy shapes moving through it all, shapes that could just be angels or demons or gundams.

Of course, the critics raved about everything he painted, claiming how it all represented the War; about the 'futility of creation compared to man's need for destruction', and how all the paintings were 'manifestations of a scarred and tortured psyche.'

Whatever. I'm not an art critic but, sometimes, I sort of think he just got frustrated with painting in such detail. Either that or he just spilt the first tube of paint by accident, and then decided he liked the look of it.

The guys had been around for a bit earlier; Zechs had made breakfast for Trowa and himself, before dragging Wufei upstairs for a 'nap', claiming that neither of them had slept much the previous night. He'd suggested on his way out the door that, as it was such a lovely day, I should take Trowa for a hike and show him around a bit.

So I was raiding the refrigerator for food to bring with us, and filling water bottles. Trowa finally decided he'd had enough of rearranging his breakfast, pushed his chair back, and went on a little wander around the room, glancing briefly at the finger paintings that Sally's daughter, Mel, had made for us before moving on to the newer of my collages; the one I'd just finished and framed a few days ago.

I'd started cutting out newspaper photos and articles a few years ago, when Zechs and Wu first starting dating and the media went into something of a feeding frenzy whenever they appeared in public together. For a while, I kept them in a shoebox under my bed, along with my collection of menus, but when we moved here we had enough wall space that I'd decided displaying them.

Once I had our lunch supplies stashed away in a backpack, I drifted over to join Trowa. He was still studying the photos, examining the public photo record of our lives for the past two years, and occasionally touching one with a fingertip.

Relena opening the new wing of a children's hospital on L2; Dorothy in Preventer dress uniform accepting a medal and commendation; Quatre speaking at a political rally; lots of me and the guys, together or separately, including the newest photo of the three of us attending Steel's opening night. The tagline for that one had raised the old rumour that we were involved in a threesome; I know, you'd think that would be stale by now, wouldn't you? But apparently any 'new and exclusive' gossip on former Gundam pilots, especially royal ones, and their significant others is guaranteed to generate huge sales. Almost as profitable as speculation about Relena and Heero, in fact.

'Tro? You ready to head off?'

He gave no sign of having heard, his finger lightly tracing a shot of Zechs shaking hands with the Sanque ambassador at some black-tie charity function. Wufei is standing slightly to one side, wearing that inscrutably bland expression he tacks on when he's feeling nervous about something; it had been one of their first public engagements as an official couple and you can tell how ill at ease he is with all the attention.

'You don't have any pictures of me.'

'No. You - you've been keeping a fairly low profile the last couple of years, you know?'

'True,' That was said with a wry twist of his mouth. I don't think it had ever occurred to me that he'd minded Quat always being the one in the spotlight, while Tro was the bodyguard in the shadows, watching his back. It was just the way they were.

'Anyway...we should get going if you're ready. It would be nice to eat lunch up at the lookout and it takes a couple of hours to get up there, so we probably should head off. I just need to get a jacket from my room if you don't mind me going in for a sec?'

'Of course. Duo, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to put you of your room.'

'You didn't, honestly. I hardly ever sleep there.' I caught a slightly odd look from him before I ducked into the chaos of my closet, looking for the fleece I was sure I'd shoved in there at some point.

I couldn't help sneaking a few looks at Trowa as we set off and he looked terrible. Still dressed in yesterday's clothes, which looked like he'd slept in them, topped off with a borrowed coat and hiking boots, he looked far too pale, like he'd been inside way too much, and seeemd even thinner than usual in his ill-fitting clothes. You could have plonked him onto any L2 street corner and he'd have fit in without even trying.

The hike I was taking him on was one of my favourites; it's a fairly strenuous uphill climb, and there are parts where you pretty much have to haul yourself along by tree roots and outcroppings of rock, but it crosses a little stream where we've sometimes surprised deer and even bears, and the view from the top is spectacular.

Getting there took longer than usual as Trowa was obviously finding it hard going, so there were frequent pauses to admire the view, and for me to point out some landmarks and the cliff face where we'd tried abseiling a few times.

He was no more interested in lunch than he had been in breakfast, or maybe he just didn't find my banana, peanut butter and honey sandwiches terribly appealing, My attempts at getting a conversation going obviously didn't appeal either, and in the end I just gave up at the small talk, wondering when would be the best time to raise the whole Quatre issue.

'Duo, why don't you just say it, OK? Get it over with.'

'Hmm?' I swallowed some juice and angled an innocent gaze at him. 'Say what, Tro?'

'Whatever it is you're obviously dying to say about Quatre. If you don't say it soon, you're either going to choke on the words, or else bite your tongue off.'

Oh, please. I'm not that obvious.

'Wufei made me promise not to interrogate you.'

'I'm sure you can find a way around that.'

Well, of course I could. I don't lie but truth can usually be a somewhat...malleable concept, and gently pressing an old friend to share a confidence could hardly be seen as any sort of interrogation, could it? I did sort of see Wufei's point that Trowa had come to us for some of sanctuary, and he just needed a little space and solitude to work things out by himself but...if he'd truly wanted anonymity and privacy, then he could have stayed on L4 and disguised himself as a camel herder. Or a camel.

So coming to stay with his friends had to be some sort of subconscious plea for moral support and sympathy. Hey, I've been in therapy for the past six years. Psychobable is virtually my second language.

'Just say it, Duo.'

'I think you should call him.' I swallowed. 'Tro, he is really, really upset. He knows he screwed up, with that whole wedding thing, and he wants you to know that he's sorry. That he wants to fix things.'

'He said that?' There was a weird note in his voice that I couldn't quite place, 'Quatre actually apologised for announcing his engagement?'

'Um...' To be honest, I couldn't remember what Quat had exactly said, but there'd definitely been remorse in there somewhere. 'Maybe not in so many words, but he was sorry for what he'd done. We saw it on TV, you know,' I said gently, 'it must have been awful for you to see him with that girl, saying how much he loved her... Trowa, it isn't funny!'

'No,' In all fairness, he wasn't actually laughing as such, but there was a decided quirk to his lips, and his one visible eye was gleaming. In Bartonese, this is the rough equivalent of being doubled over with hysterics. I suddenly wanted to throw something at him; something sharp and pointy.

'No, it's not funny,' he repeated soberly. 'Ironic perhaps. Quatre has a great many things to apologise for but the engagement is hardly one of them.'

'So - you're not mad at him about that?'

'Since it was my idea in the first place, I can hardly have grounds for complaint,' he said crisply. 'Duo, if you don't close your mouth, you'll start catching insects. It seemed...expedient, at the time, given Quatre's political ambitions and the conservative nature of L4 society, and an ideal way to deflet media attention from the two of us.'

'I knew it had to be something like that! Trowa, I don't know what else you think Quat did, but he wants to fix it. He just wants to know you're all right. Could you call him when we get back, please? Just to let where you are?'

'Duo, you have no idea what's going on here. Like you said, you don't know what he did, You've done your supportive best friend thing for him; can we please just leave it at that?'

Leave it at that? Yeah, right. I don't think so.

'All he wants is to know that you're safe!' I snapped. 'Whatever Quat did, it's not worth ruining your relationship over. You two are the most perfect couple I know and I am not letting you throw that away because you've had some stupid row.'

'You know nothing about it, Duo!'

'Oh, no? Well, unlike you, I know how to forgive someone when they screw up. You know what Heero did to me, but I'd probably forgive him if he came and begged me. You know, on condition that I could chain him in a dungeon and torture him for a couple of years first. And Quat couldn't possibly have done anything that bad.'

'Really?' He bit the words off as if they were poison. 'Quat's not the perfect angel you think he is, Duo.'

'Oh, really?' I parroted back. 'So, what did he do then? Did he run off with Relena Peacecraft while you were on life support in a coma?'

'Did Heero force you to stay with him by keeping you drugged into oblivion?'

Oh fuck.

'Trowa, no,' I breathed. I wanted very much to be sick. 'Quat would never do that.'