Disclaimer; I don't own anything to do with Gundam Wing. Well, except in my own warped imagination.

Note: This is my longest chapter to date - it just didn't want to end!

Just Another Day in Paradise:

The dance of butterfly kisses began at the nape of my neck while warm, caressing fingers were beginning a slow ballet down my spine; making me arch and gasp as every part of me was covered by lips and teeth and tongue – some kisses nibbled lightly at soft flesh, others pressed deep and luscious enough to leave marks...

I collapsed on the bed, sprawling in total submission, legs spread wide, offering everything... as his fingers dipped lower.

I could feel lips shivering across the back of his neck, hear my own wordless whimpers as the long, liquid caresses delved even deeper. So close..

'I want ..I want…..'

'What is it you want, Duo? Tell me.' Controlling bastard. Wanting to make me beg for it.

'I want you...oh God, ...please…. now.'

He annihilated my whole being into one spark of consciousness where his body sprang into mine, and there was nothing, any longer, in all of the world but the feel of him, and I lost my grip on reality as he began to move, every thrust a slow lick of searing flame…

Oh.

Oh.

A dream.

One of those dreams, actually; with the physical after-effects still very tangible on skin and sheets, and the cold shower was as much to destroy any lingering thoughts as it was to clean myself up.

The dream had...not been about Trowa, and as I sluiced off, holding my left leg awkwardly out of the spray of water, I wondered about the ethics of all that.

Could your subconscious be unfaithful? Trowa and I hadn't exactly made any commitments to each other, but we had definitely gone to a place beyond friendship.

Shouldn't he be the one in my dreams?

After the movie finished, Trowa had suggested going for pizza (I'd made him laugh by saying I'd still want to kiss him, even if he didn't taste of my favourite foods). Neither of us fancied sitting in a restaurant and being observed, so we got take-out and drove to a beauty spot overlooking the ocean to have The Talk.

I guess at some point between the end of the movie (Don't ask me what happened after the first ten minutes. I have no clue.) and parking the car, we'd both been thinking a lot about what had happened between us. It was - incredibly easy just to sit there and talk, in between bites of pizza, about what we both wanted. About an attraction that had been there when we'd first met, but had never really been acknowledged. About how we'd both been badly hurt and never wanted to do that to each other. About how we didn't want to lose our friendship, but didn't want to risk losing anything else that might develop.

He'd offered to postpone his flight to Spain, booked for the following day, to visit Cathy at the circus in Madrid, but I'd refused. It was over a year since Tro had seen Cathy properly; he hadn't said anything specific but I got the impression Quatre hadn't been overly keen on his lover mingling with lowly circus performers. Things had happened very fast between us, and there was no harm in us each taking a little time out before leaping anywhere.

Like into each other's beds.

I think at that point it dawned on us both - pretty simultaneously - that we were together in a small, warm, confined space, and that the car windows had steamed up as much from our breath as from the hot food and drinks, and that it was too long since we'd last kissed. It took me a few minutes longer to realise that hand-feeding Trowa with olives and slices of pepperoni was almost as much fun as him sucking pizza sauce and melted cheese off my fingers...

Never would have thought that one day I'd end up having food sex with Trowa Barton.

I hadn't told the guys about us. It wasn't so much that I minded them knowing, as that I was enjoying them not knowing. It was nice to have my own little secret, delicate as a daydream in a bubble, something that was entirely my own.

They probably would have noticed, but as soon as we got back to the house, they already had bags packed, and flights booked for India. I'm not sure what I would have done if Trowa had been staying, but I definitely did not want to stay on alone, and they already had everything planned. Once I'd finished telling them precisely how insane, impractical and downright impossible it was for me to drop everything and go with them, I'd managed to convince myself I wanted to go.

We'd ended up in a little fishing village in Goa, on the Arabian Ocean. Nothing remotely touristy - most of the locals spoke just enough English to haggle over the price of a room or offer handmade crafts. No interest in us. Perfect.

We had a couple of bamboo on stilts bungalows right on the beach. Zechs' original plan for us to sleep in hammocks slung between coconut trees hadn't last much longer than the discovery that there were mosquitoes around after sunset, and they carried various nasty diseases.

Oh, it had also been decided at some point that hammocks were not the most, comfortable place to have sex. Don't go there.

The huts were very basic - just a bedroom with a mattress on the floor and a mosquito net and a few hooks on the door, and a fairly primitive bathroom behind. And a little deck outside where you could watch the sea and the fishing boats. A couple of times, I'd been up at dawn and seen dolphins out there, performing all kinds of complicated acrobatics for the sheer fun of it.

We'd been there for a week now; officially Wufei and I were supposed to be working, but neither of us had done anything worth mentioning. I'd replied to a couple of emails from work, and Wu occasionally left one of his philosophy books lying around, even if he never seemed to get around to any actual reading.

We'd walked miles on the beach and swam and snorkelled and gone out with the local fishermen in their small boats of dark, tropical wood, each with a string of marigolds ornamenting the carved prow. Zechs had started a series of stunning still-life canvasses; pyramids of lemons and limes in the little market by the village crossroads, bundles of silks at the fabric stall, piles of fish, glistening silver in the blasting sunlight. He and Wu had found a guru who was supposedly teaching them tantric yoga and I was spending mornings helping to paint the local school, which also meant a lot of playing with the kids in between lessons..

That was how I'd managed to cut my leg earlier; we'd been playing a chasing game in the field behind the school, a pack of fifty or so assorted kids yelling their heads off and me just keeping in the lead and occasionally turning around to laugh at them. Not looking where I was going and managing to get myself tangled in a coil of rusty barbed wire. The local doctor had given me ten stitches, a course of antibiotics, and some painkillers which also contained a mild sedative, explaining how I'd slept the evening away.

I ended up out on my little balcony after I'd dried off and pulled on a clean pair of shorts, propping my poor, bandaged leg up on the rickety table and taking another couple of pills before flicking on my laptop. There were a few new mails in my in-box; the only one I bothered opening was from Trowa.

He was having an amazing time. One of the lions had just had a litter of cubs and he was in heaven playing with them. Cathy was feeding him vast quantities of homemade soup, and had persuaded him to perform on the trapeze again, for a special performance in front of the Spanish royal family.

He was missing me.

He'd attached some photos Cathy had taken and, as I waited for them to download, I wondered what it would be like, to live with a travelling circus. There were cute pictures of Tro with the lion cubs, and some seriously cute (but in a whole other way) shots of him practicing on the high wire. He'd had a lock of hair dyed jade-green to match his eyes, and the skin-tight outfit he was wearing.

I sent back a quick email, including some new pictures I'd taken of sunsets and dolphins, along with a PS to comment on his new look. I'd returned the most sexy photo of him, and added a few words underneath.

'Very nice packaging, Tro!'

And I think I deserve serious kudos here for not substituting the word 'package'!

After I'd sent that off, and spent a bit more time admiring the way Trowa could balance on the high wire (that's all I was admiring, honestly), the sedatives were starting to kick in. It was a gorgeous night; no moon, but the sky was brightly frosted with stars and the waves washed with liquid silver.

The only discordant note was a small craft flying in from south; possibly a UFO, but more likely a helicopter delivering people to the fancy resort up the coast. Time to go back to bed, Duo. It was after three am; there was a light still shining from the window of the guys' hut, but no other signs of life. I'd obviously convinced Wufei that I honestly didn't need one of them to stay up with me; before I'd gone to bed he'd been talking about spending the night in my hut.

I got back into bed under the mosquito net, trying to keep an image of Trowa firmly fixed in my mind; if I was going to have another one of those dreams, I wanted him to star in it.

Didn't work.

Not that I didn't have dreams; just they weren't the sort you want to remember. Weaving through them somehow was Wufei's raised voice, sounding pissed as hell, and then Heero; very cold and commanding. I'm not sure how long it took before I realised I was actually not asleep any more.

I pulled on a pair of sweat pants and a tank top, and scrabbled under my pillow, where I'd left my gun and my wallet, and the new cellphone I'd bought at the airport. Stuck the gun into my waistband, just in case.

Heero was standing on the top step and glaring up at Wufei, who had a revolver in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other, managing to look intimidating even in novelty boxer shorts, and with a wilting flower behind one ear…very much the guy who'd flown Nataku and duelled Treize Kushrenada.

'I don't know what this shit means, Yuy, but he is not going anywhere with you.'

'Chang, shooting me is not going to help Duo.'

'It will help relieve my own feelings!' He slapped the papers against his side. 'Would you care to explain why the date on this - this travesty of justice is almost a week ago? And the deadline for Duo to appear in Court is apparently tomorrow. What the fuck took you so long?'

'Possibly the fact that you were all gadding about the world under false names? It took me two days to find you, and the only reason I did is because Relena told me where you were. Damn it, Chang, have you any idea how much trouble Duo would be in for entering this country illegally? Not to mention being associated with the possession of unlicensed firearms?'

'How very fortunate that Duo's wellbeing is no longer your concern.' Shark-smooth, Wufei moved into the attack. 'You forfeited any right to that particular privilege six years ago, when you chose to leave him. And the last thing he needs is to have you interfering in his life!'

'I'm not here out of any personal choice!' Heero snapped back and I could tell he was starting to get angry now. 'Whether or not you approve, Duo has been ordered to appear before an ESUN judge before evening on the seventeenth of this month - which happens to be today - and if he fails to attend, he will be charged with contempt of court and considered a fugitive. Are you capable of understanding any of that?'

Oh, God. This was...not good.

'Wu, can you just - stop shouting? Just for one minute? And tell me what the hell is happening?'

'Ask Yuy.'

Ah yes, but that would involve actually talking to Heero. It was hard enough to wrap my brain around the fact that this was no longer a dream, that he was actually there in the flesh.

Even harder to convince my body to forget that other dream, and what he'd been doing in it.

'What's going on?' I don't think my voice wobbled too badly.

'Read this.' I suddenly had the wad of printed pages thrust into one hand. What the fuck?

The phrases on the paper just didn't make any sense…some words were leaping out as if they'd been highlighted but my brain was incapable of putting them all together. Very stiff creamy paper, all printed with the logo of the ESUN Department of Justice. Scrawled signature of a High Court Judge; one Domenico Marani.

'I don't understand any of this.' It was all a joke, some stupid prank. It had to be.

'Tell him.' Wufei said coldly.

Heero started to speak and I rather suddenly found I had to sit down.

Years ago, when I'd been recovering from my accident, I'd officially named Quatre Winner as my next of kin, taking Heero's place. Given him power of attorney. Never bothered to change it. I'd actually forgotten about it, except of course Quatre hadn't.

He had instead invoked some obscure clause in the ESUN Mental Health Act of 197. A particular clause which had been written specifically to deal with mentally ill or unstable persons who were believed to pose a threat to themselves or to the public; it allowed the official family members of such individuals to appeal to the High Court of Justice and petition for them to be taken into such institutional care as the court deemed necessary.

'He is ... trying to have me fucking committed?' I really wanted to sit down. It didn't help that I already was. 'He can't do that; I'm over twenty-one, I'm not even an L4 citizen...'

'Duo, calm down.' Oh, they'd finally stopped yelling at each other; I must be looking really bad for that to have happened.

Suddenly Heero was standing in front of me. Shit. How do I always forget how blue his eyes are? I couldn't quite meet them properly, and instead glanced down at that...fucking joke of a document that wanted me declared incompetent and a danger to myself and others and recommended that my sanity needed to be evaluated, before slinging me away to some institution.

'He can do this thing because he is legally your closest family member, because the Judge who signed this order is from L4 and distantly connected to the Winners, and because he is claiming that as a close friend, and former comrade, of yours, he is worried that you are no longer competent to act in your own interests, and that your…current lifestyle is detrimental to yourself.' Heero spoke very crisply, biting off each word as if it had personally offended him.

'But...I haven't done anything. Anything illegal. I'm not - insane or suicidal or any of those things he's making me out to be.'

'No' Heero said carefully. 'But you do have a ….. somewhat disturbed history.'

'And whose fault is that, Yuy? You're the reason he tried to…'

'Wufei.' That was Zechs, coming up the stairs to stand beside me, saying his lover's name, very quietly, but in the way that always reminds me that he's commanded men in war. 'I'm sure you two are both enjoying this alpha male posturing, but it isn't really helping Duo very much.'

Well. Hadn't my world just tilted on its axis, if Zechs Merquise was providing the voice of reason?

'Now. I've spoken to Relena, Duo, and she confirms that this appalling document is genuine. I gather the next 'plane to Europe leaves in less than an hour, so you should probably pack.'

Sometimes, it's easy just to follow orders, not to have to think.

I pulled on shoes and stuffed a few odds and ends into my rucksack; extra clothes, the book I'd started to read, my meds and my laptop bag, while Zechs found my cellphone.

'All ready? Now. I've programmed some new numbers for you. The Sanq Embassy in Florence; I'll let them know you're going to be arriving tonight. These two, Thomann and Fichtner, are for emergencies only. They're old friends of mine. Leave a message, say you're a friend of the Commander's and they'll contact you. Don't stay on the line long enough for a trace.'

Old friends meant OZ, of course and the Commander had to mean White Fang; things would have to get pretty damn bad before I called on them for help.

'Just in case, OK?' Zechs eyed me shrewdly, knowing precisely what I was thinking. 'And I've given you Relena's private line as well. Duo, would you mind giving her a quick call? She's very upset about all of this.'

'Duo, how are you? Milliardo tells me you're having wonderful weather there.'

That actually made me smile; Quatre Winner had pressed the Destruct button on my life and Relena Peacecraft wanted to make polite conversation.

'I'm so sorry about all this, Duo. I know I promised Milliardo I wouldn't tell anyone where you were, but Heero said it was really important. He's simply furious about all this; he insisted on going to find you himself, he said you….'

'It's OK, 'Lena. Not your fault. Look, I'd better go; I have a 'plane to catch.'

I put the 'phone in one of the rucksack pockets and took a few deep breaths, trying to calm the incessant clamour of voices in my head.

'Duo? Are you alright?'

'Yeah.' I tried for a smile; don't think it worked too well. 'This is all just a bit - confusing. And those two are making my head ache; I think it's all the testosterone flying around. They'll be trying to piss on me next, to mark a claim.'

'There are worse things in the world than having two hot guys fighting over you,' Zechs suggested, pulling me up and into his arms. 'I do wish we could come with you. But it's just for a couple of days.'

'I know.' They couldn't come because Quatre's tame judge had named them both as corrupt influences in my life, and ordered that I was to have no further contact with either of them, for my own sake.

According to Zechs, who had briefly spoken with the Peacecraft lawyers after Relena, Quatre had no case. The only reason things had got this far was because he had a Judge in his pocket, who was wiling to do anything to advise the head of WEI. The restraining order, or whatever it damn well was, would be easily lifted but it would take a few days for the paperwork to go through.

To be honest, it all seemed like some sort of massive cosmic head-fuck until we were actually walking into the ESUN High Court in Florence.

We'd arrived at the airport in Goa to find that the flight to Paris had already boarded and had just been cleared for take-off, and Heero had pretty much gone ballistic, doing everything but physically threaten the airline clerks, invoking the names of Relena and Une and every major ESUN figure, and finally flashing a Preventer's badge at them, and declaring that we needed to catch that plane for the sake of global security. I'd vaguely known that he did occasional consulting work for Preventers, but not on a formal enough basis that warranted him still having a formal ID.

Two pretty young flight attendant in saris were waiting to direct us to our seats, located on opposite sides of the 'plane.

'Unacceptable.' Heero produced one of his more lethal death glares. 'We require adjoining seats.'

'Can you excuse us for a minute, Ladies? I'm sure we can find our own seats.' I gave the girls my most charming smile, and pulled Heero aside. 'Now, that is unacceptable, Yuy. If you want to bully me, you're welcome to try, but I will not stand by and let you browbeat some poor girls who're only trying to do their job. Got that? And I have no intention of sitting anywhere near you!'

Fortunately, my seat was by a window; unfortunately, it meant I had to squeeze past a couple of boot-faced, elderly ladies, who were not happy at the delay in taking-off, and even less so happy to have the cause of said delay disturbing them further. Didn't help that the entire cabin-crew had apparently taken a shine to me, and were stopping by every five minutes to offer me food, drink, an extra blankets, an extra pillow, an eye mask, flight socks, toiletry packs, their personal telephone numbers...

'Your friend is very cross, sir, ' a tall girl called Meenakshi giggled to me.

'He's not my friend,' I said flatly, overcoming the temptation to say he was abducting me. Serve him right if he got lynched by a pack of flight attendants. Instead, Meenakshai made sure she served his tea cold; Piya told him there was no fish left when she took his dinner order and Arun did something to the power outlet in his seat that ensured his laptop kept losing power during the flight.

There was an objective part of my mind that was saying that none of this was Heero's fault, that he was actually trying to help, and that it wasn't really fair to blame the bearer of bad news. That was the objective point of view. Objectivity rarely makes much more than a cameo appearance in my head.

On this occasion it was easily being shouted down by all the other voices in my head. Quatre Winner wasn't here and Heero was. A sly little whisper suggested that maybe Heero was mixed up in all of this. That maybe all those things Quatre had said were true; that they'd laughed at me together.

We spoke only once during the trip. I was being brought to the cockpit to meet the captain, and Heero was standing outside the washroom.

'Still flirting with anything that moves, I see?'

'It's called being pleasant, Yuy. Maybe you should give it a try it sometime?'

It was 5.30 pm when we finally touched down in Florence, having had to change 'planes in Amsterdam, and another half an hour before we reached the ESUN buildings and were racing up the stairs.

Heero had told me that Judge Domenico Marani had been born in Italy, but had grown up largely on L4 and attended University there. He had been in trouble before for trying to judge his cases according to colony mores but there had never been an official complaint.

He greeted Heero politely enough, and looked at me like I was a slug who'd had the temerity to ooze into his office and leave a slime trail on his fancy hardwood floor.. 'I presume this is Mr. Maxwell. Unfortunately, the deadline has already passed. It's now just after six o'clock.'

'I believe there are certain mitigating factors in this case, sir,' Heero remarked smoothly.

The two of them settled down to a serious duel of legalese at that point. I followed where they were going at the start - Marani was sticking to the fact that I had officially been designated as having failed to appear and Heero was fighting back with 'unreasonable deadlines' and 'extenuating circumstances' - but when they started hitting each other with Latin, I just gave up and slouched back in my chair.

The only definite thing I knew at that point was that I had no intention of letting anyone take me to prison. No way. Could imagine all too easily what would happen to a long-haired ex-terrorist with an unfortunate knack for attracting the wrong sort of attention.

Marani's office was two storeys up - and there was a narrow staircase just outside his door; not the broad, curving stair Heero and I had used, but a flight of plain wooden steps that was probably used by cleaners or secretaries. It had to lead somewhere.

There was a hefty marble paperweight on his ornate desk that looked like it would be fairly useful to bash someone with. An antique letter-opener. A fountain pen that probably had a good sharp nib.

I wasn't really sure what the procedure was for taking people in to custody. Would they send court officials or police or just let Heero escort me? Either way, I 'd have to disable him first. The judge wouldn't be much of a threat; in his sixties, running to fat. After that, I 'd just have to wing it.

'Duo,' Heero had one hand closed around my right arm and I had a pretty shrewd idea that he knew exactly what I'd been planning. 'Let's go.'

'I can leave? Just like that?'

'For now.' That sounded a bit ominous, but I trailed Heero down another few panelled hallways.

'Excuse me a minute, Duo. I need to make a call.'

He headed off down the corridor, flicking his cellphone open. I gave him a minute, then drifted after him, pretending to look at the tapestries on the wall. I mean, if he really wanted privacy for his call, he could have gone into another room, right?

'Yes, for now anyway,' He was saying. 'No, we didn't have to go with plan B. Just as well, probably…I'm not sure yet. Tomorrow, I think. He can stay with me tonight. No, I'm sure Honey will be fine with him. Anyway, she has to learn she doesn't totally own me.' Laughter. 'No, seriously, she is getting more sociable, and I think it'll be good for her to learn she can't have me all to herself. Yes, of course I'll call you if there's a problem. OK, Lucca, that's fine. I should go now; Duo must be exhausted after everything. Ciao. I'll call you in the morning.'

Honey? Heero had a girlfriend?? Called Honey. A very possessive girlfriend. This was ... unbelievable. Oh, but it was irresistible to imagine him cowering at the feet of a statuesque blonde Amazon, who was cracking a whip.

'Duo? I'm sorry about that. Let's go home.'

'What? There's no way in hell I'm going anywhere else with you.'

'Duo...you do have to sleep somewhere.'

'Yes, and I'm going to the Sanque embassy. I can call a cab. No need to disturb yourself any further.'

'You can't do that.'

'I can do anything I want! And I happen to know the ambassador; he's a friend of Zechs and he was going to arrange it.' And if there was a problem, it wouldn't be the first time I've slept on the streets.

Better than having to share a house with Heero and Honey Whiplash, anyway.

'Duo. While you were planning a hundred ways to kill Marani, did you actually listen to anything we were saying?'

'Um, not really.' I mumbled. 'It was all legal stuff.'

Heero muttered something in Japanese under his breath. 'He released you into my custody, Duo. I've signed a bond guaranteeing that I will personally oversee your whereabouts until the trial. I can't just let you wander off around Italy by yourself.'

'I'd like to see you trying to stop me, Yuy. I'd really like to see that.'

'Duo. Please. It will just be for a couple of nights. As soon as Wufei sees his lawyers and gets the court order lifted, he can take responsibility for you.'

Oh, charming, he was obviously as desperate to get me out of his life as I was.. Well, screw that. If I had to stay to with him, I'd make sure he suffered just as much.

'And what about your girlfriend?' I asked, sweet as honey. (Oops, pun! Totally unintentional.)

'Irrelevant, Duo. I don't have one.'

'Oh, yeah? I heard you on the 'phone back there. She's called Honey, right? And she's very possessive? Sounded to me like she's not going to like you bringing home a stranger, huh?'

'Duo..' He actually seemed to be trying very hard not to laugh. 'I don't have a girlfriend. Honey's my dog. I just have her a few months; she came from the shelter and she's still not very good with people, but I'm sure you two will get on fine. You do like dogs, don't you?'

Oh. So there I was, stuck in Heero's company for the next twenty four hours at the very least.

My life seriously sucks.