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X'mas AC198 Part XI
~A Moment of Haven~
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	"I wanted to apologize, Duo."  Heero and Trowa had gone off to 
the market, and Wufei was upstairs performing some sort of Wufei-ish 
action, so now seemed the perfect time to discuss the matter.

	"What for, Q?"  Duo asked, but he wasn't really sure he wanted 
to hear the answer.

	"I'm hoping I didn't get Heero into any trouble."

	He shrugged, tipping the top edge of his newspaper down.  As 
much as he liked the cover it provided, it wasn't very polite to keep it 
up.  "The guy does as he pleases.  I may approve or disapprove, but I 
can't get him into any trouble about it."  Though admittedly, that line 
about Heero marching back to his cold and lonely bed had been kind of 
girly.  But in his defense, he just really didn't think he could sleep 
with a guy soaked in alcohol.  An empty bottle and a couple of glasses, 
he could deal with, but not six or seven open bottles and more shot 
glasses than there were people.

	The top edge of the newspaper flipped back into an upright 
position, but that did not deter Quatre.  He sat down on the corner of 
the coffee table, making plain his intention to stay his course.  "I may 
have made fun of him for being whipped, but..."

	The shield was lowered once more, this time for the pleasure of 
mockery.  "Heh, you remember that, do you?"

	"I'm not drawing a total blank on last night, you know."  Next 
time he was getting drunk, either he would be alone, or he'd make damn 
sure everyone else was drunk, too.

	"Yeah?  Just the part where you were with Trowa, then?"

	Quatre coughed.  "But," he repeated, pointedly moving on with 
the conversation.  "You know.  I wasn't making fun of him for having 
someone to look out for him."

	Hm, Duo rather liked that turn of phrase, but he sure as heck 
wasn't going to be admitting that.  It sounded much friendlier than 
'whipped', anyway.  "Yeah?  'Cuz that'd be weird."

	That hadn't been his point at all.  "I mean, I wasn't trying to 
imply anything about your relationship."

	"Yeah?  'Cuz it seems like you've been implying plenty of things 
about our relationship."

	Heero may have pointed that out, last night.  One way or 
another.  "I wasn't trying to imply anything, then or now.  I've just 
been..."

	"What?" Duo cut him off, wanting to redirect the conversation.  
"Trying to figure us out, still?  Give it a rest, man."

	"Going about things the wrong way, I think," he finished, 
ignoring Duo's interjection.

	"Yeah, 'cuz I'd hate it if drinking yourself into a stupor were 
the right way."

	"Okay, for the last freakin' time, we were not that drunk!"

	"Whoa."  Duo jumped a little at the outburst.  Looked like he 
hit a sore spot.  "Okay, backing off now."

	Quatre paused for a moment to compose himself, then cleared his 
throat.  "Sorry.  Where was I?  Oh, yes.  See, I think you've been 
throwing out mixed signals all week."

	"Wait a sec, when did this end up being my fault?"

	The newspaper came all the way down, for which Quatre was glad.  
It had reminded him of his father, and that was not the person he wanted 
to be thinking about right now.  "I'm not saying anything was your 
fault, Duo.  I'm just trying to explain where my wires may have been 
crossed.  Take, for instance, this morning, when you high-fived Heero.  
Even he seemed a little thrown by that."

	Duo hadn't been thrown at all.  "It was a smooth comeback.  End 
of story."

	"You were his 'best bud and wingman' on one hand, and his 
boyfriend on the other."

	"'Hot' boyfriend," he corrected.

	"I think it's that dichotomy that makes for such an interesting 
relationship."

	"Ooh, big word."

	"That's what makes it hard to figure out, you see?  Because one 
moment you're being his best bud and wingman, and the next you're being 
his boyfriend."

	"'Hot' boyfriend."  It was very important that he get that part 
right.

	Quatre continued to ignore him.  "If you keep going back and 
forth like that, how is a person ever supposed to keep it straight?"

	Duo resisted the urge to comment that the two of them weren't 
being straight at all.  "You know, long as me and Heero have got it 
straight, I couldn't care less."

	"Hmm, well, I guess you two aren't really keeping anything 
straight, though, since it's probably not like the two are entirely 
separate things anyway.  Which is what makes it interesting.  Despite 
all your implications otherwise, I think the two of you really have 
something special."

	"Whoa, hey, what implications are you talking about?"  That was 
more than enough to make him ignore the 'special' part.

	Quatre paused thoughtfully.  He sensed leverage here, and it 
wouldn't do to waste it.  "Do you ever listen to yourself talk about 
it?"

	"I'm gonna resist the obvious here, and go with, what the hell 
are you talking about?"

	The evasion was about as 'obvious' as obvious could get.  "Like 
just now, you haven't been able to talk about this seriously."

	"What?"  Duo wielded an annoyed stare at him.  "Geez, that's 
'cuz I don't consider this a serious topic."

	"Your relationship?"

	"No!  Your inquiry!"

	For something supposedly non-serious, Duo sure didn't seem to be 
laughing about anything.  "How many other times have you explained your 
relationship by saying something like, 'it's fun'?"

	Duo looked at him steadily as he ran through his memories and 
looked for a counterexample.  He didn't find one.  "Well... it is," he 
answered testily.

	"I'm sure it is."  Quatre used the tone that had found 
refinement during business hours, the one that hovered precisely between 
agreeing and patronizing with pure neutrality.

	"Well, maybe it isn't serious, then!" Duo snapped.

	"I know it is."

	The utter placidity with which Quatre issued that statement made 
Duo pause warily in consideration, the kind that chased the heels of a 
shiver down his spine.  "Shit, I know you were 'fessing up last night, 
but did Heero say something...?"

	"Nothing embarrassing," Quatre responded levelly, tacking the 
barest hint of a smile onto the answer.  If Trowa could give out vague 
hints of an answer, then so could he.

	"...Shit."  Heero's standards of embarrassing were a little bit 
out there.  "Look..."  He trailed off, not quite knowing where he wanted 
to go with that.  It wasn't as if he wanted to insist that there wasn't 
something serious going on between him and Heero.  But he didn't exactly 
feel the need to explain himself, either.  It was between him and Heero, 
and that was all that mattered.  He did, however, have to look at the 
pattern of behavior that Quatre had pointed out, and he could maybe 
admit that perhaps he had painted an unfair and inaccurate picture of 
his relationship, and that hadn't been his intention at all.  "Geez, 
what do you want me to say, Quatre?  You want me to go all grave and 
somber when this stuff comes up?  Not like I've been lying to you or 
anything."

	"No... No, you haven't."

	Though misrepresentation was just as much a lie.  Quatre didn't 
say as much, but the idea was never too far from Duo's mind anyway.  He 
sighed, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.  "Hey.  If it makes you feel 
better... I mean.  Geez, there's stuff I'd just really rather not talk 
about, okay?  Nothing personal.  Well, no, I mean, it is personal.  
Personal to me, not you, so..."

	That was better than nothing.  "I understand, Duo.  But just 
because you don't want to talk about it, doesn't mean you have to 
pretend that it's not there."

	"I wasn't pretending anything," he answered defensively.  
"Before or now.  What I said just now, that was just me, you know... 
wanting you to maybe think that there's more than what you think you 
know.  You don't know the full story."

	There were enough pieces to see what mattered, though.  "Joking 
around is okay, as long as we all know that it's just fun and games?"

	"'Cuz I don't want you to think, that, you know, me and Heero, 
we're just..."  That suddenly seemed more important than anything else; 
loads more important than the 'hot boyfriend' part, now that Quatre 
mentioned it.

	Quatre nodded, the gesture both weighty and amiable.  "I 
understand, Duo.  Though the point really is that it's -not- all fun and 
games, isn't it?"

	Duo grinned crookedly, something finally loosening in his chest, 
though he hadn't been aware that it had been tight to begin with.  
"Yeah, I guess."  But then the stress returned.  "Wait, so when you 
picked up on all these alleged implications about me and him being just 
fun and games, is that because I've been a real ass about it, or have 
you just been one donut short of a dozen?  'Cuz you really have been, 
man.  Just so you know."

	"But bakeries usually take thirteen to be a dozen, so one donut 
short of a dozen would just be twelve, which is still a dozen."

	Duo blinked blankly at him, trying to find some sort of meaning 
in that.  He eventually gave up.  "Huh?"

	Quatre shrugged.  "Don't look at me like I was trying to get at 
something.  I was just saying, that's all.  Actually, this pastry shop 
near my office considers fourteen to be a dozen for some reason, which 
is kind of confusing.  So I guess you could be twice removed from being 
a dozen, in that case, and still be a dozen."

	Duo blinked again.  "Bakeries are weird," was all he could add 
to the conversation.  He wasn't up to speed with the latest developments 
in confection.

	"I guess if I actually did want to attach some sort of 
significance to this digression, I would say that, sure, maybe I was off 
the mark from your point of view, but I was still in the ballpark from 
another's."

	"Huh?"  Geez, he hoped he didn't have that look on his face that 
Heero got whenever he was having trouble following one of Duo's lines of 
logic.  It was cute and all, but only when Heero was doing it, when only 
Duo was watching.

	"What I'm saying is, maybe it's both of those reasons.  Sure, my 
donuts have been a little stale lately, I'll admit that, but you've been 
a bit of an ass about it, too."

	Okay, that part he understood.  Finally.  Even if he disagreed 
entirely.  "You sure you haven't been hitting the bottle again, Quatre?"

	"What?  It makes as much sense as anything you've ever said."

	"Uh, no, I make perfectly good sense."

	Quatre rolled his eyes.  "To you, maybe."

	Fine, Duo was perfectly willing to accept that maybe there were 
others out there that weren't equipped to understand his special brand 
of logic.  "Okay, fine, then maybe you make sense to yourself right now, 
and all the other little donuts in your box, but to this cookie, you're 
speaking a language I just don't understand."

	"Cookie, huh?"  Quatre grinned with genuine amusement.  "What 
kind of cookie are you?"

	"The smart kind."  Duh.

	"And Heero?  What kind of cookie would he be?"

	That one was also easy.  "Heh, the kind with nuts in it."  And 
the kind that went well with a cup of tea, too.

	"You like nuts, huh?"

	"Yeah, I like n--"  Wait, was Quatre trying to make a lewd 
innuendo, or was that just Duo's mind filling in the dirty joke?  Either 
way, he didn't want to go there.  "...them."

	Quatre smiled without giving anything away again.  "You always 
did think Heero was a little bit nuts."

	Understatement.  "Still do."

	"See?"  He spread his hands, gesturing that it was out of his 
control.  "I'm completely justified in wondering how you two ever got 
together."

	Duo stopped his immediate reply and settled back for a deeper 
contemplation instead.  Quatre wasn't the only one that wondered that, 
sometimes.  "Hm, yeah, it is a little nutty, isn't it?"

	At last, agreement.  Now maybe this conversation could go a 
little bit more smoothly.  "The 'friends with benefits' angle makes a 
lot more sense."

	He tilted his head, as if to indicate that he was kindly trying 
to consider the matter from that angle.  To his surprise, it did make 
sense.  "Hm.  Yeah, it does.  We -are- 'friends with benefits'.  Really, 
really good benefits."

	The pleased smile on Duo's lips held more than mere 
self-satisfaction.  Quatre could see that now.  "Well, if you want to 
frame it like that... then maybe it makes a little more sense."

	Duo laughed suddenly.  "No, I assure you, we're still both nuts 
for deciding to hook up."

	And if even Duo agreed, then how could he be upset that Quatre 
thought so as well?  "So who's nuttier, do you think?" he asked, leaning 
back on his hands.

	"Heero."

	The answer had been given with no hesitation.  "Without a 
doubt?"

	Duo laughed again, feeling unexpectedly mellow about this 
discussion now.  Maybe it was just easy to admit that the two of them 
were bonkers, rather than trying to explain that which could not be 
explained.  It was familiar ground, anyway, the discussion of their 
relative craziness.  "Maybe I'm nuts for hooking up with him, and he's 
nuts for hooking up with me, but he was nuts before that, too, so that 
makes him twice as nutty as me."

	"And you were perfectly nutless before him?" Quatre asked dryly.

	Okay, there couldn't be anything innocent about that turn of 
phrase, no matter how straight-faced Blondie looked.  "Hey, you can't 
have done the things we've done without any nuts, Q."

	"So, what, he's just got bigger nuts?"

	Duo stared at him for several long seconds.  "...I am so done 
talking to you."

	"You brought it up."

	Did he?  He ran through the past few minutes in his head and got 
back to where they went off-track.  "Hey, what do you mean, I've been an 
ass about it?"

	Quatre weathered the change in subject admirably.  "Well, I 
didn't mean an ass, specifically.  You also brought that word up.  I was 
just echoing.  I only meant to say, you've been misleading."  His hand 
waved accusingly in Duo's direction.  "Almost deliberately misleading.  
And so I was led.  Not my fault entirely."

	"I wasn't being misleading.  I was just joking around.  You joke 
about the stuff you can joke about, and the stuff you can't, you leave 
alone.  Those are basic ground rules, man."

	"Must be a lot of stuff you can't joke about, then."

	Just the important stuff.  The important stuff boiled down to a 
few very simple things.  "There's plenty of stuff to joke about.  All 
depends on the setup, though.  You wanna hear something else, you gotta 
give me something to work with, Quatre."

	"Hey, I told you, you're not pinning this on me."

	"Why not?"

	Quatre looked a bit nonplussed for a moment.  "Because I'll pin 
back!"

	Duo snorted.  "Keep tryin', Q."

	There was a gleam of challenge in Quatre's eye, leading Duo to 
think that just maybe he'd said the wrong thing.



_________________________________________
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last modified : 6/4/2006 03:11:02 PST