I have to admit that I had been a bit surprised when Trowa and Quatre had
first gotten together, because I had been so sure that there was something
more going on between Trowa and Duo. They’d always seemed close, and
I don’t think it was just my particular… perspective, because
Wufei had commented on it too.
But when Trowa had quietly announced that he and Quatre were ‘seeing each other’, Duo hadn’t been the slightest bit upset, and in fact had seemed to delight in it. It hadn’t seemed to change whatever was between him and Trowa though, and it had taken a while for me to decide that they really were just friends… the kind without the benefits.
I had almost gotten up my nerve, in fact, to make my own move in Duo’s direction when… the ‘incident’ happened.
We get together as a group fairly often, and we’d been planning a dinner out for weeks. The day, when it dawned, had been nothing but rain though, and nobody was much interested in the intended trip to the beach side, sea food restaurant that we’d had lined up. We ended up going back to Trowa’s place instead, deciding on ordering in.
There had been an odd tension in the air all afternoon, but it had only gotten worse once we’d settled in at Trowa’s.
Duo, I think, had sensed something as well, and had been teasing Trowa, trying to lighten things up.
‘What the hell is this, Barton?’ he asked, brandishing the phone. ‘I thought everybody had their local pizza place on speed dial?’
Trowa chuckled at him, pulling the phone book out and leafing through it to get the needed number. ‘Not everybody lives off fast food delivery, Maxwell,’ he quipped and Duo stuck his tongue out and crossed his eyes, making Trowa swat at him with the phone book.
‘Some of us have slightly more sophisticated taste,’ Quatre interjected, and there seemed to be more bite to it. Duo blinked for a second, and I half expected him to snipe back, but he recovered quickly and just grinned.
‘Hey, if you wanted anchovies, all you had to do was ask, man,’ Duo teased and Trowa made a face indicating his stand on anchovies.
There was a hint of a flush on Quatre’s face and I wondered about it, but Duo was already punching the number into the phone as Trowa read it to him. Quatre looked to me like he was going to say something else, but then just turned and left the room. I exchanged a look with Wufei, but he seemed as vaguely puzzled as I felt. There was obviously something going on under the surface between our three partners, but he had no more idea than I did what it was.
Once Duo got an answer on the phone and began reeling off our usual order, Trowa put the phone book away and slipped out after Quatre.
‘Trouble in paradise?’ Wufei muttered, trying to decide if he should be concerned or amused. I shrugged and we waited for Duo to hang up the phone.
‘Should be here in about a half hour,’ he told us distractedly, frowning slightly and looking after the other two. There was obviously a discussion going on in the living room, though we couldn’t really make out the words.
‘What is Quatre’s damn problem?’ Duo asked, though it seemed a rhetorical question. ‘He’s been in a mood all day.’
Wufei gave out with a soft snort. ‘You make him sound like some hormonal woman,’ he ventured, making sure to keep his voice down.
‘Hey,’ Duo muttered darkly. ‘If the shoe fits…’
‘What ever it is,’ I soothed. ‘It seems to be between him and Trowa.’
‘Sure doesn’t feel like it,’ Duo grumbled, running his hand over his hair in a gesture I knew he made when he was uncomfortable. ‘Seems like he’s been glaring daggers at me all stinking afternoon.’
And that was when we heard the crash from the other room. Staying out of a ‘lover’s spat’ was one thing… ignoring that sort of sound was something else all together.
Duo was out of the room like a shot, Wufei and I hot on his heels. I don’t think any of us were expecting to find what we did.
Trowa was sitting on the floor on his butt, obviously having just been put there by Quatre’s patented right hook. They both looked like whatever was going on was about to escalate into a brawl. Until Duo rushed forward and put himself between them, demanding, ‘What the fuck, Quat?’
If anything, Quatre looked even more homicidal. ‘How perfect,’ he snarled. ‘Your ‘buddy’ is here to protect you, Trowa.’ I can’t say I have ever heard anybody put quite that much meaning into the word ‘buddy’.
‘Leave him out of it, Quatre,’ Trowa demanded, climbing to his feet and I think he meant to move around Duo, but they ended up standing almost shoulder to shoulder.
‘I think he’s already smack in the middle of it,’ Quatre snapped, reacting to the united front Duo and Trowa were unconsciously putting forth. ‘I think he’s more in the middle of it than I am.’
‘God damn it,’ Trowa snapped back. ‘I told you you’re way off base and you need to drop it, right now.’
‘Will you two just time-out for a minute?’ Duo yelled, looking completely appalled at them. ‘Just what the hell is going on here?’
‘What is going on here is the question of the hour, Maxwell,’ Quatre said, voice suddenly rather low, and the tone dangerous. ‘Maybe you’d like to tell everybody just what goes on here when you’re alone with Trowa?’
Duo just stared at him for a long moment before suddenly turning a bright red. ‘What? What the fuck are you insinuating, you asshole?’
I thought Quatre was going to try to deck him too, and maybe he would have, but Wufei chose that moment to step into the middle of the conversation. ‘That’s… a pretty nasty accusation, Quatre.’
Quatre’s attention swung his way. ‘And I don’t make it lightly.’
‘You have proof then?’ Wufei asked, and managed to look shocked. Duo looked over at Trowa, his eyes asking all kinds of questions, but all Trowa’s attention was on Quatre.
‘I have the evidence of my own eyes,’ Quatre hissed, his fury an almost palpable thing. It left Wufei not knowing who he should be blinking at.
‘What?’ Duo demanded, shock written all over his face. ‘You couldn’t have seen anything, Quatre… there’s nothing to fucking see!’
I wondered, idly, how the argument had suddenly become between Quatre and Duo.
Quatre’s fists balled themselves up again and he took half a step toward Duo. ‘I don’t call you being half dressed and Trowa running his damn hands all over you, ‘nothing’,’ he snarled.
‘What?’ Duo gasped, utterly incredulous. ‘What the hell are you talking about? We never…’
‘Don’t you dare fucking deny it!’ Quatre yelled and I swear he was shaking. ‘Last week; I saw you with my own damn eyes right here on this couch!’
Duo just stood for a long moment and I could tell he was processing it… trying to come up with something that fit with what Quatre was saying. When it clicked in his head, he blushed to the roots of his hair. ‘That wasn’t what it looked…’ he began, and Quatre lost it, advancing with the obvious intention of going after Duo too.
But Trowa was suddenly stepping in, and where Quatre’s voice had been getting pretty damn loud, his was low… and very menacing. ‘Don’t you fucking touch him.’
I remembered thinking that it wasn’t the best thing he could have said. It implied a whole lot of stuff that was causing everybody in the room to feel slapped in the face.
I’ll admit it… it seriously made me not sure what to think. Quatre seemed so sure that there was something going on, and Trowa was being damn protective of the wrong man. Duo was looking like he’d just swallowed ground glass, staring at Trowa with a totally unfathomable look on his face. I could tell Trowa’s move had been the nudge Wufei had needed, and he was ready to believe too.
The pain in Quatre’s eyes was enough to shake even my convictions. If I didn’t know Duo as well as I did… I suppose I’d be wondering too.
‘Is that how it is, Trowa?’ Quatre asked, and his voice had dropped down to almost a whisper.
‘How it is,’ Trowa told him, his own anger running cold where Quatre’s ran so hot. ‘Is that you don’t trust me.’ They were just staring at each other and behind Trowa, Duo spoke up softly, looking at me… looking at Wufei… looking at Quatre. ‘I… wouldn’t do a thing like that.’
But nobody was really listening to him at that point. I don’t think anybody but me was paying attention to the very real pain in his expression. He just looked confused. Confused, and somehow betrayed.
‘How can I trust you in light of what I saw?’ Quatre asked Trowa, and I was hard-pressed to believe that even stoic Trowa wasn’t moved by the sound of that voice.
‘Because I tell you there is nothing going on,’ he replied instead, his own voice quite cold, and his gaze steady as an aimed gun.
Quatre’s temper flared again. ‘I’m not that damn naïve!’
‘And I’m not that damn untrustworthy,’ Trowa snapped back.
‘You expect me to believe that you having him sprawled all over the couch half naked, running your hands all over him, touching his face… his hair… you expect me to believe that nothing is going on?’
‘Maxwell!’ Wufei gasped, his eyes wide and I could tell he’d made up his mind whose side he was on in the argument. It occurred to me that we really shouldn’t be taking sides, and that everybody but Trowa and Quatre ought to be getting the hell out of there, but it was way beyond that point by then. ‘I can’t believe how dishonor…’ Wufei began, but I reached out and touched his elbow and gave him a glare, trying to impart that this was really none of our business.
‘I expect you to trust me,’ Trowa said simply. ‘I expect you to trust Duo.’
That was pushing it, somehow. Quatre was upset with the both of them, but was obviously set to blame Duo for the whole damn mess. Perhaps it felt like less of a betrayal if he could blame ‘the other man’.
‘I won’t be the damn cuckolded lover, you bastard,’ Quatre ground out, the hurt giving over to the balm of anger again. ‘Especially not to some nameless L2…’
‘Then maybe we should…’ Trowa began, but Duo, looking completely horrified, grabbed at Trowa’s arm and stopped him from finishing the sentence.
‘Guys!’ he gasped, wide-eyed and looking from one of them to the other. ‘Don’t do this. Come on… you don’t mean these things! Stop it!’
Quatre’s eyes were tracking the touch though, and even I could see that Duo’s hand on Trowa’s arm had been a very bad idea.
‘This is all your God damn fault!’ he snapped out, voice going as cold as Trowa’s had been. ‘If you could keep it in your damn pants…’
And, in a case of the world’s worst timing, that was precisely the moment that the pizza delivery guy rang the doorbell. There was a moment when everybody froze… just a little bit horrified, I think, at the idea that the yelling might have been over-heard. Trowa shook himself loose first, turning toward me I think, to ask me to take care of it. There was a scramble for cash and somewhere in there the doorbell rang a second time. Quatre stormed off to the kitchen in the midst of it and there was the sound of slamming drawers. Enough cash was finally produced and I went to the front of the house to shut up the damn incessant ringing of the doorbell.
When I came back… Duo was gone.
If I’d had a clue that ‘gone’ meant gone for good, I’d have followed him then, but at the time I’d just thought it was probably best if everybody took a step back and calmed down.
TBC