DISCLAIMER: You know, somebody once told me that disclaimers are only there to let the original creator know that you’re stealing their characters. Hmm…ok then. HEY, GUESS WHAT! They’re not mine, but I’m STEALING them to use for my own nefarious purposes! It’s their own damn fault for not letting poor Fei-kins get any love in the series. :-P So there.
NOTES: Still more thanks to Madisonne, Vic, and Kristen, my lovely reviewers who said I should do more. This is all their fault. They set loose the plot bunny that damn near chewed my leg off, so don’t look at me. ^^
By: Nizûno Mikomi
In his room, Wufei had managed to roll himself into a ball under the down comforter to ward off the chill. It probably would’ve helped if he had gotten up and closed the window, but tonight it simply didn’t seem worth the effort. Tonight was a bad, bad night. Due to his wakeful state, he had heard the exchange between Duo and Quatre in the hall. That got him thinking, which led to more brooding, and that damned unpleasant ache was starting to make itself known again.
The thought of seeking out the braided pilot just to have someone to sleep next to had occurred to him briefly. Very briefly, before he smashed it like a bug. Bad enough to have another pilot know of his weakness, but Duo……he would never let Wufei live it down.
Outside, the wind picked up slightly, moaning through the eaves and sending a cold draft directly through the open window. Even Nature herself seemed to be conspiring to make him miserable tonight. With a deep, heart-weary sigh, the Chinese pilot sniffled quietly into his pillow and curled tighter into the covers, wishing himself anywhere but here.
===
"Woo, that’s cold!" Duo muttered as he passed Wufei’s room. The air flowing under the door made him shiver.
‘Cold out tonight. ‘Fei must be freezing in there. Did he leave the frickin’ window open or what?’
He turned the knob and knocked softly on the door as he eased it open. "Fei? You awake, buddy?" No response from Wufei, who was most likely buried somewhere under the mountain of covers heaped on the bed. Duo scanned the room and sure enough, the window was open, the curtains flapping in the chill breeze from outside.
‘Well, there’s the problem right there.’ He quickly and quietly crossed the room, gooseflesh prickling on his arms, and closed the window. The sleeping pilot didn’t even twitch. Contrary to popular opinion, Duo was indeed capable of being perfectly quiet when he wished to be.
"Night, ‘Fei," he whispered, heading for the door. Halfway there, a tiny sound caught his attention. He wouldn’t even have heard it had the wind not ceased it’s moaning at that very second.
‘I must be going crazy. That sounded like a sniffle.’ He turned and re-examined his supposedly-sleeping comrade. Upon closer scrutiny, he noticed the covers were trembling slightly. He knelt beside the bed and tugged at the quilt.
"Ne, Wufei, you all right?" All movement ceased for a moment, then the covers shifted and two wide black eyes peered out at him from within the cocoon.
"Maxwell!" Wufei hissed. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Couldn’t sleep," Duo shrugged. "Noticed it was cold by your room, so I came in and shut the window. Did I wake you?"
"No, go away." The blanket drew itself down and the black eyes disappeared from view. Duo pursed his lips and tugged again.
"Are you sure you’re ok, Wu-man?"
"I’m peachy," was the bitten-off reply. "And my name is WuFEI, not Wu-man, not Wu-kitten, not ‘Fei, nor any of those other stupid insipid nicknames you insist on calling me."
"Sheesh, sorry, I didn’t know it bothered you so much."
"Well it does, Maxwell. Now go away and let me sleep."
"You know, that’s not my name either."
"What?!"
"My name is Duo, not Maxwell. We’re not in the East, buddy, you don’t have to address me by my last name."
An exasperated Wufei tossed off the covers partway and glared black death at the pleasantly smiling, way-too-chipper-for-three-a.m. braided American baka.
"Fine. Duo. Whatever. Now will you go away?"
"What’s the use?" Duo said, sighing and propping his chin on the edge of the bed. "Can’t sleep."
"So you figured you’d stay up and annoy as many people as possible, starting with me?"
"I miss Heero," was the simple answer. "I can’t sleep in that big bed all by myself. Too much empty space."
"I do that every single night and somehow I manage," Wufei quipped sardonically. "Try counting sheep." The ache intensified suddenly and his eyes stung. ‘No, damnit! Not now!’ Unbidden, his tear ducts began to leak and he surreptitiously swiped at his eyes with the edge of the sheet, trying his best to be discreet.
No luck.
"Oi, Wufei, are you…?"
"NO." Without waiting for a response, Wufei flopped down on his side and faced the wall, yanking the covers up to his chin and hunching his shoulders, classic Chang Wufei Leave-Me-Alone posture.
Which Duo Maxwell was stubborn enough to ignore completely.
"Look, I may be loud and obnoxious sometimes, but I’m not stupid," Duo informed him with a couple of pokes to his shoulder. "Something’s obviously bothering you and I’m going to sit my ass right here on your floor and yap until you tell me what it is."
‘Oh gods, he wouldn’t……’
*Thirty minutes later*
"So that got me thinking, wait, how DID that coconut get all the way to Mercia? I mean, sure, it was in the script and stuff, but if one did manage to end up there, how would it have gotten there?" Duo chattered on. "I sincerely doubt that any swallow, African or otherwise, carried it there. The guard guy was right about that, it would be too heavy and two birds probably wouldn’t be intelligent to collaborate and carry it together. So then I thought, ‘Hey what about foreign traders?’ Now that seems a lot more plausible. Maybe some foreign spice traders brought one with them and the two halves got tossed out with the garbage, but then I thought, ‘Wait a minute, were there traders from tropical climates in Mercia in the eighth century?’ so I went and looked it up and, get this, you wouldn’t BELIEVE what I found out about Australia! Did you know it used to be a……"
"ALL RIGHT ALREADY!"
Duo had indeed made good on his threat to yammer constantly until Wufei gave up. In half an hour, he had started with a comment on the unseasonably chilly temperatures and worked his way through a brief speculation on quantum physics, more than a few comments about how much he missed Heero, a short dissertation on the mating habits of swallowtail butterflies, and now the swallows and coconuts.
Wufei felt a migraine coming on.
"All right," he said more quietly, sitting up and drawing his knees in to his chest with both arms wrapped around them. "but if you laugh or leak this to ANYONE, I swear by Nataku, I will hunt you down, string you up by your gonads, and there will be many broken two-by-fours before I am through with you."
Duo stared. "That’s…that’s a new one." He shivered slightly as the wind picked up outside. "Oi, before we get into this, wouldja mind terribly if I climbed in there with you? I’ve been sitting on this ice-cold floor for thirty minutes, my ass is completely numb and I’m on the way to losing my poor toes to frostbite. Shove over."
How Duo had managed to turn that from a polite request to something slightly more polite than a demand in three sentences, Wufei wasn’t sure, but he found himself shifting to make room for the braided boy, who immediately burrowed under the down quilt and wrapped it around his shoulders. He sighed and made a little happy noise before focusing his attention on Wufei, who in turn was eyeing him dubiously.
"Relax, I’m not gonna grope you…unless you ask me really really nicely," Duo grinned, enjoying the indignant squawk from the Shenlong pilot as cold toes brushed against his warm ankle.
"Ye gods, Max- Duo, your feet are freezing!"
"Yeah well, if you hadn’t made me sit on the floor for half an hour before you let up……"
"I did not MAKE you sit there, you oaf. You did that on your own."
"You could’ve caved in earlier. I thought for sure the swallowtail butterflies joke would break you."
"As twisted as that was, I can cope with torture, baka. And besides, I’m telling you now."
"Damn skippy. Go ahead, it’s your turn to yammer."
And so he did. Over the course of the few minutes, Duo learned a surprising amount about Wufei’s past, including his brief marriage to Meiran, and the recent nocturnal problems he’d been having, due to emotional stress and what Duo would have accurately termed "cuddle deprivation."
‘Not that he ever got any cuddles to begin with, poor guy,’ Duo mused as Wufei finished up his story.
"So now you know. And remember, not a word or…."
"Yeah, I know. Two-by-fours." Duo paused, brushing a stray wisp of black hair out of his friend’s equally dark eyes. "Have you really been crying yourself to sleep all this time?"
"When I sleep, yes," Wufei admitted, shifting into a more comfortable position as Duo’s hand moved down to gently rub along his upper arm. It came as something of a shock that he found he didn’t mind being touched at the moment, where any other time, there would be swords involved, as well as lots of running and hollering.
"WHEN you sleep?! Geez man, why didn’t you say something?!"
"A man must not cry. It is dishonorable and weak."
"Bullshit, ‘Fei." Wufei blinked, completely ignoring the nickname. He had never heard Duo use that tone of voice outside the battlefield before. "Listen man, there is no shame whatsoever in crying. It takes a stronger man to have a good cry than it does to just hold it all in. At our age, with all the crap we’ve gone through, we’ve more than earned it, especially you."
"But isn’t your motto ‘boys don’t cry’?"
"Yeah, boys don’t cry…at least not where you can see them," Duo said more gently. "We all cry, every single one of us. Why do you think we share rooms? It’s not just because we’re couples. It’s because we you wake up in the middle of the night feeling scared and alone, it helps to have a shoulder to cry on."
Wufei flinched; that had struck a nerve.
"Well that’s all well and good for the four of you," he snapped. "You and Heero have each other, as do Quatre and Trowa. What do I have? Memories of a dead wife? Those make for awfully cold bed partners, let me tell you." Duo’s expression softened still further and he drew his ranting friend into a tight hug.
Wufei’s charcoal eyes went wide over Duo’s shoulder. ‘What in the seven hells is he…oh…wait…this feels…rather nice…’ Once he got over the initial shock, he found he didn’t mind too terribly much. Duo’s arms around him were warm and strong and REAL…and SO much better than a pillow. Deft hands were gently rubbing his back and stroking his hair, loose from it’s usual severe queue.
"You should’ve said something, ‘Fei," Duo murmured. "If you were lonely, you should’ve said something."
"But…I didn’t want to interfere with……"
"That’s not interfering. We’re friends. Friends take care of each other. Thus, if my good buddy Wufei is lonely and needs a hug, I’ll be more than happy to oblige him."
"You mean you’d actually…"
"Of course, dummy."
"What about Heero?"
"What about Heero. I’m not cheating on him simply by sharing a bed with somebody else under perfectly honorable circumstances." He flashed a sly grin. "They ARE perfectly honorable, aren’t they? Not planning to molest me or anything?"
"Why I never…!" Wufei began indignantly before he realized Duo was joking. "One of these days, I’m going to invent a computer program that translates Duo-speak and tells me when you’re serious and when you’re not."
Duo made a complex sound rather like a snort. "Good luck. I’ve been tryina figure me out for years." He looked as if he would say more, but speech gave way to a yawn that made Wufei’s jaw ache just watching it. "Oi, enough talk. I’m beat and you could definitely use a good night’s rest. Here." He shifted to lie on his back and guided Wufei’s head down to his shoulder. "Get some sleep, ‘Fei."
"I told you, my name’s not…." His own sentences were being interrupted by yawns now. ‘I must be more fatigued than I thought.’ He shifted experimentally and found he could not curl into his accustomed ball with Duo in the way. Now matter how much he twitched, he was forced to remain stretched out with his head on the other boy’s shoulder.
"You know, you really shouldn’t sleep in a ball," Duo said, clearly sleepy himself now. "You’ll end up with killer leg cramps in the morning."
Too tired to argue, Wufei closed his eyes and sighed as his friend tucked the covers more securely around both of them. For once, as he drifted off, the lonely ache in his heart wasn’t so bad. It was still there, to be sure, but less acute, more bearable.
Duo smiled as the tiny Chinese boy slipped off to sleep with a tiny sigh. He ran his fingers through the long dark hair just once more, then closed his eyes.
"Oyasumi."
In the meantime, Wufei got his snuggles and Duo doesn’t have to sleep by his lonesome and Heero didn’t get cheated on. Ninmu Kanryu. Let me know what you think. ^^;
Part Four