3X5
"
Can I help you, Captain Barton?" Wu Fei asked frostily as he glared at
his computer screen without really knowing what was on it.
"I heard Une," Trowa admitted as he closed the door and sat down. He loosened his Preventer tie and looked at Wu Fei from under his long bangs.
"Since she shouted her reprimand, and our office walls are thin, I won't get angry that you eavesdropped on our conversation," Wu Fei told him tightly. "An apology isn't necessary. May I concentrate on my work?"
"You've been suspended. You don't have any work," Trowa pointed out.
Wu Fei's hands clenched into fists. He didn't have a ready reply for that, just as he didn't have a ready plan for what to do next. Three months was a long time to 're evaluate' his career and his attitude problems.Une had almost ordered therapy, but Wu Fei could only think of that as weak.
Awareness of Trowa came back sharply and Wu Fei asked irritably. "Is there something that you wanted?"
"A vacation," Trowa replied with a chuckle and Wu Fei did look at him, then, focusing on Trowa's green eyes and their intensity on his person. "I asked for immediate downtime. Pack for the desert. We'll leave in three hours."
"Desert?" Wu Fei tried to wrap some understanding around what Trowa was saying and came up empty handed. "I don't intend to go-"
"I'm sure that you don't, but you are," Trowa said, cutting him off. He stood and tightened his tie.
"Why should I go anywhere with you?" Wu Fei demanded, his temper rising.
"That's why," Trowa replied."I have a cure for that temper of yours. It won't take longer than three months and you won't regret it." When Wu Fei continued to glare, Trowa added, "Don't you want to keep your job?"
He did. Wu Fei had found it embarrassingly hard not to beg Une to reconsider.
Trowa was suddenly in his face, eyes curious. "What are you thinking, right now, truthfully?"
"That this is bizarre and that I shouldn't allow a madman to take me anywhere," Wu Fei responded promptly.
Trowa snorted. "Not that I expected progress instantly, but a little truth would have been reassuring."
"You are not privy to my inner thoughts, Barton," Wu Fei retorted.
"We'll work on that," Trowa promised as he stepped back. He pointed a finger at Wu Fei as he backed towards the door. "I will pick you up at your place. You will be ready?"
The thought of leaving Preventer Headquarters, shamed, suspended, and at loose ends, panicked Wu Fei more than he could understand. "I will be packed," he replied, as if someone else were speaking, someone angry, but desperate for something... a lifeline?
Trowa smiled. "Good."
Wu Fei stared at the empty door, after Trowa had gone, the sounds of agents working coming to him faintly. He thought that he heard Duo laughing, but then reminded himself that he was on a mission with Heero. This place was his life's blood, he thought, trying to understand his own desperation. Three months of silence in his apartment, three months of being without purpose, without anything between him and remembering tragedies, and failures, would, he felt, drive him mad. It was preferable to go with Barton, and put up with whatever he had in mind. He could, he thought, even consider it a mission, of sorts.
Wu Fei was surprised at the calmness that descended on him at that thought. He felt suddenly centered, his life back on track. Yes, he affirmed, he was on a mission, training, really, for something Preventers would assign him in three months. Trowa Barton would be his instructor.
As if he really had been assigned to training, Wu Fei typed in the proper paperwork for an agent out in the field, and electronically filed it. It was much easier, then, to leave his office and walk through Preventer headquarters, ignoring the whispers and stares of his fellow agents.
Mission:Day One
"It's a shack," Wu Fei growled.
" A shack with running water and solar electricity," Trowa reassured him.
"Uplink?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"It's more peaceful that way."
Wu Fei glared at the weathered gray slats and the tin roof of the shack sitting in a wasteland of desert. The car was expensive, sporty, and the A.C. was comfortable. Watching a dust devil go by in the front 'yard' and heat haze coming off of the metal roof, he had to wonder at the temperature in the midday sun.
"Tell me it has A.C.," Wu Fei begged.
"Sort of... uhm... well... It's not as hot as outside."
"I'm not getting out of the car," Wu Fei swore.
They sat quietly for a few minutes and then Trowa asked, "So... exactly why did you get sus-"
"Assigned this mission?" Wu Fei asked, cutting him off. His dark eyes were glaring at the front door of the shack.
Trowa stared at him, puzzling over Wu Fei's self delusion and the reason for it, before he replied, "A mission in the heart of no where... I can't help wondering what was worse than everything else that you've done since joining Preventers."
Wu Fei crossed his arms tightly over his chest and mumbled.
"I didn't catch that," Trowa said in confusion.
"I roughed up an old man," Wu Fei said louder and felt the sting of shame and embarrassment.
Trowa's eyes widened and then he looked very concerned."Fei... that's..."
Wu Fei glared at him. "You wanted me to admit it. I have. Don't pretend that you didn't hear about it."
Trowa sighed and relaxed behind the wheel of the car, caressing the leather wrapped steering wheel. "I did want to see if you would talk about it."
Wu Fei found the side window suddenly interesting, wondering how he could have fallen so low. "We were trying to clear a dangerous area. The old man was worried about a cat. I told him he needed to forget the cat and clear the area. He refused. Things escalated. He didn't understand the importance of what we were doing. He didn't see that I was trying to protect him, that he should follow my orders.He simply couldn't understand that his life was more important than a cat's life."
Another long silence settled. Wu Fei watched the heat waves rippling on the horizon. "I grabbed him and forced him into a patrol vehicle," he continued. "I didn't realize how fragile he was. I broke his shoulder."
"Your temper," Trowa sighed and Wu Fei could only nod, feeling the knot of self disgust settle around his heart.
"Why are we here?" Wu Fei finally asked despondently.
"For a mission," Trowa replied, still playing the game with him; the game of saving face when Wu Fei suddenly didn't feel that he deserved such consideration.
"Are you certain about the success of this mission?" Wu Fei asked, wanting sarcasm, but only coming up with a soft, lost timbre to his voice.
"Total success," Trowa promised him. He nodded towards the shack. "You have to start the mission, first, though."
Wu Fei grimaced.
"Soft," Trowa complained.
"There isn't any shame in being reluctant to suffer," Wu Fei argued.
"Temper will only make you hotter," Trowa observed gravely.
Wu Fei grunted and finally opened the door, bracing himself against a blast of heat. He felt that he would be hearing that phrase often in the near future.
He hadn't expected comforts and Wu Fei wasn't disappointed. The inside of the shack was just ten degrees below the temperature outside, if that, and almost bare. The floor boards were as weathered as the outside of the place and squeaked as he walked over them. A sturdy table and chairs looked made out of scraps, the stove was old enough to have been used by his great grandmother, and the refrigerator was barely large enough to keep a few perishables cold. A narrow door led to a pantry, another led to a waterless toilet and a micro shower. Two more doors led to bedrooms with narrow cots. One looked as if it had been used partly as a machine shop.
Wu Fei turned on his heel completely, glaring at everything, before he asked skeptically, "This place is yours?"
"No, actually. It was Heero's," Trowa admitted as he put down bags and began putting away their food supplies.
Wu Fei grunted. "So this is where he came... after the war?"
Trowa nodded. "He needed to get away, just like you do. Sometimes, it's not easy to think things through, properly, when you're surrounded by duties and people with expectations."
Wu Fei loosened the collar of his shirt, getting hot already. It wasn't the expectations, he thought. It was the fact that no one measured up to his abilities. It was frustrating. infuriating, and inexplicable when they didn't acknowledge his right to command them, to save them, and to fight without their interference. He felt his temper rising as he began to recall instances where citizens, and fellow agents, had refused to bow to his superior abilities. When would they learn not to interfere? To leave the fighting to him alone?
Wu Fei went to the AC unit, a simple wall mount with a few controls. He let the cool air blow in his face for a moment as he considered turning the control down.
"Don't," Trowa warned. "We only have so much power from the solar cells. We have to use that power for the deep well pump, the lights, the toilet, the micro shower, and the appliances. If you tamper, it will automatically start turning off unnecessary devices... like the AC and the lights."
"I may be spending all of my time here, then," Wu Fei replied irritably.
"You'll get used to it," Trowa promised him as he finished and then went to inspect the bedrooms. "You take the better bedroom."
"I don't require coddling and a cot is like any other, uncomfortable," Wu Fei replied. "Sleeping with machine parts and grease doesn't hinder my ability to get a poor night's rest on either cot."
Trowa chuckled. "Actually, that room does have the better cot."
Wu Fei followed Trowa into that room and eyed the machines. "What was Yuy building?"
Trowa checked the linen on the cot as he replied, "To make sure that he took enough time to think about his life, he decided to completely dismantle his transport vehicle and clean every nut and bolt, before putting it back together again."
"You were here for that?" Wu Fei asked and was surprised when he felt a twinge of something... jealousy?
"I visited and brought him supplies," Trowa explained. "I was the only one he gave his position too."
"Why you?" Wu Fei asked and that twinge of jealousy grew stronger and more clear.
"We went through a great deal together, during the war," Trowa replied as he moved some of the equipment closer to one of the walls. "He trusted me to keep quiet."
"Did you?" Wu Fei wondered.
Trowa turned to look at him in surprise, but then replied guiltily, "No. I did tell Duo. The man was frantic for Heero. I made him promise not to come here before Heero was ready, though. It worked out. They are together, now, and still doing well."
Wu Fei frowned.
Trowa asked, "Does that bother you, their relationship?"
Wu Fei glared even more. "Don't insult me. I am not a fool . I was merely confused that those two could find any common ground."
Trowa smiled and shrugged as he moved past Wu Fei into the main room, "Even fire and water go together if there's oil to connect them."
"Profound," Wu Fei replied dryly as he followed Trowa and sat down at the table and chairs. He noticed, then, that the table top looked made out of a sanded down and flattened car hood.
"Will you be leaving me alone, now, to contemplate my failings and my future?" Wu Fei wondered as he studied the tabletop and tried to discover what color the car might have been painted. He guessed blue before Trowa replied.
"I don't think being alone will help you," Trowa told him.
"I'm not sure that you're qualified to make that diagnosis, Dr. Trowa
Barton," Wu Fei snapped.
Trowa grimaced as he took out two cold beers, sat down at the table opposite
Wu Fei, and handed him one. As he opened his, he replied, "I'm not
here to psychobabble you, Chang. We're going to do some work... a mission....
It's a chance to get away from it all and find your center."
Wu Fei opened his own beer, but put the cold container against his hot forehead before drinking."What sort of work?" he wondered, almost cringing at the thought of doing anything physical in that sun.
"An excavation," Trowa told him with a tenseness that told Wu Fei that he expected an argument.
"Excavation," Wu Fei echoed more calmly than he felt. "For Prevneters?"
Trowa shrugged."For everyone, really. Finding out about the past can help in our future."
"You've done this before?" Wu Fei wondered.
"I might tell you about it... later... while we work at the site. If you're still willing?" Trowa promised hopefully.
"I could never resist a mystery," Wu Fei admitted. "It must mean that the scholar in me isn't completely dead."
"You won't regret it," Trowa promised, pleased.
Wu Fei scowled, "When I die of the heat, promise to regret it for me."
Mission:Day Two
"Early morning and evening are the best times to work," Trowa explained as he packed an assortment of tools, a water flask, and several energy bars into a backpack, and headed for the door. "During midday, we'll come back here."
"Small mercies," Wu Fei grumbled as he gulped down the rest of his cooling tea, put down the chipped mug, and then moved to follow Trowa.
"Well..." Trowa began to apologize as he opened the door to heat, flying bugs, and a sun just breaking the horizon with laser beam rays of light.
"Cào n? z?z?ng shíb? dài !" Wu Fei snarled as he swatted a bug trying to land in his right eye.
"Just keep moving," Trowa urged him as he grabbed Wu Fei's elbow and propelled him out of the door. "You'll get a small breeze to cool you off and the bugs will have to chase you."
"I think that I will thoroughly hate you by the end of today," Wu Fei growled as Trowa guided his steps to a rocky path, that was barely that, and then let him go to take the lead into the desert.
"You're right, you will," Trowa said over his shoulder in amusement, "but, just remember; anger will only make you hotter."
"Any hotter and I will spontaneously combust, Barton," Wu Fei complained."At least tell me why I'm out here to possibly die?"
"Indian relics," Trowa announced."I have permission to excavate the site of an ancient Indian village."
Wu Fei was silent, thinking about the implications of that statement. "That would require training. A degree. They wouldn't let just anyone excavate a delicate ancient site."
"I do have training," Trowa told him. "I wanted to be close to Heero, while he was getting himself together in that shack, so I blended in with college students on a dig with their professor. He was impressed by my aptitude, and let me stay on, even when he discovered that I wasn't one of his students. He's the one that's allowing us to excavate his site."
"He'll be there as well, then?" Wu Fei asked and wondered at a flare of irritation at the thought. He didn't want the intrusion, he realized after some thought. He wanted time alone with Trowa, even if it did mean suffering in the heat and bugs.
"No, we'll be alone at the site," Trowa surprised him by replying.
"Why isn't he there, now?" Wu Fei wondered.
"Too hot this time of year," Trowa admitted. "It's dangerous."
Wu Fei stopped in his tracks, staring at Trowa's back, the light of the rising sun turning him all golden. When the bugs settled on him, and flew in his face, he flapped his arms with a curse, and began following again."There had best be some magic cure in all of this, or I will stake you out in the sun, and leave you, Barton, for making me suffer for nothing."
"Temper," Trowa warned.
"Temper," Wu Fei echoed back sarcastically, but he could feel his heat increasing and throttled down on his emotions.
"Enjoy the sunrise," Trowa told him as he stopped and Wu Fei came even with him.
The ground dropped away into shadows beyond their feet, but the sun was quickly filling the bowl of red rock, tumbleweeds, cactus, and scrappy brush with golden light. The sky was coming to life as well, the darkness retreating as the sun topped the horizon and began it's slow climb upward.
"Down there," Trowa pointed, to deeper shadows under overhangs of stone. "They wanted out of the heat, too."
Wu Fei gave a sigh of relief. "Then it will offer us some protection?"
"Well..."
Wu Fei glared at him. "Well, what?"
"The water gets trapped in deep pockets under the overhangs," Trowa started to explain, but then bit his bottom lip as he began walking downwards.
"And?" Wu Fei prompted as he reluctantly followed.
"Mosquitoes and flies," Trowa announced. "They stay in the shade. It's almost better to get in the sun to get away from them."
"They have more sense than we do, then," Wu Fei grumbled.
Trowa tossed a smile over his shoulder as he replied, "They won't be making possible great discoveries, though, and having time for self reflection."
"I'm not finding it within me to pity them their lost opportunities," Wu Fei snapped back as he swatted his first mosquito."How did the indians survive the insects?"
"They siphoned out the water, as far as we can tell," Trowa explained.
"How?" Wu Fei wanted to know, curious.
"Maybe we'll find that out as we dig?" Trowa hoped.
____________________
"All right?" Trowa asked.
"No," Wu Fei growled from under his wet towel.
Collapsed on the couch, boots off and bare feet filthy with dust, he had been grateful when Trowa had wet a towel and dropped it onto his face. It cooled his burned skin and made him feel almost human again.
"I'm not going out there ever again," Wu Fei vowed. "In fact, I'm packing and leaving, tomorrow. I expect to be in a nice, cold apartment by noon."
Trowa was quiet as he placed a water bottle by Wu Fei's hand, on the coffee table, and then sprawled into a chair with his own bottle of water. He drank slowly, letting the water cool off his mouth before swallowing.
"No arguments?" Wu Fei asked suspiciously.
"It's entirely your decision," Trowa replied.
Wu Fei moved the wet towel enough to look at Trowa with one eye. The man had his head thrown back, now, as if he were falling asleep, body lax, like a big cat. Lithe and handsome, Wu Fei thought, and would have appreciated the view more if he hadn't been so miserable, just then.
"You're trying psychology on me," Wu Fei guessed. "It won't work."
"Psychology?" Trowa echoed to the ceiling as he rolled the water bottle against his neck. The water, beading on the plastic, dribbled down his skin to his collarbone.
Wu Fei found himself getting aroused by the sight and it made him even angrier. "Yes, psychology," he snapped, his temper making him even more miserable as he hid from Trowa's display under his wet towel again. "You will say how it is all my decision."
"It is," Trowa agreed.
"And how I am not being forced into anything," Wu Fei continued.
"True," Trowa agreed again.
"And that I may leave any time that I choose."
"All very true."
"If I want to fail my mission," Wu Fei said, pointedly. "Since you know that I will never, willingly fail a mission, you are confident that this argument will come to nothing and that I will stay."
"Not entirely confident, no," Trowa replied with a chuckle. "You could surprise me."
"I could?" Wu Fei said sarcastically.
"No, I suppose you wouldn't," Trowa said.
Wu Fei heard Trowa moving and then his voice was suddenly very close to Wu Fei. A firm hand gripped his arm. "No games, Fei. I'll speak honestly. I want you to stay. I think you need to stay."
Wu Fei pulled off the towel and looked at him long and hard. Trowa was regarding him with a soft expression, his grip gentling and smoothing along Wu Fei's arm. Wu Fei felt himself shiver. Trowa noticed and mistook it for something else. He rose and moved off to the kitchen.
"Drink more water. I'll cook some food. It's been a long day for both of us," Trowa said as he began pulling out pots and pans.
"Does it cool off at night?" Wu Fei wondered. The sun was just beginning to dip down past the horizon, a splash of fiery red and orange through the windows.
Trowa looked back at him and smiled. "Very cool."
"Thank you, ancestors," Wu Fei muttered as he sat up and began drinking water.
"Well, don't thank them yet," Trowa said apologetically as he began tearing open packaged food.
Wu Fei hated to ask, but he forced himself. "Why not?"
"No heat,"Trowa replied apologetically.
"I hate you," Wu Fei stated simply.
Trowa only laughed at him harder.
After their meal, Wu Fei was the first to use the narrow shower. A sonic shower wasn't at all satisfying, but it did get the dirt off. A wet wash rag, dipped in a small container of water, followed that to help make Wu Fei truly feel clean and refreshed, but it was almost a mixed blessing. The water made his sunburn sting.
The temperature did drop sharply after nightfall, and Wu Fei found himself pulling on sleep pants, a shirt, and tying on a robe.
"This place is madness," Wu Fei grumbled as he joined Trowa in the living room.
Trowa was still only dressed in sleep pants, as if the weather didn't bother him at all, and was doing limbering exercises. As Wu Fei made himself tea, he watched Trowa, appreciating the man's strength, his long lean body twisting into impossible angles and poses in his own version of yoga.
As Wu Fei sat and sipped his tea, he said, suddenly self conscious about his reaction to the man, "You don't mind if I watch?"
Trowa smiled under one arm at him, as he bent and placed his toe at the back of his head. It made the material of his pants pull tightly over his crotch and a blush stung Wu Fei's already sunburned skin. "If you like the view, why not?" Trowa joked.
It was a question, Wu Fei felt, disguised as a joke. A nice way of saying, 'Interested in me?'
"Are you certain that we should concentrate on two missions at once?" Wu Fei wondered. It was cruel, but he couldn't help his anger at Trowa and his situation.
"It might be part of the same mission," Trowa suggested as he broke his pose at last and rolled onto his back. He almost put his pelvis in his face.
Wu Fei almost dropped his tea, his mouth slightly open."If I could do that..." he trailed off, suddenly not wanting crudeness between them. He sighed, instead, and looked down into his tea cup.
"Honesty is part of the mission," Trowa told him as he uncurled enough to put his feet up in the air, his weight resting on his shoulders. "That goes both ways. I am attracted to you."
Wu Fei chewed on his lip and admitted. "I am attracted to you as well." he sipped at his tea, then, feeling irritable, and then added, "I don't think pursuing that, right now, is a good addition to the mission, though. I feel..."
"Overwhelmed," Trowa guessed and Wu Fei nodded, amazed that the man could sense his feelings so accurately.
"I think you have defined your problem," Trowa told him. "You need balance, calmness; a center, You've been overwhelmed since the start of the war, I think, and that can make anyone..."
"Unbalanced?" Wu Fei ended for him and felt bitterness at the rightness of that word. Wasn't that exactly how he had been acting? Unbalanced, angry, furious, and out of control? Perhaps his insistence on that control, any way that he could get it, had it's roots there?
Wu Fei stood up and went to put his cup in the sink. Returning as Trowa stood up, he said, shamefaced, "I need to rest. That was..."
"I understand," Trowa told him. "We have time, Fei. Good night."
Wu Fei gave Trowa a bow and escaped to his room, shutting the old door behind him. It wasn't until he was pulling blankets over him in his cot, that he realized that he had given Trowa the bow he would have given to a teacher.
_______________________________
"Shards of pottery are significant?" Wu Fei carefully put another shard onto the pile that had been steadily growing all day. Most of them were blank, dusty, and hot from the sun. A few had black lines, but nothing that made Wu Fei consider, for even a moment, that he had accomplished something worthwhile.
"Could be," Trowa replied as he intently brushed sand off of his own shard and examined it. He never seemed to tire of that repetition, or the failure to find anything of interest other than yet another blank piece of pottery. He added his shard to the pile, carefully. The record book was next to it, where he kept meticulous notes, and the camera next to that, on which he recorded each find as if they had found a part of the Holy Grail.
Wu Fei stared at the pile as if it had become his enemy."I feel...."
Trowa looked at him curiously, as if he was about to utter something profound. "Yes?"
"I feel as if I have been sentenced to hard labor in a rock mine, like in one of those old vid movies," Wu Fei replied irritably. "Breaking down rocks under a hot sun, a harsh taskmaster plying a whip, and those around me dropping dead from exhaustion."
"It's always a catharsis for the hero of the story, though, isn't it?" Trowa wondered, as if the statement required a thoughtful reply. "He goes through the forge, physically and mentally, and becomes better for it."
"In reality, he dies just like the rest," Wu Fei growled as he dug yet another shard out with his fingers and glared at it.
A biting insect found Wu Fei's upper bicep just as he settled the shard onto the pile. He swatted and swore explosively, standing up and striding about, each step careful to step over the grid string marking each section of the dig, even in his anger.
Confronting Trowa again, Wu Fei snarled, "This is all madness! I should be at headquarters, on a true mission, not wasting time, here. I am needed. Each moment away from my work, puts civilians in danger.My expertise-"
Trowa gave him a small smile and it stopped Wu Fei's rant. As Wu fei stared at him in confusion, Trowa replied, "Well, at least you aren't in chains."
Wu Fei continued to stare for a moment and then he grunted. He wiped at his sweating brow, realizing that his temper had only made him that much more miserable.
Without warning, Wu Fei stepped over the grid strings again, kneeled by Trowa, and then leaned in to kiss him. It was brief, almost fumbling in uncertainty, and then Wu Fei's dark eyes waited for a reaction.
Trowa continued to smile. Wu Fei lowered his eyes, feeling slightly embarrassed, and began digging for shards again. "I needed something pleasant in my utter misery," he confessed.
"Perhaps I did, too," Trowa replied. "Thank you."
Wu Fei's blush deepened. "Keep digging," he urged with false irritation. "I wish to have all of this pot by nightfall."
"Why?" Trowa wondered.
"So that we may stay inside for a day and piece it together," Wu Fei replied, unable to keep the desperate hope out of his voice.
Trowa seemed to consider the idea and then he nodded. "That seems like a plan."
Wu Fei felt ready to faint from utter relief and wonder when he had become so soft. Trowa chuckled at him. Wu Fei glared, but it didn't have any heat. "By nightfall," he urged.
"No rushing, though," Trowa warned. "If we don't do this right, then what we find is worthless. It all must be carefully documented."
Wu Fei nodded tightly and then was surprised when Trowa leaned in for another kiss. Again it was brief, both of them seeming nervous and not sure of the other person's acceptance.
"It does make the work very pleasant," Trowa observed as he began digging again.
Wu Fei found a smile and it was almost painful. He realized how seldom he found things to smile about. Dedication to duty wasn't his only excuse. There were many levels of 'why' and they all showed a lack of depth in his personal life. Realizing that there would never be a wife and children to carry on his name, had not led to any alternatives. He had simply chosen not to explore it, not to delve into what he considered a shameful rejection of his duty to his dead clan. It had been much better not to face it, to bury himself in work to atone for his lack. His worth, he supposed, had been resting on the success of his missions. If he couldn't bring his clan sons and daughters, he could spend his life atoning by self sacrifice.
"I see," he said as he placed yet another shard on the pile. Trowa arched an eyebrow in question, and Wu Fei explained, "I've had a small catharsis."
"Want to share?"
Wu Fei pondered and then shook his head. "It needs to grow into certainty, first."
Trowa seemed to approve of that. "We have time."
-----------------------------------------------------------
"A cook out?" Wu Fei asked as he leaned close to the A.C. unit and rubbed a wet rag over his face to cool himself off. "You're insane, aren't you?"
"Probably," Trowa replied with a smile as he sorted through their supplies.
"It's cold at night," Wu Fei complained.
"So?"
"What about the insects, the biting insects?"
"I have a spray," Trowa promised.
"Promise that you're not trying to kill me?"
Trowa looked over several packs of freeze dried meats. "Promise."
"You could be lying," Wu Fei pointed out thoughtfully as he dropped the rag to look at Trowa.
Trowa chuckled. "You'll have to trust me."
"We'll get to stay in tomorrow and put together this pot?" Wu Fei asked as he looked down at the table and the bag of pottery shards.
Trowa checked for supplies for the fire and gave Wu Fei a look over one shoulder. "It won't be that bad, Fei. You don't need to get a reward for enduring it."
Wu Fei stared back, hand poised over the bag.
"What?" Trowa wondered.
Wu Fei snorted softly and replied, "You called me 'Fei'. It's strange to hear. Usually, only Maxwell calls me that to annoy me."
"Too familiar?" Trowa guessed and looked a bit disappointed.
"For him, not you," Wu Fei was quick to respond and then turned away with a blush, feeling foolish.
He could almost feel Trowa's smile as the man said softly. "I'm honored."
"You understand respect and..." you are far dearer to me, Wu Fei thought, but couldn't say the words.
"He calls me 'Tro', " Trowa admitted. "It is annoying."
Wu Fei's hands clenched. "I said, 'not you'," he repeated. "You say it with respect. He says it to make me angry."
Trowa thought about that as he said, "Grab those two folding chairs." and gathered up his supplies. He said at last, as they left the house, "He doesn't want to make you angry. He wants to break that wall that you have around yourself. He wants more than to be a fellow Preventer agent."
"Heero would protest, I think, if he knew that," Wu Fei replied as he unfolded the chairs and arranged them around a spot that looked as if it had been a fire pit on previous evenings.
The sun was going down in a grand display of reds, golds, yellows, and dark blues. Once it dipped over the horizon, the cold would quickly replace the heat of the day.
"He's not the jealous kind," Trowa assured Wu Fei as he crouched to pour coals into the pit and light them.
Wu Fei frowned as he sprayed bug spray over his arms and legs. "Why wouldn't he be? Maxwell is a handsome man. Having some insecurity would only be natural."
"Not if you really trust each other," Trowa replied and sounded irritated.
Wu Fei grimaced. "You sound like a woman. Men are men."
Trowa turned to glare at him. "Believing in someone's fidelity, doesn't make me feminine, or don't you think that a man can be honorable and committed?"
"I think a man can, but men and women doubt themselves," Wu Fei replied. "When you doubt yourself, it is easy, then, to doubt others."
"Arrogance, alone, would make Heero a man confident in his ability to keep Maxwell in a committed relationship," Trowa pointed out as he began sorting cook pans. "He wouldn't believe that you are any kind of threat."
Wu Fei grunted, agreeing, "Yuy is very arrogant."
"And you're not for believing that Duo would leave Heero for you?" Trowa wondered
"But, you said..." Wu Fei replied in confusion.
"Duo wants to be friends, that's all," Trowa told him as he poured oil into a pan and put in onto a grate over the coals.
"That's a relief," Wu Fei replied uncomfortably. "The thought of Maxwell, interested that way in me... It's disturbing."
"Good," Trowa said shortly.
Wu Fei found a smile, then, realizing that here was one man who was having trouble with jealousy. "Some arrogance, on your part," Wu Fei told him, coming to stand beside the man, "Wouldn't be misplaced."
Trowa looked up at him, the packages of food in his hands. He seemed startled and then relieved. He nodded, smiling in return, and began to cook their dinner.
TBC