"He has a pulse. You're lucky," Trowa growled as he sat bsck on his knees and looked down at the blonde sprawled out on their large bed.
"I only put mei jiu in his desert," Wu Fei insisted."It's not a strong wine. I thought that it would relax him, not knock him out cold. Are you certain that he's not having an allergic reaction?"
Trowa snorted as he pushed his bangs out of his face. "I've seen enough drunk stupors, during my mercenary days, to know one when I see it."
Wu Fei looked contrite. "I'm sorry."
"You'll have to say that to Quatre when he wakes up," Trowa retorted.
Wu Fei sat on the bed on Quatre's opposite side and tucked up his legs. The mattress was only a large pad on the wooden floor The room looked as if several people, of different minds, had indulged in a decorating battle, and the contest had been a toss up. Oriental lanterns and oddly placed exercise rings hung from a whitewashed ceiling, while two highly stylized chairs and a small baroque side table looked as if they had been taken from a wealthy estate.
Wu Fei reached out a hand and lightly brushed back golden hairs from Quatre's face. "I will be deeply apologizing, but... at least we have him where we want him most."
"In our home?" Trowa wondered acidly. "I thought that was the plan and that this was more than about sex? If you're just satisfying your libido..."
"Don't be stupid!" Wu Fei barked back, but then bridled his temper. "I chose to be with you, not him, remember? Or are you regretting that you didn't choose him instead of me?"
Trowa looked shocked and forgot his anger in a heart beat. He reached over Quatre and squeezed Wu Fei's bicep. "No, I'm not. Don't ever say that. We needed each other. We were both alone. Lost. Traveling with the circus was the best thing for both of us... until we settled and grew used to considering a future. I won't ever regret falling in love with you as well."
Wu Fei smiled warmly at him.
Trowa nodded. "I like when you smile like that."
"You taught me how," Wu Fei reminded him. "You taught me how to be more than an angry young man."
"And you taught me that I was worth enough not to toss my life away," Trowa told him. "Maybe, together, we can teach Quatre that there's more to life than just the Winner foundation?"
"Life with us," Wu Fei affirmed.
Trowa nodded firmly. "With the only people who can understand him and give him what he needs."
"He'll be shocked," Wu Fei worried. "I know that I was when we... when you..." He blushed deeply and Trowa chuckled.
"I remember," Trowa replied. "I don't think that you even knew that men could do that together."
Wu Fei growled, "Not the sex part, but that two men could honestly care about each other outside of the physical."
"You didn't trust your feelings for a long while," Trowa recalled sadly.
"I'm sorry for that," Wu Fei replied. "I know it must have seemed as if I was using you."
"I understood," Trowa said as he lowered a hand to Quatre's shoulder, looking down at the sleeping man, "Just as we understand what Quatre is really feeling. We just have to make him see it, too."
"If he ever speaks to us again," Wu Fei sighed. "I may have damaged his trust."
"We won't know until he wakes up," Trowa soothed.
Wu Fei yawned. "I'm exhausted. Push him to the center. He can't get any more shocked and angry when he wakes up, and I don't intend to sleep on the floor."
"Soft," Trowa chuckled as he moved Quatre over.
"And I suppose that you can sleep between two chairs, comfortably?" Wu Fei wondered with an arched eyebrow, as he reached to turn out the lights.
"Not those chairs Relena gave us as a house warming present," Trowa replied with a grimace. "Under or on top of the blankets?"
"Under. It's cold," Wu Fei replied as he pulled them back and slipped underneath.
"You have gone soft," Trowa snickered.
"Maybe that's a good thing?" Wu Fei wondered sleepily.
"It could be," Trowa mused around a yawn.
__________________________
"What happened?" Quatre's voice asked softly.
Wu Fei blinked awake to morning sunlight and raised himself on one elbow to look down at his sleeping companion. Trowa had already done so on Quatre's other side. They exchanged worried looks, and then Wu Fei replied, "I am humbly sorry."
"You are?" Quatre stared at him, all golden and sleep confused, his blue eyes wide and catching the glow of the sunlight.
"We invited you to our home, last night," Trowa began.
Quatre suddenly blushed deeply and clutched at the blankets. "I... I'm terribly sorry!"
Trowa and Wu Fei exchanged puzzled looks and then Trowa asked, "Why are you sorry?"
Quatre struggled for words, the geometric pattern on the top blanket suddenly very interesting. "I was nervous.I... I had something to drink before I came to your home. Too much. I obviously passed out."
Wu Fei bit his lip and then confessed, "I may have added to your... problem. I put mei jiu... plum wine... into your desert. I thought... I thought it would... relax you."
Quatre frowned."Relax me? Why would you..."
"We wanted to talk to you," Trowa said quickly, wanting to speak before Quatre became angry. "We know you've been... lonely ... depressed."
Quatre sat up, blushing even more and truly angry now. "Duo!" he snarled. "I spoke to him in confidence!"
Trowa squeezed Quatre's bicep. "He didn't betray your confidence lightly."
"He felt that we could help you," Wu Fei added.
"I know that!" Quatre exclaimed and then rubbed a hand over his face. He had a light golden eight 0'clock shadow on his chin that did nothing to make him look his age. He still looked far too young to run a huge corporation or to shoulder the responsibilities that went along with it. "I came here because I know...I wanted to ask... I should go."
Quatre began to climb out of the bed between them, but Trowa and Wu Fei both took hold of his rumpled dress shirt at the same time, stopping him.
"We need to talk," Wu Fei begged. "Don't run away."
"I need to go," Quatre insisted. "I need help, but not from any of you. It was wrong of me to get so low that I would try to compromise your relationship. You're happy. Duo and Heero are happy. I need to find my own happiness, elsewhere, with someone."
"Who won't understand you," Trowa said as he pulled Quatre backward into the pillows and looked down at him. "It took us years, Quatre, to heal, to become more than just mercenaries, more then pilots, more than angry men who have lost everything, and didn't have anything left to live for. We needed each other. You need us. That isn't going to destroy our relationship. It can only add to it and make it stronger."
"How can it?" Quatre exclaimed in anguish. "How can all of my wants, all of my needs, do anything but tear you apart?"
Wu Fei leaned down close and caught Quatre's panicking eyes with his own. They froze that way for a long moment before Wu Fei insisted. "It can't, Quatre, because we decided that having you with us is what we both want. Maybe it's what we both need as well? Your calm? Your kindness? Your steady direction? Neither of us possesses those qualities. We fight. We struggle. We strive, every day, to stay whole. I think, with you with us, the struggle will end. You will be the glue that holds us together, effortlessly."
"You don't know what I want, what I dream about..." Quatre replied in acute shame. "I didn't come here because I wanted to become a room mate. I want more, dammit! I want so much more and I always have!"
Trowa smiled softly, leaned down, and gently kissed the side of Quatre's mouth. "What you want isn't any different from what we want as well. Stop being an idiot. Accept it."
Quatre shook his head sharply and closed his eyes. "It's not..."
"Right?" Wu Fei exclaimed irritably. "Honorable? Moral? No vows are being broken, Quatre Winner. Our standards of conduct have always been our own. This isn't shameful. It's what we need to live."
Quatre's eyes opened again and he searched both of their faces. "I've never... I don't even know how... with one man. It seems wrong to need... two."
"Trowa is an excellent teacher," Wu Fei said with a chuckle, but then more seriously, "Don't be afraid, Quatre. Together, we will heal you. Together, we will all be whole."
Quatre reached out for them both. "I need you," he whispered. "If my head wasn't pounding so hard, I would... I'm thinking of very shameless things..."
"Not shameless," Trowa corrected firmly. "Not shameless at all."
"You won't think of me... as a woman... wanting...so badly... to feel you both... in me?" Quatre whispered hesitantly.
Wu Fei shivered with his own need. "Not weak, if that's what you mean. Not weak at all."
"Maybe," Quatre sighed as he slid a hand along both their hard chests, "the headache isn't too terrible..?"
Trowa caught at his hand, images of Quatre beneath him, and himself pounding into him desperately, making his resolve a shaky thing. "Not yet. This isn't about sex, Quatre."
"It's not?" Wu Fei said in a strained voice, battling his own desire to pull Quatre to him and take him completely.
Trowa reached over Quatre and slapped Wu Fei on the head. While Wu Fei recoiled and spluttered angrily in Chinese, Trowa quelled his libido and told Quatre, "We want you just as much, but we're not starting this by humping first thing. Wu Fei and I learned, the hard way, that it's too easy to make it all about the physical. It hides the real problems. The real desires. We have time. Go shower. I'll get you some aspirin for your headache."
Quatre looked resigned as he left the bed. As the shower started, Wu Fei lamented, "I could have used some physical. Quatre is very hard to resist."
"Very hard," Trowa agreed. "Why did you think hat I sent him to the shower? Come here. We don't have very long."
Wu Fei smiled and moved to close the space between them.
"I love when you smile like that," Trowa chuckled as he pulled Wu Fei beneath him.
_________________________________________
Quatre joined them at the small dining room table after his shower. Wu Fei was looking rumpled in a red robe, nursing a tea and ignoring a plate of toast that Trowa had half burned. His loose hair was in his eyes and his head was bowed Trowa had put on soft shorts and a T-shirt, his lanky frame looking as if it were too much for the chair that he was sitting in, and that he would spring out of it if he wasn't careful. He was staring at the fresh pot of coffee at the table's center and the mug that he had put out that simply said, "Wait, it get's better from here." He could only hope that was true.
"Coffee or tea?" Trowa asked as Quatre gingerly sat down. Wu Fei had loaned him some sleep pants, but he was wearing his dress shirt over it and looking as rumpled as Wu Fei, despite his shower.
Quatre pushed at the plate of burned toast and then said cautiously, "Coffee is fine."
"Tea it is," Trowa said as he uncoiled from his chair and went to the tea pot of hot water.
"Don't trouble yourself..." Quatre began, but Trowa cut him off.
"More coffee for me," Trowa grunted as he put hot water and a tea bag into the mug he had now designated as Quatre's.
"There's cream puffs from your last party," Wu Fei spoke up, without raising his head. "You were very generous in sending some home with us after Trowa commented how good they were."
Quatre raised eyebrows."That was over a month ago..."
"And I was lying," Trowa chimed in. "I hate cream puffs."
"Oh," Quatre looked uncertain and pushed the toast again."This is fine."
"If you're a dog," Wu Fei grated. "Don't be so accommodating."
"I'm not," Quatre protested and then more quietly, "I simply don't know what else to say, though."
Wu Fei and Trowa exchanged a look and then Wu Fei sighed and said, "You don't need to say anything. Just... no running away until we do talk, all right?"
Quatre blushed, "You have my word."
"Headache still?" Trowa wanted to know as he put Quatre's tea in front of him.
Quatre nodded as he picked up the tea and tested the temperature with a tiny sip.
"I am truly sorry," Wu Fei tried again.
"Accepted," Quatre said through the steam of his tea, "Though, as I said before, I was partially to blame. I... I was stupid."
Quatre looked around the small kitchen as he sipped his tea and the others waited uncomfortably for him to speak further.
"You won't mind living with me?" Quatre finally asked, lowering his blue eyes and blushing hotter than his tea.
"Wouldn't your 'staff' have something to say about that?" Trowa wanted to know.
"I have no idea," Quatre sighed. "I can't say what they will think, when I'm not even certain what I think."
"Then, perhaps, you should stay here until you discover how you truly feel about all of this?" Wu Fei tried. "I know it isn't a mansion, but it is comfortable and away from... judgment."
"I do have responsibilities," Quatre countered, "and i don't need anyone else to pass judgment on what I have already judged harshly."
Wu Fei started to speak, but Quatre cut him off.
"Nothing you have to say to me will change my mind that what I want is... wrong. I should fight these needs, not seek to come between my dearest..." He put a hand over his face and put his tea down.
"We've told you what we want," Wu Fei reminded him. "We've told you that we lack something that we think that you can give us. Otherwise... what we have, now,might not be enough. Emotionally, we could press out own self destruct buttons for lack of what you can give. If you want to berate yourself for gross overindulgence, you might want to consider that offering us your assist-"
"Love," Trowa broke in with a frown.
"Love," Wu Fei tried again self consciously, "will save our lives. It's charity, self sacrifice, whatever you wish to call it, but not selfish if you see it in the light that we live in."
Quatre came from behind his hand, worried now. "You are that...troubled?"
"Aren't you?" Trowa asked. "Isn't that why you finally came to us, drunk, and wanting to confess what you desperately need?"
Quatre bit his lip and then nodded.
"Then let's forget about shame and self recrimination," Wu Fei urged.
"I... I'll try," Quatre whispered, but none of them thought that it would be easy.
Trowa leaned and gave Quatre a kiss on the cheek. He could feel the warmth of Quatre's nervous blush. "We need to get to work, love," he said, using the word easily enough."Will you be all right here, alone?"
Quatre nodded, looking down into his tea cup."I have business, you know. I can do it from my laptop in my car."
"If you're not feeling well," Wu Fei told him as he stood up, "You should take the day off and rest... love." He stumbled over the word, clearly uncomfortable.
"If I was feeble, maybe," Quatre replied with a bit of temper. "I'm not. A headache won't keep me from a day's work."
"Admirable," Wu Fei replied with a very slight bow, before he was taking Trowa by the elbow and leading him into their bedroom.
Trowa faced him, angry. "It seems to me," he told Wu Fei, "that you're the one not dealing well with this. What's wrong?"
Wu Fei sighed and crossed arms over his chest tightly. "You know I've never been comfortable with... displays."
"Or saying how you feel," Trowa added, clearly annoyed. "You need to make the effort, though. Quatre isn't going to just take sex from you and ignore the fact that you're not giving him anything else. I understand. I can live with your damned pride and pole up the butt attitude. Quatre is different."
"I know that," Wu Fei growled. "That is why I'm making the effort now."
"You need to make it sound more genuine, then," Trowa warned, "or this is going to fall apart quickly."
"It may fall apart even sooner," Wu Fei told him, "and it won't be my fault."
Trowa frowned. "What are you saying?"
Wu Fei dropped his robe and began picking out a uniform from the closet. "I'm saying that Quatre isn't just an ex Gundam pilot turned Preventer. All eyes are on him. It may get... ugly. I'm not sure that he can weather a storm that our relationship may generate, especially where it concerns the Maguanacs."
"We already talked about this," Trowa reminded him.
"We did," Wu Fei replied, "but I don't think that it fully sunk in, for me, until he was sitting at our breakfast table. I feel as if we are drab chickens and we've decided to live with a peacock... a peacock everyone on Earth, and in space, is completely captivated with. Perhaps the drab chickens won't seem so attractive when Quatre has to confront that kind of pressure?"
Trowa began dressing as well as he said, "Where is your infamous pride in yourself this morning? What happened to Chang Wu Fei is better than any man?"
"As a fighter, I am unparalleled," Wu Fei agreed, "but as a lover, I am worse than a fool, and you know it. I'm not even certain how I convinced you to stay with me."
"I convinced you, as I recall," Trowa reminded him with a chuckle.
"I don't remember it that way," Wu Fei argued hotly.
"I think we were too drunk, at the time, to remember much of anything," Trowa recalled, thoughtfully.
"I would like alcohol to stay out of the decision process this time," Wu Fei told him firmly as he slipped on his Preventer jacket.
"Then lock up the plum wine," Trowa retorted hotly.
"I wasn't trying to get him drunk!" Wu Fei shot back.
"Shhhh!" Trowa warned. "He'll hear us. I don't want him to think that he's causing an argument."
They finished dressing and then faced each other. Wu fei reached out and straightened Trowa's tie with firm motions. "I will attempt to... be more..."
"Emotional, open, obviously caring....?" Trowa filled in for him. When Wu Fei nodded, he added, "So try learning to say those words out loud, all right?"
Wu Fei nodded stiffly again and Trowa sighed."I hope that Quatre loves us enough. I really do."
-----------------
"He'll be gone," Wu Fei warned.
"Always the pessimist," Trowa replied irritably, but then, "I bought his favorite tea and biscuits..."
"You bought dog food for the 'stray', too," Wu Fei reminded him, "Even after I warned you that I thought the dog belonged to the people five doors down."
"Quatre isn't a stray," Trowa shot back, but then, thoughtfully, as he switched his grocery bag to one arm and unlocked their apartment door, "Maybe we can keep it for his visits?"
Quatre was there, though, taking one of the bags from Wu Fei, who had overloaded himself, and carrying it to the kitchen table. "You're late," Quatre said as he looked inside the bag and then began taking things out and looking at them. "You should call if you're going to be late from now on. I was worried."
Trowa and Wu Fei exchanged relieved glances as they put down their burdens. "Sorry," Trowa replied. "We're...we're not used to having someone else to think about."
Quatre was wearing a loose, tan kameez, and a pair of white shalwar. It relieved them that he had decided to relax, to be comfortable in their home. They took it as a good sign that Quatre wasn't yet ready to leave them. He was frowning, now, though and he said, to a bag of lentils, as if afraid to meet their eyes, "You work and live together. You're never apart. It can't be like that for me. I will be away, often, on business, or doing my duty to my family."
It was a family that was large and complex. It was a family that included servants and maguanac, aside from his many sisters and their families.
"We're not asking you to be like us," Wu Fei replied irritably and ignored Trowa's warning scowl."We understand. It would be dishonorable of us to stand in the way of your execution of your obligations."
"That's not what he's saying," Trowa growled and bounced a roll of paper towels off of Wu Fei's head. As the man caught it awkwardly and sputtered angrily, Trowa turned to Quatre and told him firmly, "You think that you'll be an outsider, a lonely third wheel, a disruption to some sort of harmony between us. That's not true. We've already explained that we've been having problems."
"So you keep saying," Quatre said bitterly, looking at them both as he slammed down the bag of lentils. It broke open and some of it scattered across the table. "I don't see any proof of that, though."
Wu Fei went stiff and still, eyes on the lentils, hands fisted at his sides. Trowa sighed and began scooping the lentils into a pile. "You've filled your life with work and running your family, ignoring your needs," he said. "I'm sure everyone imagines that you are sweet, giving, healthy, and happy. I imagine that you've never given anyone a single hint that you're curling up and dying inside."
"Then how do you know about it?" Quatre demanded as he held the bag for Trowa to put the lentils back inside. "I didn't confess that much to Duo."
"You're always alone," Trowa replied. As the last bean went into the bag his hands moved to rest on Quatre's. "Even when you are surrounded by people, no one stands close to you. No one goes home with you. The news vids can't even get a suggestive picture to make up a story about you and someone else."
Quatre stared at their hands.
"When he first touched me," Wu Fei admitted with difficulty, "I felt as if I had been dying of thirst and he had handed me water."
Quatre swallowed hard. "I... It does feel like that. Why couldn't I allow anyone close to me? Why deny myself something so simple?"
Trowa's hands, strong and scarred pulled Quatre's hands into his."Because, their touches wouldn't have meant anything without understanding behind it, without the emotions that we have for you."
"I've been envious of Heero and Duo," Quatre admitted as he pulled away and sat down heavily in a chair, "but I didn't feel this need to... I never wanted to..." He stopped in frustration.
Wu Fei snorted as he began putting rice, beans, and wrapped fish away. "If two souls were ever meant to be together, it's Yuy and Maxwell's. They are blade and edge. Harmony. I've been envious of them as well."`
"What will we be?" Quatre wondered.
"A well oiled machine," Trowa snickered. Quatre blushed and Wu Fei glared. Trowa cleared his throat and kissed Quatre on the cheek. "We'll have our own kind of harmony."
Quatre looked suddenly hard and brittle. "Maybe I just need to get laid?"
Wu Fei was quick to pipe in, "If you feel you need to make sure, we can-"
"Chang!" Trowa snapped.
"Well, it's difficult to resist when he says things like that!" Wu Fei retorted.
Trowa raised a loaf of bread, to hurl it, but Quatre was reaching up and making him put it down again.
"I didn't say 'well oiled machine', after all," Wu Fei was continuing and Quatre had to force Trowa to abort another attempt to throw the bread at him.
"We're going to wait," Trowa reaffirmed. "We agreed on that. bringing it up won't make that decision easier."
Quatre said in a small voice, hand tightening on Trowa's over the bread, "I'm not sure what I'm feeling. I'm twisted in knots inside. If it's just frustration, denying myself a release, I would rather know now."
Trowa leaned low to look Quatre in the eyes and said brutally, "If you can even consider spreading it for two guys, because you think that's all you might need, then you're still not being honest with yourself yet."
Quatre was quiet and then his hand ran up Trowa's arm. He reached out his other hand to touch Wu Fei. "Maybe I'm lying so that I can have what I want? Maybe I'm just trying to convince you not to wait?"
A grocery bag went tumbling as Quatre suddenly pulled Wu Fei in close by his shirt and rose up out of his chair to press their bodies together. His lips locked on Wu Fei's, purposefully choosing the weaker target. he still wasn't letting go of Trowa, though, even though Trowa was spluttering protests and trying to separate them.
"Quatre!" Wu Fei protested around Quatre's hungry lips. "I must confess.... that if you continue... that I'm going to... have you... I am not... made... of steel..."
"You won't!" Trowa was snarling. "Chang! Let him go!"
Quatre's hand went down Wu Fei's pants and the man gasped.
"You feel like steel." Quatre breathed. "Hot steel."
"Stop!" Trowa protested, but Quatre was shoving forward, pushing Wu Fei and pulling Trowa with them.
"Now! My decision!" Quatre ground out as they were forced
into the bedroom.
------------------------------------------------------
"It doesn't feel like a bad decision," Trowa admitted as he stretched out languidly on the bed, Quatre draped over his chest, and Wu Fei snoring softly, asleep, and wrapped around Quatre on his other side."But it has to be. It was before."
"I wasn't with you before," Quatre murmured against his chest.
Trowa looked down at the golden head and then twirled a finger in it. "How do you feel about this, really?"
"I feel as if I should go into religious retreat," Quatre admitted, "and be flogged and salted."
"Sounds unpleasant," Trowa sighed. "When will you be leaving to have this done?"
"I would have to walk," Quatre replied, sounding pained. "I don't think I want to try doing that... for awhile. Does it... always... hurt like that?"
"No, or I wouldn't do it," Trowa snorted.
Wu fei grunted and then snored even louder.
"Does he always do that?" Quatre wondered.
"Just after. He did do most of the work, after all," Trowa chuckled.
"He's drooling on my back," Quatre complained.
"Shove him off, then. He'll turn over," Trowa suggested.
Quatre was silent and then he said, "No, I'm enjoying... both of you, right now."
"Why..." Trowa paused, trying to put his thoughts into words without offending Quatre. "I thought you'd be afraid to try this... so soon, especially."
"I'm not a coward," Quatre snapped back, raising his head to look down at trowa with angry blue eyes. "I needed to do this. Waiting would have been a mistake. I could have thought of so many excuses, then."
"You needed to know that you weren't coming between us, first, though?" Trowa guessed.
Quatre sighed and put his cheek against Trowa's chest again. "Yes."
Trowa felt his body stirring as Quatre moved to make himself more comfortable. "The way you dragged us in here... that was damned sexy, by the way. Commanding. In charge."
"Is that what you need?" Quatre wondered.
"A buffer, maybe. We knock heads too many times," Trowa explained.
They were quiet and Trowa almost imagined that Quatre had fallen asleep. When his voice came, though, it was thoughtful and firm, "This isn't just about sex. Wanting to be with you both is still as strong as ever inside of me."
Trowa chuckled. "I'm glad."
Trowa felt Quatre's smile. "Do you think that Heero and Duo will be envious of us, now?"
Trowa shook his head. "They will be as confused as everyone else, I'm sure, but happy for us. They are good friends."
"I need to stop feeling like this is wrong," Quatre admitted. "Even now, it's hard to do that. How people think about us won't make it easier. Our friends may support us, but they won't."
"If you feel the need to have someone flog and salt you every time we're together, that could get very stressful," Trowa replied and was only half joking.
Quatre nodded against his chest. "This is the part that can't be fixed with sex."
"We tried, but it didn't work for us either," Trowa explained. "Sooner or later, everyone comes, and you have to face your problems again."
"That was filthy," Wu Fei complained as he levered himself up, looking disgusted and groggy. He thought about it and then added, "but accurate."
"A united front will be our main weapon," Trowa told him as he reached an arm over Quatre to caress Wu Fei's cheek. "To do that, though, we all have to believe that we are meant to be together."
"I think we went together very well," Wu Fei said suggestively as he pushed a renewed interest against Quatre.
Trowa yanked on his hair and made him yelp, but he couldn't hide his own interest from Quatre.
Quatre chuckled in embarrassment. "This must be what a harem feels like."
"I do feel like an emperor, right now, with my choice of handsome concubines," Wu Fei began but had his hair yanked again. "Stop doing that! You told me to express my emotions better."
"Your emotions, not what your dick is thinking," Trowa warned him.
Quatre laughed and they stopped fighting to look at him, attentive to whatever he might want from them. He felt it then, the 'well oiled machine', that Trowa had mentioned. He was the oil, keeping the parts from having friction tear them apart.
"Cell phone," Quatre ordered.
Trowa turned to fumble on a side table for his own cell. He handed it to Quatre, looking nervous and puzzled.
Quatre made his call. His voice was firmer than he felt as he told Rashid, "Quatre here. I will be staying a few days with Trowa and Wu Fei. After that time, they will be coming to the estate to live with me, permanently. If any of my staff...," he paused, swallowed, and then went on, "or you or any of the maguanacs are offended by this decision, they may leave without my enmity or censure." he paused to listen and then snapped, "This is not open to debate-', but then paused again and listened, eyes blinking tears. "Thank you, Rashid."
He handed the cell back to Trowa and then let out a long steadying breath.
Trowa and Wu fei exchanged looks and then Wu Fei demanded, "What did he say?"
"It took long enough," Quatre replied."Then he said, 'We are with you until death, and beyond, if we can manage that, Master Quatre."
Trowa sighed in relief. "I wish the rest of the world would be that easy."
Wu Fei was grinning, though and pulling Quatre into the curve of his arm. "What does it matter?" he asked pointedly. "We have a united army, now. The rest of the world can go to hell."
"Everything isn't resolved," Trowa reminded him. "Quatre still needs-"
Quatre reached out and yanked Trowa's bang, making him fall silent in surprise. "He talks too much, doesn't he?" Quatre asked Wu Fei.
"Always the pessimist," Wu Fei agreed.
Quatre wiped a hand across his eyes, to get rid of lingering tears, smiled brightly, and said, "We'll work on that, along with everything else, together, all right, loves?"
They moved in close, embracing him on both sides. They gave him their answers with their touch and their love.
End