Loving Dragons
by Shannon the Twisted Link Worshiper

A/N: Don’t ask, don’t tell! This is ‘Fei-chan’s story. The pairing is one where everybody wins! There’s past 5+M+5, for obvious reasons, 5+13(+13?) sort-of and maybe even a hint of 5+S+5. Of course, there’s the added 1x2x1 and 3x4x3, but that’s a given with me. Wow, what a blender! As you can see, outside of the golden, unbreakable 1x2x1 and usually solid 3x4x3, I’m pretty damn open, I should like to think. This story is a little different than the other ones in this series, but that’s because Wufei is a bit different from the ones the other stories were about! I’m working on ones for Tro and Q, promise!

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Every third Friday, I invited my friends over to play mahjongg. It’s a tradition we started a couple months after the war ended. Heero and Duo would always play go together, back when they always shared dorm rooms together; Trowa and Quatre were fierce chess competitors; I liked solitaire. So we used to have game nights every once-in-a-while, when the mood and the time struck us, but back then, good moods and times rarely came as a packaged deal. Now that the war is a thing that is referred to in the past tense, we have lots of time, and plenty of good spirits. So, just as we used to when we were fifteen, we still have game nights, once every three weeks.

“Can we play Parcheesi?” were the first words out of Duo’s mouth when I opened the door for him and his lover. He was dragging Heero through the door and past me already, his mouth still moving a mile-a-minute. “I’ve never played it before, and the name just sounds cool, doncha think, Fei-Fei? I mean, have you ever tried to say it?”

“Parcheesi,” Heero interrupted cleanly, used to Duo’s incessant chatter. I was never quite sure how he managed to put up with someone like Duo; they had never struck me as people who would get along, and yet, to this day, they’re inseparable. I watch him as he takes his usual seat at my mahjongg table, despite Duo’s protests to try another game. He always sits East, and always faces Duo, who is taking his usual spot: the West. I suppose he is the Yin to Heero’s Yang, the black to the white, the white devil and the black angel (though which is which, I’m not sure). Now that I think about it, I can see how they fit together, two different halves with just the right amount of the other element to find the perfection of Tao.

“No, no, Heero; you’re not saying it right,” Duo chided, not missing a beat as he reached for the cloth bag of mahjongg tiles lying in the middle of the table. I always keep them there, so it’s easier when they come over to play. “Say it like this: Parcheeeeesi. Parcheesi!”

Heero tried to say the word to Duo’s liking as he helped his lover swish the tiles around on the table, mixing them up. I used to never quite understand why they would dump out the tiles before Trowa and Quatre showed up, especially when we first started getting together and mahjongg had not yet become the traditional game of the evening. But now that I’ve watched them together for quite some time, I think I get it. I’ve found that I got smarter after the war ended; I’m not so oblivious to how they brush hands more than they brush tiles as they do this. I used to be fooled by the mask of their conversation, the way their eyes would never leave each other even as their hands flew across the table, lost in the jumble of mahjongg tiles as they spoke. I realize now that they didn’t need to, that they trusted each other enough to always reach out and find one another, no matter what the hour or the task, exhilarating or mundane. I have to say, I’m still pretty jealous of the two of them, even more so than I am of Trowa and Quatre, if jealousy is something that can be dealt among friends. Trowa and Quatre are the golden couple; at least I sometimes felt I could relate to Heero and Duo most times... except for times like these....

Apparently Heero still didn’t know the proper way to pronounce the word ‘Parcheesi’ when I heard the doorbell ring again and got up to answer it for Trowa and Quatre. I guess I answered the it faster than either of the two lovebirds outside had anticipated, because when I did, I found Quatre standing on his tiptoes so he could reach across the large chocolate cake Trowa had in his arms to kiss him. Both of them looked cutely flustered when they saw me standing there, and quickly pulled away, murmuring apologies politely to try and hide their flushed cheeks as I let them inside. (At least they were more courteous than certain other lovebirds I know, not to name names or anything, who would have been quick to make their kissing steamier the second they had an audience. And if anyone, for any reason, thinks that only Duo would be the culprit of such shenanigans, then he’d be dead wrong; Heero’s the real exhibitionist of the two of them and, I’ll throw in, the vocal one too, if you catch my meaning. I sometimes wonder what the hell kind of influence Duo is on Heero....)

“Oh, darn! You’ve already started!” Quatre pouted when he saw Heero and Duo sitting at the table, still shuffling tiles while Trowa went to put his cake down in the kitchen. Quatre knows full well that one can only play mahjongg with three other opponents, which made it pretty obvious that he was just upset that he couldn’t help mix up the tiles. Quatre never did hide the fact that he took great joy in life’s simple pleasures.

“You and I will mix the tiles next round,” Trowa said in that low, musical lilt of his, knowing right away what Quatre was upset about before he had even completely entered the room. If Heero and Duo are Tao, then Trowa and Quatre are definitely Buddha’s Nirvana. They float through life so happy and carefree, I don’t think that even the end of the world would affect them as long as they were together. I sigh whenever I think of that concept, yet another reminder that they’re happier than I’ll ever be.

I sat down at my roll top desk in the corner of the room and plucked out my well-worn deck of playing cards, starting to deal out a hand of solitaire as Trowa and Quatre sit down at the mahjongg table, Quatre to the North and Trowa to the South. I could hear the subtle clink of the tiles as they start to play, just for fun this round, to warm up. It was damn near impossible for me to concentrate on winning my own private game with the other four enjoying themselves as they were; even when they bet money, they still laughed the whole way through, even Heero and Trowa. I don’t really laugh much; Duo still jokes that I have the world’s worst sense of humour.

I wonder if I was always that way, cold and silent, never caring if the moon was new or full, or ever knowing how to simply enjoy a round of mahjongg unless I won. Meilan used to say that last bit all the time before she died. We would play all manner of games together, always hosting competitions with each other, trying to outdo one another in everything we did. At least, that’s how I remember them being, and that’s how I describe our never-ending bout with each other even to this day. But the more I think about it, as with the more I think about a lot of things, I realize how blind I was; Meilan just genuinely liked games, that’s all. No matter how big and tough she acted at the challenge, by the end, she was always laughing, win or lose, rain or shine. Me? I never laughed, win or lose. If I won, I was smug; if I lost, I was bitter. I used to even accuse her of the injustice of beating me on a mahjongg table that had been given from her family to mine for her marriage dowry. I eventually got to a point where I stopped playing games with other people. I felt like the only worthy opponent was my own damn self. If I beat myself, there was no shame because I had become better than I had been; if I lost, there was still no shame, because I had only lost to myself, and no one ever had to know. I think the reason why I was my own best opponent was more than I had the wit to grasp at the time.

But there are only so many games a person can play by himself, and all of them get old or mastered relatively quickly. When I passed that point, I retreated to the never-ending challenges presented in books. I don’t know if Meilan just started to miss playing with me, or was upset that I had lost my interest in games, but the more introverted I became, the more I noticed all of her bravado building up again. She came after me with that challenging attitude again and again, which I think was really just a furtive cry for attention. The more I began to realize how damn annoying I must have been when I acted the same way over games and competitions, the more I plunged myself into my books. My elders called me a scholar; Meilan just called me a nerd.

“Aw, Christ, Duo! Stop cheating!” Trowa groaned, drawing my attention back to my friends at the mahjongg table as he made a show of tossing his lost wager into the middle. A smile lighted his face, despite his complaints against Duo, which is something Trowa does much more now that the war is over and he can spend more time with Quatre. His silences aren’t because he doesn’t have anything to say, but rather because he had always been able to say with his eyes and his face what his words could not. I think that the end of the war has begun to change this too.

“Trowa Barton, I’m shocked that you would think something like that of me!” Duo said, laying an offended set of fingertips on his heart, his voice sounding dramatically hurt. “Do you really think I would sink so low as to cheat you, a close friend?”

“I would,” Heero murmured sarcastically, loud enough for everyone to hear. The words earned him laughter, which seems to be enough for him nowadays, and his lips quirk into that odd, little, contented smirk of his.

“You all are just jealous that I have the skills of a clever thief and the luck of the Devil!” Duo chimed pretentiously, his leather-clad bottom rising out of his chair a bit as he reached to the middle of the table to rake his winnings towards him, which he added to a nicely growing pile nearby. Duo always wins mahjongg, every single time; it’s as much a tradition as the actual game itself! In fact, Duo wins just about any game you set him to, whether he’s tried it before or not. I’ve never challenged Duo to anything. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t want to lose, or because I’d feel uncomfortable trying to play a game with someone else.

“Which is just your wordy way of saying ‘cheating’,” Trowa retorted for the sake of the argument, knowing full well that Duo was just that good.

“Write that down for me, Trowa, so I’ll know how to translate in the future,” Heero said with that same smirk. I have to admit that I’d never have thought Heero would be the one to develop such a wicked sense of humour. Granted, it’s a kind of strange sense of humour, but then again, what about Heero isn’t strange? Besides, Duo seems to enjoy it well enough, and I guess that’s all that matters.

“Hey, I don’t know what you’re complaining about, Heero!” Quatre piped up as soon as he could stow his chuckles. “He’s your boyfriend, which means that it all just goes right back into your pocket with the way he’s always winning! It’s Trowa and I who lose out here!”

“O-o-oh no,” Duo cut Quatre off in a warning tone before he could say anymore. “Gambling night funds are different from shared funds.”

“He’s got quite a racket going with this game,” Heero muttered to Quatre behind the cover of his hand, eyes shifting over to the miser counting his money across from him. “The only time I’d ever have a hope of getting my hands on his personal cash is when said hands are otherwise engaged in the things that would distract him long enough to do it.” I think steam actually came whistling out of Quatre’s beat-red ears as he heard Heero say that.

“Okay, enough of your yakking. Let’s go again,” Duo said, banging the table with his hand to draw their attention back to the next round. Had I still played mahjongg, I would have never allowed him to hit the table like that, but I haven’t even thought about it since the last game I’d ever played with Meilan. I just feel like it would somehow not be the same without her. I might add that the mahjongg table that sits in my living room is not the same mahjongg table made of hong mu that I received as part of a dowry gift long ago, way back in another life. That table is gone forever, destroyed along with all my other memories of that time when the Alliance made the move to junk my colony. I bought this one, just for old time’s sake, in a small antique shop I’d found on Hilde’s L2 colony when I’d gone to visit the new salvage business Duo had helped her get set up while he was waiting for Heero to recover from his injuries after the last war. It’s made of redwood, not nearly as nice as my old table made of hong mu, which is so richly coloured and beautiful, there is simply no English word for it that does it justice.

Heh, that last war had been so confusing for me. I really had no concept of right and wrong, just or unjust. I suppose I thought that there was only justice in fighting, but Heero helped me figure out I was wrong about that. I wondered vaguely what my obsession had been with taking on my own stupid, useless crusades, even if it was damn obvious I was just making things harder on myself to prove I wasn’t weak. Meilan had never thought I was weak, which was why someone as proud and headstrong as her kept on pestering me to take her on. Hell, back then, I was the exact same way, until I let her die, that is. After that was when I started looking at things in merely in terms of black and white, just or not, weak or strong.

I never even thought about any shades of gray until I met him, Treize Kushrenada, that is. I can still remember the first time I did, too, even though it’s been almost four or so years. Shenlong’s (and yes, I call it by its proper name now; the name Nataku is dead to me) arm served as a bridge into Treize’s ship, and stupid, young, thickheaded me had been so damn quick to fly right on in there, prattling on and on about justice as I blindly swung my sword at a man I’m not even sure was really my enemy after all. I bet I sounded just as stupid to him as Duo’s sometimes sounds to me. That night was the first time in years I’d challenged another person to anything. That night was also the first time in years I’d lost to anyone. I suddenly felt like I wasn’t worth much if I could lose to a man like Treize, who at the time, I considered my enemy. I’d failed Meilan yet again.

It sounds strange to say this, but I think I might have actually loved Treize, in a strange, backward sort of way, and maybe, in that same weird way, he loved me too. Not the way I loved Meilan, or the way I love the idiots sitting at the four corners of my mahjongg table, or Sally or even that Relena Peacecraft, just as I’m sure he didn’t love me the way he loved Lady Une or Zechs Marquise, two very important people in his life. No, the love we had for each other was different, like respect, only better. He made me see another side to the fighting, a more grand and beautiful thing, as I think he saw the pureness of my small-minded hatred for him. Maybe, if I had been OZ personnel, he would have taken me under his wing and we would have taught one another all the things we knew. I sometimes entertain that thought, wondering how different things might have been if that had been the case.

I try not to very often though; Heero says the past is a stupid thing to think about when the most important things are right at hand. He says that people worry too much about things that can’t be changed and things that haven’t happened yet with the way they obsess over horoscopes and plans and all the gritty, little details about life that tie them down. I know that he genuinely believes this philosophy, especially after I heard him telling Duo that ‘forever’ didn’t matter, only ‘now’. If ‘now’ extended into ‘forever’, then all the better. I know Heero had been running around for years saying things like this to all of us, but I don’t think he really got it himself until he got the message Relena was trying to communicate (naive as it was) and realized how important Duo and the rest of us were to him. What’s worse is that I think it took me a hell of a lot longer to get it myself, even after he’d pressed it upon me so adamantly during our battle in the last war. You know your life is sad when Heero Yuy picks up on symbolism and meaning before you do. (Duo would have my head for saying something like that; he’d be the first to tell you that Heero isn’t as one dimensional as he seems, and not in the least bit crazy! ...Not that Duo is exactly the sanest person in the world either.)

“Duo, you have got to be cheating!” Trowa insists loudly, causing me to topple over the card castle I’d been building with my abandoned solitaire game on the desk. “How else is it that you’ve won every game of mahjongg for the past year and a half!?”

“Because I’m good at it and you’re not,” Duo stuck his tongue out at Trowa as he held out his hand, waiting for his fair dues. “If you don’t think you can beat me, why keep betting?”

“Trowa believes that one day he’ll get lucky and is always going for that ‘one more time’, just in case he misses it,” Quatre explained matter-of-factly as he handed Duo his generous wage. “He’s the worst at the slot machines, let me tell you!”

“Well, you’ll have to keep waiting then, Trowa, my man,” Duo laughed, looking expectantly across the table for his winnings from Heero, who still seemed to not see the point in paying off the man with whom he shared a home, a bed, and everything in between. “Heero and I learned how to play from Wu-cakes and Sally, and it’s their culture’s game! So there, ha!” Duo snapped his fingers at Trowa as he said ‘ha’, his long, braided hair whipping around as he bounced his head from side to side.

“Then how come Heero isn’t winning as much as you are?” Trowa asked quickly, still suspicious of the odds. But for a man who can’t win at slots, how good can his luck be? Oh, right: Quatre. Never mind, then.

“Because it’s a stated law of science that Duo automatically wins every game we play, whether it’s mahjongg or not,” I finally spoke up, daring to infiltrate their little circle. Four heads snapped around to look at me, and for a moment, I was afraid they would all glare at me for interrupting. That fear was shattered when I saw Duo nodding his head vigorously, Heero beaming that secret smile of pride that it was his lover who was gaming champion of the United Earth Sphere. Trowa and Quatre were laughing, but not at me. I felt warmer and stronger than I’d ever felt in my entire life, past Meilan, past Treize, past even Sally and the other dragons I’ve been fighting and chasing all over the place. I looked down at the scattered ruins of my majestic, arrogant card castle, and then back over at my friends, realizing that for the first time, I’m actually playing with a full deck, and maybe one day soon, I’ll be willing to challenge someone to a two-player game.

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So you sailed away
Into a gray-sky morning.
Now I’m here to stay.
Love can be so boring.
What was it you wanted?
Could it be I’m haunted?

But it’s not so bad.
You’re only the best I ever had.
I don’t want you back.
You’re just the best I ever had.

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OWARI

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A/N: I was thinking I might do similar stories for other GW characters and add them to this series. I’m not sure yet. This story was heavily influenced by the wonderful Amy Tan book The Joy-Luck Club. I reccomend you read that (and see the excellent movie), as well as her other books! Beautiful writing and stories! Sorry this isn’t as detailed as the ones for Heero and Duo, but I don’t know Wufei as well as I know those two, if that makes any sense! That’s why the Tro and Q installments are taking so long, although Trowa’s is in the oven. I hope no Wufei fans are mad at me! Oh, and the song Gray-Sky Morning is by Vertical Horizon. Yay!