Title: Rainbow Sherbet (6/P+11)
Author: Bronze Tigress
Genre: yaoi lemon lemon with plot plot

For this Part:
Pairings: 5x2, 3+D permanent; incidental mention of 4+??, 6+??
Rating: PG13
Warnings: yaoi
Spoilers: none

For overall rating, full range of pairings, full warnings, full spoiler
notices, author notes, and disclaimer see Prologue.

~*~*~*~*~
Part 6: Friday
TGIF! The Boys Go Dancing

Friday afternoon begins with an assignment for covert security duty
coming in for Agents Sand and Stone - otherwise known to their friends as
Quatre Winner and Heero Yui. The fact that they have been summoned to
see Dorothy doesn't make them terribly happy - especially Heero, who
takes one look at his partner that threatens utter mayhem and says to
him, "Don't you *dare*..." Dare *what*, exactly, is not stated, however,
and they take themselves off to the other wing of the building.

This leaves the other four agents - Wind and Rain, and Shade and Shadow
- to themselves, and since all is otherwise quiet it promises to be a
dull afternoon. Wufei, caught up on paperwork and tired of folding
cranes, pops over to chat quietly with Trowa. Zechs sits back in his chair
from where he has been pulling up a picture and profile. With a great
huff of air through his bangs, he comments to the room in general,
"Gyaaaah. It *would* have to be that one. I knew I'd get stuck going out
with all the brainless chits in the whole Kingdom, but did it have to
be her *first*? Gott... I thought the name sounded too familiar when I
typed it in."

"What's so bad about her, Zechs? You've got her on the 'suitable'
list, how bad can she be?" is Trowa's question.

"'Suitable', as in 'suitable for His Highness the ditzy Crown Prince
Milliardo Peacecraft to be seen with in public'. In this case, that's
not anything even *remotely* like 'suitable for Zechs Merquise to spend
an afternoon with while retaining his sanity'. She's a leech and a
gold-digger - and those are some of her better points. She's also a little
slow, and a horrible dancer - unless a miracle has occurred since the
last time I had the great displeasure of watching her waltzing..."

"And you're doing this *why*, exactly, then?"

"Une's idea. Establishing cover, mostly. I'm pretty much on permanent
assignment to these little soirees of Relena's unless I'm on assignment
elsewhere at the time. People will tell the slightly half-witted
Ambassador a lot if they think they can get something out of it - or by
accident if they think he won't understand it. And flirting with the
society maidens is all part of the cover, according to her. Evidently I
can't get away with showing up without a date any more; the rags are
starting to wonder. Fortunately, this girl isn't *terribly* likely to be
trying to undress me on the dance floor..."

"Hmm?" is Wufei's startled interjection at that comment.

"Oh, you don't have the slightest idea how bad it gets, do you? Treize
had a few quite scathing comments to make on the subject when I was
getting ready to attend a few of these things in Bremen. I think they
were mostly scared away from me by the mask - and I flat refused to dance
at all, since I was usually on guard-dog duty anyway, but I got to hear
all about some of the worst offenders - most of whom are probably on
that list, in the 'suitable' category, by the way. And I imagine it's
going to be a good bit worse, since my rank is that much higher than his
was. I'm sure it'd be a dream assignment if I actually liked any of
these girls, but..." he simply rolls his eyes as the conclusion of this
thought. "And speaking of girls one likes, Triton - you've been off in
a daze again today, and I'm betting it had something to do with the
flowers we spent two hours discussing yesterday..."

Trowa flushes a little at the reference to his evening the night
before, but Wufei, rather uncharacteristically, joins in with a "Yes, do
tell; how did your evening with the illustrious Mistress of Covert Ops go?"

Cornered, Trowa begins at the beginning. "Well, the flowers were a hit
- thanks, Zechs, I'd never have thought of freesias, and they didn't
have anything remotely daisy-like." Zechs smiles and nods at this, and
Trowa continues, "We had dinner at the cafe on Kiev - nice and quiet -
and we, ah, discussed a few things that maybe we should have talked
about sooner. Stuff from the past, you know? We six don't exactly have
the most normal pasts, do we? So. Anyway, I think we got a few
misunderstandings straightened out. And she's a *very* good kisser..." The
dreamy look that has been hovering for most of the day is back on Trowa's
face with the last sentence.

Zechs and Wufei take a look at Trowa's expression, then take a look at
each other, and are just about to launch into teasing him when a noise
at the end of the hall catches their attention. Looking around the
corner of the wall, Wufei motions to the other two, and then raps on his
own doorframe for Duo to come take a look. It is Quatre, although it
still startles his teammates to hear him speaking in the baritone range
where his voice seems to have settled, and he seems to be talking to
someone. "Oh, come on, I only have to stop by the office for a second to
shut down the systems and grab a file."

The four Agents watching are surprised to see a girl in a neat business
ensemble stepping shyly around the corner, and then taking the arm
Quatre extends to her. She is almost as tall as the Winner Heir - for that
appears to be his current role - but it is still difficult to tell what
she looks like, as she keeps her face demurely averted. From what
little they can see of her, however, her dark complexion and hair marks her
far more surely as being of Arabian descent than does Quatre's own fair
colouring. She waits silently for Quatre to finish gathering up a file
from his desk, and turning off both his and Heero's terminals for the
weekend. Then he turns to his companion and says, "Okay, all done,
let's get out of here, shall we?" She just looks up at him and nearly -
*nearly* - glares before evidently thinking better of it.

Zechs clears his throat, and asks, "Quatre - who's this?"

"Oh! Oh, this lovely young lady is going to be accompanying me to
Relena's party tomorrow - and I'm afraid we have an engagement this
afternoon as well. I'm so sorry, but we really do have to get going now. See
you there tomorrow, Zechs?" With that, he leads her quickly back out
the way they came in.

From around the corner an instant later, Heero can be heard asking,
"Are you *quite* finished now? We can go?"

Quatre replies, sounding somewhat martyred, "Yes, Heero, we can go
now..." and there is only the sound of retreating footsteps.

~*~*~*~*~

Later - nearly at quitting time for the day - Wufei again puts in an
appearance in the other Agents' office. "Ah, Triton, I know Dorothy has
working meetings tonight and most of tomorrow, so you are free this
evening, yes? What about you, Merquise? Duo thought it might be nice to
have a guys' night out, the four of us. Have dinner together, hit a
dance club together, and, I quote, 'make all the girls jealous', unquote.
Yes?"

The two seem to think it's an excellent idea. Trowa notes that it'd be
nice to have something to do, and the company would certainly be
welcome. Zechs, facing the prospect of dealing with an empty-headed girl all
afternoon tomorrow, adds that it will be a pleasure to be able to speak
intelligently to someone he's out with, and he only hopes they can
actually dance. However, if he's going to be going out clubbing, perhaps
someone could help him do something with his hair, since it's far too
recognizable as is. He has temporary colouring already, but it needs to
be brushed in, and a hand with that would be appreciated. Wufei nods,
thinking *that* an excellent idea, and promises to send Duo around to
discuss it.

Five minutes later Duo pops his head into their office and says, "Hey,
it's just brush-in colour, not the wet-rinse stuff, right?" At Zechs'
nod, he inquires about the colour and is told there's a choice of
fantasy shades - blue, purple, emerald, and dark wine - and a lovely shade
of chestnut. "Ooh, bring that - and can we use some of the purple?
That'd be too cool... Got an idea. Okay - how about you guys go home and
change, and then - you're still only a couple doors from each other,
right? Good - why don't you just come on over together in half an hour,
and we can all finish getting ready together. How 'bout jeans and a
white T-shirt? We'll all match..." At Trowa's somewhat incredulous
look, he rolls his eyes and adds, "Yes, I can find a white T-shirt in my
closet, thanks so much..." Getting nods of agreement from both, he pops
back out again.

Half an hour later, Zechs meets Trowa outside their respective
apartments for the walk to Duo and Wufei's place, already looking very similar
just by their outfits. Zechs has a brush and a couple of jars of
coloured powders in his hands, which he shows to Trowa as they walk through
the corridors. Duo answers the door, dressed in the same costume, and
leads the two into the living room. Once there, he hands the purple
powder to Trowa and waves him to a chair. He seats Zechs on one end of
the couch, plopping down behind him with the jar of brown powder and the
brush, immediately setting to work on turning him into a brunet for the
evening. By the time Duo has finished this task, Wufei has made his
appearance as well, also dressed, but with his hair still down and
carrying a comb and three elastic hair ties.

Duo looks up at Wufei and grins, waving him to a spot on the couch and
beginning to add streaks of the chestnut powder to his hair. When he
is satisfied with the colour, he caps the jar and sets it down on the
table. Then he takes up the comb, and divides off a section of Wufei's
hair near the front, combing it forward to fall carelessly over half his
partner's face; the remainder is pulled neatly back into its customary
sleek tail, held closely at the nape of his neck. Duo taps his
shoulder then, telling him, "You're done! Go look..."

Wufei heads to the bathroom to check the mirror, and Trowa is waved to
a position on the couch. Duo takes the purple powder from his hands,
and proceeds to brush a few streaks of that colour into the shock of
auburn hair. He nods approvingly and then jerks his head towards the
bathroom. Trowa obediently goes. A moment later, his rather startled
squawk can be heard, then Wufei's voice answers, "Yes, twins... do you not
think so?" Two voices are raised in laughter at that.

By this time, Duo has begun brushing the purple streaks into Zechs'
hair, being careful to keep his strokes light enough not to disturb the
first layer of colour. Finally, he gathers the now quite dark mass into
a single ponytail high on Zechs' head, looping the covered elastic
tightly. "Alright, you're good. You wanna shoo one of them out here to do
me?"

Zechs nods, and shortly, Wufei comes back out of the bathroom to finish
the costuming process. "Zechs said you wanted someone to come out and,
I quote, 'do you'? Do you really think we have time for that?"

Duo blinks. "I did say that, didn't I?"

"Ai. You did. Did you know he carries mascara?" is Wufei's next
question to Duo, whose mouth opens in shock.

"No, but damn it's a good thing he does - I completely forgot about
those white eyebrows..."

For some reason, Wufei finds this very funny, and Duo mutters under his
breath as the other two emerge. "What?" comes Zechs' plaintive
question. "It doesn't *work* unless I do the eyebrows dark too... Oh, shut
up... Gah!" By this time, Wufei has finished his own task of copying
Zechs' current hairstyle on Duo's head, and the four are ready to go.
Oddly enough, they all seem to have picked plain black leather jackets
as an outer layer, but none of them seems to notice that little fact.
If they do, no-one mentions it.

~*~*~*~*~

Dinner is relatively peaceful, despite the fact that they have picked a
busy diner that caters to a fairly rough crowd. That the four
unconsciously move together as if trained to do so for years on end probably
contributes to the quiet they enjoy. And, even given the effeminate
hairstyles they wear, any casual trouble is firmly discouraged, once they
are seated and have taken off their jackets, by the ripple of
well-muscled biceps casually revealed by rolled-up sleeves.

Duo orders for all four even before they've all been seated - house
burgers all around, no mustard on this one, no mayo on that, no cheese on
the third, and no relish on his own; he pauses only once, to confirm
that Zechs wants lemon in his iced tea. It doesn't hurt Duo's
performance any that he has eaten with each of them before, and the house burger
is, in his words as he slides with catlike grace into his seat by the
wall, the only thing really worth eating on the menu. Still, two of his
three companions are duly impressed; the third is merely smugly proud.

During dinner, Duo suggests a couple of dance clubs, and they settle on
one that happens to cater to a very mixed crowd, but boasts music that
is set to a level where it is possible to carry on a spoken - vs
shouted - conversation at the tables beside the dance floor. It is a
surprise when Zechs proposes, given the nature of the club, that they can thus
get away with dancing only with each other. "What? I am going to have
to sit through four solid hours of listening to 'the latest style' and
fending off drunken advances tomorrow afternoon; hells, I'm going to
have to play at *making* drunken advances half the afternoon too. I
didn't come out here tonight so I could practice defending my virtue! At
least none of you three are planning on separating me from my clothes."

Zechs pauses to stab a chip, then looks up and, chuckling slightly,
says, "Or at least, if you were, this isn't the way you'd do it. High
explosives," he says, waving his fork towards the trio, "or something very
sharp and pointy, but not with your bare hands on a dance club floor.
Tell me I'm wrong." Looking around at the open mouthed expressions, he
adds, "Unless you don't *want* me to look menacingly at all the cute
thangs that are going to come try and haul you guys away?" Wufei closes
his mouth first, but it is Duo who manages to speak first, muttering
something about ZERO and mind readers who see the future...

~*~*~*~*~

And a good time is had by all, especially the spectators at the club
who gather to watch the four beautiful young men grinding and gyrating on
the floor. It is difficult to tell which of the four is most impressed
by how well the others dance, and who is most surprised by one of his
teammates. Trowa, perhaps inspired by the fact that Wufei has just done
so, catches Duo from behind in a very sultry swivel-and-grind of the
hips. Zechs takes full advantage of his greater size and Trowa's
flexibility to hoist his partner into a series of jive lifts. He then offers
his linked hands to Wufei, who takes advantage of the lift offered to
perform a few rather dazzling aerial flips of his own. Fortunately the
loft ceiling is high enough to allow for these acrobatics! Finally,
Zechs turns to Duo, sweeping him an outrageous bow before stepping up,
dipping him deeply enough that his hair sweeps the floor, and then
sending him into a series of spins before handing him off, laughing madly,
into Wufei's arms where he clings dizzily for a moment.

Trowa is, in turn, only too happy to spin Zechs about a few times,
albeit a little more awkwardly given the height differential, then abruptly
flips back-to-back with him, grabbing his wrists to hold their arms out
straight to either side, and starts a shimmy. By the time the two are
standing again, Duo has moved to face Zechs, and Wufei has stepped up
in front of Trowa, both moving in close to bracket their teammates. The
four soon more closely resemble a single writhing entity, knees and
legs interwoven, hands linked, all moving together, instinctively reading
and reacting to each others' movements.

All too soon the set ends and they pull apart to half-walk,
half-stagger, arms linked around each others' waists and shoulders, to the booth
set a little apart from the dance floor that they had claimed as their
own and order another round of sodas. They are all giddy and laughing,
nearly drunk on the movement and contact and sheer enjoyment of letting
go; even Wufei seems to have caught Duo's hands-on approach, according
to Zechs, who is most surprised by that. "Ah, Wufei here's a dance
junkie, Zechs," is Duo's comment to that. "Turn on the right music and
watch out... lock up the pointy instruments, hey 'Fei?" Wufei bats him
good-naturedly on the arm, grumbling something about irreverent fools,
but he is laughing as he shoots back that yes, it would probably keep
Duo from putting them to some inappropriate use...

A few minutes later, when all four have had a chance to drink and
breathe, Wufei remarks that their exposure to ZERO seems to have been good
for something after all, and it would've been nice if it's other
applications had been as much fun as this evening has been. Trowa agrees, and
points out that they really should do this again, sometime soon. Zechs
can only nod agreement to that, muttering something that doesn't rise
above the volume of the music in the background. Duo, sitting closest
to him, shoots a peculiar look at Zechs under cover of his bangs, but
says nothing, merely taking a sip of his drink and turning the
conversation to other topics, unrelated to work, wars, or women...

The four take another short set on the dance floor after that,
switching partners often and easily, or moving all together as before. When a
slower ballad comes up in the middle of the set, Zechs isn't really
thinking about it when he gathers Duo, who happens to be his partner at
the time, into a closer hold and begins to sway gently in time with the
music, reacting automatically to the change in tempo. Wufei, noticing
the pair, lifts one eyebrow, then catches Trowa's sleeve and hence
attention before he can leave the floor, and mouths "Shall we?" to him
before offering his own arms. A half-shrug is all the answer he is given
before Trowa steps up to join him. A brief problem of dominance is
quickly solved, each keeping one arm on the other's shoulder and a hand on
the other's opposite hip. They trade out partners for the next song
again, and for the next ballad Zechs makes a show of waltzing Trowa very
elegantly about the floor, while Duo is in Wufei's arms again, looking
very much like the pair of teens in love that they are.

They leave the club a few songs later; while it isn't yet too late in
the evening, they all have busy days ahead on the morrow. And so they
make their way home again, walking four abreast down the sidewalk, still
chattering brightly and keeping close together, none willing to have to
move back a rank or lose the contact. Duo may be the only one who
could verbally explain the simple need to touch another human being, or the
rush brought on by having met that need, but all four are feeling the
effects. It has worn off somewhat by the time the four reach Duo and
Wufei's apartment, where Zechs retrieves his brush and jars of colour, so
that Zechs and Trowa are able to walk merely side by side through the
corridors to their own apartments, but the close feeling of connection
remains.

~*~*~*~*~

A little later on, behind a closed set of doors, a sleepy voice can be
heard saying, "He was really enjoying himself there - I was surprised
to see him so open about it..." Another voice answers, something not
very clear, apparently because it is being murmured directly against the
first speaker's ear. "No," comes the first voice again, "I mean,
*really* enjoying himself out there. You weren't the one slow dancing with
him..." A snort of laughter follows this announcement, and then no
more is heard. Well, no more coherent speech is heard, at any rate...

Next ---> Rainbow Sherbert 7

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