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Beneath: A Leprechaun, A Clover, and Luck 1/?
by Duointherain
Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing or Leprechaun
Note: Noirangetrois was kind enough to bid on my story for Fandom Trumps Hate. The prompt was St. Patrick’s Day shenanigans.
@Noirangetrois
The universe had always been very generous with giving challenges to Duo Maxwell. Perhaps because of those challenges, he was fairly clever, somewhat resilient, and a right bastard when he wanted to be. He’d survived plague, massacres, a couple of wars, give or take how you counted them, made it back from being a poltergeist, and he still considered himself fucking amazingly lucky.
He had the best boyfriend humanity had ever spawned. His adopted sister was probably going to be president of the earthsphere someday. He’d met the deadline on his novelization of the war. The second half of his advance was in their bank account. He was out at a private house tavern. There was a dance floor and he was well on his way to being drunk.
“You want to dance,” Heero asked, smiling very slightly. Heero was hot. Heero was always hot, but he was extra hot in tailored slacks, that black leather belt, and a deep blue button-up.
After Duo had come home from the hospital, Heero had gone back to school. Duo nodded. Heero was really good at reading his mind.
“Wait, don’t you want to hear the rest of what St. Patrick’s Day is about,” Rey asked, also slightly drunk and very much invested in telling the story of the Irish People.
One thing Duo couldn’t stand was the sound of his voice, now that half his mouth didn’t work properly. While he could control his left side, with great effort, it just took, well, great effort. There were treatments, but so far they hadn’t worked. Martha was talking to Howard, looking for medical records, looking for unusual side effects from ‘treatments’ given during the war. Maureen wanted him to be patient. He’d heal. She just knew it. Patience had never been one of his best traits. He summoned up all his will and spoke as clearly as he could, “I’ll be back, Rey. I just want to dance a bit.”
“Fine,” she said, rolling her eyes, indignant at his lack of respect for the stories of injustice. “You’re probably Irish. This is the story of your people.”
“Rey, this is a party, not a lecture hall,” Heero said, “Ask Wufei to dance.”
Wufei, who was there because they were his family of choice, not because he cared for Irish holidays, looked over the top of his glasses. His smirk wasn’t much bigger than Heero’s, but it almost always preceded mischief. “The Irish are just backwater English, anyway,” he said, watching every tiny detail of Relena’s mounting reaction.
Duo pressed forward on his chair as Relena drew breath in, like some literary fiery dragon. The dragons could have each other. He wanted to dance with Heero. Following Heero to the dance floor, he had to admit that expensive well-tailored slacks were probably worth the money, at least if they were going to be draped over an ass like Heero’s. He was also quite pleased that the problems with the left side of his body didn’t go all the way to the center.
Also dressed up, he’d worn a green tee-shirt and black pants. Rey had helped him braid strands of pearls into his braid and put black glittery eyeshadow and liner on that made his eyes stand out. Heero had a thing for his eyes.
At the edge of the dance floor, his chair stopped, and he pressed lift, so it rearranged, helping him up to his feet. Heero waited for him there, so close that the chair pretty much lifted him up into Heero’s arms. He shivered, drinking in Heero’s warmth and scent. His good arm went around Heero’s neck as Heero gently guided the other arm up as well. Arms around Heero’s shoulders, Duo hoped just a bit to get his good foot on Heero’s steel-toed boot.
Arms around Duo’s back, Heero pulled him as close as he could, face nuzzling into Duo’s hair, as they danced with the slow song.
Heero was a very good dancer, better than Duo ever thought he would or could have been, but he was content to be held in those strong arms and ride the music with Heero.
The following song was a little bit faster and Duo grinned happily as Heero took them around the dance floor.
As the second song came to an end, Heero whispered in Duo’s ear, “Can I dip you?”
“Yeah,” Duo purred. Before that bullshit in the riot, Heero had been teaching him to swing, an ancient form of social dancing from twentieth century America.
The dip was elegant, easy, Duo on one leg, the weak leg hooked behind his strong leg. At the low end of the tip, Heero kissed him, light, gentle, asking permission softly. Duo roared back, his tongue licking Heero’s lips, slipping past them to tease at Heero’s tongue. Intimate and personal, so their own space that it didn’t matter that they were at someone’s posh ass house party.
When Heero pulled him back up, lifting him off his foot just enough that Duo could easily get his foot back on Heero’s, Heero whispered, “Let’s set a date. I want to marry you. I want everyone to know. I want the whole world to know we’re married.”
Duo bent his head, pressing his cheek to Heero’s shoulder. “Not till I can walk.”
“I’ll carry you down the aisle. I know we said we’d both walk down the aisle together, but I’ll carry you, like you carry me all the time.”
“When I can walk. Q and Mom are going to want a million person wedding in a fucking stadium or something. You wanna go to the courthouse with Wu and Rey, I’m down. The big production has to wait till I can walk.” He left it in the air that he wasn’t sure that was ever going to happen. “I love you, you know that, right? I love you more than anything, and you know, if you really wanna, I will. You hear how I sound? When I speak my wedding vows, I don’t want to sound like I’m fucking drunk.”
“I love the sound of your voice,” Heero said, carrying them into the next song, which was also a slow song. “I love you the same if you walk or you don’t.”
“I know,” Duo said, holding tight to his lover, his mate, knowing that Heero wouldn’t complain about the wet spots on his shirt. “I’ll get better. I promise. Just a little more time. If I can’t do it, you can carry me down the aisle.”
“Okay, my Oxygen. I’ll wait. Though we might want to go up to our room for a little while, if you want.”
“Yeah,” Duo said, leaning back so he could look at Heero. “At least that still works, uh?”
“Indeed,” Heero agreed.