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"Just Dancing"Written By: Clara Barton Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing. The following
is an intellectual exercise with no intention of profit. That said,
these characterizations, words, and situations are mine. Please ask
before reprinting. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: language, smut, slight violence Pairings: 3xS, others Summary: Trowa has a mission, and it requires asking Sally Po to be his partner. Of course, this undercover op isn't the kind that sends them to a distant colony to track down weapons smugglers. It's the kind where he needs a girlfriend to take to an ex-lover's wedding.
"Just Dancing" Chapter 2 "Here. Your dossier was crap. I rewrote it into something we could work with." It was Friday morning, and Sally's way of greeting Trowa at the airport was to toss a folder at him as she walked up to the waiting area beside their gate. Trowa managed to catch the folder and not spill any of his coffee, and he glared up at Sally's smirking face. She was dressed casually, in jeans and a gray oxford shirt, sleeves rolled up and hem tucked into the waistband of her pants. She had a leather satchel slung over one shoulder and a small, rolling suitcase at her feet. "What was wrong with my dossier?" He refused to open the folder. He had, after all, spent hours crafting a cover for them - when they had decided to start dating, what their anniversary was, hobbies they shared, dates they had been on, a weekend getaway a few months ago in London, a handful of arguments they could reference. "You really think I would start dating you because we got drunk and had sex one time?" Trowa shrugged. "It's how all of my relationships start." "Oh, for the love of-" She gave an angry huff and sat down in the chair beside him. She gave his coffee a speculative glance and then eased it from his hand, ignoring Trowa's growl of protest. She sipped from it and sighed in relief. "I didn't want to have to clean the coffee pot, so I didn't make any this morning. This is good. A little too sweet, but I can deal with that." "I'll have to remember that for next time." She offered him a smirk. "You will, won't you?" She took another sip and then tapped the folder. "Better read up." Angrily, he flipped it open. She hadn't scrapped everything. She had, in fact, kept a fair amount of the backstory that he had concocted. Their Inciting Incident as Trowa had labeled it - Sally had kept the wording but added quotes around it in bold, making her feelings very easy to guess - had been changed completely, however. "You saved me from drowning." "Mhm. It's a well-known fact all of you colony sprog can't swim for shit." "I can swim," he tersely informed her. "My PT times in the pool are the second best." "Oh? Are they?" The glimmer in her eyes made it very, very clear that she was well aware of that fact. He sighed and looked at the brief again. They had been on a mission together, Alaska, of all places, and he had fallen overboard in rough weather and she had saved him and he- "This says I followed you around like a pathetic loser for two months before you finally let me buy you a cup of coffee." "It doesn't say pathetic loser." She leaned close, shoulder to shoulder, and ran her finger under a line of text. "Like a lovesick puppy." "I don't see the difference." "That's because you refuse to attempt to date someone until after you've already established that they enjoy fucking you. You're afraid to put yourself out there, afraid to be rejected and try to build a relationship that isn't based on sex - and you're trying to defend your position by labeling anything else as pathetic." Sometimes, Trowa forgot that Sally had been a psychologist, working as an Intelligence officer for the Alliance during the war before she went rogue. "Have you ever considered that one of the reasons why so many of your relationships go up in flames is because you only date someone after you've had a drunken one-night stand with them?" "Are you implying I'm a slut or-" "I'm just suggesting that if you took the time to get to know someone, before you jump into bed with them, you might have a better idea of your compatibility." "I knew Duo for years before we slept together," he pointed out. "And you two were together for, what, six years? That's good. That's almost like proof that I'm right." He glared at her. "Plus, you knew me before we jumped into bed also. Hell, I've known you almost as long as you've known Duo. In fact, I've known you since beforeyou were Jim Cocky." "That never ceases to amuse you," he muttered, fighting his natural reaction to smirk at her mischievous grin. "Hopefully not," she agreed. The speaker system announced boarding for their flight. Trowa had had to pull the offical Preventers business line out of his pocket to re-book their plane tickets - originally purchased separately, for separate flights. He was able to get the agent to agree to two seats, together, but he wasn't at all surprised to find that the seats they had been assigned were sandwiched between a young couple and their child behind them and another young couple and their child in front of them. The agent hadn't been at all happy to have him ask to speak with her supervisor when she had initially balked at his request. And this, he was sure, was her way to pay him back for her irritation. Sally merely smirked and took the window seat. "This reminds me," she said as first one and then the other child started to cry, "are we on that ‘get married and have kids' track, or are we doing the selfish childless couple thing so we can spend all of our savings travelling around the world until we die?" "The latter," Trowa groaned as his seat was viciously kicked from behind. "Definitely the latter." -o- They landed in Poitiers a painful three hours later, after a too-short layover in Lyon and the horrifying realization that the families around them were also flying all the way to Poitiers. The rental car waiting for them was a sleek, black Audi convertible that had Trowa whistling in appreciation. Sally plucked the keys out of the service agents hand. She had insisted on doing their car reservation, and Trowa was very, very glad he hadn't offered up more than a token argument. She slid into the cream leather seat and settled her sunglasses over her eyes before glancing over at him. "Well? Ready to go show everyone how disgustingly in love we are?" Trowa snorted in amusement, but helped the agent load their bags into the trunk and then slipped into the passenger seat. He put his own sunglasses on and Sally threw the car into gear, tearing out of the lot at a speed that was well above posted limits. "It's like you're trying to get pulled over," he muttered as he decided to take the precaution of fastening his seatbelt after Sally barely rolled to a stop at a posted sign before zipping down the road again. She glanced over at him and smirked. "Don't tell me you don't love getting to pull the ‘I'm a Special Agent on Assignment' line out whenever local law enforcement messes with you." "Sure, but that doesn't mean I mess with them ." Sally just drove even faster. A drive that should have taken them an hour and a half took barely an hour. Of course, as they pulled up in front of La Villa Dolce and Sally finally slowed down, Trowa couldn't help but notice that her hair, previously pulled back into a braid at the nape of her neck, was now a windswept mess around her face. She looked over at him and laughed. "Your hair ." He could well imagine, and he was afraid to look. He shot her a grimace, and she reached over, making a half-hearted attempt to smooth it down. "Huh. I didn't realize your hair was so fine." Sally dropped her hand and looked away abruptly. She steered the car to a stop in front of the valet. They got out of the car in silence, Trowa wondering what had made Sally pull away so quickly while simultaneously trying not to let himself dwell too much on what it had felt like to have her fingers momentarily tangled in his hair. She wrestled her bags out of his grip when he tried to carry all of them, and he rolled his eyes but allowed her to take them from him. The lobby of the villa, a mansion that predated the Colonial period by several centuries, was decorated with charming, illustrated wall murals of a library and the facade of the mansion itself. A few people sat at the small bar area off to one side, soft music floating towards where Trowa and Sally entered. Trowa made a mental note to pay the bar a visit before he and Sally left for the rehearsal dinner in a few hours. Trowa walked up to the front desk, Sally at his side. "Good afternoon," he was greeted by the desk clerk with a smile. The clerk's eyes flicked up to his hair, and then over to Sally's, confirming that they absolutely looked ridiculous. "Good afternoon. We have reservations under the name of Barton." The clerk typed away at a datapad. "Ah, yes. The Room La Dolce. An excellent choice." Trowa slid his credit card and government issued ID card across the desk to the clerk, who started to enter the information into the datapad for confirmation. "Yes, we hope so," Sally said as she slid her arm through his and leaned her head on his shoulder. Trowa was momentarily startled, but he forced himself to relax at the feel of her body against his own. "Yes," he agreed. The clerk smiled at them again, and then gestured towards a porter approaching them. "Tomas will escort you to your room. If you need anything during your stay with us, please do not hesitate to ask." The clerk handed the cards back to Trowa, along with a small envelope containing their room keys - old-fashioned, metal keys that felt heavy in his hand. "Thank you," Sally smiled at the clerk. She kept her arm looped through Trowa's but stood up straight, walking beside him and finally surrendering her bags to the porter. Their suite turned out to be both a dream and a nightmare. A dream, because the open terrace doors revealed the rooftop jacuzzi and a fantastic view of La Rochelle and the harbor; a nightmare because the room furnishings were a riot of color. Lime green, fuchsia, violet, and a grayish avocado were a near assault on Trowa's eyes. "Oh my," was Sally's response, certainly audible to Tomas as he situated their bags in front of the bedroom closet. "Yes, yes, the view is amazing, isn't it?" Tomas grinned. "Um, yes. It's something." Sally looked up at Trowa with wide eyes. He smirked down at her, and then tilted his head down to whisper in her ear. "Don't tell me you don't like lime green and violet floral curtains?" She snorted and stepped away from him, crossing the room and stepping out onto the terrace. Trowa tipped the porter and saw him out of the room, locking the door behind him before he joined Sally on the terrace. "You sure know how to treat a girl on a fake romantic weekend, Barton," Sally teased him. He smirked. "Just imagine if it was real." She turned to face him, leaning one hip against the stone rail of the terrace and crossing her arms over her chest. "You know... there's something we should probably work on before we take this show out in public." He arched an eyebrow. "What? Do you want to practice saying our pet names? Don't think I missed the section in the dossier where you changed mine to sweetheart ." "You really think I would call anyone - even you - babe ?" Hearing her say the word now, a fair amount of derision in her voice, Trowa had to admit that, no, he didn't think Sally was likely to call anyone babe. "But you're fine with sweetheart?" "Of course." "Okay, go ahead - show me." She rolled her eyes at him and huffed. "Fine. Trowa, sweetheart, can you get another martini for me?" He smirked. "Of course, darling." They both, he had to admit, could use a little work with their endearments. Sally sighed and shook her head. "That wasn't actually what I was referring to - although now I definitely think we need to work on that too." "Agreed. What were you referring to?" She sighed and looked, for perhaps the first time ever , nervous. Trowa immediately felt on-edge himself. Sally Po, who charged into firefights with only a single bullet left in her own gun to save the ass of a rookie agent, never looked less than ready to kick ass. "If we've been dating for six months and sleeping together for almost that long, casual touching needs to look... casual." It was an excellent point. And while Trowa wasn't particularly enthusiastic about clinging to his lovers in public, it was entirely natural to touch them, to lean close to them and whisper teasing promises in their ear and, occasionally, kiss them. Casual touching and kissing were miles apart, however, and Trowa berated himself for making that wholly unnecessary leap. Then again, he and Duo had kissed in public - not often, and not with abandon, but certainly often enough for Quatre to have teased them about it. For Sally to tease them about it. For Wufei to get tight-lipped and look away. "Casual touching," he said, forcing himself away from those thoughts. Sally held out her hand, and he met it with his own, knitting their fingers together and appreciating her strong grip. That felt fine - natural, even. They had sparred enough, had helped each other off the mats so frequently, that the feel of Sally's hand in his own was familiar. He tugged her closer and then released her hand, lifting his to smooth over her arm and shoulder, tucking her against his side. Her arm went around his waist and they stood like that, looking over the city below them, for several minutes. Sally was tall enough that, when she laid her head against his shoulder, it was incredibly easy, and again, natural, for Trowa to rest his cheek on the top of her head. "This is good," she said. It was . It also made Trowa realize that it had been months since he had had more than a drunken, fumbling fuck; months since he had just touched someone else like this, had held someone as more than a prelude to sex. Unwelcome as the realization was, it was nothing compared to Trowa's enjoyment of having Sally pressed against him like this. Fake or not, she fit against him in a way that was very nearly torturous. "How about a kiss?" Sally's voice was low, the breeze almost carrying her words away from him. Trowa's mouth went dry. "A kiss?" "Do I need to draw you a diagram?" He had to smirk at her tone before he stepped away. Her cheeks were flushed, likely from the cool afternoon air, and Trowa found himself staring at her lips, at the way she was biting into her lower lip. Trowa was fairly certain this was a bad idea - very nearly positive that he should just say that they didn't need to kiss in public, that Sally was private as hell and certainly wouldn't engage in such blatant public affection as a kiss - but hell, bad ideas had never put him off before. He ran his thumb over her cheek and across her jaw, tilted her head up, and she leaned into the touch, eyes still wide open as his lips met hers. Kissing Duo had always felt like playing with matches - the immediate thrill and heat and knowledge that danger was lurking just there . Trowa had been able to lose himself in the sensation - to be engulfed by Duo's mouth, his embrace, his taste. Sally... Sally wasn't at all like fire. She was like the ocean, powerful and sure and fresh , her lips somehow pliant but firm, slanting against his own, first following his lead and then changing the angle, the pressure, and Trowa felt a curl of desire unfold in his belly. He had thought about kissing her, about sleeping with her - idle thoughts after sparring matches or long nights drinking together or three days of no sleep on a mission. But she had never seemed interested, never seemed attainable . And, he had to remind himself, she still wasn't. Sally Po, his friend, his comrade and his colleague, his fake-girlfriend, was kissing him right now because she wanted to perfect their cover. Nothing more. Trowa eased away from the contact, felt the drag of Sally's lips against his own, across the corner of his mouth and his jaw as he pulled away too quickly for her to adjust. He just barely resisted the urge to trace over the path with his fingers, to see if he could feel the residual heat of her on his flesh. "That was fine," he decided. She nodded, her eyes dark and unreadable. "It was," she agreed. Sally smoothed a hand through her hair, grimacing as she realized just how much had escaped her braid. "I must look like a mess." Trowa shrugged. "I hadn't noticed." She gave him a dark look, the teasing remark falling very short. "I'm not at all surprised," she muttered. She looked at her watch. "We should probably leave in an hour. I'm going to get cleaned up. I'll meet you in the hotel bar?" She didn't even wait for a response, turning on her heel and leaving Trowa to stare after her as she stormed back into the hotel room. He watched her angrily search through her bag, pull out a toiletry kit, and then disappear into the bathroom with a slammed door. What the hell? ~ * ~ |
