Laughter

Gundam Wing SPx5

Disclaimer: Not mine.

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"Chang Wufei!"

He wishes that she would say his name differently.

He doesn't know exactly how he would prefer her to say it, although he's spent hours pondering the question. Not how the Vice-Foreign Minister whispers Yuy's name, surely, equal parts hope, trepidation, and adoration. And not how Noin murmurs Preventer Wing's name, low and worshipping. And certainly not how Catalonia shouts Winner's, demanding, commanding and sly, filled with dark sensuality.

"Chang Wufei! Are you listening?"

He has just time to pull himself out of his reverie to realize that it isn't his partner saying his name, it's Lady Une, and that he's at a meeting and that everyone is staring at him. He blushes and whispers an apology. Une continues her briefing, but his mind is gone again, his gaze stealing over to the other side of the room where a tall blonde woman sits with a lab coat thrown over her uniform. Dr. Sally Po catches his eye as he stares at her. Her red mouth twitches into a sardonic smile and she winks at him, then turns her attention back to Une.

He hates how she can, with a single glance, reduce him back to a snarling boy. And he knows how easy it is to slide back into the comfortable roles of petulant teenager and exasperated mentor. He doesn't want to play that game anymore.

He thinks back to the way she laughed his name out as he drove her home from Noin and Zechs wedding reception. He had been slightly disappointed in her for getting quite so drunk, but it hadn't dulled his enjoyment of her company. He just wasn't used to having to take care of her. Usually she was the one who took care of him. He had just been hoping that she wouldn't puke all over the car when, she turned and gazed at him, giggling and slightly unfocused.

"Wu," she murmured, leaning away from him as if to get a better look, "How come you never have fun at parties?"

"I…I have fun.." he stammered, keeping his gaze firmly on the road so that she couldn't read his expression. He knew damn well why he hated parties. He couldn't loosen up, couldn't lose control. He hated conversation. He usually just sat there, watching Sally, until she decided, usually after a few, that it was time to leave.

"Wu," she demanded again, her voice low and plaintive, "How come you never laugh?"

"I smile sometimes. I smile when you tell jokes." he considered for a moment.

"Sometimes I chuckle."

Sally laughed at that, and they rode for a moment in silence. She rounded on him suddenly.

"But chuckling isn't the same as laughing. You never just laugh."

Wufei stared ahead. "I guess not."

"Bet I can make you laugh."

"What?"

"Bet I can make you laugh, Wu!"

Her clever surgeon's hands found his sides and began to tickle like she had when they were teenagers and through his bursts of protest and laughter and demands that she stop because goddamn it he was about to run them off the road, woman, stop it and couldn't she be responsible for once and she was a drunken fool who was endangering their lives he became aware that he was horribly and painfully aroused.

She was right beside him and warm and laughing and drunk and he knew that even if he had had the guts to pull the car over and devour that sweet, red mouth, he couldn't, he wouldn't, and even if she hadn't been drunk and laughing, it would have ruined the beautiful, tenuous partnership they shared.

So he grit his teeth together and drove her home.

It was by far the worst torture he had ever endured.

Looking across the room at her, her hand curled under her chin as she listens to Une's low, steady voice he feels a vice in his chest and he's sure that everyone in the room can hear his heartbeat.

He remembers the days when he had to look up to meet her gaze. He had been small for fifteen and, at nineteen, she had seemed like an Amazon, tall and strong and untouchable. The gap between them had seemed the unbridgeable gulf between adolescence and adulthood, and she had been strong and sure and always there when he needed her.

She is still always there for him.

He wants to be there for her.

It's been six years since she's become his partner, and he can look down into her eyes now and he is astonished at how young he was, and how young she was and how young they both still are.

He scratches his chin and realizes he needs a shave. He would have remembered, perhaps, if he hadn't been thinking about her, and himself, and how tickling didn't mean what it used to.

It used to make him squirm out of her reach. It proved him still a child when he wanted to be a man. It proved that she was stronger than him when he most wanted to feel strong. It proved that she was stronger than him when he most wanted to believe her to be weak.

Now he is a man, and her tickling fingers make him want to tickle back, to haul her into his lap and plunder her mouth and neck and hands, to possess her and hold her and never let go.

He is ashamed of his thoughts as they walk back to their office, side by side, their Preventer- issue combat boots clicking on the stone floor. As if he has a right to think of her that way. It feels somehow disrespectful to want her, as if wanting her as a woman undermines his respect for her as his partner, as his superior, as his friend. He notices how their steps naturally match in length and time, and wonders how many hundreds of times they've walked together down this hallway. Six years, countless missions, always side by side, matching step for step.

She glances at him quizzically as she unlocks their door.

"Wufei? Is everything okay?" she asks as walk in.

"Everything is fine, woman," he mutters as he walks over to the window and gazes out at the snow, "I just…."

Sally comes to stand by him, and hands him a cup of coffee that he never even noticed her making. She never makes him cocoa anymore, like she did when he first came to work here.

"Sally?" He asks, looking at the cup, setting it down gently.

"Hmmm?" Her back is to him as she hangs her lab coat on the back of their door and straightens her tie. Her blonde pigtails fall long down her back and beg to be pulled.

And before he can stop himself, his hands are at her sides, tickling and teasing, and Sally is gasping with laughter and twisting around with a wicked grin on her face as her fingers find his armpits and he howls, thankful the door is thick and locked. Sally shifts her attack to his sides and one or both of them trip and they are tangled on the floor in a pile of long arms and legs in rumpled uniforms still squirming and tickling and wrestling.

Sally pins him in under a minute and he can't bring himself to mind. He is so elated, so filled with adrenaline and joy and laughter that he can't help himself and he reaches up and pulls her head down to hers and presses his lips firmly against hers. He feels her lipstick smear against his mouth and his head is so light he's afraid he might faint.

And suddenly he is afraid.

He releases the grip he has on her hair and lays his head back down on the cold floor. He turns his face away to hide the heat and shame on his cheeks. He didn't want to do this, to drive this wedge into their partnership, to never be this close to her again.

"Sally, I.." he starts, horribly sure that he is about to burst into un-manly tears. He never gets that far. Sally's hands are gently turning him back to face her and dropping kisses on his cheeks and lips and eyelids and settling back on his lips with ferocious hunger.

He remembers, as he wraps his arms around her bruisingly, her offer of partnership and how he knew, even then, even before he knew anything, that someday they would be here, tangled on their office floor, lips fused together, warm and alive in each other's arms. And he finds himself laughing out loud between kisses in pure delight.

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Er. Yeah. Like I said before, I'm not a writer, but I love this pairing so very very much.