It was some time halfway through his lunch of cheesesteak and bizarre-drink-of-the-day that Quatre remembered to mention it. "Did you hear Relena's mom died this morning?" he said before taking another bite of his sandwich.
Duo almost choked on his iced tea. "What, really?"
Quatre nodded somberly. "She's been sick for the longest time now, you know." He took a sip of his soda, a blueberry concoction that didn't tasted as badly as he thought at first. "It was only going to be a matter of time."
Duo drank some more of his tea and allowed the words to ferment in his mind. For a brief moment, he wondered if Heero already knew. "Do you she's going to do?"
"I think Dorothy told me they were going to bring her up here," Quatre continued, picking at some of the meat he was eating. "But, man..."
"Yeah."
The house was peculiarly heavy, the air oppressively still, when Duo returned home that evening. The beep of the answering machine was a cold greeting.
'Duo,' Heero had said earlier that morning to the machine as opposed to Duo himself, the electronic recording of his voice now filling the quiet house as Duo replayed his message. 'Listen, I'm driving Relena down, but don't worry, ok? I'll call you back later tonight.'
Duo frowned at the message, but could find little to fault. He turned on the television set in the kitchen and started contemplating what he should have for dinner.
---end
Duo's baby girl, a piece of shit Ford station wagon that was older than either of them, hasn't been washed since May, and, because of a drought in effect all summer, the Super Shammy Scrub-n-Run was the only option they had.
This was not a situation Heero wasn't going to enjoy. Seeing a soapy, wet Duo, leaning over the slick, candy-red bonnet as he exuberantly tried to clean every inch of his beloved car, wearing nothing but shorts and an immodestly white shirt... the wretched drought had taken away that particular guilty pleasure from Heero. Somehow, going to a car wash was akin to willingly admiting defeat to nature, but as a silently devious thought crossed his mind, he found a suddenly nice way to make his lemons into lemonade.
As an acne-prone teenager turned on the machine and the mechanisms began guiding the car into the dark, wet tunnel, Heero, eyes and face straight, said, "Hey, Duo, let's make out."
Duo's face did a strange, twisted expression. "Huh?"
"Come on, Duo, let's make out." He turned to Duo, and with a wickedly hopeful gleam in his eye, he said, "It'll be fun. You'll give me a blow job, and by that time, we'll be out."
Duo's expression turned even more incredulous. "What? What if I don't want to give you a blow job right now."
"We could work around that," Heero practically whispered sensuously in that stone-cold nasal voice of his, as he leaned closer, his head in an invitingly seductive tilt. With one hand pressed against the side of Duo's seat, holding himself steady and the other slowly palming Duo's crotch, he knew he had the other man trapped. Languishly rubbing his lover's member half-hard, he whispered against Duo's cheek over the rush and roar of water and brushes outside, "Duo..."
The blush on Duo's cheeks burst into open flames, his eyes darting between Heero's eyes and the hand that was brazenly making its way into Duo's jeans, before he regained some of his dignity. "Heero, what if-"
Heero, uninterested in whatever meek excuse Duo was going to try, stopped the protest with his mouth, pressing a hot, wet kiss on Duo's lips. Seemingly forgetting that only milliseconds before he was trying to mount a resistance, Duo's tongue found its way into Heero's mouth almost immediately, tracing long-familiar patterns as a moan vibrated through him.
Growling deep in his throat with some pleasure in having his plan working out so well, Heero pressed his body against Duo, one hand already against the nape of Duo's neck to keep him close, the other already well-into its mission of encircling Duo's member in spite of the underwear still in the way.
A sharp rapping against the bonnet of the car started him, causing him to stop his ministrations and allowing Duo to escape minutely.
Standing by the front bumper with a look of embarrassed indignation was the teenage operator of the car wash. Vaguely unconcerned over not knowing how long they had been going at it, Heero slowly settled back into his seat as Duo gave the teenager a sheepish smile and put the car into drive. Slowly, they pulled out ot the exit and mergered with the traffic, escaping.
Sending one more glare at the boy that ruined his fun, Heero mentally grumbled one more curse at the drought and settled for an unfulfilling drive back home.
---end
The carpet was laid out that morning. The man who did it, someone recommended by one of Heero's co-workers, charged a bit more than they had expected, but the man had done his job well. Day by day, the cool, dark house felt more like a home than it had only a year and a half ago.
At the moment, Heero was relishing the feeling of contentment, sitting on the new carpet with his back resting against the cold, recently-painted off-white wall. Duo, sprawled out on the floor, his fingers lazily taking in the feeling of the newly-laid carpet, was resting his head on Heero's lap. Absentmindedly, Heero ran his hand through Duo's bangs.
"Remember what I said when we first bought this house?" Duo said in a nostalgic voice, his eyes half-opened as he looked up at the ceiling.
"Not really," Heero replied quietly. "I was probably too busy cursing everyone who fucked me in the ass at the time."
"Including me?" Duo shifted his view to Heero, eyes full of mock innocence.
Heero glared, but the faint smile that was also on his face made the whole expression look more bemused than angry.
"Well," Duo continued, turning his eyes back to the ceiling, "when we first saw this place, all I could think of was how disgusting this place was going to be inside."
"Oh, yes," he said. According to the man they had bought the building from, the old minister from the revivalist church around the corner, no one had lived in the building for only a couple of decades. When they were given their initial tour of the abandoned house, however, a more accurate assessment would have declared the place unused for i>at least /I> a half-century. But, it was cheap, and it was a good feeling, having a place they can honestly call their own. "Remember the rat droppings?"
The sour, disgusted look on Duo's face was enough to loosen a chuckle out of Heero. "Yeah, I remember," Duo said, starting to look crossed. "And it wasn't funny, Heero."
"Of course not." He didn't feel bad reminding Duo of the incident, honestly. It wasn't often that either of them end up covered in fecal matter. It had happened after lightly tapping the weak floorings that first day after buying the house, and Duo's reaction had involved a lot of stomping and cursing, which had caused more rat droppings to fall on him.
Duo's expression grew a bit mischievous. "That nest of cockroaches you accidently discovered, on the other hand... "
Heero frowned, subconsciously shuddering at the memory. The only good thing about those cockroaches was that they couldn't fly. If they had, not even Duo could have convinced him buying the place, much less willingly enter the house again, was a good idea.
Duo's hand was on Heero's knee, soothing as it stroked small circles against the covered skin, and odd counterpoint to the sly grin on his face. "Well, disgusting vermin aside, it never occurred to me how big this place is." He let out a sigh and regained a calm expression.
"Oh?" Heero's fingers began to play with Duo's hair again.
"Yeah... I mean, four bedrooms? Even with Odin taking one of them, that still leaves a lot of room. What are we going to do with all this space, Heero?"
Heero just shrugged at the question, a light smile on his lips. A glimmer of an old dream came to him, an old wish that the extra rooms made a little more possible. "You never know. We may need it one day."
---end
There was a sweet sadness in Duo's voice as he said, "How's Relena?"
Heero pressed his forehead onto the top of the table, the cold plastic of the motel room's phone against his temple. According to his wristwatch, it was just past midnight, but Duo understood that the ride to where Relena's mother had lived was a long, time-consuming one. "She was crying most of the time down. I think she's better now."
"Because Milliardo's there?"
"Yeah." Heero's head was throbbing, from the long hours in the car, quietly giving as much support as Relena needed, or from painful resignation in Duo's voice, he wasn't certain. "They'll be going down together in the morning to talk about moving the body."
"To here?" At Heero's affirmative grunt, he asked, "Why?"
Heero sighed in spite of himself, watching the heavy curtains move minutely against the blast of the air conditioner. "Probably to bury her next to their stepfather, I guess."
"And you?" There was a delicious tinge of hope in the inflection of 'you' that Heero's heart sped up slightly at the sound.
"I'll be home soon," he said. "Relena wants me to speak to a funeral house."
"Oh." The tinge of hope was gone.
Heero could only image what was running through Duo's mind. Always her. Every time. But it was never always her. It certainly wasn't her who he wished he could be with right now. It certainly wasn't here, in this featureless motel room, that he wished to sleep the night away.
"I'll make it up to you," Heero said, almost hastily, but he could feel Duo's bittersweet sadness only blossom further with those words.
"Don't worry. I understand." There was a slight pause. "I'll see you tomorrow then. I love you, Heero."
"I love you too."
"Sleep well."
"I'll try."
---end
Duo was in a much better mood that night than perhaps it was called for, when he said, "Heero?"
Heero grunted a response as he stared out the passenger-side window, his eyes immediately glaring at a couple of squad cars parked in the distance, no doubt waiting for someone to go just a little too fast that night.
"I wonder... what are they going to say about me when I die. I mean, they always talk about the good things at funerals, yeah?"
"I'm certain that whatever is said about us would be nearly as interesting as the truth," Heero said as he laid the program from the funeral on his lap.
"I know what I would write for you," Duo said with a bit a smile as he turned left onto the highway that ran towards their house. " 'Heero Yuy was a great man. He cared and cherished his friends. He was always true to his family.' " He glanced slyly at the man siting beside him. " 'And he knew how to give great blowjobs.' "
At this, Heero frowned in embarrassment. "Duo..."
" 'He never knew how to utilize his extensive vocabulary in his native tongue, and, when he wasn't speaking that, had an accent so thick you could hack through it with a machete. But his grunts conveyed things that were beyond the reach of words.' "
Heero shook his head slightly at the half-mocking mood behind Duo's words. "I guess the only good thing about that speak is..." ... is that he wouldn't be alive to hear it.
He frowned, looking at the funeral program on his lap, uncertain who to continue that thought and not depress them further than necessary. There wasn't a way to finish that thought without feeling the stress accumulated the past week, helping and comforting Relena, without thinking of their own mortality.
"Heero?" Duo asked as they stopped at a red light.
Heero shook his head. "It's nothing." A dense silence settled in.
The light turned green and they made their slow way towards home once more.
Heero's hand ghosted its hand to Duo's and faintly laid on top of it's counterpart.
Heero squeezed Duo's hand.
"Heero..." Duo said, almost hesitantly, his small voice no match to the heavy silence around them.
"Yes, Duo?" Heero's voice, too, was soft, as shy as a newly born chick that had just seen death in the face of a friend.
"Let's not go home yet."
Heero squeezed Duo's hand again as they turned into a small side street and towards the new skating rink. The silence was still with them as they parked in a dark corner of the rink's parking lot and tried to find some comfort with the thought of death still on their minds.
---end
Heero clung to the door frame so tightly, his knuckles had turned white. Clear. shimmering splatters of tears gathered in his ocean-blue eyes as he watch Duo turn and walk away.
"Please..." he whispered in a heart-broken voice. "Don't leave me."
"I must go," Duo said, barely glancing over his shoulder, his braid of hair swinging majestically with each step down the cement stairs.
"Then take me with you!" Heero whimpered, reaching out to grab Duo by the sleeve of his shirt before he got too far away. "Please... let me be with you."
Duo turned around, surprise and worried love floating in his beautiful indigo eyes. "Heero..."
"Oh, for the love of God, would you please come ON!" Sally practically screamed as she threw her purse into her car. "If you two don't cut this shit, we'll never get to Palmyra in time." She slammed a hand on the hood of her Nissan in irritation.
"Yeah," Hilde concurred, a fresh can of beer resting on the side of her thigh as she stood by the stairs, looking up at the melodramatic display. "I want to go shopping before the flea market closes."
"Jesus fucking Christ," Sally muttered to herself as she got behind the wheel.
Duo, with a reluctant expression on his face, looked at his love and felt the dilemma bubble within him. It was just a short trip to some cheap, barely worthwhile flea market. He would rather have Heero here, safe, than in that den of thieves and bootleggers, but...
"You can come, Heero," he whispered.
"YAY!" Heero squealed as he threw himself on Duo, causing them to fall down their porch and onto poor, petite, slightly drunk Hilde. The beer can in her hand tumbled out and rolled away to the wheels of Sally's car, the golden, frothy liquid spilling out gratuitously.
---end
Duo didn't talk about his parents often, which is something I couldn't fault him for doing. He had quite a tumultuous relationship with the two of them, one that seesawed between love and hate at least once. At the moment, I knew for a fact that Duo hated his father, even if he would have sworn years before he cherished the man. I also knew for a fact that Duo loved his mother, even if he had made their lives hell before the woman had passed away.
I could only wonder on which side of that thin line Duo would place me in the end, all things considered.
These familiar thoughts came to me again late one night, as some of my coworkers and I were driving back to base from the Catskills. A heavy exhaustion was nipping at the heels of my alertness, anxiously waiting for the moment I let my defences down to invade. The coffee and energy drinks I had been drinking for hours was keeping it at bay. The colonial music on the radio was only marginally helping.
The highway stretched out before me was scarcely populated with trucks and nighttime buses driving through the state. My headlights lit the dark gray road resolutely, monotonously. In my mirrors, I could see Sally's bus, the yellow paint job pale from the streetlights, tainted gray.
We had stopped a while back for some food, at a diner we always patronized on these midnight runs from Catskills. There, we ate overgenerous dinners and chatted amicably, trying to replenish ourselves for the remaining hours before we return to base parking lot. If nothing went wrong, I'll be back home by two, maybe 3 o'clock.
Duo understood that this job was necessary. Shuttle runs like this one paid more than regular school runs, and we needed the money, despite what the hours did to me, what it may do to our relationship.
In that dark night, the thought of perhaps that the midnight runs weren't worth the strain came to me, and I realized that it could be possible that, one day, Duo would stop loving me and start hating me.
God knew he would have countless reasons at his disposal. It could be jealousy that will drive him away. It could be the thought of kids. It could be a bad winter... or a bad summer that would break us apart.
I'm afraid that Duo would stop loving me.
It could be that, one day, he will realize that he could do better. That this was just a phase, and he needed to move on to someone new. That he never loved me at all...
Sally's voice came over the radio, the strong alto also too bright and clear for the dark night and my own thoughts. She was telling a joke, something borderline foul that made me particularly thankful that we weren't carrying passengers. Something that would ensure that we would stay awake for a while longer.
An unfamiliar voice answered her joke, adding comments of his own. A trucker, no doubt, that just happened to be out on that cold night as well.
A smile crossed my face as Sally's snide respond elicited rough guffaws from the unknown audience, a cacophony of laughter as our coworkers chimed in.
My thoughts, momently forgotten, ebbed away.
---end
I first met Heero the year my mother died, and I would be the first to admit it wasn't all that spectacular.
We met because of our parents. You, see, his father and my mother had been friends since they were kids back on the colony. According to the stories, they had grown up together on the same mountain, overlooking the same winding highway and the same rural city. But as they got older, she gradually lost touch with the man that had been her best friend. When we would go to visit family on the colony, she would spend a day or two with him, and they would occasionally talk on the phone, but she would get this look that seemed to say it wasn't the same as before.
When, nearly out of the blue, he had written to her, asking her to take care of his son for a while, she was at first unsure as to what to do. It was so sudden, and letter had hinted of some sort of trouble.
In the end, however, she agreed. Either out of pity or understanding, she agreed. It was the least she could do for a man she considered her best friend, she said, if not to me.
Heero came in the summer, after school ended there, and before school started again here. The day we picked him up at the airport, we were forced to wait almost three hours for his flight to arrive due to some problem or another. The way he carried himself when I first saw him, however, it seemed as if the delay had no effect on him whatsoever.
He was weird, but not in a bad way. He could only speak our native tongue and kept mostly to himself as he earned his keep by cleaning and cooking. He would also spend a lot of his time glaring at everything, looking quite fierce at it too, I might add, but he wasn't the kind of guy that would be out of the house at all hours of the night, so we really didn't have much in common, other than the whole 'colonist' thing.
I was never told the reason as to why Heero was sent to live with us. When my mother first mentioned it to me, I immediately thought of gangs and drug-running. Maybe he got a girl pregnant up there on the mountain, but if that was the case, he would have been forced to marry, not shipped off the colony to a woman he barely knew. Every time I asked, he would glare and not answer. After a while, I would just give up.
At the time, I was a real ass to my mother. You probably guessed this already, but yeah, I was one of those ghetto 'hoods out at all hours of the night. I never did anything too illegal, but I was out there, and that was enough.
Mom hated it, and would always be up in my ass about it, saying over and over again that the city was dangerous. It was, I admit, and there were a few times that I've gotten into a fight with some dangerous characters over nothing. But I would never admit she was right, and I hated her for even mentioning it to me. At 18, I thought I was grown. I thought I knew everything, and every time she would bitch at me about how I lived my life, I would storm out of the house.
One night, after a really heavy fight with Mom, I stormed out, my car keys in my hand. Heero ran right after me, a pair of flip-flops barely on his feet, forcing himself into my car.
I snarled at him, "Get the fuck out, Heero."
"I don't know half of what happened in there," he said in our native tongue, the glare in his eyes so dark it made my blood freeze and boil at the same instant, "and I certainly don't know what you just said, but if you're going somewhere tonight, I'm coming with you, asshole, whether you liked it or not."
I stared at him, before returning his glare with one of my own. "Fine," I snapped back, deliberately not using the colonial. "You wanna come? Be my fucking guest." I started the car with such rage that the engine nearly choked. Without waiting for some sort of word of consent, I pulled out and drove.
The drive was quiet. Neither of us turned on the radio, and the anger in my blood was refusing to dissipate as we practically sailed down the highway.
"Something bad is going to happen soon," Heero said, his nasally voice still low with anger and frustration.
"What, your father kicked you out because you're some black-magic fortune teller?" I jeered.
"You're going to get hurt if you kept acting this way, Duo." He frowned at the empty highway. ignoring me. "I don't know what's going to happen, but God help me, if I'm right, I'll make sure I'm here. Whether you deserve it or not."
Glaring at the open road before me and biting my tongue in frustation, I couldn't answer.
In the end, I ended up driving us out to the suburbs. After buying some beer, I drank the six-pack on my own as we sat, parked by the mall. The whole time, Heero just glared at the orange glow of the parking lot lights in the distance, darkly keeping his thoughts to himself.
Heero drove us back that night, despite not having a license or a clear idea as to how to get back. Good thing no cops stopped us, I guess. I certainly didn't need the trouble.
My mother died with me harboring those bad feelings still, nearly a month after that night Heero snarled at me about his premonitions.
---end
Duo sat on the curb, a cigarette dangling from between his fingers. The shadows covered him rather well, and if it wasn't for the cigarette's cherry-red tip, Heero would have started to doubt that Duo was there at all.
It was a warm night. He leaned back on his hands, the cool, dirty cement walk in front of the Italian restaurant feeling grainy to his fingers. Some distance away, the brightness of the lights of the supermarket made their seclusion almost surreal.
"I used to work in this strip mall," Duo said haltingly in their native tongue, his tone almost bitter. His voice was starting to slur slightly. He pointed with his cigarette towards the supermarket. "In a ice cream store that way."
"What happened?" Heero asked as he glanced at the direction Duo was indicating before staring up at the broken, useless fluorescent lighting above them.
"It went bankrupt."
"Oh."
Duo took a drag from the cigarette and made circles with the smoke.
"Me and the guys there, we used to play-wrestle out back," Duo recalled, a wistful tone taking over his voice, his speech coming out a little smoother. "They would steal some fluorescent light bulbs from their job, the Shop-Right, and then we would take turns smashing them on each other out back."
"Did it hurt?"
"Sometimes..." He took another drag. "But it was all about how the glass shattered and how you reacted to it. It had to look like it hurted like hell..."
Duo reached for another beer, but Heero beat him to it.
"Let's go home, Duo," he said softly, as their hands rested on top of each other, over the same can of cheap domestic beer.
There was a manly scent, an earthy warmth coming off of Heero that night that tickled Duo's nose that moment. The warmth of Heero's hand underneath his and the assertive look in the other boy's eyes as he leaned close weakened him.
Duo sighed slightly and flicked the used cigarette away as he pulled away. "Fine."
---end
There was a frustrated shuffling of papers from the dining table that made Heero pause and look up from the peppers he was chopping. Rinsing away the tiny seeds that had gotten on his hands, he turned and saw Duo get up from the table and join him in the kitchen.
Above them, the fluorescent lights flickered on and off, giving Heero a headache. The Townhouse people that owned the building had promised they would send a maintenance man yesterday to see what was wrong with them, since changing the bulbs did nothing.
There was a strained expression on Duo's face under the flickering lights, a marked improvement from the pale, emotionless look he had worn a few weeks before. His hair was a bit scraggily, a bit greasy, and barely stayed put in the ponytail he barely had the energy to tie together.
"I have a problem, Heero," he said in a small voice, his words making him seem all the more lost, downtrodden, and depressed once he said them.
"What is it, Duo?" he asked immediately as he unsuccessfully wiped his wet hands on the sides of his sweatpants, his mind coming up with a thousand and one things that could have gone sour. They won't be able to pay the rent. The utilities are threatening to shut off their electricity. Their phone will be disconnected. The insurance for the car is much too high. They'll have to sell the car.
The decor of the house is reminding Duo of his mother. Heero's father is getting on his nerves. Duo's father is causing trouble. Duo's job as a day laborer is frustrating him. Duo's job wasn't paying enough.
Duo is tired of having Heero around. Duo is tired of living in this dead-end town. Duo is tired, in general.
"I want to kiss you."
Heero's brain screeched to a stuttering halt. "... what?"
Duo looked at him with clear, if uncertain eyes. "I know I sound stupid, and I'll understand if you don't want me to, but..." He lowered his head, his ragged, unbrushed bangs covering his face. "It's been bothering me for a long time now, and..."
Heero reached out and took Duo's calloused, construction-work hands in his slightly moist ones. "Go ahead," he whispered softly against Duo's bangs as the light above them flickered on and off.
A blushing warmth spread over their cheeks as Duo nodded and raised his head. His hand came up to Heero's cheek, the calloused thumb caressing a line on Heero's cheek. He tilted his head down slightly, and his lips started, rather shyly, on Heero's parted own, soft and just barely opened.
---end
Odin Lowe was an imposing man, with pale hair bleached near-white from constant exposure to the sun and a darkly tanned face that made him seem nearly dangerous. Under the shadows of the awning, surrounded by the crowd of people waiting for arriving family, he was a beacon to Heero's eyes. The way he ambled towards them held just enough intensity to make the crowd part before him, but Heero saw the attitude was anything but malicious.
The tall man took one look at the two young men before wrapping his son in a fierce hug that Heero weakly returned.
Heero whispered his greeting, the first half of a long-used, nearly ritualistic, pattern as Odin placed a light kiss on Heero's cheek and returned the greeting in the same breath. Perhaps satisfied for the moment, Odin drew away from his son, only to wrap his arms around the unnaturally silent Duo, murmuring a greeting as he did so.
Perhaps remembering himself, becoming aware once more of the crowd of visitors and waiting families around them, he drew away from Duo after a moment. He placed a light, comforting hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Let's get you two out of this airport and home," Odin said more towards Duo's bowed head than his son, his voice a soothing rumble that reminded Heero of all the other times his father tried to heal hurts, be they physical or emotional.
Duo neither nodded nor shook his head to the words. The only action he made was to reach out and clasp Heero's hand lightly. A unnatural, almost silent roar filled Heero's ears at the touch.
"Just that one suitcase?" Odin asked his son, nodding his head towards the lone piece of luggage at Heero's feet.
"Yes," he replied, allowing his thumb make a few soothing circles on the bit of Duo's skin it touched. The pressure of time forced them to pack light. There wasn't much they needed to bring, just some everyday clothes and a black suit that needed to be ironed.
Odin grabbed the trolley handle of the luggage piece and patted his son's head reassuringly. "Let's get moving."
"Duo!" someone cried out from somewhere to their left, stopping them in their step before they even began to move towards the garages.
Only Heero and Odin looked in the general direction of the shout, both unaware that there would be someone else just outside the arrival lobby, waiting for them.
At the sight of the heavy-set man that nearly stormed towards them, Odin's soft, comforting expression turned cold. "Maxwell," he nearly growled in a voice Heero did not like to hear.
Even at first sight, Heero could see that the man was Duo's father. Their faces were the same, even if Duo's skin wasn't nearly as fair and his father's features were obscured by a large pair of tinted glasses. The face, however, seemed to have been the only feature they share.
"Duo, my boy," the man said as he wrapped his arms around his son, nearly engulfing him with his sheer mass, his chin pressed against the side of Duo's temple. "I'm so glad you've had a safe flight." He drew away from his son, his hands on Duo's shoulders as he took in Duo's apparent lack of response with a confused expression. "Where's your mother?"
"She's gone," Heero said taciturnly, feeling Duo's response to his father's touch clearly as the silent boy's hand squeezed Heero's painfully.
Mr. Maxwell looked up from his son, suddenly realizing that Duo already had company. "Who are you?"
"He's my son," Odin said, placing himself at a very prominent place beside Duo, ready to step in at a moment's notice.
As a dark look of loathing developed on the elder Maxwell's face, Heero realized that whatever animosity his father bore for the man was returned as savagely. "Lowe, how very nice to see you," he replied, grounding out the words.
"The feeling is far from mutual." Turning his head towards Duo, he said in that soft, kind voice Heero cherished, "It's time to go."
Duo did not nod or respond in any way other than to pull away from his father's reach, letting the large hands on his shoulders fall. He quickly settled once more beside Heero, his arm against Heero's shoulder, his slight height advantage over Heero shrunken a bit by his lowered head.
Heero saw clearly the darkening look in Mr. Maxwell's as he noticed their joint hands. "Where are you taking him?" Mr. Maxwell nearly demanded, his pale features appearing heavier than usual.
"His grandmother's. You know the way, don't you Maxwell?" Odin replied, the dark tone returning, heavy with sarcasm. Heero knew this tone as well, and also knew exactly what it immediately lead to. "Of course you do. You've done some stunning things up there."
Heero's free hand grabbed his father's wrist, halting him from stepping completely in between the young men and the increasingly livid Mr. Maxwell. "Please, Father, let's go," he said in his quiet, nasally voice. To Mr. Maxwell, he said, "You're free to follow us, but it would be best if you visit Duo tomorrow. The flight was a long one."
Ignoring the cross expression on the man, he gave Duo's hand a comforting squeeze and said in his best broken common, "Coming?"
For a moment, he thought he saw the glimmer of gratitude, of need, of warm and positive feelings in Duo's eyes, but they were gone before Heero even knew they were there, leaving his expression as blank and devoid of emotion as it has been for the past three days. Only a light, returned squeeze was his answer.
"She wasn't meant to have died that way," Odin muttered to himself as he sat outside Helena's childhood home, smoking just outside the glow of the lone streetlight on that small patch of mountainside. The porch was well-lit, the stars were crowding the clear night sky, and the graveled open area between the house and the fields was filled with cars.
A lot of people had come tonight.
From his patch of darkness beyond the porch, he could almost discern the dark figures of his son and Helena's boy. They were walking, side by side, on the gravel road, heading uphill for no reason other than that was a perfectly fine direction to go.
Heero rarely talked as it was, and now, with Duo no where near as communicative as Helena always complained, it was almost painful for Odin to be near them and not try to break the silence.
The prayers the women were reciting over and over inside the large, one story house drifted on the cool, late summer breeze. The men, respecting the occasion, talked quietly on the porch, watching the small children and admonishing them if they were being too loud. All around, the night songs of the native frogs were loud and bright and unchanging.
The tears were falling from his eyes long before he noticed the wetness on his cheeks.
He was going to see her, that fall. He was going to start anew off-colony, like he hoped his son would. He was going to be with her again.
And now she was gone. Crushed by a car that was going too fast and lost control. Pinned between two tons of steel and an unyielding brick wall, not 20 feet from her front door.
His son told him this with his quiet, flat tone that night. Told him that she and Duo, not uncommonly, had a spat before he stormed off. Told him Duo hadn't spoken or shed a tear since returning home and finding an ambulance parked in his spot.
Odin choked back a sob, trying to wipe away at the hot tears, but they wouldn't stop. He knew stopping them would make the pain worse.
Perhaps he should tell Duo that.
Heero was awake long before sunrise, a habit that he apparently hadn't lost the whole time he had lived with Helena and her boy. By the time his father and grandfather were up, he had made the coffee and fed the chickens his grandfather still insisted on keeping.
"Had the bread man come by yet?" Odin said in greeting that morning, completely unfazed by his son's presence by the sink as he shuffled into the open living area, his face stubbly and his pale hair in disarray.
"Just now," Heero replied, pointing with his chin at the fresh long rolls, still in its paper sleeves, resting on the table.
Grunting his approval, Odin grabbed his toothbrush and the paste from the counter and walked out onto the porch. As he started brushing away the foul taste in his mouth, however, something, or rather someone, caught his eye.
"Heero?" he called into the house, the brush still in his mouth.
"Yes, Father?" Heero replied as he approached, a cup filled with water in his hand.
"Did you know Duo was here?" he asked, taking the offered cup before nodding his head towards the other boy's general direction. He was there, on their property, sitting on the white-washed glider swing Heero's late mother bought years before. There was no movement, and all Odin could make out was the boy's hunched figure, but there was no mistake as to who it was.
"Of course," Heero replied, looking instead as the expanse of green jungle that swallowed the mountains whole, just beyond the trimmed lawn. "I also bought donuts from the bread truck, if that's okay."
"You're going back with him, no doubt," Odin said, his mouth filled with white foam as he vigorously brushed away.
"If he's going back," his son admitted, his back as straight as Odin as always seen. "His grandmother talked to him last night about staying."
"Heero," Odin growled softly, his voice barely articulate with the brush still in his mouth.
"I promised him, Father." There was no escaping the determination on Heero's face. "I said I would be with him." His expression softened and developed a sadness as he continued. "Besides, it's still better for me off-colony, remember?"
That it still was, and Odin did not comment further.
After a moment, Heero walked off the porch towards the glider swing. Perhaps, in an hour or two, the boy's relatives will walk down the 500 meters of gravel road that separated Odin's family home from Helena's. Heero, leaning closed to Duo's lowered head, gently guided the other boy off the swing and towards the house. Perhaps tempting him with hot chocolate and the sugar-dusted donuts waiting in the kitchen. His son has never underestimated the power of comfort food.
His father, grumbling under his breath behind him, shuffled to a spot on the porch beside Odin. Looking out at the pair slowly making their way from the glider swing, the near-blind man harrumphed once more. "Seems that a lost puppy followed Heero home," the old man said as he prepped his own brush with the toothpaste.
"Certainly seems so."
Even at the burial, Duo hadn't uttered a sound.
Heero sat beside him as they were driven back up the mountain by one of Helena's brothers, a loud, dark man who was sniffling and trying to keep his tears at bay. The procession back to the mountain was a tad smaller than the one to the graveyard Ms. Helena was now buried away. In front of them was his father's car, which carried Duo's grandparents and Ms. Helena's two sisters. Behind them was Ms. Helena's other brothers as well one of her cousins.
At the very end of the five-car procession was Duo's father's car. He and two women Odin pointed to Heero out as his wife and his mother, had come to the funeral. Heero remembered clearly the dark look Mr. Maxwell had given the way they held hands at the airport, and wasn't surprised when the older of the women, wizened and bitter-looking, glared at him with true loathing.
Despite the looks Ms. Helena's family as well as Heero's father was giving the trio, they had insisted on following them back. Perhaps they wished to speak to Duo, after failing to do so over the last few days.
As expected, Mr. Maxwell barely waited for his car to stop before cutting off his engine and rushing towards them, even as his wife and his mother stayed inside the small, four-cylinder coupe. Heero could see the worry roll into Duo's eyes like a slow fog.
"Duo," he nearly shouted, a loud, frightening sound in the midst of the mourning. "Pack your things and let's go."
"Where are we going," Heero said as the large man barreled to a stop in front of them, irritated slightly that the man as ignored his presence once again.
"This doesn't concern you, boy," Mr. Maxwell said as he grabbed his son's upper arm and tried to wrestled him away from Heero. As if he would let that happen.
Almost immediately, Odin and Ms. Helena's very formidable brothers surrounded them. Behind Mr. Maxwell, he could see the rest of Ms. Helena's family surrounding them, being sucked into the scene. "I suggest you back away now, Maxwell," Odin said, his voice a dangerous rumble that formed in the back of his throat.
"He is my son and he is coming with me," the man practically bellowed, yanking one more time at Duo's arm, making him the quiet, unresponsive prize in their tug of war.
"He's not going anywhere, especially not without me," Heero said in his low voice, hoping he drew as much rumbling menace into his words as his father had.
The man's head jerked back to Heero, his eyes narrowing behind his tinted glasses. "And I bet I know why," Mr. Maxwell said with a sneer. "Oh, I know all about you, Heero Yuy," he said, his face turning even more vicious as Heero's eyes widened in fear.
"I know all about you and your tendencies. The reason why your father moved back up to this mountain, and you were sent off-colony. Oh, yes," he sneered, pressing close to Heero, pushing him backwards a step, "I asked around, and you would be surprised at all the interesting stories about you." Mr. Maxwell lowered his head towards Heero in a threatening, leering manner as he whispered, "Bet you can't wait till my son fucks you like the little fag-whore you are."
He wasn't certain who moved first. As Odin's fist connected to Mr. Maxwell's jaw, Heero pulled away from Duo's hand. But, as Mr. Maxwell stumbled away, letting go of his grip on Duo's arm, Duo's hand gripped on Heero's hand, not letting him step away.
Confused, he turned to look at Duo's face, yet he found nothing outside the blank unresponsiveness.
He felt a hard, bony hand gently fall on his shoulder. "I suggest you go, Solo," Duo's grandmother said in a steely tone from behind him. "Your mother seems to be having a heart-attack."
Biting back another angry retort, he wiped at his lips and glared at them. "I'm not leaving without my son." he said, stumbling a bit on his feet.
"I'm not leaving with you," Duo quietly muttered, slowly looking up at his father. "I'm staying here."
"Duo," Mr. Maxwell started, only to be forced to find his response on Duo's back as he walked into the house, dragging Heero behind him.
"Go, Maxwell," he heard one of Ms. Helena's uncles said as he was led to one of the bedrooms.
"Duo," he said softly, trying to coax some more words out of Duo, but as he pulled him to sit on the made bed, no explanation was forthcoming.
Mr. Maxwell's exit was a roar of wheels mercilessly crushing gravel.
It was then that Duo's tears began to finally fall.
---end
The scent of Heero's cooking was making Duo's stomach twist in pain and anticipation, but one look into the kitchen confirmed that he had to wait a little longer.
Silently bemoaning his fate, Duo shuffled his way to the fridge and pulled out a can of beer. With the cold edge of the can pressed against his bottom lip, he turned and looked at his man. The warm weather had gotten to Heero somewhat, and he had obviously opted for a shirtless look when he put on the burgundy apron and began to fry the chicken. The pair of jeans he wore sagged somewhat around his waist, exposing just a small bit of the curve of his ass before it disappeared inside the denim.
Duo found himself staring at that small bit of skin for quite a moment before something rather silly entered his mind.
Heero, somewhat oblivious to Duo's stare, had begun flipping the chicken in the hot oil over onto the as-yet uncooked side when he gave a surprised yelp. He turned at his waist, still in shock that someone had just smacked his ass, and caught Duo running out of the kitchen, unopened beer in his hand.
"Duo!"
"Love ya!" Duo yelled back, not looking back.
His stomach was growling, and he felt quite miserable as he waited for dinner to be ready. As the thought of getting a beer crossed his mind, he called out, "Heero?"
"What?" came the rather irritated response from the kitchen as Heero pulled his apron over his head and covered his bare chest.
"I love you," Duo replied as he changed the channel from the colony news to an afternoon western.
There was a silence of a few moments, then Heero replied, "What is it, Duo?"
"Nothing, Heero. Just... I love you." He gave Heero a bright, cheerful smile from his place on the couch and cheered himself when he saw Heero return the expression.
The cold can of beer pressed against his lower lip, he couldn't help but admire the smooth skin of Heero's back, from the soft hairs resting against the nape of his neck to the line of his spine seemingly pointing down to that hidden cushion of skin he wouldn't mind smacking right then and there.
Instead of that particular plan, however, he crept up on Heero and placed the lightest of kisses on the nape of Heero's neck. Confused, Heero turned away from the hot frying pan and his cooking to look at Duo.
"Duo?" he asked quietly. "Do you need anything?"
"Nope," Duo said with a light, if cheeky smile in between a couple more feather-light kisses on Heero's neck. "I'm good."
He placed just one kiss on Heero's skin, this time just behind his ear, before heading back to the living room, unopened can in his hand.
Heero gave Duo's back a bit of a bemused smile, before returning to his cooking.
---end
There's something disquieting in watching Duo sleep after sex. After he comes inside me, after I wipe away with some tissues the wet stickiness that threatens to keep me joined to him by the hips. After he pulls out and wraps his arms around me to keep me close throughout the night, a strange feeling envelopes me.
As his breaths float against the back of my neck, my hands wrap themselves around his and my mind doesn't stop churning.
Perhaps it's a flaw of mine, this feeling within me that, as soon as the wetness dries up, as soon as the dark, delicious night fades away, and the harsh daylight returns, he will disappear. That, one day too soon, he will evaporate with the wetness into the air.
Perhaps I watch too much Jerry Springer, and all his talk of the true temporary condition of relationships is starting to get to me.
I want nothing more than for Duo to stay with me, until the day we stop living, and even then...
I would turn onto my other side and look at Duo's face, almost desperately, as I try to find cause for my sadness in the lines on his face. We're both young, I tell myself, and it's very likely that we will ultimately grow apart. It's the inevitability of it that makes me feel so. There, in the shadow under his eyes, or perhaps in the fall of his hair...
As I think this, as I search his face, this face that I treasure, his eyes would open slowly, like that of a tired, content cat, and he would wake me up out of my thoughts and draw me back into his night with a kiss, light and tender on my lips.
I love you, he would whisper in our native tongue, and I would tease in a sleepy voice if he had been listening to the colonist radio station again.
He would grin sleepily, his eyes closing, and I would feel that the night could last forever this way, with just him and me in the bed we bought together, in the room we painted together, in the home that we created together.
And my flaw becomes blanketed in the cool, white snow of his love, forgotten until the harsh daylight melts my belief in him away.
---end
He could see Hilde and Sally showing each other frilly, candy-sexy lingerie inside. They weren't that hard to spot; the two of them were making quite a spectacle, over-cooing their approval of the other's choice, making blatantly overt suggestions about 'testing out' the material in the dressing room. At the moment, one of the sales associates was eyeing them with resigned wariness.
It certainly wasn't the first time he and Heero had to wait for them, outside the lingerie store, planted at the bench directly in front of the window displays trying to sell angel innocence along with their bras and panties. It wasn't so much routine as fate that the two women get sucked into the satin and lace every time they visit this particular mall and pass by this particular store, leaving them with the bags.
"They do this to us on purpose," Heero agreed from his seat beside him, a glower on his face.
"At least they haven't tried to drag us in for our 'male expertise'," Duo commiserated. The women used to derive such great pleasure in dragging Duo and Heero into that den of near-naked femininity. They only eased up on their insistence after a fabulous public display of insanity involving Duo and a blood-red push-up bra.
He saw a smirk on Heero's face. "They wouldn't dare," he replied.
"Thinking of doing something crazy if they tried?" Duo asked, doubtful that his soft-spoken lover would. He was always the more sensible of the two.
"Not necessarily. Just hoping for another display of your particular brand of sanity."
Duo leaned close to Heero, curious to see Heero's reaction to a small portion of his 'particular brand of sanity', when gasps from the lingerie store distracted Heero, turning his face away from Duo's nearing lips.
"They're at it again," Heero deadpanned, nodding towards the store.
And indeed they were. Duo takes his eyes from the pair for just one moment, and the two lesbians go at it, kissing each other over a rack of airy teddies as if they just one step away from crawling underneath sheer hems and taking this to a more primal level. Part of him wondered if it wasn't timed, if they weren't watching Heero and Duo, waiting for the best time to ruin their fun, even as they sat outside the store and were forced to wait.
He certainly wouldn't put it past Sally. She was a joker.
In either case, the very heated public display ended, and the two women giggled themselves out the store, hand in hand and grinning from ear to ear.
"Had fun?" Heero asked as he rose from the bench, grabbing the two bags he had placed by his feet. Duo slowly followed suit.
"We're gonna have a baby!" Hilde nearly screamed as she launched herself into Heero's arms. Shocked speechless, he watched as Heero's arms wrapped around the enthusiastic girl, a soft expression on his lover's face. A softness that he could almost call sad, especially as Heero whispered gently, "Congratulations."
Sally's hand was on his shoulder, squeezing gently. As his head turned between Hilde, who was now dangerously close to groping his Heero, and Sally, who was beaming an eerily beatific smile at him, he said the first thing that popped into his head. gHow in the world did either of you get knocked up with a dildo?h
He heard Heero groan as Sallyfs hand slid away. gNice to see youfre still as vulgar as ever,h she said, in a tone he could almost call teasing. gGood thing I wasnft planning on asking you.h
gPlanning on asking me what?h
gIf you wanted to be the daddy, dumbass,h Hilde replied, pulling away from Heero to give Duo a playful little jab on his arm. Unfortunately, the girl has never really learned her own strength, and that little fist landed with such a wallop that Duofs arm went numb for a second there. Seeing Duofs wince, she replied, gI didnft hit you that hard.h
gThe hell you did,h Duo retorted, trying to rub some feeling back into his arm.
gIfm assuming youfre planning on getting pregnant?h Heero asked, steering the conversation back to the topic at hand.
gHilde is,h Sally replied. gTherefs no way Ifm getting myself knocked up.h
gYeah, youfre much too manly for it anyway,h Duo blurted out without thinking, quickly moving himself behind Heero when he saw Sallyfs eyes narrow. Who ever knew her femininity was such a soft spot?
gNow Ifm certain we wonft be asking you,h she said darkly.
gLike I would want a kid,h he replied, feeling quite safe from Sallyfs wrath from behind his shorter, but much stronger, lover.
gYou donft want a kid, Duo?h asked Hilde, her face full of surprise.
gOf course not,h he replied, which was perfectly true. He already had enough problems in his life to deal with, without a screaming baby thrown into the mix for good measure. He would have thought that the fact that he was gay, and irreparably in love with another man, would have spared him from the very idea of having a child of his own. Unfortunately, those two women always had a way of surprising him now and then. gKids are other peoplefs problems, and I certainly donft need them.h
Hildefs and Sallyfs expressions changed from dark annoyance, on Sally, and sheer disbelief, on Hildefs, to something soft and piteously sad. Unsure as to what caused such a reaction (certainly Duofs words didnft cause such a thing, for they were said with near-righteous indignation), he looked towards Heero for some clue.
But Heerofs face was shuttered closed, and a blank expression remained. He knew this reaction, as surely as he knew everything about Heero. He only became that way when he was particularly upset about something, but... was it something he said?
gHeero?h he promptly almost shyly, hoping Heero would be willing to clue him in on whatever it was that was bothering him.
The sound of his name must have startled him, and he shook his head in a vague way, almost negating any more questions for the moment. gEverything is fine,h he said almost in a whisper as he adjusted the bags in his hands. gWant to go to the electronics store next?h he asked, finally lifting his eyes to meet Duofs.
No, not everything is fine, and Duo wanted to know exactly what he had said to upset him, but Heero was a stubborn mule, and if he needed to wait, then he would.
Hefs not going to let Heero keep this problem to himself.
---end
"Duo, mind if I talk to you for a bit?" Odin asked as he prepared dinner for the two of them. The night had already fallen, and the weather man had been talking about snow for that weekend.
"Sure. What about?" Duo replied as he brushed his drying hair, his eyes on Heero's housekeeping books as he tried to make some sense out of the boy's handwriting.
"Do you love my son?"
That made his hand pause for a moment. He had been flirting around Heero for a few months now, and they had shared a few kisses, but they haven't done anything else, and never when Odin could catch them. Had they have been obvious about what had been building between them? Had Heero hinted to his father about it?
"Heero is my son, so I know how he looks and acts when he is in love," Odin continued, answering Duo's silent questions, "and I'm not even surprised that he fell in love with you. He's too much like his mother not to. She too had a habit of taking in strays."
Duo didn't know whether he should feel insulted or happy.
"But I don't know you," Odin said. "And although I know that you haven't done anything too physical with my son, I don't know if you feel the same. So, do you love my son, Duo?"
Duo wasn't sure how to answer that. He really wasn't sure how to answer that himself. This was the first time he had started falling for another guy, and he had hardly fell in love with anyone before. But he thought of how nice it made him feel when Heero greeted them when they come home after a shitty day at the work site. How Heero's brand of flirting always makes him grin, even when if revolved around the fact that he continuously called him 'idiot' in a way that Duo could only call 'affectionate'. And then there was how Heero took care of him when his mother passed away, being by his side every waking moment, holding his hand and easing him out of the guilt-driven silence that he fell into.
But, what if whatever he was feeling was just gratitude for what the other boy have done for him? He took care of him when his mother died. He ran the house while he and Odin worked during the day. He cooked the meals and handled the money. What if it wasn't love, just gratitude?
Then again, if it was just gratitude, would he have felt as abandoned as he did when Heero started taking language lessons, lessons that kept him away from home two nights a week? Would he have felt the jealousy he felt when Heero talked about the people he met there? Would he worry that someone there would snatch Heero away if it was just gratitude?
"... I'm not sure," he answered with hesitation.
"Then maybe you should figure it out." Odin replied. "Heero has felt betrayed before, and he is no doubt taking it slow because of it. But if you don't feel anything for him, then I suggest you end whatever it is between the two of you before it's too late.
"I don't want my son's heart broken again."
Duo pursed his lips for a moment at the 'suggestion'. Laying the brush aside, he began to braid his hair.
After a long moment of silence, Odin asked in a more cheerful tome, "Also, did you hear back from that man? Howard something-or-another?"
"Oh, yeah!" Duo replied, the funk he was in forgotten at the sudden spark of excitement. "He said that he needed to see what I can do, but that's no sweat."
"Bet you're a natural around an engine," Odin said as he set a plate of food in front of him, right about the open housekeeping book. "Besides, Heero has faith that you'll get the job, so no sweat."
"Yup, no sweat," he said with a smile as he closed the book and flipped his hair over his shoulder and out of the way. Something told him that everything would turn out all right.
---end
Heero smiled at the sound of Duo's moan as he drew the other man closer to him. His neck smelled of soap first and grease second, and Heero knew he could spend the whole night on the floor, sitting behind this man and placing lazy, open-mouth kisses on the skin of Duo's nape.
There wasn't anything particularly interesting on, just a science fiction movie they had seen countless times already. Dinner had been pork fried rice and pepper steak from the Chinese takeout place around the corner. What made the night special was that, for once, the house was quiet and theirs alone, and it was only a matter of time before Heero's lazy kisses turned down a natural, sexual course, leaving them naked, sated, and sprawled in front of the TV for Odin to find (and embarrass them for) in the morning.
Duo, tilting his head to the side, began to stroke one of Heero's thighs as they rested on either side of him. "Wonder what we would do if we were in that situation," he said absent-mindedly.
"What situation?" Heero said asked Duo's skin, his eyes darting up at the screen.
"That one," he replied, jutting his chin and indicating with his nose at the screen. "They escape the bad guys by jumping out of a blown-out window and falling fifty stories. Just wondering if we could ever do that."
"Jump off a high building?" Heero rephrased. "Well, you are known to partake in back-yard wrestling and other risky behavior."
"Somehow, I don't think teasing Quatre's girlfriend or busting light bulbs on my back comes close to jumping out of a building. I mean, that guy ends up with a broken leg."
"Because he opened his parachute too late." He placed a long-delayed kiss on the side of Duo's neck. "I would think you're smarter than that."
"Yeah?" Duo replied, leaning his head as back as he could to catch Heero's lips with his own. Heero nibbled at the offering, licking at the taste of soy sauce that he found lingering there still. His hands, sliding Duo's chest on their own, followed the paths they have known for years and slipped underneath Duo's clothes.
The cordless phone they had on the couch hours ago began to ring then, just as Heero nearly had Duo turning to face him completely. Duo pulled away from Heero's lips with a lingering scrape of his teeth. Smiling a shy smile of apology, he reached for the handset. "It's probably just Hilde calling to chat."
"Then let it ring," Heero said as he tried to draw Duo's attention, and his lips, back to him. "You get her talking, and she'll never stop." That rogue hand of his slipped down and played with the fuzz of hair just underneath the hem of Duo's pants.
"You have plans down there?" Duo said, his hand still on the ringing handset, though his eyes were drawn to the more interesting of the two summons.
Heero only smirked as that rogue hand of his sneaked further down the fur at its fingertips.
A loud, urgent banging on their door stilled Heero's fingers at the edge of Duo's cluster of curls. It couldn't be his father; Odin, who had a key and didn't need to knock. He had gone to watch the cockfighting a couple blocks down the street, and that wouldn't be ending for at least a few more hours. He groaned mentally as Duo handed him the phone and pulled away completely.
So much for a nice, quiet night at home, he thought as he answered the phone with the press of a button.
So much for a nice, quiet night, Duo thought as he opened the door, not surprised in the least to see Hilde on the other side. "Had fun trying to break through my door?" he asked the woman, spotting Sally's tall, blonde head behind her.
"Heero's home, right?" Hilde asked, not bothering with pleasantries as Duo moved to the side to let the visibly pregnant woman move past him and into the house. Hearing Heero answer the phone, she moved towards the sound, focused on her goal.
"She's been manic for the past hour," Sally offered as a greeting to Duo as she closed the door behind her. "I was planning on taking her to that new Italian restaurant that opened up on Rt. 80, but then she got an urge for colonist cooking, and wouldn't stop complaining until I drove her here."
"I think there's some rice left over from yesterday, but Odin may have gotten to it earlier." Duo looked over to Heero. He had gotten off the floor as well, and with the handset against his ear and an apologetic hand on Hilde's shoulder, he walked off to the kitchen, a serious, concerned expression on his face. He was talking quickly, softly, in the colonial to whoever it was on the other end. "Why didn't you go to 'Mountain Boy' if she just wanted colonist food?"
"Because their food is too greasy," Hilde answered over her shoulder as she waddled a tad to the kitchen, chasing after Heero even as he walked out the kitchen and onto the back porch.
Duo frowned at the behavior. "Well, I'm pretty sure Heero still has a few leaf-pies in the freezer."
Hilde literally cooed at the thought. "I love those!"
Duo smiled at the pregnant woman as he edged by her towards the back door. "One would think you're a full-blooded colonist, too, if you keep talking like that. Sally, could you fill the big pot and get the water boiling? I'll be right back."
Sally nodded at him as he walked through the screen door, listening for the sound of Heero's voice.
The back yard was barely 12 by 25 feet, and was surrounded by all sides by brick and cement, but along the side of the house, was a walk lined by a lush jungle of a garden that Heero tended well. It was at the end of the walk, by the evergreen bushes they had inherited when they had first bought the property, where he found his boyfriend. He was leaning his shoulder against the gate that lead out to the street. The sky just above the day care center across the street was a reddish darkness, and the streetlights were flickering on.
"Of course, I remember, but you know that it's not something I can just say yes to," Heero said as Dou approached. He could barely hear the person on the other end as he came to a stop at Heero's side, waiting for his chance to ask who it was.
He didn't even get his chance when Heero cupped the transmitter end and said in his soft, nasally voice, "Relena wants to come by."
"Hilde wants food, so I'm guessing we won't be left alone to ourselves for a while anyway," Duo answered, shrugging even as he implied his consent to having the woman over.
Heero removed the hand covering the transmitter and took Duo's hand, silently thanking him as he gave Relena permission to come around.
---end
Her smile faltered for a moment when she saw her father alone, waiting for her, but she quickly pushed her good cheer back to the fore. It wouldn't do to start her winter vacation on a bad foot.
"Hi, Daddy," she cried as she practically leaped into her tall father's arms, despite being 17 years old and already a young woman. She couldn't help herself, however. Despite the years, the man holding her, dressed in a sharp-looking polo shirt and khakis, seemed to have aged so little, making her feel so young in return.
"Hello, sweetie, how was your flight?" her tall, lanky father asked, smoothing her dark blonde hair down. She still only barely reached his shoulder, but something told her that height would just be another thing she wouldn't share with her father or her brother.
"Long," she said with a grin as she gave her father one more squeeze before pulling away. She glanced about, that trepidation she felt when she saw her father alone returning. "Where's Milli and Heero?"
"Milliardo was still at work when I had to drive out here," her daddy said as he took her bag, leading the way to the east parking lot.
She took a deep breath of the musty air of home with a smile as she followed. "And Heero?"
Her father shook his head, his long, white-blonde hair in a practical ponytail. "He couldn't make it either."
"Why?" It wasn't like Heero to not greet her at the airport. Since leaving the colony with her mother years ago, Heero was always available to greet her when she returned to see her father and Milli, and to see her off again when she had to go back home to her mom. Seeing her best childhood friend the first moment she stepped out of the airport arrival terminal was just as important to her as greeting her tall, long-haired father and brother with a running leap of a hug. He certainly had never let her down before.
"I'll tell you on the way home, sweetie," her father said with a reassuring smile that didn't ease her anxiety.
Her father lived in the southern former capital, a 45 minute drive down a highway through the mountains from the current northern capital and the main airport. After years of driving up and down that highway, she was certain that she knew each turn of the road and each carved mountainside that lined the way. The radio was tuned to a classical music station.
"Why didn't Heero come, Daddy? He usually does."
"Something happened a couple weeks back, sweetie," her father answered. "Someone... close to him was killed."
"Oh, my god, who?"
"Do you remember Triton, Catherine's brother?" At her puzzled expression, he continued, "Tall kid, hardly talked to anyone? HHJHis hair was always over his eyes?"
She knew him, but she always heard him called by a different name. "Do you mean Trowa? He's dead?" Her heart twisted with pain at the thought. She first met him a few winters back; Heero had introduced him as a good friend. He was almost enough like Heero that she liked him right away: quiet, shy, but with a serious look in his eyes that made her feel safe.
Her father's eyes were on the road, and his lips were thin. "That boy... was Heero's boyfriend," he said in a voice no higher than a whisper, and as humorless as grim death.
"His... what?"
"His boyfriend? Is that was Father told you?"
She rubbed at her cheeks and nodded, hoping that she wouldn't start crying in front of her brother. Never in all her years of knowing Heero did she think he would be interested in men. A naive part of her still believed that she would one day marry Heero, maybe even have a lovely house along the southwestern coast of the colony, overlooking the ocean and overflowing with children. To know that he loved someone else was a blow she hadn't expected.
Her brother, Milliardo, was nearly a mirror-image of their father. He too was a tall, lanky man, with long white-blond hair that gave him a cool aloofness that she couldn't imitate. Sometimes, she wondered if all she got from her father was his wide shoulders. "He said that they were together, yeah," she replied as she sat on her brother's bed, tugging at her hair.
"Well, considering the rumors, I wonder if that's even true." Milli sat on the bed beside her, his legs crossed at the knees. He was still half in his suit, his dark, conservative tie and jacket long tucked away for another day, the top two buttons of his white shirt undone.
Her head lifted slightly at the words. Was that hope that naive part of her was feeling? "What sort of rumors?"
"Just the usual ones when things like that happen." Her brother rubbed away at the pale stubble on his chin. "Something about Heero being involved with the leader of the local roughnecks, and that he was playing with both of their hearts."
"Is it true?"
"Haven't gotten around to asking him yet, actually." He rubbed a comforting circle on her shoulder. "He's been hiding in his house since then. The only time he came out was for the funeral, I think. But, considering how Catherine chewed him out, I don't blame him. I'd be hiding too."
"I want to go see him," she said, not for the first time that evening. She said it when her father parked the car in front of the house, and again when they took her luggage to what has been her room for so many years.
"It's late," Milliardo said, repeating the words her father said the last time she had asked him. "You'll just have to wait till morning, yeah?" He nudged her shoulder affectionately.
Milliardo escorted her to Heero's home the next morning, his presence allowing her to stay calm as they walked. She wasn't certain what she would expect when she got there, but having her older brother with her could certainly ease any tension she felt.
When Mr. Lowe opened the door, however, she wasn't certain if all that calm she had gained by being with her brother would be enough. Heero's father, who always seemed to her so awe-inspiring, with his darkly tanned skin and his smiling blue eyes, seemed defeated and ghostly pale underneath his overgrown fringe of blond hair. If that was how the easy-going Mr. Lowe looked, she didn't think she wanted to see how Heero fared.
"Ah, did you come yesterday?" Mr. Lowe said as he served them iced water. They sat together around the table in the kitchen. Milliardo thanked Mr. Lowe as he drank from his glass.
"I wanted to come sooner, but Daddy said it's best to wait till morning," she said, wringing her hands out of nervousness.
"It's alright. Your father just didn't want you to impose, and besides, I'm sure you had a long flight and needed the rest," Mr. Lowe said with a half-flirtatious grin, causing her to blush at the sight.
"Daddy told me that something happened, but..."
Mr. Lowe's smile turned down a bit at a corner. "Yes, the last couple of weeks have been... difficult for Heero."
"Daddy said Trowa died, but... he didn't get into details." Her father severely disapproved of gossip, and would have frowned at the idea of his daughter asking for all the gruesome details. Her brother, too, though not as disapproving, was never one to pay any real attention to other people's talk. Neither man would be able to tell her what happened; and yet, she needed to know. Partly to satisfy her curiosity, and partly to truly understand what Heero was going through.
"I'm not sure if I'm the one that should be telling you what happened," Mr. Lowe said, scratching at the stubble on his chin. "It's Heero's business and he may get mad at me for telling you with out his permission."
"It's alright, Father," Heero said, suddenly appearing by the doorway that lead to the living room and the rest of the one-floor house. He didn't look as bad as she had first imagined, but he did look a lot worse than she had ever seen him. He was much skinner than she remembered, with dark circles under his eyes and his hair even messier than usual. In the extra-large jersey he had slept in, he looked exhausted and completely rundown. She immediately got to her feet and rushed to his side.
She touched his arm, her eyes searching his. "Better to hear it now than to guess from all the rumors," Heero said, his lips trying out a brave smile for her and failing.
---end
When Heero left the motel that morning, he was exhausted and feeling reckless. The way down the day before was a swift, 16-hour affair with a stop or two for the restroom and a burger while Relena sat beside him, switching from silent tears and heavy silence. The return trip didn't have the same sense of urgency, and took much longer than he wished, but he was hard-pressed to get back home, not so much for Relena's sake than for his own.
He didn't get off the highways until just before 3 AM. By that time, he was still functional only through the gracious help of a large cup of donut-shop coffee he bought so many miles back. By the time he turned onto his street some 15 minutes later, the coffee was all but failing him.
He slid into the spot behind Duo's red Ford, his eyes blearily making sure he didn't tap the station wagon with his bumper as he brought his blue-green Nissan to a stop.
He was functioning on auto-pilot. Radio, air, and the engine were turned off in that order, with the lights turning off on their own. He very nearly stumbled onto the ground as he climbed out of the car, closed the door softly, and activated the alarm. The activation sound was rather loud in the near silence.
He tackled the front door next, his feet falling noiselessly on the painted cement steps. His hand fumbled sluggishly with his keys as he yawned. What little caffeine he still had in his system seemed to be giving up so close to goal.
The black outer door unlocked with a sharp click and opened with a noisy shudder; the green inner door unlocked with a hybrid click-thud and needed a bit of nudging from Heero's shoulder before it could be pushed inwards.
He closed and locked both doors as quietly as possible, no mere feat when both doors refuse to be silent. A few clatters and thuds later, he moved towards the stairs. He toed his shoes off by the doorway and dropped his keys on the couch. The coat was draped weakly over the top of a dining table chair before it slipped onto the floor in a heap of synthetic materials as soon as his back was turned.
He took the stairs slowly, feeling his way in the darkness and keeping his feet from hitting a creaky floorboard unexpectedly and keeping himself from swaying too much from the exhaustion. He heard his father's snoring in the room to the immediate left of the stairs, the buzz-saw snores coming through loud and clear despite the closed bedroom door. There was a faint light glowing from underneath the door at the end of the hall to the right, the one that led to the bedroom he shared with Duo.
He went into the bathroom to expel what little he had in his bladder, using only the dim glow of a cheap, plug-in nightlight for guidance. He contemplated for a moment on taking a shower, but even as he decided against the idea, he realized that he was standing by the tub, naked except for his undershirt, his hand already turning the water on. Admitting defeat, he wearily moved his shed clothing and the undershirt towards the hamper with his foot and washed up as quickly as he could in the near-dark bathroom.
He dried himself off with his towel and placed his shed clothing in the hamper before tying the towel around his waist and walking to his bedroom. The light glowing underneath the door was a flickering blue, and the first thing he saw when he opened the door was the TV, tuned to an infomercial, muted and garish.
The second thing he saw was Duo, sleeping on the far side of the bed. He was on his side, with an arm tucked underneath his head. He was facing the TV and the door, with a magazine opened in front of him and the remote control by the fingers of his other hand.
Heero quietly cast aside the towel and searched for something to sleep in, a T-shirt and a pair of clean underwear, by the light of the TV
He dressed and closed the magazine, placing it on the bedside table. He turned off the TV with the remote control before laying that aside as well. He slipped under the covers carefully and snuggled into the warm blankets. He felt the exhaustion pulling his eyelids down as he settled onto his side, facing Duo. He stared at the other's relaxed features and smiled.
"If you weren't pretending to be asleep," he said drowsily, feeling his own face slacken wearily, "I would have kissed you by now." Duo's eyebrows twitched a bit at the words.
"What gave me away?" Duo asked in a soft voice, sounding only slightly more awake than Heero felt.
His slack features managed an amused expression, which, in the dark, Duo couldn't see even if his eyes were open. "You snore," he replied.
Duo snorted as he draped an arm around Heero's waist. They drew close to each other, enough so that Duo's nose bumped against Heero's. "I don't snore," he protested weakly against Heero's skin.
"My father says that as well, and he sounds like an outboard motor." Heero matched the arm around his waist with a hand toying with the loose strands of Duo's hair.
Duo grumbled out a few amusing, incomprehensible syllables in his defense into the air between them. Heero leaned his forehead against Duo's, his eyelids too heavy to keep open any longer.
"I'm sorry," Heero said. "For yesterday."
Duo snorted with some humor, but Heero couldn't tell if it was good-natured. "A more considerate man would have called before running away with his ex-wife," he mumbled as he tilted his head upwards and wormed his body closer to the warmth of Heero's body.
Heero, too tired to do much other than compromise and sleep, replied softly against Duo's hair, "She's practically my sister, Duo."
Duo mumbled something unintelligible against Heero's skin as his hand slid up Heero's clothed spine, mumbles that didn't amuse Heero as much as before.
Heero's fingers played with the loose strands of Duo's hair, feeling the fine strands slide between his fingertips. Sleep was being held back, just slightly, and for a longer moment than Heero had thought possible only minutes before. "Am I forgiven?" he whispered, finding his lips close to the lobe of Duo's ear.
"Do you think you deserve to be?" Duo whispered back, his head pulling away a short distance. His eyes were open now, only just, the whites of them faint and just visible.
"Only if you think so."
Duo's answer came in the form of a faint brush of lips against Heero's, a soft, transient warmth that lingered after the lips drew away.
"I'm glad you're home."
---end
Duo was feeling downright awful that afternoon, the sort of awful sensible, sane people would go to the hospital for. Duo, on the other hand, was at work, fixing Ms. Noventa's iffy transmission with a smile, even as his body was shutting down on him. At some point, he must have fainted or collapsed or succumbed to dizziness, because, one moment he was tightening a bolt and the next he was stretched out on Howard's couch with a damp cloth on his forehead and his boss standing over him, tapping his cheek slightly in an attempt to rouse him.
"You alright, kid?" Howard said peering at him over the rim of his shades for a moment, before pushing the dark sunglasses up.
Duo tried to move to a sitting position, but his arms felt heavy and his eyelids even more so.
"Well, that answered my question, didn't it?" Howard joked slightly as he placed a gentle, but firm hand on Duo's shoulder, keeping him down. "I thought you were looking a bit under the weather. Hilde thought it would be a good idea to call your house and get someone to pick you up."
Duo thought that was completely unnecessary and told Howard so, complete with a self-defeating roll of his eyes and a weak push against Howard's hand.
"I doubt you'll be able to make it through the rest of the day, fainting left and right."
"I only fainted once," Duo said, indignantly.
Hilde popped her head into Howard's office, her short hair pushed out of her face with a bright headband. There was a stray smudge of grime or two on her work jacket. "Heero said he was coming over right away," she said before popping away again.
"You didn't have to call him. I'm fine," Duo protested, trying to call after her. Howard's grey eyebrow rose skeptically. "I just need a nap," he compromised.
Howard's mustache twitched as he gave Duo a smirk. "Just stay put and rest."
About a half-hour later, Heero appeared, barely winded from the bicycle ride down to Howard's garage and still dressed in the tank top and biker shorts he wore when he cleaned house. He looked completely unruffled, despite the flush high on his cheeks and the flash of worry in his eyes as he walked into Howard's office and headed straight for Duo.
"That was fast," Duo said, half-amused as Heero took the cloth off his forehead, replacing it with the black of his hand. His skin felt cool to Duo and he closed his eyes at the pleasure of the sensation.
"You look horrible," was Heero's assessment as his hand drifted downward, palm-down, to the side of his neck.. "You should have stayed home today."
"I have been sick before, Heero," Duo protested weakly, feeling comforted just from the feel of Heero's hand on his throat.
"Hilde said you fainted while you were working," Heero countered. "You could have hurt yourself."
Duo didn't reply, only letting out a sigh as his eyes closed again. Heero's cool hand roamed here and there on his pale, feverish skin, brushing his bangs back and cooling his brow for what felt like a blissfully long time. Cracking a weak smile, he opened his eyes and said, "So you're gonna take me home, Mom?"
"Unless you want to go to the hospital..."
Duo shook his head once at the idea. "I'm not that sick."
Heero frowned at the comment, but he let the idea go, at least for the time being. With another cool brush of his fingers against Duo's fevered brow, Heero stood up and went to speak to Howard.
The bicycle was sticking out of the car haphazardly on the drive home. Aside from that, Duo couldn't recall for he was half-lucid for much of the ride. He did make his way into the house on his own, mostly to prove a point, but made it no farther than the couch, onto which he collapsed gracelessly, gasping for air.
Heero dragged the bicycle through the house to the backyard, casting a look at Duo as he did so, before busying himself in the kitchen. It wasn't long before he reappeared, first with a bottle of cherry flavored cold/flu relief and a tablespoon, silently commanding him to take some, and then with a mug full of hot tea that smelled suspiciously like lemons and menthol in one hand and a towel dipped in a shallow dish of cool water in the other.
"Drink." He held the mug out at arm's length as Duo stared at the steaming mug as if it held bitter poison. "I put sugar in as well."
"What else is in it?" Duo asked somewhat shakily as he hesitantly took the mug.
Heero did not answer. He stood there instead, threatening to make sure every last drop of the vile concoction was drunk.
And it was vile. The lemons and the sugar helped the flavor, but it didn't mask the faint hint of oregano and the foul taste of camphor and menthol that he knew came from the mentholated cream Heero had melted into the hot water. Desperate to be done with it as fast as possible, he drank the hot tea quickly, nearly choking as a result.
Heero was there in an instant, rubbing Duo's back as he regained his breath and cursed the homemade cure.
"It'll make you feel better," Heero promised as he took the half-full mug out of Duo's hand and placed it on the coffee table in front of them, right by the cold syrup, the used spoon, and the shallow dish.
"Yeah, by killing me," Duo retorted as he hung his head in exhaustion.
Heero eased him back to lie down on the couch and sat on the coffee table opposite Duo's head, setting the shallow dish by his hip. He wrung the excess water out of the towel, folded it into a rectangle, and placed the cool fabric on Duo's forehead. "I knew you should have stayed home today.
"How could you? I wasn't that sick this morning," Duo said, turning his head towards Heero. Heero glared at him. "At least not that much."
Heero shrugged. "Perhaps I'm psychic."
"Ah, of course." Duo's head settled on the cushion and he stared up at the white living room ceiling before closing his eyes again. He didn't even realized he fell asleep until he felt a soft pillow being tucked under his head and a soft blanket thrown over him. Comfortably warm lips touched the edge of his cheek for a brief second, but he was asleep again before those lips drew away.
---end
They sat across from each other, each with a beer in hand. Heero, always the shy one, didn't seem to want to start the conversation. She understood why. She was the one that bought it up, after all.
The television was on, and just loud enough for her to hear the baritone cheer of the variety show Heero was watching as he waited for her. The others were outside, in front of the house, and sometimes they were so loud that she could hear them as well.
"I'm sorry, Heero," she offered, watching his long fingers caress the cool tin surface of his can.
"It's alright," Heero replied instantly, though she knew it wasn't, and was certain that he thought the same.
"I really don't know what came over me, calling you," she tried to explain, to excuse herself. "But... I knew I needed to. Even... even though it would have caused you trouble, I had to."
Heero bit his lip. "There's very little I can refuse you, but this is something Duo needs to be involved with as well. You do, understand that, yes?"
"I know how committed you are to him."
"Which is why I can't give an answer to this right away." His head tilted to the side as he thought. "Duo has to be as much a part of this decision as I am."
"But it won't be his child," she said, almost pleading. "He was agreeable enough with you fathering Hilde's child."
"He was, but Hilde's baby will have both her and Sally raising it. I'll be there, but it's a much different situation than if you had my child." He stared straight at her, his expression serious. "It will be much more than just 'us helping a friend'."
She frowned. "I'm not trying to steal you away from Duo."
"I know you're not."
"I just..." She looked at her hands, pale and soft and bare of any adornment. She was afraid of so many things, the least of which was growing into a childless spinster. Long ago, she thought she would be married by now, with a child or two clutching her skirts and this man by her side. So long ago, she was embarrassed to think of those dreams now, when she was feeling vulnerable. "I just don't want to wait anymore."
"Are you sure this is what you want, Relena?" he asked, his long fingers now skirting the surface of her skin. She clasped her hand gently around the cool hand. "We both know there will be other men."
"But when?" she said, feeling more brokenhearted than she did that afternoon, when her latest relationship collapsed disastrously. Tears were welling up in her eyes against her will. "I just..."
In an instant, he came over from his side of the counter and gathered her in his arms. She rested her head against his shoulder, feeling the shirt he wore soak up her tears. His large hand smoothed down her hair the same way her father used to do when she was upset, so many years ago. His strong arms held her as one would hold a small child.
He held her for a long time, though for how long, she couldn't say.
After a while, she pulled away and let out a breath in an attempt to regain her calm. Duo stood just outside the kitchen, his face betraying a worry.
"Something wrong?" he asked, a calloused hand against the doorless frame.
Heero wiped away a bit of moisture from her face with his thumb. "No... Everythingfs fine. Right?"
Relena wasn't sure, but as that thumb brushed away the last physical marks of her heartache, things appeared as if they could be.
---end
In vino veritas.
Heero was at the bar, getting them another round. He was leaning towards the bartender, half-shouting his order over the noise, his ass jutting out (provocatively?) towards them. The music in the tavern had a strong backbeat that had Heero's hips swaying from side to side, not too noticeably, but enough to make Duo's blood rush. God, for a chance to slide a finger down the crack of that ass...
"You keep staring, you're gonna burn a hole in those jeans," Odin said from out of the side of his mouth as he drank his beer.
Duo scowled at the man. "Why don't you go talk to that lady over there," he snapped coolly, pointing his nose to the middle-aged woman in the corner who has been knocking back one fruity rum drink after another all night. "She's been giving you the eye for hours."
"That's only because her glass eye is especially loose tonight," Odin replied easily.
Duo fumed as he drank what was left of his own beer, mentally tallying all the way he could kill Odin Lowe. Alcohol and a foul mood didn't mix well for Duo, and he was nearing the end of his patience with the older man.
He bit back all the angry, blunted words he wanted so badly to spew and allowed his eyes to wander back to Heero. The bartender was chatting him up, her hands busy as she popped bottle tops off and jammed lemon wedges in their place. Heero nodded at her words, saying a word or two in response, as he paid for the drinks and took the longnecks from her.
"And here is my salvation!" Odin cried out melodramatically as Heero placed one of the lemon-wedged imported beers on the table, right in front of his father. Eagerly, Odin pulled out the wedge and squeezed it over the mouth. "Although..." The juice dripped into the golden beer in weak, tangy drops as he looked up at his son. "I thought I asked for tequila."
"And have you crack another tooth on the pavement outside? Hn," Heero responded as he placed Duo's lemon-free domestic in front of him, his own beer still in his hand. He glanced at Duo, and Duo quickly tried changing his foul expression with something jovial and carefree. The way Heero's sharp eyes narrowed told him that he wasn't fast enough. "What's wrong?" he asked flatly, his voice low and lacking in inflection.
"Nothing, just thing that maybe we should get the tequila," Duo answered, a particularly nasty smile growing on his face at the idea.
"And maybe we shouldn't," Heero contradicted, his voice cool with warning. Without another word, he grabbed Duo's arm and pulled him none-too-gently up to his feet and led him towards a far-off corner of the tavern. Glass-eyed Jane watched them with her one good eye while Odin half-chuckled, half-muttered into his beer.
In the shadows of their own discreet corner, unfortunately by a large speaker, Duo had a sudden urge to follow up on that tiny fantasy he had while Heero was at the bar. The look on Heero's face, however, quelled that urge effectively.
"What's wrong?" he asked again, the tone more authoritative than before. Duo sighed and went straight for the point.
"Why is it that... everything I ask you out on a date, your father just happens to tag along?" he asked, exasperated. "I mean, I know you love your dad and all, but..."
"A date?" Heero asked, the hard, commanding look dissolving into something akin to surprise and confusion. "When?"
"When!?"
"You've never asked me out on a date, Duo," Heero answered matter-of-factly.
"What do you call that one time I invited you to go bowling?"
"Something you wanted to do as friends. I saw no harm in Father coming as well."
"And that trip to the Italian restaurant?"
"You said you wanted to go out to eat that night. You didn't tell me you didn't intend for Father to eat out with us as well."
"And the drive?"
"People usually don't just go 'driving', Duo."
"They do if they want some special time with their sweetheart."
"... I'm your sweetheart?"
"It's just seems that every time I try to take you out, the old man just shows up to chaperone the whole goddamn thing and it... really cramps my style." He ran his hands through his bangs.
"... I'm your sweetheart?"
"God what do I have to do? Actually say, 'Hey, Heero, I was wondering if you'll do me the honor of going on a date with me, and leave your father at home so that I may have a chance to have some of my wicked ways with you'-"
The black material covering the speaker was itchy through Duo's clothes, but he wasn't paying too much attention for Heero was pinning him against it and kissing him soundly enough to make him forget just what he was complaining about in the first place. His thigh was hot against Duo's, and Duo couldn't help but feel something hardening between them. Before Duo's finger could try out the crack of Heero's ass, much less become a bit more acquainted with the entire region, however, Heero pulled away.
"Duo..."
Duo, dazed, blinked a few times before Heero's face came back into focus. "Hm?"
Heero only shook his head, deciding against saying whatever it was that came to mind, a touch of a smile in the corner of his mouth. Duo, inspired, leaned forward a bit and kissed that smile generously, hoping to make it grow.
---end
Heero was giving the bundle in his arms a warm, shy smile when I came into the room. He was sitting in a visitorfs chair opposite Hildefs bed, covered in a white gown and whispering in colonial to the baby he was cradling gently. From the argument Hilde, Sally and Duo were having by the bed, the boy was still nameless, but that didnft seem to hamper Heerofs obvious pleasure.
I slid into a spot by Heerofs chair and stared down at the red-faced newborn, which not only did not understand his fatherfs words yet, but was also asleep and oblivious to the miracle of witnessing Heero actually trying to start a conversation. He wasnft much to look at, tiny, scrunched up and bundled in blue. His little fists, pressed against his chest, were as red as his face, and little wisps of thin black hair didnft compliment the boyfs appearance either.
I gently stroked one of the babyfs fists with my thumb and half-whispered, gI havenft seen an uglier baby since the day you were born.h
Heero snorted goodnaturedly. gDonft mind him,h Heero murmured against the babyfs hair. "Your poor grandpafs jealous."
gWe are not going to name him after your favorite fictional character, Hilde,h Sally didnft say so much as roared at Hilde, drawing my attention to her. There were spots of high color on her cheeks. gDo you want to scar that boy for life?h
gAt least Ifm not trying to name our child after an ex-boyfriend!h Hilde returned just as hotly the bed. She looked ready to leap out of it and take up the challenge, despite the fact that she still hasnft completely recovered from the birth.
gFor the last time, hefs an uncle!h
gYour 'uncle' is younger than I am!h
gInstead of all this arguinf,h Duo tried to argue from his position between them as peacemaker, gwhy not just name him after me?h Somehow, the sheer narcissism of that question was ignored by both women.
gWerenft they supposed to decide this ages ago?h I asked Heero, who was trying to block the babyfs ears from their mothersf fight.
gHilde kept changing her mind.h
gWe are not going to name him gRooster Cogburnf, Hilde!h
gWell, wefre certainly not going to call him eWufeif!h
A nurse stormed into the room, looking haggard with stress in her plain yellow scrubs. gLadies, please,h she tried to interject in her soft-spoken voice, gyou're disturbing the other patients.h
gI wouldnft name my dead parrot eRoosterf!h
gIfm not saddling my kid with that cheap joke of a name!h
gHow dare you call my name a joke!h
gNot your name. Her unclefs.h
gThatfs enough!h the nurse bellowed from the top of her lungs, shutting up all three of them long enough to let them hear the poor nameless babyfs screaming wails.
I chuckled in spite of myself as Heero tried to soothe the baby down with a gentle rocking motion. gMy goodness, he gets uglier by the minute.h
Heero ignored me this time as well as he whispered eshhf against the baby boyfs red, scrunched-up face.
---end
The building must have been abandoned for longer than Duo had first thought. The glassless windows were bordered up and a metal grated door was installed sometime in the past decade to ward against squatters and crack fiends. However, judging from the smell of unwashed and decaying bodies and the debris gathered at the corners, that measure may have been too little, too late.
The living room floor was less than functional; parts of the floorboards had collapsed into the cement basement below, exposing their hollow, termite-infested insides. Fire damage smoked the edges of the room and uneven rings of color on the ceiling marked past instances of leaks and flooding upstairs. Plaster has been smashed from the walls in several places, exposing wood and brick and wire, covering the floor with flecks and chunks of off-white. There were dark splashes of what used to be liquid, and what could have been blood, splattered here and there, including one eerie shape on the ceiling. Duo could not imagine how the room would have looked before its owners abandoned it completely, and he certainly can't see himself moving in.
Heero was moving through the wreckage in his all-purpose yellow high-tops with the agility of a cat. One toe here, half a heel there, and he was half-way across the living room before Duo realized Heero was actually serious about showing him the finer points of the house and was expecting him to follow.
He tried to mimic Heero, praying with each step that he wouldn't fall on one of the clusters of broken glass and that the shuddering wood underneath him did not completely break under his weight.
"Keeping moving," Heero advised without looking back, his sneakered toes searching for a spot strong enough for both of them.
"You're serious about this place?" Duo asked as he moved as quickly and as cautiously as possible. He must have looked ridiculous, half-running, half-hopping on the balls of his feet, the way amateur firewalkers do. He nearly did fell on Heero when he finally reached him, collapsing instead on the half-wall that separated the expansive living room from the dinning room.
"I like the outside," Heero answered as Duo straightened himself up.
Duo couldn't argue that point. According to the agent handling the property, the house was built nearly a century before upon the little mound of earth it was still sitting on in spite of the chaos inside. Its stately stone and brick walls, almost untouched by time, were covered with wild vines, and the grounds were unmanageable, covered as they were with shrubs and weeds that haven't seen spade or shears in decades. The untamed greenery surrounding the building only heightened the sense of otherworldliness the plaster and wood homes surrounding it just did not have.
"Yeah, but this place is going to take ages to fix up, never mind bringing it up to code," Duo stated as he peeked at the dining room area, not surprised that it hadn't escaped the ruin that had laid the living room to waste. "How much are they asking for this place, again?"
Heero's expression was a sour, crestfallen one. "Too much," he admitted.
"What about the place across the street from us?" Duo questioned. "It's not as nice-looking from the outside, sure, but at least that one wasn't abandoned fifty years ago." It was also a much easier fix than this place could ever be, he added silently to himself, staring at what he was certain was, judging from the accumulation of droppings, the remains of a prosperous bird nest on the far eastern corner of the living room.
"I don't like the old man selling it," Heero said firmly. "I know that preacher's going to cheat us somehow if we buy from him."
"Of course, he's gonna try to cheat us, that was people do, whether they're preachers or not." Duo shrugged and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "There's no escaping that."
Heero sighed a bit at the sentiment and edged away from the half-wall, cautiously moving back towards the door.
Duo blinked, watching him pick his way back. "What about the rest of the house?"
"I'm really not that interested in buying this place either," Heero replied without looking back to see if Duo was following.
"Then why the hell did we even come in here?" Duo asked as he carefully followed after him.
Heero shrugged. "Half-thought of showing you where they kept the bodies."
That made Duo stop immediately. "Bodies?" Duo repeated. "You're kidding right?" His stomach began to roll in a dangerously painful fashion.
Duo swore Heero's reply was nothing more than a grunt of amusement at his expense.
---end
I pulled into the parking stop in front of our room for the night, my heart still beating in panic time from my encounter with the desk clerk. My ears felt hot enough to boil water and cook a turkey. I didn't know what to make of the fact that Heero wasn't blushing furiously as well.
Heero held the motel room key in his hand. It flashed a bit in the growing twilight. He gave me a fleck of a smile that only made my overwrought, hormonal nerves rev up faster. "You're not having second thoughts, are you?"
No! No. I've been waiting for this night for months. Not even nerves could keep me from finally having sex with Heero. And my dick cried in pain at the idea. I shook my head. "I just... never done this sort of thing before."
"What, have sex?" he asked, bemused.
"Yeah... I mean, no! I mean... I have had sex before. Loads of times."
Heero wasn't chuckling, thank god, as he slid his free hand onto my thigh. He looked too amused for my tastes, however. "Loads?" he repeated, letting the letters roll off his tongue as if trying out a new word. Maybe he was.
"What I mean is this whole motel business, yeah? I mean, I have fooled around, you know. And I've done some freaky shit. This one chick I dated? Utterly nuts about sex," I blabbered away, wondering if Heero even understood half the words that came out of my mouth. God, I hoped not. "I mean, all she kept talking about when I did her was how much she wanted to tie me down and spank me."
Heero snickered as his roaming hand pressed against my groin. "Sounds like a good idea," he murmured. I think I squawked a little at the predatory look in his eyes. "Maybe we should try." I most definitely squawked at that. His hand gave me a come-hither squeeze before he pulled away and climbed out of the car.
"Hey!" I cried out after him as I hastily pocketed my car keys and chased after him. He was laughing at me, I knew it. He had already unlocked the door and was slipping into the rented room by the time I turned off the headlights.
Locking the car quickly, I followed him into the room. He was sitting on the large bed when I closed the door behind me. His hand was resting on the patterned comforter. He looked more relaxed than I felt, and part of me didn't quite know how to feel about that.
I tried to relax as well as I edged closer.
Heero rose to meet me halfway, giving me another fleeting, reassuring thing of a smile. He placed his hands on my cheeks and drew my mouth onto his, drew my body down over him to the bed. "We have all night," his lips pressed against mine.
---end
It was getting warmer in the shadows, Heero thought in a far off, detached part of his mind. The branches of the trees surrounding them where rustling weakly in the wind. A bird, hidden by the lush greens of the jungle, warbled to a friend, unseen. The colonial scent has long seeped into his pores, mingling now with the sweat on his brow. A tongue licked and suckled at the base of his neck. It made his back arch and his body shiver in spite of the heat of colonial summer.
The sun dappled down through the palm fronds, freckling his hands with shadows as they clawed at the debris-covered soil, looking for purchase. That mouth roamed down the planes of his long-bared chest, and found a nipple to torture mercilessly.
His head fell back with a whimper on his lips, overwhelmed by the added sensation of that tongue's wet flicks. His body was weakening under the multiple assaults, even as his legs tightened their embrace. He moaned.
The thrusts grew maddening faster, taking the moans as a cue. They were drawing staccato gasps of pain and mounting pleasure out of him. The hands were on his hips, lifting them higher off the moist, hard ground. His gasps turned into wordless groans as the cock inside him took advantage of the changed position and fucked him in quick, shallow thrusts. He grasped the shoulders with his dirt-stained hands, his blunt fingernails digging into the taunt, sweat-covered flesh, sliding into the soft hairs at the base of the neck.
He looked up at the large eyes, overwhelmed by how dark they were with need. A mouth descended onto his and he sucked on the tongue, licking the underside of the invading muscle as he would lick the hard member balls-deep inside him. Lips sealed themselves against his and an answering moan filled his mouth.
A hand fondled his balls briefly before gasping his cock in an almost painful grip. He clenched around the cock inside him in response. The mouth was biting his collarbone.
He came with a strangled cry, his head back and his body arching into the one above him. Hot liquid splattered onto his abdomen. The cock inside him prodded his prostate recklessly before thrusting deeply one last time and stilling, climaxing and filling him with wet heat.
His breathing was erratic as the body collapsed onto his, heavily pressing a wildly beating heart against his own. Their sweat cooled and the soft breeze chilled them. Their hearts slowed. A hot, throaty chuckle breathed out against his throat.
"I'm getting too old for this," the chuckle breathed out.
"And whose idea was it to come out here?"
"What's a vacation without vacation sex?" the chuckle insisted. "Besides, too many people in that house."
He played with the man's bangs, pushing them here and there and away from the ear lobe. "And whose idea was it to make it a grand family vacation?"
"That was Whachamacallit's idea, not mine," the voice muttered, affronted.
He snorted at the bad denial. He wiggled and adjusted his hips. A hand gripped his hip and stilled him.
"Wait," the voice breathed.
"A rock is poking my ass," he explained, which brought out that chuckle once more.
"Already?" The face rose from the crook of Heero's neck, the blue eyes alight with familiar mischief. "I guess we don't have to wait after all."
He playfully swatted at Duo's nose with the man's own braid of hair.
---end
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