Author's note:
I wrote this as a oneshot, but it got so long (nearly thirty thousand words) that my beta has trouble working through the entire story and it might work better split up into chapters anyway because of its size. So, this is a short first chapter, but it's all I have for you right now and I figured I've been absent for so long, I really needed to post something.
Yes, I am also still working on "Dirty Job".
WARNINGS (for Part One): Language, mention of sex, mention of bullying/harassment, mention of alcohol- and drug-use.
Beta: Shima Yi! :)
Pride – Part One
I'm Duo Maxwell and I'm gay as fuck. Like assless-chaps, sequined-tops, mesh-underwear, Gloria-Gaynor-"I-will-survive" kind of gay. But make no mistake, I'm a top.
I make no apologies for who I am, regardless of how uncomfortable I make other people feel, or how befuddled they are by my lifestyle. My coming-out story is succinct: "I'm here, I'm queer; pass the potatoes please, Dad". His reaction? Well, he passed me the potatoes.
In my life I've been many things, so I guess you could say I've been nothing at all, not really. I worked as a dog-walker, a nanny – until I got too old and it got too weird –, a personal shopper, a florist, a dance instructor, a diving instructor, a cruise ship waiter, and there was that awkward time I lied myself into a position as a masseuse at a health spa and didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I'm a personal trainer now. And I still don't know what the fuck I'm doing.
I'm excitable, boisterous and chatty and, depending on who you ask, I'm either personable or insufferable. I love puppies and kittens and other people's kids. And one time, at band camp-
"You can't write that, Duo!"
Duo blinked at his friend and pulled his laptop away from him. "Why not? It's true."
"It too true," his friend supplied. "You should tone it down a little."
"Isn't the whole purpose of a dating profile to introduce yourself? This is me."
The black-haired man scoffed. "The purpose of a dating profile is to present yourself as a datable individual, who isn't weird at all for falling back on online dating in the first place. So in your case: be a little less you."
"WuFei!" Duo whined and dropped his head down, cradling his face in his arms on the kitchen table.
"Start over," WuFei ordered; he leaned over and promptly deleted the short personal essay Duo had written about himself. "Write about where you grew up, about your hobbies and what you are looking for in a partner. Something normal. Pretend to be a respectable person."
Duo twisted his neck and peered up at the stern, Chinese man. "That sounds exhausting."
WuFei smacked the American upside the head. "Give that thing back to me." He grabbed the laptop and pulled it away before Duo could untangle himself and reach for it. He spoke as he started typing: "Hi, I'm Duo Maxwell… I grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I'm independent, I like travelling, working out, cooking and baking and trying new things. My best friend, WuFei Chang, is the most amazing man in the world," he had stopped typing and shot a cheeky look down at his friend, "but, unfortunately, he's straight, so now I'm looking for the second most amazing man in the world."
"Your lips are moving but all I hear is 'Punch me in the face. Punch me in the face'," Duo grumbled.
WuFei laughed and his fingers started to type again. "I'm looking for-"
"A six-foot guy with a nine-inch cock-"
"- a nice guy," WuFei insisted.
"With a swimmer's body-" He interjected with a grin.
"Who is passionate and enthusiastic about his own hobbies and wants to introduce me to the things he loves doing."
Duo imitated a gagging noise.
Ignoring him, the other man continued: "So if you're also looking for someone to share a life with, and you'd like to spend a Friday night on the couch with me-"
"-Exchanging blow jobs-"
"-watching The Food Network!"
Duo scrunched up his face. "You're making me sound like a feeder."
"I'd like to meet you," WuFei typed on, "and get to know you and do the things you love."
"A lesbian feeder."
WuFei slammed a fist on the table. "Goddammit, Duo. Can't you be serious for once?"
Duo sat up and defended his childish, antagonistic behavior. "How am I supposed to take this sappy shit seriously?"
"You're the one who has been bugging me to help you set up an online dating profile for the past two weeks!"
He slouched and lowered his chin into his palm. "I guess I had different expectations of it. It's weird."
WuFei sighed. "I get that," he said sympathetically. "But you weren't shitting me when you said you were lonely, right?"
Duo cast his gaze down, embarrassed by the admissions he had made to his friend when he had been drunk and freshly dumped…if you count your "boyfriend" of three weeks telling you he wants the freedom to fuck other men, while in the bathroom stall of a nightclub with another man, as being dumped. He may have been drunk, but his sentiments were not untrue. He was approaching the age of thirty-three and for the past ten years he had been living the life he thought to be the gay man's dream: trying all kinds of drugs, having sex with strangers, dodging responsibilities and living according to his own schedule and his own rules. But after ten years he realized it wasn't making him happy. He found himself being jealous of his straight friends, who had all settled down, married a nice wife, owned a nice house, bought a nice car and had nice kids – nice enough, anyway. His life was empty. He was a nobody.
Duo thought he could simply change and find the right person – the nice person he wanted to settle down with. He never had any trouble meeting plenty of people, but none of them shared his epiphany, none of them wanted to settle down. By his own engineering, he ended up surrounded by superficial people pursuing superficial, selfish goals: the next high, the next orgasm. He couldn't even find anyone to take him seriously; they laughed whenever he backed away when they were about to put their hands down his pants. Duo's reputation preceded him. That used to be a boost to his ego, but lately it made him feel like a cheap whore.
"You meant that, right?" WuFei repeated as he realized his friend had gotten lost in his own thoughts.
"Yeah, I meant it," Duo said morosely.
"Good, because I just uploaded your profile onto the website."
"What?!" Duo turned the laptop around and stared at the verification notification. "With that lame shit you wrote?"
"Duo, you have only gone on a handful of actual dates in the past decade; I'm married. Which one of us is the better judge to get you a boyfriend?"
"Probably not the straight guy between the two of us," he deadpanned.
WuFei slammed the laptop shut. "Give it some time, okay?" He got up from his seat and patted his friend's shoulder in support. "I'm going to head home. Don't even bother trying to delete your profile; I changed the password." He flashed a grin. "This will be fun."
"You know what else is fun?" Duo bantered. "Killing my best friend."
"Doesn't sound like fun to me."
"Well, how would you know? You haven't tried it."
WuFei waved at him dismissively. "Just relax. What's the worst that could happen?"
Four days later Duo walked into the gym for work, as a completely unsuspecting victim of "the worst that could happen". In the past few days, he had gotten some email responses to his profile on the dating site, but none of the men who had reached out to him sparked his interest. Their profiles were as bland as his was; perhaps they too had a meddling friend, much like him, and they deserved the benefit of the doubt. But he never replied to "Sweater-Vest" Sam, "Look at Me, I Went to Yale" Jeremy, Phil the Accountant, "Posing by My Car" Akai, or any of the other guys. The problem was, they were all too normal and too respectable, exactly the kind of guy "Binge Watching Food Network" Duo would attract – imitation Duo.
Mulling over his misery, he strutted into the staff locker room and unlocked his personal locker to stuff his bag with a fresh change of clothes into it. He was already wearing his track shorts and a sports vest layered over a tank top.
Suddenly his locker was slammed shut and he stared at the pale hand pressed against the grey metal.
"Good morning, Mister Independent from Chattanooga, Tennessee," his colleague teased.
Oh God. "What?" Playing dumb seemed to be the only valid strategy.
In a prissy voice the other pestered him: "I'm Duo Maxwell. I like cooking and watching the Food Network and taking long walks on the beach."
"Go take a long walk off a short cliff, Dorothy," he retorted and stormed off. They had a friendly enough relationship that he could handle her regularly mocking him, but this particular subject was sore.
"Oh, come on! It's funny!" She followed him out of the locker room and into the main area of the gym.
Duo navigated between the rows of cardio equipment to the weights section in the back and started getting ready for his first client of the day: preparing a selection of the weights they would be using, rolling out a mat, and placing bottles of water at the ready.
"I really like that picture you used," Dorothy continued to badger him. "Turtleneck. Very bold."
He tried his best to ignore her.
"Let me guess, you had some help from our friendly neighborhood China-man."
"I'm pretty sure that's offensive."
"Hm." She took the accusation into consideration. "Stoic-man? Super Stoic-man?"
He grabbed two towels from a cabinet and put them by the bottles of water he had lined up. "How did you even find out?" Duo wondered.
"You know Gordon Mullins?"
He searched his memory briefly and then concluded: "Your Wednesday four-thirty?"
"Hmhm. So, he was here yesterday and I had him on the treadmill – sight for sore eyes that man is," she remarked sarcastically, "all red-faced and sweaty. Anyway, he asked about you, in a roundabout way. I didn't even know he was gay. But what he ended up asking was whether a guy like you would really consider dating an 'average' guy like him. After a little back-and-forth, he told me about your profile on this Regular-Joe dating site."
Duo released a deep sigh. He should have known there was a risk of his other friends and colleagues discovering his digital dating venture. For some irrational reason, it was embarrassing. He felt desperate and unwanted, like he couldn't even pretend otherwise because the truth was out.
"It's a joke though, right?"
"Why would you say that?"
"Oh, fuck you, Duo!" She let out a hearty laugh and punched his shoulder. "As if you would ever consider dating any of those losers on that website. I did my homework! ' '? More like: 'Left-over-Bin-R-us'," she ridiculed.
He cringed. "I don't think that's fair to say."
"Shut u~p," Dorothy drawled. "Don't pretend like you don't care about looks. You'd never fuck anyone below a nine. Except for that one guy who was maybe a five, but we all knew he was a pity fuck. It was Pride, he had the guts to ask you to dance – good for him. But that's not you."
He scrunched up his face. Not my proudest moment, but not for the reason she thinks. "And maybe that's exactly what I don't like about myself; what I don't like about my life," Duo shot back. "Yeah, I've fucked a lot of hot guys, but I think it's fair to say – after ten years – that that's not really the kind of guy I should be looking for or I would have had someone in my life right now, one that stuck around."
Duo quirked an eyebrow and put her hands on her hips. She challenged, with a mischievous look: "You'd date a guy like Gordon Mullins, just because he's the kind of guy that might stick around?"
"I don't know him," The tall man countered, "But what I'm saying is I wouldn't not date him because he doesn't look a certain way. I know I used to be like that, but it's time for a change." He nodded at his own resolve.
"Hm. I'll tell Gordon next week."
"Fine. Please do." He refrained himself from making a face as he pictured Gordon, sluggishly moving forward on the treadmill, about sixty pounds overweight and the worst choice of neon workout gear.
"Please do what?" Relena asked as she approached her fellow trainers, looking fit as ever in her black yoga pants and pink sports bra.
"Nothing," Duo said through gritted teeth.
Relena frowned and Dorothy draped an arm around her tanned shoulders. "Don't worry, I'll get you up to speed during the Pilates class."
"Don't you have a client?"
"She cancelled this morning. Got wasted probably."
"On a Wednesday night?"
Dorothy cupped Relena's pretty face. "Oh, my sweet, innocent princess."
The two of them walked off together just as Duo's first client stepped through the front door of the gym. He waved the man over and quickly went over his new workout regimen with him and fitted him with a heart-rate monitor around his chest before getting started.
If he was more petty, he would tell Relena that Dorothy has had a secret crush on her ever since she joined their gym as the resident dietician and Pilates and Yoga instructor last year – to get revenge on Dorothy, his frequent tormentor. But he wasn't like that. He also wasn't going to rub it in Dorothy's face that nothing was ever going to happen between her and Relena because the instructor was straight and regularly fell in love with her male clients.
Later in the morning the gym became busier. Duo had two clients in the morning and one after lunch; after that he was on floor-duty for the rest of the day: stepping in when people weren't using the equipment properly, giving advice and tips, and trying to sell two-year membership plans to curious walk-ins. Thankfully, he didn't have to interact much with Dorothy, but he couldn't avoid her every day of the work week. Their work schedules oftentimes aligned and they both mostly used the main area of the gym to work out with their clients, as opposed to the separate rooms they had for Pilates, Yoga, Zumba and kickboxing.
The clientele was an interesting mix of people. Most of Duo's clients were gay men who preferred the serious, focused atmosphere in the gym over the gay gym and sauna a few blocks over, and women who felt comfortable around him. Dorothy regularly complained about getting stuck with the "dad-types", who probably liked her because she was attractive, with her strong features and long, platinum blond hair. She was quite a sight. Brandon took care of the bodybuilders and WuFei had his own little "dojo" in the back where he trained people in kickboxing and martial arts.
Duo had this job for about two years, longer than any of his other careers. He liked it well enough, but he still felt restless. He didn't identify himself as a personal trainer. It didn't seem to fit him; nothing ever seemed to fit him. He wasn't a dog walker either, or a cruise ship waiter, or a diving instructor, and he definitely wasn't a masseuse.
Could he be someone's boyfriend? Someone's partner? Was a restless man like him even capable of settling down?
Hi. I like your profile. I like the Food Network too.
Duo rubbed his tired eyes. The blue glow from the laptop screen was blinding in the darkness of his apartment. "WuFei seriously needs to take down this fucking profile," he murmured. For the past month, uninspired messages like that one had kept popping up in his mailbox. He had lost his patience. He had lost his patience three weeks ago.
Dorothy thought it was altogether far too amusing to let it go, so she kept pestering him and introduced him to Gordon Mullins. Duo felt bad – it was obvious Dorothy had been playing tricks on the guy, pretending that Duo was interested, when he wasn't. Regardless, he went on a date with the man, feeling far too guilty to reject him when he had the courage to ask him out, stammering and all.
During the date, Gordon talked a lot about his koi fish. It got increasingly weird as it became apparent Gordon had named each and every one of the Japanese fish in his backyard pond and attributed cute little personality traits to them. Duo couldn't stomach his grilled salmon that evening; he kept imagining it had a name and a funny personality too. Gordon assured him it was fine, going so far as saying: "I have a dog too, but I don't care that people in China eat dogs." Cringe-worthy.
They ended the date with an awkward hug and ended up exchanging information. Duo felt too horrible to decline to give his phone number. Gordon called five times in the following four days. Duo never called back. That next Wednesday, Gordon didn't show up for his training with Dorothy – he never showed up at the gym again. This gave Dorothy even more ammunition to annoy him with. She introduced him to more guys – not any of her regular clients though, she wasn't a fool – and publicly cornered him into going on dates with them and pointing possible suitors to his profile on the dating website.
Some of them were nice guys, Duo was sure of it. But the dates were needlessly uncomfortable, unnerving and stressful. He didn't click with any of them, how could he? He was so preoccupied with trying to be polite and appropriate, and ignore the fact that he had fucked the guy seated two tables over in the bathroom stall of Rage, and the waiter at the Seafood restaurant he had fucked in the alley behind that very restaurant, and the cabbie… oh that cabbie…
If this is what dating is like, he thought to himself, I don't want it.
Cruising the clubs and bars for a hot fuck might be a shallow endeavor, but at least it was honest and uncomplicated. You could give a guy a single once-over and know if you liked him or not – liked him enough to fuck him, that is – and sex was fun and carefree in the sense that there was no deeper purpose to it. He didn't have to worry about hurting someone's feelings, or strain himself to focus on aimless conversation in search of something interesting to latch onto, or ponder what would be the right things to say or the right things to ask at the right time. It was exhausting and he went home with a headache every time.
A notification sound from his laptop pulled him from his musings; his cellphone in his pocket buzzed twice in unison with the sound. Duo moved the tip of his finger along the touchpad and opened the new message.
Hello, Duo. Dorothy introduced us. You still on for tomorrow?
Another sound, two more buzzes. A new message popped up.
This is Tom btw.
Duo groaned and let his face fall into his palms.
Duo gathered all of his dirty laundry in a canvas sack, searching every room for that second red sock that he couldn't find anywhere, and wiping his brow as the heat was insufferable. He hated laundry day – truly despised it. It was always so warm and humid in the laundromat down the street. His apartment building had its own laundromat, but he was pretty certain the mold on the ceiling was toxic, and if it wasn't, then his neighbor from 2C definitely was. To avoid both, he walked the short distance to do his laundry. The weather had been so hot lately that he had postponed the chore for too long; he had to put a ridiculous outfit together with the only remaining clean articles of clothing. Fortunately, he wasn't very self-conscious about his appearance. Fuck what other people thought.
He walked down the street with the sack hoisted over his shoulder and hugged the walls to stay in the shadow.
The laundromat was pretty empty. Most people had figured it was too hot to do laundry and they were right, but Duo had work tomorrow and he couldn't wear his gear for the third time in a row.
He picked a washer and dryer at the very back, far away from the sunbaked windows that radiated heat. He stood right under the air-conditioning vent, even the meager flow of cool air was a relief. During heat waves like this, work was the best place to be. The gym had excellent air-conditioning that kept the temperature at a constant, comfortable 66 degrees Fahrenheit; nice and cool, excellent for working up a sweat, or just to escape the sweltering heat outside.
The past few nights had been rough. Sleeping with the window open did nothing to cool down the air. He felt like he had been melting into his sheets, and he couldn't get much sleep under the squeaky ceiling fan. He put said sheets in one washing machine and used two more for his clothes. It was quiet anyway, so he had no qualms about using three machines. There were only four other people there: a couple folding towels together, an older lady doing a crossword puzzle as she waited, and a young woman shamelessly sorting out her delicates.
Duo took a seat by his machines and used his cellphone to entertain himself.
About an hour later, when everyone else had left, he transferred the three loads of wet laundry to the dryers and was about to continue his lonesome vigil when the door opened and someone caught his eye.
Walking in – paying no attention to his surroundings – was a younger man, in his late twenties, wearing skintight leather pants that he might as well have painted on, and a black, all-exposing tank top, tucked into his pants to emphasize his slim waist. The hem of the top dipped low, front and back, revealing most of his chest and the expanse of skin between his shoulder blades and the curving spine. Amused, Duo observed the guy as he made a beeline for the first washer and stuffed in a load of clothes. His gait and the movement of his arms was slow, tired, but precise. Then he used the second machine for all-whites, but Duo noticed there was something bright blue caught in the bundle of white clothes.
"Wait!" He called from across the room.
The man froze – only in that moment seeming to become aware of the other's presence.
Duo nodded at the load he had just stuffed into the washing machine. "There's something blue in there." The look he received was quizzical and it made him smile.
The young man – whose face he could barely see as he was backlit by the bright windows – pulled out the compacted bundle of white clothes and dumped it on a sorting-and-folding table behind him. He rummaged through the heap and pulled out a pair of bright blue underwear that Duo had caught a glimpse of before.
"Thanks," he said in a monotonous tone, but he had a nice voice, deep yet soft. He put the clothes back into the machine, minus the underwear, and turned the dials before pressing start.
The man's interesting attire piqued Duo's curiosity. Leather pants on a hot Monday morning; either there was an interesting story there or they would at least bond over sharing weird laundry-day outfits. So, he pushed up from his seat in the back and maneuvered around the bank of washers and dryers to go introduce himself. The man was perplexed at being approached and stilled as he waited for what was going to happen. Standing in front of him, Duo took a second to study the man's exotic face and big, blue eyes that peered at him from underneath messy bangs. His tousled hair had that delicious I've-just-been-fucked-thoroughly appearance to it; it looked soft and inviting. He wanted to delve his fingers into it and cradle the back of his head as he tilted his face to savagely kiss him. Duo smiled impishly, hoping the other couldn't read his dirty thoughts on his face. Those blue eyes seemed to stare straight into him and it was a bit intimidating, but Duo held out his hand nevertheless. There was a delay before the other accepted it and shook it.
"Hi, I'm Duo."
"Heero." The rolling R sent shivers down Duo's spine. When Heero dropped his hand back to his side one strap of the tank top slipped off his golden shoulder and he reached up irritably to readjust it.
"Nice to meet you."
"Okay," the other responded stiffly.
Duo's eyebrow twitched at the odd response. He tried lightheartedly: "So, you either had a great night last night," he pointedly looked down at the clothes he was wearing, "or, like me, you had a horrible morning this morning realizing you had nothing left to wear." His eyes lingered on the sharply defined collar bones and the dip in the middle that he wanted to lick.
Jesus, I'd crawl through a mile of his shit to get a taste of his ass. His thought shocked him and he assumed the perversion was fueled by the fact that he hadn't gone out in a while, put off by the whole "dating-thing".
"A little bit of both, I suppose," the other replied curtly.
"You do your laundry here more often?"
He shook his head. "My washer broke last week." It was apparent he only engaged in the conversation to be polite, not because he was interested.
"Oh, that sucks. I don't even have a washer, so I'm stuck here every other Monday." Duo laughed at himself awkwardly. He wondered why the guy was being so standoffish. He searched his memory but he was certain he hadn't said any of his inappropriate thoughts out loud, so why did he act so stung? He realized he probably wasn't presenting the best first impression of himself, practically drooling over him while dressed in swimming trunks and the "My best friend went to Paris and all I got was this lousy shirt" T-shirt that he had slept in that night.
"You really don't remember me?" The younger man suddenly asked, with his eyes narrowed.
The American scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. He felt a deep blush tinge his cheeks. "I'm sorry." What was he supposed to say? He ransacked his memories looking for clues that he had ever met this golden figure of perfection before, but he was certain he would remember him if he had. Maybe this guy was the one who had it wrong. "Are you sure we've met before?"
The full lips tightened into a taut line. "… I go to your gym."
"Oh. Well, it's not really my gym… but that's not the point…" He let the sentence trail off. "Did we train together?"
"No, I train with WuFei. But I've seen you there a couple of times and you came in to talk to WuFei once during my session."
Geesh, so you've seen me from across the gym and I walked in on your training once – no wonder I don't remember you. That's no reason to get all butt hurt. "Sorry," Duo said again. Realizing it wasn't going anywhere, he said: "I guess I'll see you around at the gym." He backed up and walked away, returning to his dark little corner.
He took a seat and held his phone up to his nose, but he couldn't lose himself again to the gay fanfiction he had been reading. He kept wondering about that guy – Heero – and his attitude. Honestly, he barged in on WuFei during his training sessions with clients so often that he still couldn't pinpoint the guy in his memory. He must be kind of full of himself to think that Duo should remember him.
He peered over the top edge of his cellphone and caught Heero staring at him. They both quickly looked away. Duo's face was hot and blood rushed to his ears and fingertips. It was unfair that he had to bear such embarrassment for not remembering this guy when he was probably just some kind of stalker psycho. The kind where cats go into his house, but cats never come out of his house. The kind whose idea of scrapbooking is cutting the eyes out of all photos. He let his imagination run wild, with nothing better to preoccupy himself with.
Waiting for the dryers to finish was the longest hour and a half of his life and he sprung up as soon as the machines beeped, one after another. He stuffed everything back into the big sack and was eager to get out of the laundromat. He hoped he would never run into Heero again.
He walked past him on his way to the door. The tension in his shoulders caused a dull ache. He had his hand on the doorknob when Heero's words stopped him dead in his tracks.
"We had sex, you should know."
He slowly turned around to face the other. Heero had gotten up from his seat and stood with his hands balled into fists and his shapely jaw clenched. Duo stared at him. He still didn't remember him, but the expression in those blue eyes assured him he was not lying. "I-… When-"
"Pride. Three years ago," Heero answered sharply.
Pride?
Something clicked audibly in his head.
The pity-fuck? He could barely remember it – he had been very drunk. Mostly he just remembered his friends laughing at him when he emerged from the restroom stall. The group of friends had snuck into the restroom and had been eavesdropping on them before. Duo had been mortified and felt bad about the young guy, who heard their mockery and slammed the door to the stall shut, locking himself inside. The guys started banging on the door and calling out to the kid, offering to do "their civil duty" and fuck him as well. Duo was handed a Jagerbomb and quickly forgot about everything, except one important thing: that he had been such an asshole that night that he had scared himself.
But that young guy – he used to think of him as 'that kid from Pride' – looked nothing like Heero.
Recognizing the lost look on Duo's face, Heero supplied: "I've lost about forty pounds and I no longer wear glasses."
Jesus Christ. Suddenly he remembered him. The kid had been chubby, had a face of soft, rounded features, wore thick-rimmed glasses and had an awful, short haircut. But perhaps the biggest difference between the kid and the man standing in front of him were the way they carried themselves. The skittish kid had his shoulders slumped and his head bowed and fidgeted with the hem of his clichéd rainbow tie-dye shirt. Heero, standing before him, was a completely different person, with his straight shoulders, proudly craned neck and self-aware stance, looking comfortable in his own skin and unafraid of anything. But the eyes… he remembered the unique blue of those eyes and the thick, black lashes that framed them.
Pride, three years ago…
Duo had been standing at the bar with a group of three friends. Not the type of friends like WuFei – he didn't even know WuFei back then – but the type that were fun to go dancing with and get drunk with; the type of friends that knew all the best clubs and could score the best drugs. Dorothy was there too, with a couple of her girlfriends. The guys were playing their usual, obnoxious game of waiting to see which one of them would get bought the most drinks by other men. Duo had been winning and that meant he was pretty wasted by the time someone softly tapped his shoulder to get his attention.
He had turned around and looked down at the short kid with a chuckle. He didn't want to be mean, it was clear the kid was nervous and the kid's friends, that had clearly spurred him on to approach Duo, were looking on with baited breath. But that tie-dye shirt was just funny for some reason – the reason may have been the joint Duo had smoked earlier.
The kid said something and held his hand out for a formal introduction, but the music was too loud for Duo to hear anything, and he definitely wasn't used to people reaching out their hands to him in a bar to shake hands, but rather just to grab at him. There was something disarming and endearing about the young guy, so Duo downed his drink and leaned in close so he could be heard and offered to dance. The kid smiled in response; an odd little smile where his pink tongue was visible as he pressed it up against his exposed teeth. It made Duo smile back at him.
Duo liked to think he was a pretty good dancer – he had been a dance instructor for a while, mostly teaching old people not to step on each other's feet during the cha-cha-cha – but dancing at bars and clubs wasn't really dancing, it was more rhythmic grinding. Before long they were both hard and started kissing and after about two songs Duo dragged him to the dirty restrooms and pushed him into a stall. They were both still wearing most of their clothes when Duo fucked the kid from behind. Duo was drunk and the kid's ass was tight, so it was over soon. He left and never looked back. He let his asshole friends harass him and even laughed at a couple of their jokes, without knowing why because he remembered thinking that none of it was funny.
"Shit," Duo breathed. The bag of laundry seemed to be getting heavier and the strap dug into his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Heero."
The other didn't respond. He looked away and the knuckles of his fists became white.
"I was pretty drunk and high and I-" He stopped as he realized what a pathetic excuse he was making. "I was an asshole." He waited and tried to read Heero's face, but the man wouldn't look at him again. "I don't know what to say. I don't think there's anything I can say." Nervously he remarked: "You look great!"
Heero fixed an ice cold glare on him.
"Sorry, that was totally inappropriate." It was Duo's turn to look away.
Nothing was said and finally Duo decided that it was best for him to leave. He moved slowly, to give Heero the chance to say something before he left, should he feel the need to. But the other remained silent and Duo ran home, ashamed of himself.
Edit: Guys, this is NOT THE END of the story! More to come soon!
Please let me know what you think, but remember that it was intended as a oneshot so don't jump to any conclusions about the characters :)
(Greetings from Europe, nervously awaiting election-results from the USA.)
Edit: Might be the end of the world though... :S