Chapter 4

The first part of their journey together was interesting to say the least. Duo was an endless book of information on living on the road. According to him, he had been almost everywhere, except for the thirteen colony states.

"I always meant to," said Duo, "But I never got around to it. Stupidity on my part."

The only complaint he had was Heero's choice of music. As Heero drove, the speakers played soft orchastra music. The music helped calm his nerves as he drove. When Duo took his turn at the wheel, the music had immediately been switch to rock and Heero spent four minutes listening to Duo sing along to "Eye of the Tiger". He admitted that Duo had a fair voice, but rock wasn't his cup of tea. When he tried to change the station, Duo smacked his hand away.

"Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole," said Duo and continued driving.

Heero was surprised by how quickly he had become accostumed to Duo's presence. By all accounts, Duo's cheerful, boisterous nature should annoy Heero but somehow, Heero found it refreshing. He was too used to the company of serious lawyers or the collected Wufei. Meilin was a force unto herself and learned to not figure her out. Duo was like a hurricane. There was nothing that stood in his way.

Now they were pulling in for the night into a town that Duo swears has a nice motel and great food. Since they didn't phone ahead, Heero prayed they had two rooms available for them. Luckily, his fears were unfounded when there was one double bedroom available. They booked it, splitting the fee and moved their overnight bags into the room.

"See, what did I tell you. Nice," said Duo setting his bag on one of the beds.

Heero had to admit that it was nice. Everything was set up neat and tidy ready to be used. The bathroom had clean towels for bath and soap and shampoo to use. There was a refridgerator stocked with water and juice and a small snack bar.

"It'll do," said Heero setting his bag down.

Duo gave him a sarcastic look.

"Well, I could book you into the Four Seasons if you wanted," he said.

Heero laughed softly as Duo's joke. Dressed as he was, one would think that Heero prefered a five star hotel, but really, he liked simplicity. This hotel was perfect for him.

"Okay, so, I know a great place to eat, and I only have one question," said Duo eagerly.

"What's that?" asked Heero.

"Do you know how to play pool?"

That was how Heero found himself in a very western style bar and grill thirty minutes later. There was a pool table and a jukebox set by one wall and the air smelled like old beer and barbeque. It wasn't a place Heero would usually go, but it did have a jubalent appeal to it. There was almost a room full of patrons eating, talking or watching a game on a television above the bar.

The food was good. Barbequed ribs with fries. Duo kept making delighted sounds as he ate, which made Heero laugh softly. When they were finished with thier meal and after a five minute break to let it settle, Duo challenged Heero to a game of pool.

Heero had no trouble playing pool. It was how he got half his college fund. The other half was spending hours at an electronics store showing customers how to use the computers they had just bought. Between studying, working and tests, Heero had no time for dating until he got out of college. That was when he met Relena and his life became how it was now.

Now, he watched as Duo racked the balls and set the cue ball on the table and picked up a pool cue.

"Do you want to go first?" asked Duo.

In response, Heero picked up another cue, sighted along the wood, shot the cue ball and two solid balls hit two holes.

"Solids," he said, smirking. Duo laughed and their game began.

"So, what kind of lawyer are you?" asked Duo as he took his shot.

"I told you I work for Sanq & Sons," said Heero. "We mostly do corporate work, some court if our clients get into trouble, or divorce work. That sort of stuff."

"'That sort of stuff'?" Duo said with slight critisism and laughed. "Sounds to me like you don't like your work."

"What do you mean?"

Duo took his shot before picking up a bottle of beer and took a sip.

"Well," he said. "It seems to me that you don't really like your job. You do want to be a lawyer, right? You did spend six years in school for that, yeah?"

Heero nodded. For years, even before college, he had studied to become a lawyer because he wanted to be repected by people and make good money, but he had to admit that he didn't find any satifaction with his work.

"Well, why do something you clearly don't like?" continued Duo. "Why not do something you do like with the skills you have? I mean, you have the ideal life. A successful lawyer, penthouse suite, beautiful girlfriend and yet you don't like it. Why?"

Heero paused to think, but he couldn't think of anything.

"Would you even have a girlfriend if you weren't a lawyer and loaded? Relena does have a unique lifestyle. I doubt she would go out with anyone who couldn't keep up with her." He took a sip of his beer before continuing. "You're another horse of a different color."

"What do you mean," asked Heero.

"You still dress like a city slicker, but you've obviously been in a country club before. You have have had hard beer before given how you're drinking that lodger and you're not squeamish about eating pub food. You're probably more comfortable here than those socialite parties your girlfriend drags you to."

Heero looked at Duo in surprise. He never thought of that. Relena did have certain needs, and Heero had worked hard to live up to them. Even the apartment at the Legrange was what Relena wanted.

He was shocked that Duo could read him so well. Heero was more comfortable here. Unlike the social parties, here he didn't have to pretend to be someone he wasn't. He could be himself, and it was refreshing.

It kind of annoyed him a bit.

"You don't know a thing about me," he said.

"Let me ask you a question, If you're fancy, new apartment was fire and you only had sixty seconds to grab one thing, what would it be?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"It's a perfectly legitimate question. So what's your answer? Is it the Chihuahua on the duvet?"

"What would you take?" asked Heero, because he didn't know how to answer.

Duo chuckled.

"Like I'm telling you," he said taking a drink.

Heero was frustrated that Duo was giving him the run around but a good lawyer got what they wanted with patience and subtly.

"Tell me about yourself, Duo," he said. "Where you're from, what you did, when did you come out?"

"Interrogating me, Mr. Yuy?"asked Duo playfully as he took his shot. Heero shrugged. The game was nearly finished and he was sure that he was winning. "Well, as you know I lost my parents and I was raised by my great-uncle, right? Well, he was also the priest for our small Alabama town. It seemed like everyone in town would come in every Sunday and listen to Uncle Eric preach.

"I was fifteen when I came out, or rather got caught. Uncle Eric caught me kissing Rick Vorhes behind my aunt's house. I was terrified he'd be disgusted or disown me or something. He just led me aside and told me that he understood my feelings and that God made me the way He wanted. Uncle Eric couldn't fault me for what was clearly God's intention from the start. My cousin Helen even understood.

"Only one of my relatives was against my choice of partners. My great aunt Sophia kept calling me hell bound if I kept associating with men and tried to force my uncle to keep me from doing those "sinful" things. She even tried to enter me into one of those rehabilitation camps. My cousin went to one of those. He's bi and Sophia made him go because she's his mom. He still won't talk about what happened there. Luckily, Uncle Eric figured out what she was doing and stopped her. Everything went on normally from there."

"Did you have a job?" asked Heero.

Duo's eyes looked downcast and he cleared his throat.

"Yeah, I owned and was head chef of a restaurant, but it went under and I couldn't dig it back up," he said before taking a drink.

"Oh," said Heero. "I'm sorry."

Duo shrugs. "It was a while ago. I'm over it." Duo aimed his stick with the cue ball and shot. The eight ball shot into a hole. He turned to smile back at Heero. "I win."

Heero nodded, conceding his defeat, and took a sip of his beer when a voice spoke.

"How about a game with us? Maybe a wager even?"

They turned to find a couple of young men who looked like they had just came out of college. The look on their faces told Heero and Duo that they thought they had found easy money. Heero and Duo looked at each other and Duo shrugged.

"Why not," he said. "How about you play against my friend here? I'm gonna get another drink."

He set his pool cue on the table and walked off. Heero racked up the balls and set a twenty down on the table.

"Double?" he asked smirking.

An hour later, after several rounds between both Heero and Duo, the young men became increasingly angry from their losing streak.

"You're cheating!" one said pointing accusingly at Duo. "There's no way you could have won three times in a row!"

"You're the one who challenged us," said Duo. "How coould we possibly be cheating you when you challenged us?"

"We want our money back," said the other. Duo looked at him angrily.

"What? But we won it fair and square!"

"We want our money, all of it."

"Now, come on," said Heero hoping to stop any trouble from accuring. "I'm sure we can come up with something. How about half..."

"No, all of it," said the second man, shoving Heero.

Heero stumbled. Normally, he would have quicky recovered thanks to self defense training, but he tripped over a stool and landed against the chest of a biker.

"Hey, watch it!" yelled the biker and Heero barely dodged the massive fist thrown his way.

XXXXXX

"Ow, that hurt," said Heero, shoving Duo's hand away.

"Don't be such a baby," said Duo, throwing the cotton swab soaked in peroxide away. "It's just a tiny cut."

"You're one to talk," said Heero, wincing when he pulled his split lip. "You didn't get kicked by that biker's girlfriend."

"Because I know how to dodge." Duo put some ice in a plastic bag, wrapped it in a towel and dropped it onto Heero's lap. Heero jumped at the sudden cold, but didn't move the ice from the bruise forming. "That girl can kick. I bet it's been a while since you've been in a bar fight."

"Yeah," said Heero chuckling. Last time he had been in a bar fight was in college with Wufei, and there had been more bruises involved. Wufei was a multiple black belt, and one of the few that could keep up with Heero in a fair fight. Bar fights were always unpredictable, so he always wound up with more scrapes and bruises than he wanted.

Duo, on the other hand, was used to bar fights. He easily dodged every kick, punch and chair thrown his way with minimal bruising. He even saved Heero a couple of times. Heero was surprised by how welll they fought together despite never doing so before.

"That girl had a good kicked," said Duo.

"She got a lucky shot," said Heero. "I was too preoccupied with her boyfriend to notice her."

Duo chuckled as he took out another cotton swab and soaked it in the peroxide he had stashed in his backpack. Heero was surprised when Duo opened the bag to find his first aide kit. Other than clothes, Duo had a first aide kit, granola bars, a bottle of water and Kool-Aid travel packs, a tablet and a book. Duo soaked the cotton swab and hesitantly dabbed it on the cut above his eye. Heero sighed dejectedly.

"Here, let me," he said setting the ice aside and walked up to the other man. He took the cotton swab and light but firmly dabbed the cut. Duo didn't flinch or cry out, but Heero saw his hands curl against the sting of the disinfectant.

Up close, Heero was shocked to find out clear Duo's eyes were. They were such a deep shade of blue they could almost be indigo, or violet. He was surprised by how bright they were. They were captivating. Before Heero knew what he was doing, he had leaned down and kissed him.

Duo's lips were a little rougher than Relena's but surprisingly soft. It wasn't Heero's first time kissing a guy. He did do some experimenting in college, but that was after several glasses of beer to bring up the courage. He also fooled around a little, but it ended after he graduated, started working for Sanq & Sons, and started dating Relena.

He was surprised when Duo started kissing him back. He had been too used to kissing girl that he had forgotten what it felt like to be kissed by a man. It was slightly rough and forceful, and that was how Heero liked it, but also tender. He barely registered the moan that slipped from his mouth.

As suddenly as it started, Duo pushed him away. That when reality hit him. He had just kissed Duo, a man, and he was going to New York to see Relena, his girlfriend. What was worse was that he enjoyed it!

"Oh God," said Duo. "I'm sorry."

Heero blinked in surprise. Duo's the one apologizing? It should be Heero. He was the one who initiated the kiss, so he should be aplogizing.

"No, I'm sorry." he said. "I should never have..."

"Let's just forget about it," said Duo. He packed everything away and turned back toward the bedroom. "Come on. We've got a long drive tomorrow."

Heero watched Duo pack up his bag and get ready for bed, confused on what had just happened. Was it really spur of the moment? A one-off? Heero didn't know because he never did anything like this before. In college he only had a couple girlfriends and fooled around with guys. He had never kissed someone he knew almost nothing about.

Deciding to think on it, Heero got ready to bed and slid into the second bed. Duo was facing away from him with the blankets nearly up to his neck.

"Good night, Duo," he said. He turned off the bedside lamp.

"Night, Heero."

TBC