Duo had no idea what time it was, and he didn't give a single fuck. He felt a hand graze his side as a knockout blond circled around him from behind and took the place of the tall, dark man he had been dancing with only seconds before. He didn't care who he was dancing with at this point as long as he could keep going.
It had been a rough week. His last mission had been both a spectacular success and an abysmal failure. He had managed to subdue the ground forces to the point that they finally had surrendered. He had neutralized a large percentage of the ESUN support Virgos and had escaped capture by the Preventer MSIU Taurus suits, but not before murdering at least thirty-five people in cold blood.
The old darkness that he had compartmentalized during the Eve War had begun slowly oozing its way from the cracks ZERO had made in that once steeled and impenetrable box. Eventually the dismal tar had stained every part of him black. His once happily reverberating heartstrings had been coated with sticky negativity, preventing any positive energy from strumming forth.
He had dealt with it the only way he knew how. He shut down and repressed it. He couldn't bring himself to move, and had spent the better part of two days fighting to force his inner demon back from the surface and into its sealed cave. He was that twisted abomination that had gleefully agreed to be Deathscythe's pilot in the first place.
Heero dragging him out of his bed, showering him and bullying him to eat had made him feel somewhat human again.
They hadn't talked about what happened. It didn't need to be discussed. What Duo had needed was someone to handle the necessary basic functions of his body while he grappled with the creature within. Heero had automatically taken control and managed that part for him.
Duo hadn't even known that they were coming here. All he knew was that Heero needed him to go to Earth with him for something. He had obediently loaded onto Trowas shuttle and a day later he had been whipped, choked and then thrown onto a dance floor to mend himself.
He opened his eyes and saw that Catherine had taken the place of the blond woman who had been dancing with him. She was still in her performance costume and was grinning up at him with her hands pressed into his exposed chest. She fell into beat and matched the movement of his hips with her own.
"Your guy better tighten his leash on you before I steal you," she said with a teasing smile. Duo chuckled and grinned as she turned around to lean her body against him as they swayed together. "He doesn't dance?" She asked as she cast a curious glance over at her brother and Heero having a conversation at the bar. Duo shrugged.
"He doesn't need to," he said softly into her ear.
She spun around and wrapped her arms around his neck and grinned up at him. "You two really are so different. How did you end up with someone like that?"
"Like what?" Duo asked curiously. He saw another woman standing behind Cathy waiting for her turn to dance with him, but Trowa's sister wasn't willing to give him up just yet.
"I mean your personalities. You are so fun and outgoing, and Heero … isn't."
"Heero's fun." Duo protested. "Just because he doesn't dance doesn't mean he's not fun."
Catherine was laughing. He felt her fingers grasp the loose locks of his hair behind his neck and pull them forward over his shoulders. "Only fun people dance, Duo."
"I could get him to dance if I wanted to," Duo replied confidently as he watched her fingers begin braiding a small piece of his hair as they grinded together. She shook her head and gave him a daring look. "You don't think I can?"
"No, I don't." Catherine's voice dripped with challenge. Duo's smile widened with wickedness.
"What's at stake here?" He asked her as he guided her towards bar and away from the disappointed dancers who had been waiting their turn.
"I'll give you a surprise if you win, but if you lose you have to help me with my next late night show. He has to dance to one entire song," Catherine replied as she followed his lead to the bar. Duo nodded as he submitted to the terms of their agreement and approached his unsuspecting lover who was hunched over the bar focused on something. As he drew closer he saw that Heero and Trowa had spread cherries, sword-shaped skewers, olives and coasters between them. Trowa was moving an olive onto a square coaster and Heero was pointing at it and shaking his head.
"What the hell are you two doing?" He asked as he regarded their arrangement curiously. "Wait a minute… is this … you two are working out battle plans?"
Trowa chuckled but Heero's face was its usual level of intense seriousness.
"Yes," his adorably stern partner replied. Duo could see Catherine standing nearby trying to hide her laughter behind a gloved hand. Duo rolled his eyes and forced himself between the two knuckleheads at the bar and snaked his arms around Heero's neck. He saw the former Wing pilot's eyes widen a fraction as he did.
Duo knew that this was going to be too easy. He wondered what sort of methods Cathy had expected him to use to manipulate his partner into dancing with him. Had she expected him to give him a lapdance and then trick him onto the dance floor while he was in a lusty, drunken stupor? Maybe she was waiting for him to grab him by the cock and drag him out there unwillingly?
Duo smiled and ran his fingers through Heero's hair gently, slicking his dark messy bangs back away from his deep, cobalt blue eyes to make better eye contact with him. Heero looked up in response and Duo paused for a moment to capture a mental picture of how completely fucking gorgeous his boyfriend looked in the darkness, drunk and dressed like he was on his way to sell Total Pacifism door to door.
Heero stared up at him questioningly.
"I want you to dance with me," Duo said firmly. He could see Cathy observing them from beside the dance floor.
Heero nodded, finished the final finger of his drink stood up. Duo grabbed his hand and led him onto the dance floor as he heard the song that had been playing coming to a close.
A house remix of "Ride" by Twenty One Pilots shifted the energy of the writhing audience from a high energy jumping beat to a slower, chill vibe. Duo stopped within a densely packed concentration of grinding dancers and pulled Heero gently towards himself and positioned his lover's hands to rest on his own naked shoulders before dropping his hips into his partner's to the beat.
Heero obediently countered his movements with active participation. Duo couldn't help but smile at him. He unbuttoned his partner's white shirt until it was halfway undone as they danced to make Heero look more the part of the casual boyfriend he actually was.
Heero Yuy had never denied him anything when it came to personal wants and desires. As much of a hardass Heero appeared to be on the surface in private he was always eager to please him. Earlier he had asked him if he had wanted to dance and Heero had said no. Duo wanted him to have a choice. He knew that Heero would have gone with him if he had demanded it or had expressed that he wanted him to come, but at the time it wasn't necessary.
Heero was drunk. Duo had no idea how many drinks the guy had tossed back but he could tell. Heero's eyes weren't as sharp and piercing. He wasn't trying to scan the room or assess the situation. He appeared delightfully numb.
Duo grinned and wondered how far he should push his luck. Only recently had they officially started dating. In the past when they were just fuck buddies Duo had playfully tried to grope him in public and had to duck a punch as a result.
He felt like a kid taunting a sleeping cobra with a stick. He carefully wrapped one arm around Heero's back and let his hand rest firmly against the indentation over his ass. The other hand slid up his exposed chest and raced around to his partner's neck to dig his fingers into the silky chocolate hair at the nape.
Their faces were close. Duo could almost taste the alcohol on his boyfriend's breath. It was obvious that Heero was nearly wasted but his body appeared to move independent of his inebriated brain. His eyes appeared to have trouble focusing and his thin lips were parted, complementing the loose expression on his face.
Heero being so relaxed was a relatively new development. Back when they first joined Preventer the Japanese man hardly ever drank, and if he had he would sit with his back in a corner glaring at everyone until the inebriation subsided. The fact he was standing in a thick mass of writhing people completely fucked in the head was something he had never seen him do. Duo felt Heero's hands roaming across his bare chest as they danced, grasping and exploring the new muscles he had worked to build during the year he was frozen.
I'm a bad influence I guess , Duo thought with amusement as he arched his back to roll the muscles of his abdomen against Heero's. He saw the Japanese pilot's cheeks flush and then redden as he did. The expression he made was similar to the one his lover would make when he climaxed. Duo blinked and did another experimental roll of his body into Heero's to the rhythm of the music and realized that he could lure that expression to the surface every time he did.
Jesus Christ…
That face on his normally stoic lover was one of the hottest things Duo had ever seen in his life. He normally would do anything he could to see it, and now all it took was a well planned curl of his body to stir it up. He wasn't sure that he was going to last the whole song at this rate. He grit his teeth and tore his eyes from his partner's face. He had to busy himself with something else otherwise he was going to throw the sexy motherfucker over his shoulder and drag him out to their room to bask within the erotic glow of that rare face.
He leaned in to bury his face against the side of Heero's neck. He pressed his lips against his cool skin and felt his pulse throbbing hard against his lips. He breathed in his partner's metallic scent and felt himself counting down the final measures of the song.
"What's the bet?"
"Huh?" Duo pulled away and stared into Heero's face. His partner was eyeing him with surprising clarity. Duo sighed. Apparently Heero hadn't been as far gone as he had originally thought.
"She thought I couldn't get you out here to dance with me," Duo explained with a smile.
Heero frowned and narrowed his eyes. "Hn."
"It was just a friendly bet," Duo added quickly. He could see Heero's eyes dart across the dance floor to lock onto Catherine who was standing on the sidelines beside Trowa watching them with a catlike grin.
"What do you win?"
"She didn't say."
Heero looked back at him with an expression fueled with determination.
The music began to transition to a quicker tempo remix of of "Nuclear" by Zomboy and with it went the transition of power to Heero who had taken the lead and was forcing Duo into a quicker beat by rocking against his body. Everyone around them was smiling and jumping with their hands in the air as the bass dropped and the music accelerated to an almost undanceable speed. Duo was pleasantly surprised to see that Heero seemed to be getting into it his new 'mission' of showing Catherine Bloom that she was dead wrong about him.
"You're moving too slow," Heero grumbled into his ear as he forced his hips with his hands to sway faster with the beat.
"Shit. My bad, bro…" Duo said with a laugh as he let his partner dictate their movements. He could see some of the men and women he had been dancing with earlier in the night watching them from the crowd with envious smiles as his enigmatic, stony-faced boyfriend drove him to the center of the dance floor.
By the end of the song Duo was exhausted. Heero's form of dancing required the body to become a direct conduit for the music. His partner had been very technical about the entire thing and had required him to move precisely to tempo, as opposed to his own style which was more interpretive. It had been a workout and by the time the song had ended Duo was covered with sweat. His long hair was sticking to the sides of his neck and had tangled around his upper arms from the movement.
"I gotta sit down," Duo panted as he grabbed Heero's shoulders and nudged him back towards the bar.
Catherine was gawking at them as they approached. Duo dropped hard into the stool Heero had claimed as his own at the bar only fifteen minutes before and weakly waved down the bartender to hook him up with a shot to try and numb the aching in his sides.
Heero approached Catherine and held his hand out. Trowa started laughing so hard that his eyes began to water as his sister grinned and reached into her bra to retrieve two small plastic baggies and set them on Heero's hand. Heero set Duo's reward on the bar beside him before taking up the standing room beside his seat. His partner leaned his back against the bar and crossed his arms over his chest and looked out over the dance floor
The bartender slid Duo a nameless house shot. He tossed it back and cringed at its bitterness before studying the baggies. Each one had and small strip of translucent pink paper cut into a perfect one inch square. Embedded in the center of each strip was a tiny shard of diamond.
"What is this?" Duo asked as Catherine padded up to stand on his other side.
"A one way ticket to heaven," Catherine said with a sly smile. Duo blinked and looked over at Trowa who was lounging on the stool opposite of Heero. The former Heavyarms pilot nodded his head and smirked.
"Wait… like acid or something?" Duo asked as he studied the papers. He was no stranger to drugs. Drug dealers were as common as ice cream men in L2.
"Sort of. It's a new synthetic," Catherine explained as she pushed the slips closer him. "Save them for when you go home and need a break from reality."
Duo nodded and plucked the bags from the table and reached over to shove them into the nearest of Heero's pockets.
"You ready to go back out?" Heero asked casually over his shoulder, to which Duo gave an exhausted groan and buried his face into the bar.
