Warnings: language, YAOI (male/male sexytiems)
DISCLAIMER - I totally don't own Gundam Wing, but I do borrow that little corner of Animeland a lot. Without permission.
Recommended music for Prom Night, Part 1 - "All We Are" by OneRepublic
Just in case you missed the warning, this chapter contains boy love and SEX.
Also, "Prom Night" will be posted in THREE parts and each is quite lengthy. After this will be "The Quest," which will have lots of bad guys and action and angst and stuffz like that. At the moment, Duo and Trowa are still sorting out their daily life relationship things. But there's some foreshadowing and clue-type things.
A PLETHORA OF THANKS goes out to Clara Barton, who gave this a read-through and helped me iron out some of the not-so-polished bits. It has been amazing fangirling Duo and Trowa with you, my friend!
Prom Night - Part 1 (Trowa POV)
"He's so in love with you it makes me want to slap him," Dorothy announced.
Despite her claim toward violent tendencies, she didn't manage to pull my attention away from Duo's approaching form. I doubted I had to inform her that klapping my kerel would invite retribution from me, so I said nothing.
In any event, it was a moot point: she was smiling fondly in Duo's direction. Or perhaps she was smiling at her girlfriend who was clutching Duo's arm as she slipped and skidded over the ice-coated asphalt, hooting and shrieking while Duo rolled his eyes at her antics. Duo didn't have a problem navigating the terrain, perhaps because he'd made a better choice in footwear. Or perhaps because he was naturally extremely agile.
Hm. That was something to be investigated later. Anticipation made my fingertips tingle inside my insulated gloves.
"OK, Schbeiker," Duo began, conspicuously aware of my presence as evidenced by the fact that he neither looked in my direction nor greeted me verbally. I, on the other hand, couldn't keep my eyes off of him. He continued loudly, "I've delivered you to your other half. Now gimme my clothes back."
What?
Hilde reached a gloved hand up to her throat just as Duo's gaze fell, zeroing in on the exact same vicinity.
He sighed mournfully. "Tell me you didn't."
"Um, I think I did. Sorry?"
"Yeah, you will be," he mumbled. His eyes focused on me for the briefest moment and the heat I saw there was enough to make me forget about the breath-pluming chill. "Sorry, Tro. I gotta deal with muffler retrieval before it ends up in the school's lost-and-found box with all the used and abandoned jockstraps."
The mental image of such a thing was more than enough to jar me from my contemplation of his kissable lips. I blinked. Smothering both a grin and a wince, I nodded toward the school entrance over his shoulder. "Get going."
He gave me a salute, glared briefly at a slightly blushing Hilde and smirking Dorothy, and then jogged back toward the building. I watched as he dodged and wove his way through the crowd against the tide. Oh, yes. He was agile like a springbok. An investigation was definitely called for.
After the end of his braid disappeared through the doors, I turned my attention to the rest of the car park. Hilde and Dorothy were whispering to each other and I didn't try to interrupt them. I leaned an elbow against the roof of the car and tapped my gloved fingers on the metal, waiting with barely restrained patience, wondering if I'd overhear anything useful in the process of looking distracted. When a motion at the corner of my vision caught my attention, I didn't resist the inclination to examine its cause.
It was the blond boy from the swim team, the oke who had taken not one but three swings at Duo on Sunday. I watched as he stomped past on the way to his car. He did not look up and answer my silent glare. Duo had promised that he'd handle the situation and I trusted him to do that. If he needed me to donner some kak-spouting boykie for him, he'd ask. In the meantime, I had my own work to bother with.
Dorothy suddenly remarked very audibly, "Did you notice Duo that was practically glowing today? It was sickening." She didn't look all that disgusted or put-off. In fact, she slid an arm around Hilde's waist.
Hilde leaned her head against Dorothy's and sighed happily. "You know, I thought it couldn't get any worse back when he was texting this mysterious stranger every day for hours at a time, wandering around with that silly grin on his face, never paying attention to a word anyone said, constantly checking his messages during class…"
Hilde shared a grin with her girlfriend as the pair of them sneakily skinnered behind Duo's back. I didn't want to hear about Duo's life before I'd come to the States; that was Duo's past to tell. As Hilde and Dorothy seemed to be waiting for some sort of reaction from me, I didn't give them one. They both seemed like nice girls, but they were venturing into territory where they were not welcome. What was between Duo and me stayed between Duo and me.
With the blond oke out of sight, I scanned the area for that other boykie, the one who'd schemed up the brilliant idea of trying to block me in the car so I couldn't skop his arse. I almost smirked, remembering how he'd ended up in the snow. I suspected I'd broken his nose, but it'd be nice to see it with my own eyes. That was about the only reason I hadn't long since nodded a polite farewell to Hilde and Dorothy. It wasn't as if I was standing out here in the cold because it was good for my health. February in New York was bloody miserable. I no longer had even a twinge of feeling left in my face.
"It can always get worse," Dorothy contributed sagely and I wondered if she'd just read my mind. But no, she was still talking about Duo.
"Oh, so true," Hilde concurred and then turned toward me.
I kept the school doors in sight, just out of the corner of my eye, as she smiled up at me. I did not trust that smile. She and Dorothy were completely unlike the girls and women I'd encountered briefly in my life but, in all fairness, Duo had warned me about them.
"Hilde and Dorothy are totally and irredeemably evil. Like, evil mastermind kind of evil."
"Yet they're your friends?" I'd replied, baffled by his genuine smile.
He'd shrugged. "Hilde and I have known each other since kindergarten. Dorothy's part of the package deal."
In other words: twice the unanticipated female scheming for the price of one. Bloody wonderful.
"Hey, Trowa…" Hilde began in a tone that instantly put me on my guard. If she thought that a shared scheme and a two-hour trek in a car to the New York State High School Swim Championships guaranteed my cooperation with whatever was making her smile like that, then she could bloody well think again.
I kept my expression impassive. "Ja?"
"Duo wasn't mad at you for the swim meet thing last weekend, was he?"
"No."
"Oh, good! There's hope for that boy yet."
I didn't want to ask, but if I didn't they'd undoubtedly attempt to blindside me later. Best to just meet it head on. "Hope for what?"
"Well…" she drawled, rocking back and forth in her fashionable yet useless snow boots, "see, there's something else we think he should include you in."
Dorothy corrected her: "I don't think he should, per se. I just want to see it happen."
Hilde rolled her eyes and pulled a gloved hand from her coat pocket. She held out a larny, dark blue envelope with silver calligraphy in my direction.
I blinked, making no move to take it.
I couldn't deny that Hilde and Dorothy had assisted me with the handling of Duo's swim meet. They'd warned me that Duo would want to go alone. I would have spent more than one night lying awake scheming how to keep him in my sights while indulging him, and I probably would have ended up in a scrap with him over it after concluding that it was just not on, but Hilde had bounced back with the perfect solution.
"Let him think he's going alone and ride with us."
I'd glanced at Dorothy. She'd smiled. "I'll drive."
"Perfect," I'd agreed. And things had turned out even more so when Duo had declared his intention to give one of his teammates a ride. With a witness in the car, it had been far less likely that Khushrenada would show his hand.
No, I hadn't forgotten about the greedy, unscrupulous bastard, although I often wondered if Duo had. We all have our limits and I wasn't about to begrudge Duo his. While he dealt with Maxwell Limited, I dealt with the rest of it insofar as I could. I didn't really believe that Khushrenada would be so careless as to abduct Duo on U.S. soil. No, he'd find ways to goad him into taking up his mother's quest and avenging his father's death. He'd use Duo to lead him to the second half of that fokken key and Duo was in no position to do that at the moment. He had far too many immediate responsibilities to see to. Thank God. So long as Duo didn't play Khushrenada's game, he was safe enough: he was potentially useful. And the day Duo retrieved that bloody artifact would be his last day of usefulness to a man like Treize Khushrenada.
So, ja, I worried and I watched and I waited. I took photos whenever Duo and I went out on the weekends and sent them off to the captain in my regular email reports. He always spotted the watchful shadows that trailed Duo and me through the shopping center or whatever place of interest we were reconnoitering. I didn't doubt that I was paranoid, but I had every right to be.
I had no idea how long Khushrenada had been waiting for Lord Maxwell to make his move, but the man clearly possessed some measure of patience. Unfortunately, he was far more opportunistic: he'd had a chance in Laos to get away with abduction and torture and he'd taken it. Perhaps he wouldn't be quite so bold here where it was more difficult and expensive to buy the cooperation of the authorities, but I knew he was planning something. It was his move next and it chafed that I didn't have the resources to counter him. Unless I brought the whole Barton Troupe to the States. But it was best to keep them in reserve for when I really needed them, and I was sure I would, eventually. Khushrenada wasn't about to give up. Hence my reluctance to let Duo head off to his state swim meet without backup or witnesses.
But for all the forethought I'd put into the operation, I hadn't anticipated the pure satisfaction of seeing the look on Duo's face when I'd finally revealed my presence after all had been said and done and he'd been standing on the makeshift stage in his windbreaker and tracksuit with a first-place medal being hung around his neck.
I'd never felt as proud of him as I had then. The kidnapping, the rescue attempt, the accident, the lies, the press conference, the funeral, the company presidency… Duo had made it through all of that and still kept his focus. He hadn't fallen apart; he'd triumphed. Although it was only a high school swim race, it represented so much more. It was the manifestation of his strength and determination. And, when he'd looked up in response to my shrill whistle and seen me, that moment had become ours.
Hilde and Dorothy had helped make that possible, and I would be forever grateful, but now it sounded like these two were soeking with us.
"What is it?" I reluctantly asked when it became clear that Hilde would rather give herself a muscle cramp than lower her arm in defeat.
Dorothy explained airily, "Two tickets to this year's prom. April 20th."
"They're made out to 'Dominic Maxwell and guest' because we can't get the name of someone from a different school put on them. Sorry."
The relationship people in this country had with their schools was bizarre. I certainly didn't feel that homey connection with the GED preparatory institution in which I'd enrolled. Sitting on my arse from nine a.m. to two thirty-five p.m. every day did nothing to earn my allegiance. And yet people here wore their school emblems with pride and dignity, even arrogance. I would have likened it to my loyalty to the Barton Troupe, but we were a unit, dependent on each other for our lives and livelihoods. The sense I'd gotten from Duo was that he didn't rely on his classmates so much as compete against them and, given the events of last Sunday, he was even despised by a few. And yet everyone clung to their school identity with fanatical devotion. Befok.
Nor did I understand the significance of the event Hilde seemed intent on having Duo and me attend.
"Prom," I echoed. "That's a dance."
"A formal dance," Hilde confirmed. "So you'll both need tuxes."
"And there's a dinner beforehand," Dorothy mentioned. "It should be decent, given the venue this year."
I shook my head. "Duo is never going to agree to this."
"He might if you asked him," Hilde argued with a dangerously charming smile. "Please, Trowa? He didn't go last year and he turned down all the invitations he got to the other ones. This is his last chance."
As far as I was concerned, it was Duo right to decline. Why was it so befokken important that he go?
"It's our coming-of-age," Dorothy summarized, once again with eerily accurate timing.
I glared thoughtfully at her and then at Hilde as I tried to suss out their motives for interfering this time. Out of the corner of my eye, a figure matching Duo's height and lithe shape pushed open the front doors. Muffler reclaimed and snuggly donned, Duo moved with his signature, loping grace, leaping down the steps and heading in our direction. Hilde had seconds to convince me to go along with this new scheme.
"Don't you want to see him dance?" she finagled.
I did, but—
"It's worth wearing nylons just for that," Dorothy agreed with relish.
—I'd rather not deal with lecherous onlookers.
"Just take them," Hilde urged. "Think about it."
I didn't move.
"Duo's on his way," Dorothy contributed.
"I know," I said, looking away from Hilde and the still-offered tickets to give Duo's progress my full attention. When a car pulled out and idly rolled by, blocking Duo's path and forcing him to stop and wait, I felt Hilde slide the envelope into the pocket of my winter coat. I tensed.
"Hey! You pinch his ass; you answer to me, Schbeiker!" Duo called. A few heads swiveled in his direction.
I bit back a chuckle. "No arse pinching," I reported. In fact, there'd been no pinching of any kind. Rather, instead of a theft, I'd been left an unsolicited gift.
Duo's eyes sparkled at me, promising naughty things. "Well, that's a relief." He transferred his gaze to Hilde; it went from warm and open to sharp-edged and suspicious in an instant. "Just what are you up to, woman?"
She rolled with the verbal punch. "Well, at the moment, I'm wondering what it takes to get this one—" She nodded in my direction. "—to crack a smile."
Leaning on the roof of the car from the passenger's side, Duo drawled, "Well, actually, it only happens when there's a precise alignment of the planet Neptune with the constellation Leo as the barometric pressure is rising, but it helps if you stick your tongue in his ear and blow."
I barked out a laugh. Which was precisely what Duo had been going for, the goof. He grinned at me over the roof of the car and either I was becoming genuinely hypothermic or a mere look really had the power to heat blood.
Dorothy looked intrigued.
Hilde looked offended. "Duo!"
"What?"
"Ew," she declared. "That was squicky."
Duo shrugged. "Hey, be thankful I spared you the details about the melted peanut butter and the feather duster."
I snorted.
Before Hilde could prolong the conversation and Dorothy could encourage Duo to elaborate, he announced, "OK, muffler has been rescued. Let's burn rubber already. I'm freezing my balls off."
"And just what would Trowa do with you if that happened?" Dorothy murmured silkily.
I sent a sidelong glare at her, all traces of humor wiped from my expression.
Duo's grin didn't even wobble. "There's a pretty good chance he'd give me a shoulder to cry on after the guys in black suits showed up to take away my Man Card."
"Let's not test the theory," I interjected, opening the car door and signaling our imminent departure. I had a vested interest in making sure nothing of Duo's got frozen or fell off, especially now, the day after he'd decided he was ready to be my lover.
My lover. All day I'd been rolling the words over and over in my mind, savoring them as I remembered the mark I'd given him on his inner thigh and wondered if it was accomplishing its purpose. I nodded farewell and ignored Hilde's significant look. Duo waved goodbye to his friends. We got in the car where the heater was rattling and wheezing. At least it was warm.
Duo buckled up and I pulled out, joining the queue along with the dozens of other vehicles that were in the process of departing the school's car park. As we idled in line, Duo cleared his throat and asked, "So, what did Hilde wanna talk to you about?"
"What?"
"Oh, come on. It was obvious that she wanted to get you alone for five minutes."
"What makes you say that?" I inquired, wondering exactly how astute Duo was. He hadn't mentioned noticing the people following us so I didn't think he had. I was both relieved that he wasn't worrying about it and frustrated that he wasn't as sensitive to their presence as I was.
And, to be perfectly honest, I had more than a passing interest in the subtle art of manipulation. Thomas Darlian's use of it in Vientiane had piqued my curiosity.
Duo grinned at me. "She never asks to borrow my muffler. Dorothy would kill her if she lost or stopped wearing the one that she made in home ec, sophomore year. I'm pretty sure it was Dorothy's Valentine's gift to Hilde."
I coughed out a laugh. "Dorothy knitted a muffler?" That was hard to imagine.
"Hm," Duo agreed. "No one's come forward as a witness, but that's what she says. Personally, I think she just blackmailed one of the freshmen into doing it for her."
Now that I could believe.
"So, back to this chat you had with Hilde…"
Dear God but he was relentless. "A chat implies that both people participated equally in an exchange of information."
"Uh huh. So what did she want to talk at you about?"
"Nonsense," I hedged. Duo was in a fantastic mood and I was eager to capitalize on this. Today was Tuesday, but he'd finished with the swim season on Sunday and I didn't have a tutoring session with Sally until Friday. Also, neither one of us was expected at Maxwell Limited this afternoon. Duo was all mine until 7:30 a.m. tomorrow morning when we'd have to leave for another day of school. I had sixteen uninterrupted hours with my lover.
My lover. I gripped the steering wheel harder as arousal rolled through me.
"I bet I know what you're thinking," Duo drawled softly.
I glanced over at him and then down at his lap. He'd propped his elbow up against the door and his hand was resting high on his thigh. His middle finger tapped against the very spot I'd marked the night before. I looked back up into his eyes. "Did it help you remember?"
"As if I needed it to."
That purr of his worked better than the heater at warming me up. My blood was just shy of boiling by the time I turned the car onto the street.
"Tell me you don't have to finish any homework tonight," I said when we stopped at a robot.
Duo wiggled a bit in his seat, tugging surreptitiously at his trousers in a bid for comfort. I doubted it helped much. I could see the outline of his arousal. My mouth watered. I swallowed thickly.
"Nope. No homework on the radar tonight."
"What is on the radar?" I tormented myself by asking.
He rolled his head toward me and smiled slowly. "You."
Ah God. I didn't think I could wait until we got back home.
"The light's green," he observed in that same sexy murmur and it took me a minute to sort out the words from his tone.
I pulled into the intersection before anyone was moved to hoot at me. The rest of the journey home was made in silence. If Duo minded, he didn't let on. Whenever I glanced his way, he was looking out the window, a barely-there smile curving his lips. Anticipation drove the car and impatience parked it. After a painfully long and drawn out ride in the lift and a too slow journey down the hall, I held the door open for Duo, my breath catching when he brushed his shoulder against my chest in passing.
I barely gave him enough time to kick his snow boots off before I was kissing him and crowding him toward the bedroom. He tossed his gloves aside and then his hands were unzipping my jacket and sliding beneath my sweater. Oh God, I wanted him.
It seemed like, between one breath and the next, our clothes vanished and he was on his back on the rumpled bed. I slid my bare arms beneath his equally bare thighs and then I was swallowing him down, greedily taking his length deeper than I had the night before, determined to put off my gag reflex as long as possible and thrilled when I made noticeable progress. I moaned around him, inhaling deeply. The scent of him turned my mind to pap and all I cared about was the fact that he was groaning, calling out, shouting—
"Wait! Wait-wait-wait, Trowa, wait!"
When his words registered, I reluctantly sucked my way off of him, laving the sticky tip with my tongue. "Hm?" I asked.
When his inarticulate moan faded into panting breaths, he rasped, "Not like that. C'mere."
I crawled up his body, kissing and nuzzling as I moved until he'd squirmed his way into my arms and I was leaning over him as I had during our first time together. A dollop of lotion found its way into my palm and then Duo was curling my fingers around him.
"Like this?" I murmured, watching him shudder and thrust.
"Oh, yeah," he approved, rocking his hips up into my tight grasp. His own lotion-slickened hand found me and I clamored on top of him. With one hand cradling the back of his head and my elbow keeping most of my weight off of his chest, we rocked together in each other's grasp. His legs wrapped around my hips and my own name became synonymous with "more" and "yes" and "please."
Oh God, I loved how he said my name. It sounded like the French word it had been drawn from, but rich and creamy and savoy. As if the syllables had melted in his mouth. I rewarded him for each utterance: sucking his earlobe or rubbing my cheek over his chest or dipping my tongue into his hot mouth. God, he was lekker.
It took longer this way – or, at least, that was how it seemed – but our gazes locked time and time again, heightening the intensity and charging the air between us. Every nuance of his pleasure was expressed openly for me to see. I moved with him, watching his want and his need, my mind empty of all else. And when he came I felt it with my entire being: his muscles firmed beneath his smooth, flawless skin; a very fine sheen of sweat blossomed from neck to navel; his breathing turned so shallow he was nearly holding his breath; his hips pumped faster and his eyes unfocused. I watched him come, heard him gasp my name, felt his free hand clutch my hip even as his other tightened around me. All of it conspired to push me over the edge as well.
As I shuddered and panted against his shoulder, I silently thanked him. I'd had every intention of bringing him off with my mouth but, if I had, I would have missed feeling his pleasure overtake him. I would have missed the gift of his gaze locked with mine as we'd moved together. Even though I'd planned to make love to him, Duo had made love to me. Not so much with his body, but with his voice, thick with passion, and his eyes, unwavering in their focus. He was extraordinary.
I kissed a meandering path over his neck and shoulder. Between our slick and soon-to-be-sticky bellies, he reached for my hand, interlacing our fingers in a messy grip. The fingertips of his other hand roved up and down my spine, dancing.
"Hmm," I informed him, arching into the teasing touches.
"Wow," he complimented and I chuckled. I'd liked it, too.
"So, I'm gonna go out on another limb here—" he began and I mumbled playfully, "In the middle of winter?"
He snorted softly and continued, "And I'm gonna guess that you missed me today."
By way of answer, I caught his lips with mine and kissed him thoroughly. I watched his eyelids slide shut and I felt a new wave of heat crest through me when his tongue slid against mine. God, he was so open and warm and lush. He was like the very water he'd become a master of last Sunday, a whirlpool swirling around me, drowning me. I groaned; Duo had already promised never to ask me to leave him, but sucking me into his soul and never letting me go would be even better.
"Was that supposed to be an answer?" he teased when I let him have use of his mouth. "Or the equivalent of an after-dinner mint?"
I growled. "It was that thing they do between courses." I'd seen a couple of larny dinners in the films we'd watched thus far. That seemed like a fair comparison.
"Clearing the dishes?" he quipped.
"Uh-hm," I answered, licking his earlobe.
He fidgeted. "We're still covered in leftovers."
I'd noticed, but I still didn't give rocks about clean-up.
"And you haven't answered my question."
"Which was?" I mumbled against his neck.
He slid out from under my mouth and captured my jaw with his free hand. "Did you miss me?"
"Ja, mos ja," I breathed, and pulled back so I could smooth the palm of my dry hand over the mark on the inside of his thigh. "Did you miss me back?"
He grinned. "Nope."
"Pardon?" I coughed, my brows arching upward.
"I missed a helluvalot more than just your back, baby."
"Ah." I smirked. "That's all right, then."
"Love your priorities, man," he informed me, smirking in return.
"Do you?"
"Yeah, because it means you're probably not gonna tweak when I tell you I totally spaced on grabbing the box of Kleenex on our way in here."
I snorted. "Was there a box out there?" I hadn't noticed.
He stretched an arm over the edge of the bed and groped blindly for something on the floor. "A question—for the ages," he agreed, wincing as he searched. I was about to offer to help when he came up with his undershirt clutched in his fist and crowed with delight. "Ah-hah! Towel substitute acquired."
I was still smiling when we finished clearing away the evidence. No longer in danger of soiling the sheets we'd just put down the night before, I sat up and ran my hands along the inside of his still-spread thighs. He grinned up at me, making no move to cover himself. Oh, yes. When Duo gives himself, he gives his all.
"What?" he prodded me, jerking his chin in the direction of the hungry smile I could feel clenching my jaw together and pulling my lips wide.
I dragged my fingers over his softened length and brushed my thumb back and forth against his sac. "What I wouldn't give for an encore," I confessed. I wasn't hard, but I wanted to be. I wasn't done with him yet.
He gave me a slightly twisted grin. "It's not even four-thirty. Unless you've got a hot date tonight, I'd say an encore is a definite possibility."
"Oh," I answered, feigning disappointment, "but I do have a hot date."
He tried to glare at me, but he could already see where I was going with this. "Anyone I know?"
"Ja," I whispered, tracing the edge of his bruise with my thumb. And before he could ask the question simmering in the depths of his dark eyes, I added, "And he's very hot."
"Say lekker," he ordered, grinning.
"Lekker," I obliged. "Befokken lekker." The skin on his forearms pebbled into gooseflesh, so I said it again. "My lekker kerel," I told him, speaking low and soft as I drew a palm down the center of his chest, "I smaak you stukkend."
"That sounds painful," he observed, but he didn't even pretend to be worried.
"It isn't." I leaned over him, covering him with my body again, and nudged against his lips until he opened his mouth and kissed me, invited me in, rocked his hips against mine, and rekindled the heat between us. I didn't object when Duo shoved at my chest and rolled me off of him. He pinned me to the mattress and I encircled his hips with my legs: I didn't care what he did so long as he did it with me.
I was tempted to unravel his braid, but his hand, once-again coated with lotion, encircled my firming length and gave a slow, steady pull, erasing every thought from my mind.
I was right about Duo being a bloody good dancer. "Lekker swaai," I informed him as he thrust against me, aligning our hardening lengths. I watched his hips move in tight circles, rubbing our sacs together in teasing motions that heightened my arousal but offered no relief. The play of his muscles beneath his skin mesmerized me until I was nothing but a collection of hot blood and tingling skin held together by need.
He strung me along like my pleasure was his. Kisses and caresses, a strong grip and a teasing touch: Duo investigated my reactions to all of it. Through it all, though, his gaze was locked with mine. It was a touch in and of itself.
When I finally felt the pull of completion hauling me toward release, Duo's hot mouth was panting breaths against my chest and his hands were on my hips, guiding my thrusts as he surged between my thighs, his length rushing and rubbing against mine, slick and hard. I grasped his shoulders, his braid wound around my wrist, and gave in. I didn't even have the breath to warn him.
He gasped when the heat washed over both of us and then he groaned. "So fucking hot," he nearly whined, pressing his mouth to my neck.
"Come for me, bokkie," I murmured, rubbing my cheek against the flyaway strands of hair concealing his ear from me.
"Yes…" he agreed, thrusting faster against my belly and its renewed slickness. I wrapped my legs around his waist and held him tight until he braced himself up on his elbows and, gasping, met my gaze as his release pulsed out between us.
"We made another mess," he informed me between heaving breaths, clearly done in.
I chuckled.
"And I think your hot date is outta gas."
I lowered my feet to the mattress and ran my hands down his back until I was massaging his arse.
"Oh, fuck," he remarked, rocking into my grasp. "Yeah. Completely outta gas. Not even fumes left. Otherwise you would totally be firing up my rockets right now."
"Could be a delayed reaction," I teased.
"Hah! Yeah, come back later when my batteries are recharged."
We sacrificed a pillowcase to clean-up and then Duo claimed the shower. "There's room for two if you don't behave yourself," he invited.
I accepted.
"Oooh, yes. Body soap," he mumbled between sucking in a breath and biting his lower lip. "Best thing ever."
I had to agree. It was very, very nice replicating that slippery lotion feeling everywhere our bodies came into contact. The hot water and the steam were secondary. All I cared about was the way my arms slid over his torso and his hips rocked into mine. If not for the soap bubbles on his neck I probably would have marked him again.
"Jesus. Christ. Fuck. Trowa," he said, each word a sentence unto itself.
I would have laughed if not for the image of Duo thrusting inside me. "It has to be you," I mumbled.
"Me?" he repeated, clearly confused.
I explained: "You. Fucking me."
"Oooh, hell yes," he groaned. When his soapy hands slid down to my arse and his sudsy fingers dipped between the cheeks, I wholeheartedly encouraged him. "This OK?" he checked as I felt him rub hesitantly against the puckered skin he'd discovered.
I shouted. I panted and whined. I pulled him closer. I rocked against him harder.
"I'll take that as a yes."
It was most definitely a yes.
Neither he nor I got truly hard this time, but our cocks were full and heavy and I wasn't even sure if I came, per se. I only felt a shimmering wave of heat and then, suddenly, my strength was gone. The shower wall held me upright and breathing became my number one priority.
"Duo?" I wheezed, wondering if he was all right.
"Hmm, damn," he informed me, leaning heavily against my chest and more or less impersonating a wet noodle. "Damn."
"Are you freaking out?" I asked, using one of the phrases he'd taught me over the years.
"Hm? Why?"
"Er, what I just said… I thought… You said that was off-limits."
"Oh. Uh, it was. Yesterday."
I snorted out a laugh.
"And it kinda still is. We need lube and condoms first and… yeah."
"I'll add them to the shopping list."
"Hah! You would, too."
Definitely.
Bracing himself on his hands, he pushed himself off of me until we were nose-to-nose. "I think I should warn you," he whispered, the teasing light in his eyes flattening into something somber and then glowing with a morbid passion, "I will go absolutely and irrevocably batshit on anyone who even thinks about touching you."
The declaration was both completely random and very hot, but it was that look in his eyes – that strange, icy hunger – that made my breath catch and my pulse spike. It would have caused me a moment's pause if I hadn't already become accustomed to Duo's conversational riptide.
"Turnabout is fair play," I replied, tilting my chin forward and touching our lips together briefly. Well, I meant for it to be brief. Duo opened his mouth and sucked out my tongue. He placed his hand over my chest, pressing against the clay medallion he'd given me so long ago and his fingers curled until I felt the bite of his nails in my skin.
"I'm serious," he said leaning back and pushing me up against the tiles. That darkness flickered deep in his eyes again. "Someone makes a move on you and they'll be guaranteed a personal introduction to the God of Death."
Taking a chance, I tangled my fingers in his wet hair roughly. It was a bold move given the hunger pulling his smile into an expression of too many sharp teeth, but I needed his undivided attention. Also, I did not care for the fact that he was scaring me a bit. I channeled my fear into aggression and growled, "I'll help you get rid of the body."
For a moment, that mad, predatory grin on his face remained… and then he laughed, shaking my hand loose and doodling a pattern on my chest around the amulet. "Awesome," he approved. "You're awesome, babe."
"You should meet my teacher," I answered, concealing my relief behind a quick kiss. Before another current brought his darkness to the surface, I pressed the bottle of shampoo into his hands. "Lather me up and rinse me off. I'll deal with supper tonight."
"Wow. You spoil me," he replied as he upended the shampoo bottle into his palm.
I hooked an arm around his waist and leaned in to nip his ear. "Then I'd better eat you up quick."
He wiggled out of my grasp and I let him go. "Promises, promises," he teased and got to work.
It was my turn to come through on dinner, so – naturally – I fell rather short of the mark. I was glaring down at the pot of Spaghetti-Os in mute frustration when Duo padded up behind me and slid his arms round my waist.
"Italian for dinner!" he enthused and then he sniffed the slightly smoky air.
"Scorched," I added, struggling to cling to my irritation.
"En flambé," he corrected and kissed the side of my neck. "You are a man of many, many talents."
I snorted out a laugh. "Cooking… er, re-heating is not one of them."
"Say no more. I've got it covered." He untangled himself from around me and moved to fetch two soup bowls. That was when I noticed that he was not only barefoot but he'd left his hair down. Thank God the soup ladle was made of some kind of resin; if it'd been made of metal, it would have made a much louder noise when it slipped from my nerveless fingers and plunked back into the pot.
Duo didn't notice. Thrusting the bowls at me, he instructed, "Fill 'em up."
As I did – taking care not to embarrass myself with more displays of hormone-induced clumsiness – he opened up a loaf of bread and started buttering slice after slice.
"You ever had beans-on-toast?" he asked, setting a paper-serviette-supported tower of buttered bread on the table.
"Ja."
"Same principle."
I followed his lead as he slathered the non-perishable pasta onto a slice before rolling it all up for easy consumption. Amazingly enough, it was edible. I'd been in love with Duo for years but, in that moment, I felt it happen all over again. After we finished eating, he carried our dishes over to the sink. I trapped him against the counter and, when he turned around, I moved in for a deep and very appreciative kiss.
"Not that I'm complaining or anything," he began when I decided to save some room for dessert, "but what was that for?"
"You fixed my cooking."
He grinned. "And if that's the thanks I get… I'll do it again!"
I was already looking forward to it.
Duo popped a DVD into the player, but we didn't watch the film. I had no interest in it when I had the curtain of Duo's hair to pet and his smooth skin to explore beneath his long-sleeved Yankees T-shirt. It took very little persuasion for me to get him to pay attention to me instead of the film. Duo, perhaps drawing inspiration from his shirt, explained the concept of first base, second, third, and then the homerun. In detail. And it turned out that there were tissues in the living room after all. Very convenient.
We were both exhausted by the time we fell into bed at nearly two a.m. and yet, when I next opened my eyes, it was still dark outside and I was, inexplicably, completely awake. All of me, that is. For a moment, I snuggled against his back, spooning him until we were almost one person. My arousal pressed mindlessly against his hip, which was warm and firm. My hand moved of its own accord, greedily palming the strong curve of a thigh muscle beneath his too-big shorts and then the flat terrain of his belly below his bunched-up shirt. I'm sure he woke up long before my fingers tunneled between his waistband and slumber-warmed skin.
"Nugh… Trowa…" he groaned and I took that as permission to proceed. It was still dark outside, so I couldn't see his eyes. I made up for the lack by teasing his skin with my breath as I pulled his shirt up and over his head, whispering his name and my want in the darkness. His shorts ended up somewhere amongst the linens. The early hour made me a bit lethargic and I stretched over him like a cat, straddling him. He, in turn, rubbed against me, divested me of my shirt and sleep pants, and scratched his blunt nails down my back. Oh, yes. God, yes.
His skin was so warm and pliant. I wanted to be consumed, engulfed, by him… which gave me an idea. He arched and gasped when I guided my length beneath his sac and between his hot, bare thighs. "All right?" I asked, massaging his bobbing length.
"Oh, fuck, yes," he informed me, thrusting up, seeking more of my touch as I rocked downward, shuddering at the heat and the strength of his thigh muscles surrounding me. "Y-you're wet," he moaned and I drew the pad of my thumb over his tip.
"You as well."
We moved slowly toward our goal, stopping to shiver, to grope and kiss, to pant and whisper. When I felt him swell in my lotion-slickened grasp, when I tasted tiny droplets of sweat on his firming chest muscles, I worked him faster and thrust down harder. He came moments before I did, painting my hand with his essence as I did the same to the backs of his thighs and the bed sheet below.
"Oh my God," he moaned, rubbing and squirming against me as I panted and rolled my hips in the lazy afterglow. "That was… so hot, Tro. Holy sh—"
And, at that precise moment, our alarm went off.
Bugger and fuck.
Given that the hand closest to the alarm was indisposed, I had to reach over with my other arm to shut it off. When I did, I lost my balance. I slid off of Duo, felt the edge of the mattress brush my hip, and then I was landing on my arse on the floor. "Eish!"
"Shit!" I heard his hand slam against the snooze button and all was silent except for our breathing. "Tro, are you OK?"
I could hear him scrambling for the lamp and I reached out a hand to stop him. "I'm fine," I said, groping for his arm. "But if you love me at all, don't turn on the light." I could only imagine how ridiculous I looked sitting here bare-arsed with come smeared over my hand and belly and thighs. Probably as ridiculous as I felt.
Duo snorted out a laugh. "If a guy falls on his ass and nobody sees it, did it really happen?" he posited and I laughed. It sounded one of Bryce's Zen sayings. Something about a tree falling in a forest.
"Ja," I agreed and got up. I wiped my hand on the sheet and gathered up a corner to attend to the rest of me. Duo sat up and leaned over me, locating my shoulder with his lips and kissing his way up to my jaw. I turned my head and captured his lips.
"Good morning," I said when I'd finished suckling his tongue and he'd boldly caressed my entire torso and back. If we didn't get up now, we'd end up back in bed.
He giggled. "I never thought I'd say this, but yeah, it is a good morning."
I could hear the truth in his wondering tone. I'd already made his day better. I marveled yet again at his openness. He gave me so much without even trying. And probably without even realizing.
It wasn't until I slid behind the wheel of the car that I realized I hadn't been quite as honest with him. The prom tickets and their envelope bent awkwardly in my pocket, poking me in the side through my sweater like an accusing elbow-to-the-ribs.
Duo noticed my wince.
"You OK?" he asked, settling into the passenger seat with a yawn.
I knew I ought to feel bad about that yawn. It was completely and utterly my fault that he was tired. Instead of contrition, it was pride and satisfaction that I had to beat back. Duo had accepted me as his lover; Duo had let me wake him and have my way with him; Duo was mine.
Which meant that I ought to take better care of him, both at home and when we ventured out.
Before I could come up with a reply to his inquiry, Duo hummed. "Hm… that sounds an awful lot like a guilty silence you're not-speaking over there."
I snorted and put the car in gear. Lifting my arm over the back of the seat, I started backing out of the parking space for apartment 1502. "How do you know what a guilty silence sounds like?"
"I'm an expert," he claimed, his words slurring through another yawn. "The rare and mysterious Trowa is capable of many unique and identifiable silences both in and outside his natural habitat—"
"You watched another documentary in Advanced Biology yesterday, didn't you?" I accused drolly. Shifting into overdrive, I pointed the bonnet of the car in the direction of the street.
He chuckled. "Hey now. I'm not accusing you of OD-ing on anatomy videos, am I?"
"Anato—!" I bit off the word with a growl. "I didn't hear you complaining."
"That's because I—" Another yawn. "—wasn't."
Right. I did feel guilty. Despite his reassurances, his eyes were bloodshot and there were shadows beneath them. His face was too pale and his smile, while sincere, lacked its usual exuberance. "It won't happen again," I forced myself to promise.
"Now that would be a damn shame. And a damn waste," Duo objected and I shifted helplessly in my seat when his palm quested over my thigh and his fingertips dragged along the inseam of my denims, up and down. "Just swing through the McDonald's drive-thru, babe."
I did.
The scented steam from the badly brewed coffee swarmed the interior of the car like angry bees, but Duo sighed happily, sipping delicately until I pulled up in front of the school. To my surprise, he slid the beverage into the cup holder nearest me. "Can't take it inside with me," he explained, "so the rest is for you… not that you need it."
He sounded just a little bitter.
"Should I say I'm sorry?" I checked.
"Yeah, but not for this morning. Don't you dare apologize for that."
"What am I apologizing for?"
He grinned and winked. "The hell Hilde's gonna put me through until I break down and tell her why I'm a zombie today… and then the hell she's gonna put me through for actually telling her."
"You could lie," I offered.
"Yeah, but that's not really my style."
"I've noticed."
He squeezed my knee before opening the car door and pulling himself out with the aid of what he called the "oh-shit handle."
"I'll make it up to you," I belatedly offered, my knee still tingling.
Duo turned and leaned down into the open doorway. He smiled. "Oh, I know you will." His gaze traveled down my chest to my lap and then back up. "Have a good day."
It was not an easy request to fulfill, not when all I had to look forward to was lecture after lecture as I crammed myself into one bloody hybrid chair-and-desk contraption after another. Clearly, the befokken things had not been designed for people with arms and legs as long as mine. And I wasn't even the biggest student. Not by far.
"What's up, man?"
I nodded in greeting as I set my lunch tray down at my usual table in the cafeteria. "Ja-nee," I told Odin with a shrug. "Howsit?"
He shrugged in reply.
There was nothing particularly remarkable about the oke except for the fact that he was built like a professional rugby player – a Number Eight and not a kilogram or centimeter less – and loomed over everyone else in the building. Most of the other students tended to avoid him. They avoided me as well. Civilians could generally sense someone who stood out from the rest of the flock, in one way or another, and they steered themselves clear.
How strange that Duo had been drawn to me instead.
I slid into my seat and glanced across the table at Marie May, who couldn't have been more than sixteen years old and was very pregnant. She was the only other student who seemed immune to Odin's impressive size and my inexpressive silence. From the first day of the winter semester, she'd made a habit of sitting with us and nattering on about this or that as if we were two of her closest girl-friends.
"Hi, Trowa!" Her cheeks dimpled as she grinned angelically up at me. "How's Duo?"
I felt my lips twitch in answer. Her smile was almost as impossible to resist as Duo's was. "Fine."
"You say that every day," she complained, rolling her eyes. "Try using a new word."
Fokken exhausted came to mind. So did pressed senseless. But those each consisted of two words. "Caffeinated," I finally answered.
"And just why would he need caffeine?" she teased, ignoring her Salisbury steak in favor of interrogating me.
"I don't wanna know," Odin interjected on a mutter.
I strangled back my snort of humor as the huge oke attempted to distract himself by staring in the direction of the nearest window. It was snowing. Again.
"I'd rather not say," I agreed and he breathed out a sigh of relief.
Ja, he knew I was in a relationship with my "roommate," Duo. After showing up for my first day of school with Duo's mark plainly displayed, I was pretty sure everyone had sussed out the fact that I was in a relationship with someone. I'd been proud to let all and sundry know that I was wanted, that my heart and my loyalty had been claimed. What I hadn't anticipated were the speculative looks that a few of the girls had given me before they'd noticed the telltale bruise on my throat. They'd let me alone, thankfully.
Although I hadn't told anyone that I had a boyfriend rather than a girlfriend, the fact that Duo's name was the only one I mentioned regularly had apparently been more than enough for Marie May to deduce the truth. That was almost too much information for Odin, but Marie May was constantly trying to pry details out of me.
"That's OK. Maybe I can guess anyway!" she announced, right on cue. "Hm, either Duo's not a morning person or you guys had a late night."
I was not about to answer that. I gave her a long stare. She didn't look apologetic. Yesterday, when she'd accused me of grinning the grin of He Who Has Gotten Laid, I hadn't denied the accusation fast enough. Now I was paying the price.
I cleared my throat.
"I don't see any new hickeys," she added playfully, craning her neck to get a better look at my neck from the other side of the table.
I didn't tell her that was because I didn't need them anymore. Just as our paths had begun to take us to separate places for the majority of the day, I'd needed Duo to mark me. I'd needed some tie to him that would bridge the distance between us. Now that our routines had settled, my anxiety had evaporated. For the most part. I couldn't be completely relaxed and confident what with our every move being monitored. But the marks hadn't been about that. Of course I'd bear any mark Duo chose to leave on me, and it made me harden just thinking about the one he'd asked for, the one I'd left on the inside of his pale, smooth, flawless thigh, but I didn't need it. Attending separate schools hadn't created a rift between us; I'd been a chop to fear that it would. Thank God Duo hadn't held it against me. His understanding still left me breathless.
"Or maybe there are love bites somewhere else—"
If I didn't distract Marie May, Odin was going to cover his ears and start humming to drown her out. I hastily countered with the first topic that came to mind thanks to a timely, papery poke from my coat pocket: "What do either of you know about prom?"
Odin grunted. "Waste of money."
"It is not!" Marie May insisted and, seeing the mocking expression on Odin's unremarkable face, gave me her undivided attention. "It's really great, Trowa. Everyone dresses up and it's so romantic and all the guys are so dashing—!"
"Goddamn penguin suits," Odin remarked.
Marie May rolled her eyes. "They are not! Look, Trowa, if you've been invited, you should go. Totally."
"I'll take your recommendation under advisement," I said, picking at my salad. Why did they always put shredded cheese on every bloody thing in this country?
Odin laughed. "Everyone in South Africa talk like you, man?"
I smirked. "Just the larnies and boykies. Good luck trying to suss out what an oke from some dorpie is on about."
Marie May giggled. "Your accent is so cool."
Odin just sighed and shook his head.
Thankfully, that was the end of Marie May's investigation into my private affairs for the day. Unfortunately, both Odin and I were subjected to a detailed description of what all three of her older sisters had worn to their proms.
When I went to pick up Duo after school, he more or less cannonballed into the passenger seat to escape Hilde.
Reaching out to grab the door handle, he informed her on a weak laugh, "I told you to use your imagination. Creative editing requires too many brain cells."
She braced herself in the open car door before he could pull it shut. "All of which seem to be residing in your di—"
"Don't say it, woman," he cut in with such perfect timing that I sniggered. "Zombification equals squick-tastic version of events. Keep it in mind for the future."
Feeling a bit evil, I leaned into Duo's space and asked Hilde, "Did he tell you how I woke him up?"
"No," she replied, "that I wouldn't have minded hearing. Probably. Mr. T-M-I here got descriptive."
Duo rolled his eyes. Petulantly, he muttered, "All I said was that being uncircumcised saves on hand lotion."
I barked out a laugh. He met my side-long glance with a cocky and unapologetic smile.
Hilde shuddered in revulsion. "I hate you," she informed him.
"Which is why you keep trying to tell me – in great and unnecessary detail – how you and Dorothy managed to puncture your waterbed mattress again."
I had to clench my jaw to keep quiet enough to hear Hilde's reply.
"Yeah, and you're the only guy in school who doesn't wanna know."
"So tell them!"
"Those cowardly pervs?!" She looked completely aghast. "The only reason they don't come right out and ask is fear of Dorothy skinning them and wearing their hides as a mansuit."
"Ugh!" Duo grimaced. "Tell me she wouldn't really do that."
Hilde grinned maliciously. "The thought has crossed her mind."
He shuddered. "Congratulations. You win the squick contest. Now let me close the freakin' car door already."
Expression smug, she did.
"Bugger and fuck," I muttered chuckling as Duo buckled his seatbelt and I put the car in gear. "Never a dull moment."
Duo melted against the seat in vaguely man-shaped pile of exhaustion. "No shit." Guilt revisited me as he sighed out a breath from the depths of his very soul. "I'm so damn glad this day is over with. You have no idea."
"Hm." I bet I did. What I said was, "Pick your poison. I'm buying dinner." It was the least I could do.
We got takeaway from a Chinese restaurant, munching through an order of spring rolls and slurping a bowl of egg drop soup apiece while they boxed up our rice and stirfry. Duo crashed on the sofa the moment we walked in the door. I knelt down next to him and pulled his shoes off his feet before unfurling the blanket that had been folded up over the back of a nearby armchair. Laying it over him – uniform, winter coat, and all – I pressed my lips to his forehead. Although he didn't open his eyes, he mumbled, "Don't apologize."
"All right," I acquiesced.
"Regret nothing," he ordered and I had to admit it was good advice.
"No regrets," I agreed and let him sleep.
After storing our takeaway boxes in the oven, I thought about working on my homework. I had a page of geometry proofs to write, twenty algebra problems to solve, a chapter to read in American history, and the first act of Macbeth to absorb, so I resigned myself to doing that until Duo woke up for dinner.
When he did, we reheated the Chinese food. I was startled when he actually made use of the wooden chopsticks we'd been provided. I was happy with my tablespoon, but it was interesting to watch him use the things. Interesting and enlightening. It appeared I'd only begun to investigate Duo's delightful dexterity.
Dinner consumed and clean-up managed, we crashed on the sofa to digest. I kept Duo's braid out of his way as he lounged back against my chest, using my thighs for armrests as he flipped through the channels. It wasn't long after he started drawing pictures on the knees of my denims and I started nuzzling his exposed neck that he abandoned the telly with a soft "Fuck it." He hit the Power button on the remote and squirmed around to face me. My pulse picked up in anticipation. He was a warm, wonderful weight between my thighs and on my chest. His lips were only a brief stretch away.
With a small, knowing grin, Duo studied my mouth. He groped blindly for a second remote on the low table, picked it up, aimed it at the stereo, and a moment later the opening strains of a symphony softly filled the room.
"Rachmaninoff." I catalogued it absently, still savoring the delicious moment of a soon-to-be kiss. "The Isle of the Dead."
Duo stiffened.
It wasn't until the words left my mouth and echoed back to me that I recalled Duo telling me that the only god was the God of Death. I remembered the grave in the Maxwell family cemetery that he'd walked away from rather than acknowledge. I also remembered how he'd torn down the driveway at the house without even thinking to first put his seatbelt on.
Those things, in and of themselves, had not been all that disturbing, but a pattern was emerging now: in the entryway, the day before I'd started school, I'd been positive I was one misstep away from being bitten rather than just pressed up against the wall and marked. And there were other moments: the sound of glass breaking, which had made my heart leap into my throat even as I'd dived out of the bathroom to come to Duo's aid; the echo of his dark growl as he confessed to wanting to kill the people who had given me my scars; that chilling moment in the shower yesterday when he'd threatened anyone who dared to touch me.
Oh yes, that seething darkness still clung to him, rising to the fore with or without provocation and here I'd just uttered words that might call it forth.
Duo pulled back a bit, tilted his head to the side, and simply looked at me. But no, it wasn't just a look. He seemed to be carefully weighing my soul. I held still for his scrutiny and braced myself.
When he finally spoke, I was completely taken aback. Of course. I should have known by now that it was impossible to predict Duo's reaction to anything.
"I'm pretty sure I'm an idiot." He sat up and grabbed my hand. "C'mon."
I let him haul me out of the living room and down the hallway. I blinked when he pulled me past both his bedroom and mine, dragging me further down to a door at the end of the hall that we'd never opened. When I saw what was on the other side, I understood why.
It was a music room.
And, at the center, stood a magnificent piano. I'd never been in the same room with one before. My fingers tingled with sudden nerves, as if I were about to shake hands with the bloody President of the United States. Although, truthfully, I probably wouldn't feel this anxious were I face-to-face him. No, I was done in by a perfectly benign musical instrument. Of all things.
Duo released me and lifted up the seat on the bench to rifle through several sheets of paper and softcover books inside.
"Ah," he said after a moment, pulling one particularly tattered book out and replacing the cushion. He set the scuffed thing up on the easel and tucked the wooden keyboard cover up out of the way exposing the ebony and ivory themselves before seating himself before them. And then he did the sexiest thing I'd ever seen: he placed his fingers delicately upon the ivory and proceeded to play a scale. It was just a simple scale – one that he repeated up and down the keyboard – but I was transfixed. Perhaps tonight was destined to be yet another night for falling in love with Duo all over again.
He looked up and patted the seat next to him in invitation. I slid in beside him before my knees gave out and I ended up on my arse on the floor for the second time today.
"It's still pretty much in tune," he informed me.
"Is this the piano your—your mother…?"
"Yeah," he said. "My mom used to play this." His lips curved into a nostalgic smile. "She'd play Solo and me to sleep."
I had no response to that.
"I'll warn you now," he began. "I can't play. I mean, really. I suck at the piano, but I can get you started."
"What?"
He nodded toward the keyboard. "Put your fingers on the keys. Like this."
He demonstrated by bouncing his fingertips on the ivory.
I wiped my sweaty palms on my denims before I copied him. Well, I tried to. He leaned over and shifted my hand two keys down.
"OK, good. Let's try C major."
He walked me through the scale until I could do it with both hands in tandem. Then he started to show me how to sound out a melody with my right and a harmony with my left.
"Sweet," he encouraged me. And then he got off the bench and gestured for me to move to the very center of it. He stood behind me and opened the book.
And then he taught me how to read.
It was so simple once he'd explained the system to me. I'd been right to think Duo would make a great teacher. He was patient and thorough, methodical and encouraging.
I remembered being jealous of him in Egypt when he'd read the hieroglyphs on the tomb walls, but if I'd known he could do this—! I didn't know what I would have done. Maybe nothing different. But maybe I would have done nothing at all: maybe I would have been too envious or too in awe of him to kiss him that night under the sail. The very thought was devastating. But I hadn't hesitated. I'd kissed Duo; I'd fallen in love with him; I'd let him change my life – change me – and bring us both to this moment.
No, I didn't know what I would or wouldn't have done if I'd known he understood the one skill I'd secretly coveted for as long as I could remember. All I knew now – at this very moment – was that he was incredible. And, incredibly, he was just giving this knowledge to me. I knew he would never ask for anything in return. He wouldn't see it as a debt, a favor, or even a gift. Even after all these years, I couldn't comprehend how someone like him could be real.
But he was real. And he was mine.
He took me on a journey through the scales, through chords and what I learned were called "arpeggios."
"You doing OK?" he checked, leaning forward to get a clear line of sight to my expression.
I turned my head away from the piano, brushing my lips against his with a smile. I smiled like I had when I'd opened the package he'd sent me via Professor Merquise's faculty mailbox in Cairo and had found a lifeline to him inside. I smiled like I had when he'd sent me his first text message and his second and third…!
I told him, "Ja. I'm fine."
"Good," he answered and then turned a few pages. "Let's skip the rest of this intro stuff for now and try a song."
I looked at the title he'd chosen. My smile fled. I felt myself pale. "This is Beethoven."
I couldn't play something like this. This was a classic, a masterpiece. This was—
"Just notes on a page," Duo insisted softly. "What's the first?" he asked and my hand was moving before I even thought about it. And then I was playing. The melody of Beethoven's Für Elise was coaxed out, one hesitant note at a time, from my fingertips. Duo didn't let me pause when I reached the end of the first line.
"Try it again," he urged, pointing me back to the beginning, and the song rolled forth, haltingly at first with a slip and a wrong key and a few notes struck too late, but I kept on in this way – carefully feeling my way through a line of notes and then going back to play it again – until I reached the bottom of the page.
I didn't play the entire song, only the first twenty seconds or so, but…
But I'd played. Beethoven. On the piano.
And then Duo placed my left hand upon the keyboard, twitching his fingers in time and in sympathy as he coached me through fitting the harmony into the melody. I knitted and wove and the air dripped with the color of the notes until I could taste the music, until it soaked into my skin and my heart was beating with it, pumping it through my veins. All the songs on my iPod couldn't compare to this. Those recordings were pale shadows of the magnificent beast itself, which rose at my command as if summoned from some invisible realm.
It was magic.
As the final notes at the bottom of the page were echoing in the room, I blinked, coming back to the here and now, startled by how easily I'd fallen under the spell of the music. I hadn't simply moved my fingers and played a song. I'd become the song.
"Duo…?" I whispered.
He placed a hand on my shoulder. "Amazing," he breathed. "I had a feeling you would be."
I was shaking. From reaction, perhaps, but reaction to what? There were no enemies here, no battles, no close-calls, no near-death-encounters. Duo was here and I was safe and it was only music, wasn't it?
"How did you know?" I heard myself ask. My voice was a trembling thread of its usual tone.
He chuckled, toying with my long bangs with such tenderness that a butterfly's footsteps would have felt like the stomping of an elephant in comparison. He said, "Suddenly, out there on the sofa, it just came to me." He paused and then added, "I bet you know more about music than anyone I've ever met. I was an idiot to only think of this now."
For a moment, I didn't say anything. I couldn't. My next thought tangled me up so badly that words were impossible. Pulling my hands away from the keys, I finally asked, "Am I… was that any good?"
Duo propped a knee up on the bench beside me and wrapped his arms around me. I felt his chin dig into my shoulder. "Now who's being an idiot?" he breathed. "It was unbelievable."
Again, I was speechless.
Duo's hands reached for mine, gathering them as if he were holding something precious and fragile in his grasp. "Should have known," he mused again, shaking his head with wonder. "They're artist's hands. I should have known."
I grasped his fingers and turned on the bench, pulling him down to straddle it, facing me.
"You…" Emotions were running high: I was both terrified and thrilled by the version of myself that I'd just glimpsed, that Duo had just shown me. Just like that night at the dig site, I cradled his face in my hands. I suddenly – urgently – needed him to know— "You remake me."
He gasped. His eyes brightening with tears I knew he wouldn't cry. "Trowa," he breathed.
I'd made love with him so many ways, with all my heart and soul. I'd kissed him gently, deeply, briefly, savoringly. But here, on this piano bench, in the trembling silence of my first music lesson, something happened. Something that moved me so deep into him and him so deep into me… Either we'd just found a state of being beyond that of lovers or I'd never really understood the meaning of the word to begin with.
Right then and there, I promised myself that I would never forget this moment. I would never forget this Duo, this me, and when we kissed, it felt like the sealing of an oath. If I hadn't been fully aware of to whom this room had once belonged, I probably would have had him right there on the piano bench.
When we both pulled back, Duo giggled.
"What?" I asked, already smiling in anticipation of the joke.
"We just had a Hollywood moment."
"Hm?"
"Making out in the general vicinity of a piano."
"How unoriginal of us."
"See, I knew I shouldn't have mentioned it. Greatness ought to be encouraged." He winked.
Inexplicably embarrassed, I mumbled, "Is that what you call it?"
"What I call it?" he retorted, trying to look offended. "If I crack open a dictionary and look up the word 'great', guess whose picture they printed there for the definition?"
"Goof," I insisted, leaning forward to place a kiss on the side of his neck. I inhaled deeply, appreciating the warmth trapped there by his messy and sleep-loosened braid. Just for the hell of it, I said, "I was talking about making out."
"Oh. Well, your picture's there, too."
I laughed. God, I loved him.
His fingers trailed through my bangs again. "You wanna keep playing?"
I wasn't sure if I should. The past hour felt like a dream. In some ways, I wished it had been. In others, I dreaded that I was about to wake up. I ought to call it a night and let this newness sink in, but the lure of what else I could create and craft was a siren's song.
"It's all right?" I checked, wondering if I dared to try the next page of the composition.
He chuckled. "Don't even, man. You're practically vibrating." He climbed off of the bench and, planting his hands on my shoulders, turned me back toward the keyboard. "Impress me," he ordered softly.
Smiling, I thumbed the page aside. "You asked for it," I told him.
I put my fingers back on the keys, struck the first note, and then the magic was back and it was filling me up. It made me tingle, much like when Duo touched me but different, complementary. If he was my world, then the music was the air I breathed, and I breathed it in again and again. This wasn't simple survival or the necessity of existing. This was life and infinity and—
—warm arms slid around my shoulders and hugged me back against a chest that I instantly recognized as Duo's. My hands slid off the piano when the final notes of the song misted into silence. I had no idea how long I'd been practicing, of how many times I'd played the song, of how many variations I'd experimented with, but I was optimistic that I'd nearly mastered the whole thing. I still hadn't committed it to memory – not quite – and there were a few bars I was sure needed to be played softer, faster, and I hadn't sussed out the significance of the piano's foot pedals yet, but it was—
"Awesome," Duo purred in my ear.
Suddenly, I felt exhausted. I leaned against him and closed my eyes. I could still hear the music, could still see and feel the keys, haunting me like ghosts.
"C'mon," he urged. "I made French toast."
"Hm?" I opened my eyes and searched for a clock. "How long was I—?"
I didn't bother finishing the question. The clock on the wall said it was nine-thirty. I'd been sitting here for three hours.
Three hours.
"Duo?" Heart pounding, I sought him out for confirmation.
He nodded. "C'mon," he repeated and, when I stood up, I actually felt a little dizzy. My stomach growled. Duo laughed softly. "Yeah, that's what I thought. In a contest of Beethoven versus Mongolian Beef…" He shrugged eloquently. "I'm pretty sure Genghis Khan gets his ass whooped every time."
I still couldn't believe that I'd been absorbed in the same song for three hours. Surely, I would have noticed. Surely, I would have driven Duo insane. Surely, he was teasing me; he must have snuck in and changed the time on the clock before I'd noticed. But all the clocks in the apartment read 9:30 or some close approximation of it. Even my wristwatch, which I was still wearing. While I didn't doubt that Duo could have gone to all the trouble of changing every single clock – even the one on the DVD player – I didn't really believe he would have. And it would have been impossible for him to fiddle with my watch.
"Three hours?" I asked, numb with disbelief as he nudged me toward a seat and a plate of still-steaming French toast.
"Yup."
It made no sense for him to look so befokken pleased with himself. I'd just ignored him for three solid hours. "What did you do?" I ventured. "While I was…?"
"Company stuff," he said. "Got that big video conference on Saturday."
And I had another training session with Septum. I was not particularly looking forward to it.
He added, "And I ran an errand."
A forkful of toast nearly at my mouth, I froze. "You went out?"
Duo's grin was crooked. "Huh. I guess you really did space out on me."
I blinked at him as my silent panic mounted.
He explained, "I told you I was going out."
I had no memory of this. Was this the price to be paid for my time spent at the piano? I was completely and utterly terrified. I set my fork down before I drove it and the bits of toast I'd speared with it into the table, tines first. "Did I reply?"
"You sorta grunted. To be honest, I didn't wanna bug you."
I felt my jaw clench. I forced myself to breathe. Dear God, if he'd been approached by Khushrenada or one of his lackeys while he'd been out… If he'd been threatened… If he'd been taken…! When would I have noticed? How would I have found him? What would I have done? Who would I have gone to for help?
But I already knew the answer to that last point: no one. There was no one on whom I could rely. There was no one who would believe my accusations against Treize Khushrenada. And by the time my troupe arrived to back me up, Duo could be anywhere in the world. He could be dead.
Oh, fuck. Bugger and fuck and fuck all. I could have lost him.
My hands were shaking so I fisted them. I had to calm down.
"Tro?" he prompted questioningly.
"Bug me," I rasped, not trusting myself to meet his gaze.
"OK," he agreed, giving me a narrow-eyed look as I struggled not to scream at him. "I'll try harder next time."
I let out one more breath and looked up. Although the mischievous twinkle in his dark eyes assured me that he definitely would try harder next time, I doubted there would be a need for it. I was not going anywhere near that fokken piano ever again.
The decision wrenched my heart like I'd taken a spanner to it, but it eased the clamp around my lungs and released my limbs from the rack of uncertainty that had drawn me taut. I was not choosing a bloody instrument over Duo's safety. The end.
I drew in a deep, cleansing breath and picked up my fork. Disaster had been averted and I had Duo all to myself. I endeavored to make the most of it. I kicked him playfully under the table and, when he smiled at me, everything was all right again.
French toast demolished and dishwasher loaded, I led Duo back to the sofa. Mozart was playing on the radio now. I pulled Duo down with me and, eager to forget the close call, I asked with a smile, "Where were we?"
"Oh, you mean before we were so rudely interrupted by my brilliant idea?" he inquired on a chuckle as he crouched over me.
"Ja," I concurred, just to earn myself a measure of playful retribution. "Then."
"Hm, well…" he drawled, leaning closer. "I think I was here—" He snuggled down between my knees again and laid his folded arms over my chest. "—and you were like so—" He tugged on my sweatshirt until my mouth was a small stretch away from his. "—and we were in the middle of one of those long, drawn-out looks that drip with unresolved sexual tension and—"
I kissed him. Not just to shut him up or because he was expecting me to, but because touching him – tasting him – anchored me. I knew who I was when I was with him. The me who had spent the last three hours in some kind of meditative trance, the me who had ignored Duo and let him go out without any backup whatsoever, drove me absolutely bosbefok. But Duo was fine. He was safe and here and kissing him made all that residual fear melt away.
Mindful of how easy it would be to pull his hair, I gently worked my fingers into its depths and was rewarded by his purr of appreciation. God but he denied me nothing. And I would give him anything. Not in payment of a debt, but as an investment in the future. Our future. And it was starting right now.
NOTES:
Marie May is, you guessed it, Mariemeia from Endless Waltz. She's not Treize's daughter in this, though. No relation at all in this AU. Also, Odin Lowe (Heero's caretaker in the Episode Zero manga) is closer to Trowa's age and has never met Heero. I'm just borrowing some GW "fringe" characters to fill up the cast in "Tomb Raiders."
Well, I hope there was something in the 13,000+ words of this chapter that you liked. Leave me a review and let me know! An appreciated author updates faster. Just so you know.
South African English Slang:
Howsit? = What's up? (US)
Ja-nee = so-so, yeah (but not an enthusiastic "yes")
Klap = to smack or hit
Mos = duh (can be said before the object of the sentence rather than placed at the end like "duh" in English)
Pap = a traditional maize porridge (similar to grits or cream of wheat, in other words: mush)
Skinner = gossip
Skop = to kick (as in, "kick someone's ass")
Smaak = to like or love something
Soek = to start trouble
Stukkend = broken, a lot ("I smaak you stukkend" roughly translates to "I love you madly")
