Junkiyomi: Thank you for reading and reviewing, I hope this chapter will deliver on more than just the lemon alone (although lemon is the dominant taste :P).
Angelstarlight: Tahnk you so much! I'm very happy you took the time to let me know you are enjoying my stories
Mrs. Passionate: Thanks you, I hope you will enjoy this new chapter
CaseyCuervo: Thanks, Batman!
CircleKV12: Personally I think moving across to world to a country where you don't speak the language and don't know the culture, is not an obvious solution, especially since Duo doesn't yet realize the true depth of his feelings for Heero. More rationally: Duo doesn't speak the language and wouldn't be able to find a job until he does, who would support him in the meantime? Heero, who already has the burden of paying for his grandmother's expensive health bills? It will be briefly addressed in the story later on, but I figured I'd just tell you now, since you were wondering. I really hope you will enjoy this chapter, no kissing yet, but it's coming soon :P
27CansofTuna: This chapter Heero is still too reluctant to kiss, but you won't have to wait much longer :P Thank you for reading and reviewing.
Daphie: Thanks so much, I'm glad you are enjoying my stories
Belladonna Goddess Chloe: Haha, yes, he is slowly but surely opening his eyes to what's in front of him :P Thanks for taking the time to review again
Snowdragonct: Oh wow, thanks! That is so nice of you to say. I'm keeping a needle on hand just in case my head inflates :P Thanks for reviewing, I hope you will enjoy this update.
Duaimei: Thank you so much
Maeve Mauvais: I'm glad you're enjoying it, I hope this update won't disappoint.
Jeangreymullinsjr: Soon, but you'll have to wait a tiny bit longer :P Thanks for reviewing as always, it's always great to hear from you
RhlyiehChosenOfBane: I fear this chapter might be a little less 'tasteful', haha, but I hope you'll like it regardless. Thank you for reading and reviewing.
Koiame: Well, here it is!
Author's note:
So I wanted to experiment with short but quick chapters, but of course when the words flow I'm not going to cut a chapter in half. In this case: the words flowed, so you get a long chapter (and the wait wasn't that bad, right, since the last update for "Brothers"?). This chapter shouldn't be in existence yet, considering how much I had to do that got postponed (when the words flow, I'm nothing but a slave to my keyboard).
This chapter is pretty lemon-y, so here it is:
Warning: This chapter contains sexual content! I hope no one is offended by the material in this chapter, if you are and you believe this chapter violates the FF guidelines, let me know and I will change the content accordingly.
If you like lemon and you like this story, don't forget to check out the illustration CaseyCuervo made for chapter twelve of "Thousand Words", if you haven't already. You can find the artwork at w-w-w-.-archiveofourown-.-o-r-g-/-works-/-1502945 (delete the breaks, obviously), or search for her under her penname. It's pretty hot ya'll, only suitable for adults!
Thousand Words
Fourteen
The sound of splashing water echoed through the open space. The sharp whistle of the coach I could feel in my bones. The Juniors climbed out of the water on one end of the pool, receiving feedback from the assistant coach, as on the other end of the pool, the seniors got up on the diving platform. I was on the top row of the bleachers, a sketchpad in my lap, but I hadn't created anything other than meaningless doodles, too preoccupied watching the training. Watching one person in particular, of course. I was one of only few spectators, a routine training meet was nothing special, but there was an overbearing father present and a couple of swooning girls from the university paper, gladly observing the half-naked, trimmed and ripped bodies for the sake of the integrity of journalism. I didn't pay any attention to them.
Heero stood on platform number three, a cap covered his hair, goggles protected his eyes, not a particularly flattering look if not for the swim jammers, which left nothing to the imagination, especially considering his tendency to stand with his hips pushed forward slightly. And especially considering I knew exactly what he looked like without them on.
At the first whistle the swimmers got into position, at the second whistle they dove into the water and with a butterfly stroke started speeding towards the opposite end of the pool.
Before they would complete their race I gathered my things, got up and left. I strategically held my sketchpad in front of me. The things Heero did to me without even realizing it were embarrassing.
Outside the cool air provided a quick solution to my body heat. Keeping my jacket over my arm rather than putting it on I let the wind chill me to the bone. If I went to the dorm room I knew I would just end up jacking off anyway and I really had to finish that project on Art Nouveau, it was due in only a couple of days and I had been procrastinating like the best of them. I applauded my own discipline – belated as it was – as I headed for the library.
After two cups of coffee and the emergency energy drink from my backpack, I decided I had done enough. It wasn't that late, the material was just so boring it had a potent ability to put me to sleep. The fact that I knew Heero's practice ended half an hour ago and he would be back in our room by then, had me shoving papers into my pack and swiftly heading out the door.
He had me chasing after him like a lovesick puppy; drooling and wagging my tail, so to speak. It had been over three weeks since New Year's Eve and we hadn't had sex since. It was becoming increasingly more likely that he didn't want to do it again and instead seemed determined to limit the arrangement to jerking each other off and giving each other blowjobs, but those actions – pleasurable as they were – didn't satisfy me. I was always hungry for more. Having him suck my dick didn't provide me the closeness that I yearned for. I wanted to be inside him, in more ways than that phrasing might imply at first glance. I wanted to wrap my arms around him, I wanted to kiss his neck, kiss his ear, kiss his cheek… kiss his lips. A quick handjob in the study room didn't do it for me anymore. If I was purely seeking physical release that might have continued to be enough, but apparently, for whatever reason, that wasn't enough.
I suspected Heero secretly wanted more too, as much as me, he seemed discontented, but was denying us both for the wrong reasons; shame and fear. He was insatiable and eagerly initiated some kind of exchange at least on a daily basis, but even as the increased frequency left us both unsatisfied, he didn't indicate he wanted more and I didn't dare to offer, too afraid to shatter this delicate alliance.
Some of the guys were downstairs in the living room, drinking and laughing, they didn't even notice me coming in through the front door of the dorm building and passing through the hallway to the winding staircase. Their laughter grew faint and distant as I headed up and towards our room.
As expected Heero had returned from swim practice. He sat at the desk, highlighting key words in a textbook with an orange marker. Of course he was aware of my presence, but he didn't acknowledge me.
I dumped my bag on the foot of the bed, of the lower bunk, his bunk, I would get scolded for that later, I knew. I stepped further into the cramped space to stand behind him. After a thoughtful pause I placed my hands on his shoulder and at that simple touch he sighed and relaxed, sitting back in the chair, leaving the textbook and the marker discarded on the desk. With my thumbs I gently massaged the muscles over his shoulder blades. His hair was still damp and his body was still warm from the hot shower he always took following training, which explained why he was only wearing his tight jeans and his forest green tank top.
Quietly I massaged his shoulders, enjoying the soft feel of his skin over the hardness of his muscles.
He sighed, then spoke mildly: "Did you put your bag on my bed again?"
I smirked, priding myself on how well I knew him. "Yes," I replied coyly.
"Do you think I make my bed every morning just so you can have the pleasure of messing up the sheets?"
I leaned forward and whispered in his ear with hot breath: "If I wanted to mess up your sheets I would know of better ways to go about it." I flicked the tip of my tongue along the shell of his ear, eliciting a shudder. I continued to innocently massage his shoulders and neck even as I recognized we both wanted something different, something more. "How was swim practice?"
"If you had stayed, you wouldn't have had to ask."
"I didn't even realize you knew I was there. You never looked up once." There was a slight bitterness in my tone.
"With those silly goggles on it's hard to tell which way I'm looking. When I finished the fifty meter butterfly, I looked up and saw you were gone."
"Did you win?"
"No, Trowa beat me. He's always been better at the butterfly. It didn't bother me that I lost, it irked me that you left. It made me wonder if we were having a fight… or something."
I stilled my hands and leaned over his shoulder to look at me. "What would we be fighting about?" I challenged lightheartedly.
"I don't know." Yet following his dismissive shrug he stated quietly: "About sex."
I softly kissed his neck. "We're not fighting. If you don't want to have sex again, we won't and I won't argue." As much as it pained me to give up on that level of physicality between us, I would back up my statement, I never wanted to hurt Heero's feelings; making him feel like I was misusing him.
He sighed, my words seemed to relieve him, which made me feel guilty, for making him feel differently before.
Willing and eager to show him I'd be up with whatever he wanted or didn't want, I slid one of my hands down from his shoulders over his chest, into the loose tank top. My hand strayed to the right to tease the nipple into an erect state and then proceeding to tease him by rubbing the hardened nub between my thumb and forefinger whilst kissing his neck and sucking on his earlobe. The front of his jeans was pushed up as far as the coarse, constricting fabric allowed, by his growing arousal.
After worrying his earlobe between my teeth and paying attention to the other nipple I tilted my head to look at his face and read his expression. When I recognized his response was favorable to the full extent I moved my hand further down, letting my fingers lightly ghost over the taut plains of his abdomen before worming the tips of my fingers into his tight jeans. My left hand was on his neck and underneath my palm I could feel his racing heartbeat.
The constant awareness that I wanted him more than he wanted me always throbbed but the pain was dulled by Heero's enthusiasm. I was thrilled when he placed his hand on the back of my neck and pulled my face close to his. Surely he didn't have the intention to initiate a kiss but his act emboldened me to plant a quick peck on the corner of his mouth. Immediately doubt and worry were evident in his eyes, to erase all traces of that I lightened the atmosphere by pointing out: "Your jeans are too tight." I had managed to wiggle my hand into the front of his jeans, where it was immobilized over the bulge of his groin.
He breathed heavily: "Then take them off."
He certainly didn't need to tell me twice. I retracted my hand from inside his jeans. I pulled up the hem of the tank top that had been tucked into his jeans and bunched up the fabric high up on his chest, exposing his torso. Then my hand moved back down and made quick work of the button and the zipper. With the fly open I pulled his stiff manhood free from his underwear. I grinned at it, standing straight up and reddened with evident desire and need. I let my hand roam over his chest and abdomen for a while, purposefully neglecting his erection. I chuckled at the slight, upward thrusts his hips made whenever my fingers grazed the dark curls at the base.
"You're such a fucking tease."
I let out a laugh. "That's the pot calling the kettle black." Finally I reached down and wrapped my warm hand around him, smiling at the shudder that passed through him. I stared at my fist as it moved up and down, enjoying the sight of it, grotesque and perverted as it might be. Heero must have liked it too, he was looking as well. He moaned hotly in my ear. I wanted to twist my fingers into his hair and force his head back and thrust my tongue into his hot mouth, engage his tongue in a battle for dominance, but I knew he didn't want me to. That stung, enough so to be felt through the hazy mist of pleasure that shrouded my senses.
To distract myself I asked him: "Do you want me to put my fingers inside you?" He let me do so a couple of times before and it seemed to heighten his pleasure, as it did mine.
He let out a pathetic whine, confused by his conflicted feelings; torn between wanton desire and irrational shame.
I asked again, huskily: "Do you want my fingers inside you?"
"I want… you." He admitted after a pause.
"You want me, what?"
He looked at me meaningfully and repeated more convincingly: "I want you."
My heart leapt in my chest and my dick leapt in my pants, so much so that ribs might have been cracked and seams might have been torn. "You want me?"
His cheekbones flared red but he nodded nonetheless.
"Are you serious?"
"Duo…"
"Well, I'm sorry, this just comes out of the blue. And considering what we just talked about, I don't want you to feel forced-"
"As if you could ever force me to do something I didn't want."
That was a relief to hear, but still… "But-"
He bit his lower lip, hesitating momentarily before pleading: "Please fuck me."
"Ohhh… fuck…" I moaned helplessly, looking into his clouded blue eyes. "Say that again."
"Please fuck me, Duo."
The addition of my name made it even better. With urgency I stepped around the chair and hoisted him up to his feet, pressing him against me. I buried my nose in his hair to stop myself from kissing him and tightly wrapped my arms around him, holding him to me, feeling the wild, excited beating of his heart reverberate in my own chest. I grabbed his narrow hips, my fingers digging into the skin as his jeans and underwear had been pushed down to mid-thigh. I lifted him up and turned us around so I could deposit him on the surface of the desk. I placed a chaste kiss on the tip of his nose and then stepped back. "Give me a second," I urged and then moved to the closet, momentarily caught off guard by my own, disheveled and embarrassingly eager reflection in the full-length mirror before ripping the door open and tossing over stacks of clothing to locate the full-size bottle of lubrication I had purchased in anticipation after New Year's Eve. When I turned back around I noticed with dismay and disappointment that Heero had repositioned himself; standing in front of the desk, his forearms resting on his surface, again forcing a position that wouldn't allow me to see his face.
I surrendered to it, not in the least because he looked absolutely irresistible with his jeans around his ankles, his ass offered to me. I quickly stripped myself of my sweater and pushed down my pants just far enough as I came to stand behind me.
"That's quite a sizable tube of lube," He remarked dryly once I put it on the desk next to his right arm, after pouring a generous amount into my hand.
"We're going to need it," I retorted with a grin. I unceremoniously stretched him with my fingers, looking forward to when that would no longer be necessary and his body would be so used to my length and thickness that I could just push into him without preparation. Then he would be truly mine, I thought possessively. I curled my fingers to tease his prostate, drawing gasps and moans from him and causing him to push back against the intruding digits, wanting more. "You really love it, don't you?" I marveled.
He grunted: "I love your dick more."
I bit my lip, stopping a groan deep in my throat. "You're just full of pleasant surprises today." I pulled out my fingers and pumped my slick fist up and down my erection to make sure I was well-lubricated before pressing the head against his opening. As I did the first time, I gently urged him to relax with soft words and he was able to accommodate my size more easily than the previous time. We moaned in unison. Once I was fully seated inside him I stilled to enjoy the sensations and give him time to steady his breathing. When I recognized he was ready I fucked him like he had pleaded me to, with a steady rhythm of long, powerful thrusts.
"Oh, fuck yeah…" He groaned approvingly, biting his own fist to keep himself from getting too loud.
In that moment I realized the door was unlocked, but I didn't stop, because with little delay I realized that I didn't even care if someone were to walk in on us in the heat of the moment. I wasn't ashamed. He was mine and I wouldn't mind other people knowing it.
Feeling my orgasm approach swiftly and mercilessly, I reached around him and formed my hand into a tight fist around his arousal. The force of my thrusts moved our bodies back and forth, so he fucked the tunnel I formed with my hand with the same pace with which I fucked him.
It was over soon. Too soon. It was embarrassing, really. But Heero was right there with me. Even in my incapacitated state I thought to catch his semen in my hand to prevent it from ending up on the open pages of his textbooks.
I collapsed forward, my body covering his as he lowered his chest to rest on the desk. We both panted harshly.
I chuckled. "I swear I usually last longer than this."
"Sure you do," Heero replied, I could imagine him rolling his eyes.
"I'm serious." I kissed the back of his neck, tasting his sweat and smelling it in the damp hairs. "Your ass is just too good."
He scoffed but with a quick glance I could see he was blushing.
With a deep exhale I straightened up, carefully pulled out of him and fell back into one of the desk chairs. I stared at his shapely behind with a silly, satisfied smirk.
Heero got up and pulled up his jeans with a groan. "Now I'm going to have to take another shower."
"Why?" I asked mirthfully, looking up at him, at his reddened cheeks, his tousled hair and his glowing skin. "It's a good look on you." I grabbed his hips and tugged him towards me. With my nose I pushed up his tank top and kissed his stomach above the hem of his underwear, the fly of his jeans still open. "You even smell good."
He let out a single laugh, distrusting the truthfulness of my words. He probably brushed it off as me messing with him. Without much further ado he grabbed a towel from the closet and headed out. When he realized we had left the door unlocked the horror was apparent on his features. He looked back at me. "We really have to be more careful than this. We can't let it get a hold of us again like that, making us so careless."
"Don't count on it."
He made a face and then left.
With a towel I cleaned myself off enough to be presentable and headed downstairs myself for a shower, reckoning the second bathroom would not be in use with the guys drinking and smoking in the living room.
I smirked at my distorted reflection in the metallic surface of the shower head. I had gotten what I wanted, after all. Or had I? My smile faltered. To a certain extent Heero had given me exactly what I had been craving since the change of the year, I certainly had no right to be displeased, but still there was this gnawing feeling that as great as it had been, it wasn't enough. I wanted to look into his eyes. I wanted to kiss his lips.
Why was that important? I always wanted more than just sex from my girlfriends, but it never happened. While in most of my relationships we cared for one another and liked each other, there was never love between us. There was love between Heero and I, friendly love, and I thought that would remedy the emptiness I had always experienced during the act, and it did, but there remained a disconnect between what I was feeling and what we were doing, I just had trouble defining it. I had a growing suspicion that my platonic affection for Heero muddled my clarity of mind and made it difficult for me to determine if platonic love and affection were really the only feelings involved. As my aunt's nanny innocently pointed out during the last, horrid, Christmas celebration, the fact that we were friends who deeply cared for each other and now also had an intimate, physical relationship, made the arrangement bear a striking resemblance to a loving relationship. That was very confusing, because how could I possibly know when it would stop being a purely friends-with-benefits arrangement and start being something more? Was the distinction even discernible? The fact that I had never really been in love before and that my friendship with Heero had always exceeded the norm, made it all the more difficult to accurately define matters.
I scoffed at myself. Was I honestly wondering if I was in love with Heero? If I was capable of falling in love with him, wouldn't I have fallen much sooner, wouldn't I have realized my attraction much sooner? It was too ridiculous to even contemplate. Yet it appeared the knot in my stomach wouldn't be disentangling any time soon.
When I went back upstairs Heero lay in his bed. My bag he had dumped on my top bunk, unfortunately for him, that didn't bother me, I wasn't the type of guy to make his bed in the morning or take any sort of pride in the appearance of his living quarters. Beiing the young guy that I was, I was perfectly fine with unmade beds and dirty socks lying around. We couldn't all be properly raised men, like Heero. His grandmother, although loving, had been strict and old-fashioned in this regard. She had taught him to be neat and disciplined and he proudly lived by those lessons to honor her, as opposed to his selfish mother. I was raised by nannies who cleaned up after me, I couldn't be bothered trying to make anyone proud.
I pulled my bag off my bed and dumped it on the floor, where it would probably end up bugging Heero the next day. I smirked at him and he glared back at me as he watched me.
"Goodnight, loverboy," I purred.
He could barely hide how horrified he was at the nickname. He turned around in his bed, turning so his back was facing me, and retorted gruffly: "Goodnight."
For a moment my gaze lingered on the back of his head, my eyes trailing a few chosen locks of hair that cascaded down from his scalp feathered out on the white pillow case. I wanted to run my hands through the strands, knowing them to be soft, but that would be frowned upon. It wouldn't be appropriate. I could fuck him but I couldn't run my hands through his hair in that moment, nor kiss him goodnight. That seemed fucked up to me. But it was probably I who was fucked up, craving these weird, irrelevant things.
I climbed into my top bunk, hiding there, staring at the wall as all through the night the knot in my stomach ached.
Something was not right.
Something was plain wrong.
Confusing feelings and desires that I wished to dismiss as insignificant could not be brushed off and that simple fact made them significant.
I experienced no trouble acknowledging and admitting I was gay when the realization dawned on me, but the possibility that I might have fallen in love with my best friend was not as easy to accept. Because I knew… I knew he wouldn't love me back, not like that. My unwanted affections would ruin our friendship. He would distrust me. He would flee back to Japan to avoid the discomfort of being around me and he would never look back. And I wouldn't just be left missing my friend, I would be left brokenhearted. That was definitely not as easy to accept.
"Your dick is just fucking with you mind, Maxwell," I whispered to myself stubbornly.
Heero groaned in the bunk beneath mine. With groggy voice he asked: "Did you say something?"
"Sorry, I was only mumbling to myself."
He sighed. The sheets rustled as he appeared to turn around. After another soft sigh it seemed he had fallen asleep again.
The next morning, when he got up before sunrise for his daily run, I refrained myself from turning over to greedily stare at him changing his clothes in the soft light of the desk lamp. I needed to adopt the same strategy as Heero in approaching this arrangement between us: only sex, nothing else; giving into no other, peripheral desires. I needed to stop thinking with my dick long enough to be able to think with my head and realize nothing was going on: we were just friends-with-benefits.
In the next few days I completed my Art Nouveau assignment and handed it in mere minutes before the midnight deadline. It was always an embarrassment to race through the corridors for the professor's office in the dead of night, knowing the old man stayed up working late only for losers like myself who still hadn't learned their lesson about the consequences of procrastination. I felt sorry for the man and the other teachers and guidance counselors like him who had to put up with me and my equally disappointing peers, but I could hardly feel guilty. I prided myself on having come as far as I had, disimpassioned as I was about my studies. I didn't even want to be an architect – I wanted to be an artist – but it seemed like the responsible field to choose after having my submissions to art schools turned down; it was a relatively creative field, which was important to me, but what really swayed my father into letting me do it was the predicted employment growth over the next decade.
The responsible nature of it was probably precisely what put me off. I was more of a blow-in-the-wind kind of guy; the kind of guy who decides he wants to fuck his best friend on a whim. I wasn't the responsible type. On days like the day of the deadline I felt like a large, organic shape being forced into a small geometric mold; it was never going to fit without sacrificing distinctive bits and pieces of myself. So much sacrifice was needed that once the process was done, I would be unrecognizable. That scared me. I had been so busy worrying about losing Heero, that I hadn't even fully considered what my life would look like following graduation – although the prospect of losing Heero still felt like the deepest, most painful cut.
The need to focus on my assignment was the excuse I fed Heero when he tried to steer our purely platonic interactions towards something to serve an alternative purpose. I didn't intend to quit our arrangement, but I figured a short time of abstinence would detox me all the more quickly, getting these thoughts out of my head, and then things could resume the way I had grown fond of; sharing our bodies in pleasure – all but our lips.
I arranged a basketball game on the court with my other friends in spite of the biting cold. With my assignment completed I had to find other means to politely evade Heero for as long as it would take for my dick to stop sending the wrong signals to my brain and to my heart, confusing both.
I stole the ball from Obie – he wasn't on my team this time – and dribbled it across the court, but one of the other guys approached me from the right and stole the ball away from me. The overly ambitious player in the informal game made the mistake of wanting to score all by himself and was caught traveling. The ball was awarded back to my team.
"Don't slack off, Maxwell," Jested Obie as he circled me, "Your boyfriend is watching."
A look over my shoulder confirmed Heero had taken a seat on one of the benches overlooking the basketball court, a stack of books in his lap. Obie's comment didn't cause me concern, they always mocked our close friendship like that, but it was evident Heero was displeased by the remark. He was displeased even more so when Nash came walking up the path and although he had never taken an interest in sports, took a seat on the bench next to Heero to look at us.
Heero despised Nash. Nash knew that very well. Still remembering Nash's vow to make this year memorable – and knowing his idea of 'memorable' meant bad news for all of us -, I was suspicious of his intentions.
The game continued, but I kept stealing as many glances as I could. My best friend seemed to be dutifully ignoring the jester, but the currently orange haired young man was talking and laughing regardless, in an apparent attempt to provoke him.
Suddenly a thought struck me: Does he know?
Nash had never openly bullied Heero, nor I, but in this final, 'memorable' year, nobody was safe and he would need a very special, irresistible reason to take this kind of interest – to suffer the freezing cold of the steel-grate bench as the wind howled.
I froze in the middle of the game, paying no attention to the skirmish to possess the ball happening in the low post area of my side of the court. Heero looked upset and worried and when he looked my way and caught my gaze he quickly turned his eyes away; he couldn't stand the eye-contact.
My heart ached as it accepted, before my mind had even fully processed the severity of the situation, that it was the end of whatever it was between Heero and I. It would be over. I didn't mind other people knowing, but Heero wouldn't be able to stand it and he wouldn't be able to stand me anymore.
Nash got up and shot me a single, victorious look before walking away, practically skipping.
The bench didn't remain occupied for long, Heero sped off as well, towards the dorm buildings.
"I got to go, guys," I announced absentmindedly and already started for the gate in the chain link fence lining the worn court.
"What?" Called one of my teammates after me. "Duo, we're winning! You can't leave, we'll be an odd number!"
Obie strongly shoved him in the chest to shut him up. "Duo, is everything alright?"
"It'll be fine, I just got to go." I sprinted away, following the young man with the brightly colored hair that stood out like a beacon in the grey weather. "Nash!" I called.
He stopped and turned around, grinning at me. "How can I be of service to you?" He inquired formally once I had caught up with him.
"Don't tell anyone," I dumbly pleaded. I knew there would be no rationalizing with Nash when he was like that, it was like trying to talk a wild, hungry dog into giving you his bone.
"Don't worry, I won't say anything," He swore solemnly, but his cheeky grin alluded to a pitfall. "I'll show them."
My eyes widened with absolute shock. "Show them?"
"Well, what's the point of stealing a picture if you're only going to tell people about it and not show them?"
My eyes narrowed again as my brows furrowed heavily. "Wait, what?"
He scoffed, mistaking my confusion for me being coy. "You don't remember the picture?" He shook his head and chuckled. "Don't worry, your memory will be refreshed, chunky." He laughed and turned away.
"Chunky?" As I repeated the insult realization hit me; first with a wave of relief, then with a ton of bricks. "You stole the picture of me at fatcamp?"
He burst out laughing, hugging his belly. "Fatcamp?! Oh, the uniform! Now it makes sense! Dude, you looked fucking ridiculous."
I stalked over to him and prodded him in his chest with a stiff, angry finger. "You've been snooping in our room? You broke into our room?!"
"Woa, woa! I didn't break in. You guys both took a shower last night and left the door unlocked. The guys challenged me, I have my reputation as agent of chaos to uphold, after all."
"So you just decided to go through all our stuff?" I seethed, stepping forward to loom over him.
"I was going to, but under the bed was the first place I looked. Didn't really have to look any further." He quirked an eyebrow. "Or maybe I should have looked further? You weren't talking about the picture before, were you?" He asked curiously.
I gave him a powerful shove, he could barely keep standing. "Give it back."
"The original?" He snapped his fingers. "Done. It never left your room, I only took a picture of it," He quipped glibly. "You can have one of the hundred photocopies I made as well, if you wish. Of course I'm going to post the picture online, but you are such an illiterate where modern technology is concerned, I figured an old-fashioned approach was most gratifying. And really, at only five cents per copy it's a wise enough investment."
My nostrils flared with anger. I grabbed him by his jacket and pulled him towards me. "You are not going to show anyone that damn picture."
Only now realizing my anger was genuine, he frowned. "What's the big deal? So you were a fat kid, everyone can see times have changed. What does it matter?"
"It matters."
He struggled out of my grip, not a hard feat considering that regardless of how much I wanted to hurt him, I wouldn't let myself give into my rage. "Do I detect a childhood trauma?" He mocked. "Consider it exposure therapy, free of charge." He took that redundant psychology class, same as me. He flashed me a final smirk, then trotted off.
"Motherfucker…" I whispered.
I headed towards the dorm buildings, meaning to talk to Heero, but he wasn't in our room and I didn't know where else to find him. To pass the time I took a shower, making sure to lock the door of our room behind me this time. I had dodged a bullet to the heart, but still took one in the gut. I knew Nash was likely right, people would have a laugh at my expense for a couple of days – weeks if he managed to put a good spin on it to keep it alive – but I didn't look like that anymore and people probably wouldn't think of me differently, not significantly at least. But I would feel differently. After a while it weren't only the words of the bullies that hurt, I was so insecure I couldn't stand anybody looking at me, even those who probably never judged me for my weight. I didn't want to feel like that again.
But it was better than the alternative I momentarily feared; that he had found out about Heero and I. I would rather have everyone in the school look at me differently, than have Heero look at me differently.
When I got back up to our room my roommate still hadn't returned, so I waited for him impatiently, wondering why he had sped off and what he was up to. I worried Nash might have been too ambiguous in his teasing and that he might have made the same wrong interpretation as I had and still thought Nash knew about the two of us. I would have to set that straight as soon as he came back.
Later that evening the door opened and I was relieved to see him.
"Where have you been?" I demanded like a mother hen.
"Nowhere," He dismissed.
I decided to jump right in: "Nash found my fatcamp-picture."
"I know."
His calm reply clearly indicated that it didn't come as a surprise to him. I asked: "Why did you run off like that? What have you been doing for the past hour?" I checked my watch and corrected: "Almost two hours."
"Don't worry about it," He said coolly and stripped out of his sweatshirt that had gotten wet in the rain that had started to pour about half an hour ago. He put on a clean, dry shirt and remarked: "And you don't have to worry about that picture either."
My frown was deep. "Why?"
"He's not going to show anyone," Was his dry and curt reply.
"Why wouldn't he? You didn't threaten to kill him, did you? That you got you in quite a bit of trouble with the principal two years ago."
All he did was repeat himself: "Don't worry about it." It was clear he wasn't going to elaborate.
"Alright… fine…" I consented, although no less confused or curious. "But next time don't scare the Hell out of me. I thought you ran off because Nash found out about us or something."
His expression was grim. "We do have to be more careful next time. We have to lock that door at all times."
I nodded in agreement. Feeling a little deflated I sat down next to him and watched him flip through one of his thick, technical textbooks. I reached out and grabbed a pencil from the desk but only ended up toying with it. I didn't dare to give into my urge to start sketching him, that definitely wouldn't help me see things clearly, that would only make me focus on his golden complexion, his straight nose, his high cheekbones and his shapely lips.
After a while he looked up from his book and nodded at the pencil in my hand. "Shouldn't you do something with that other than twirl it between your fingers?"
"Why? I'm not an artist. I'm just an architect," I replied bitterly.
"Architects draw," He pointed out.
"Architects draw buildings. I don't want to draw buildings."
"What do you want to draw?"
Your face. "Stuff…"
He smiled sympathetically at my lost expression.
"Floor plans and load-bearing walls don't really inspire me," I continued with a pathetic, pouted lip.
"Maybe you should reconsider that summer art school program. Every year you talk about applying, but you never do."
I sighed and leaned back in the chair. "The last time I applied to art schools didn't turn out so great."
He looked at me with warm eyes, recognizing the bitter sadness in my voice at remembering all those rejections. "That was years ago. I think you've gotten better since."
I smiled at his attempt to cheer me up. I did stand a chance at getting accepted into a summer program, but only because the application process wasn't as strict and cut-throat. But I shook my head. "I don't want to. I want to spend the summer with you."
He pursed his lips. "But I'm leaving right after graduation. I thought I told you."
Maybe he did and I had naively chosen to ignore it. I asked dumbly: "Why?"
"Once school is done my dad isn't going to pay for anything anymore. And I have to go back and find a job as quickly as possible. My grandmother's health bills are only going to keep piling up."
The thought of leaving directly following graduation didn't even seem to upset him. He was so practical, he had everything so organized and compartmentalized. It was frustrating. It hurt a little. "Maybe I will apply to one of those summer programs," I shot back.
All he did was concur. "You should."
I bit my lip in frustration. It wasn't fair that I cared more than he did. I went to bed more than a little perturbed, still worried about the picture and angry at Heero for being so callous and seemingly fine with leaving me behind. I didn't get much sleep, a developing pattern that I didn't care for in the least. When I did manage to slip away I got sucked into a restless dream in which everyone called me "Maxwhale", the nasty nickname kids had called me throughout my younger years.
The next morning I got up without hurry. Heero might have believed he managed to convince Nash not to post copies of that unflattering picture all over the school and online, but most of the time Heero was a horrible judge of character and even less skilled at realizing when he was being tricked.
He came back from his morning run right as I was about to leave.
"You're late," I noted, glancing down at my watch.
"I don't have classes until noon."
"Heero, are you familiar with the concept of sleeping-in?" I deadpanned.
"Of course, I just don't support it." He grabbed the hem of his sweatshirt and lifted it up in preparation of his shower.
I looked away, but the sight of his sweat slicked, muscled abdomen and the low-riding thermal leggings was already burned into my retina. "I'll still see you at lunch?"
"Sure."
"Cool." Without looking at him again I stepped out of the room.
First I headed out for my morning coffee and only then did I brave the crowd of students making their way to class. As I walked down the hallway to auditorium B for a dull lecture on reimagining structural elements, I noted, with appropriate dread, a group of student had gathered around one of several message boards throughout the main university building. They were laughing and gasping with disbelief.
Initially I had every intention of ducking my head between my shoulders and trying to sneak past them unnoticed, but I realized a more sound strategy would be to pretend I didn't care and to join them in laughter.
I stood outside the circle and played dumb: "What's so funny?"
Some familiar faces turned around to look at me. One of them, a guy from my math class, remarked: "You don't want to see this, Maxwell."
"Sure I do," I argued bravely and I wormed my way through the gathered crowd of twenty or so students to come into view of the message board. I heard barely contained, gleeful snickers around me.
Tacked to the board – perfectly central – was a print-out of an old, poor quality photo, but the image was not the one I had been expecting and the students around me laughed at my shocked expression.
"Some things can't be unseen," Joked the guy from my math class.
At first glance, rather than a young, fat kid in a beige uniform, leaning uncomfortably against a centuries old redwood tree, the picture was one of a young girl – approximately ten years old – wearing a frilly dress and a summer hat held in place with a neat, pink bow tied underneath her chin. But the first glance was deceiving.
"Oh my God," I uttered as realization dawned on me.
There was no mistaking the furious cobalt blue eyes.
It was the picture Heero shamefully mentioned when I showed my fatcamp-photo; of him forced to dress up as a girl for a school play.
"Do you think this picture will make Relena love him more or less?" A girl wondered, causing laughter to erupt.
"She'll be envious of the dress for sure. Such a pretty, pink bow."
I reached out and ripped the picture off the wall, to the dismay of the people around me.
"There really no point to that, there are copies all over the school and on pretty much every social media site."
I only glared at them and walked away, holding the picture pressed against my chest, over a wildly beating heart.
"You're going to miss the lecture!" Someone called after me.
I didn't care about the lecture to begin with, but I certainly didn't care then.
Back at our dorm room Heero was half-dressed in jeans and a plain, grey T-shirt, walking around barefoot, rubbing his hair dry with the towel draped over his shoulders. When I stormed through the door he looked perplexed, not understanding what the commotion was about.
I turned around the piece of paper I had carried with me, to show him why I was so shocked.
He chewed the inside of his cheek upon seeing the image, but after a short while he shrugged and picked up one end of the towel in one hand to further dry his dark mop of hair.
"I don't understand," I blurted. "What did you do?"
"I offered Nash a fair trade," Was his casual explanation.
My face contorted into one giant question mark.
"After Nash so cockily taunted me with the fact that he was going to humiliate you, I went back to our room to get that picture of me. Then I went looking for him and when I found him I offered to exchange your picture for mine. I even made the damn copies for him."
"But everyone is seeing this, right now," I shook the paper to emphasize my point.
"It doesn't matter," He assured me. "It's worth it."
"Worth it?"
"I didn't want to see you get hurt."
I stared at him. After a long time I stepped forward, intending to kiss him, but I stopped myself. For me, kissing him felt like the right, appropriate thing to do to convey my feelings, but I knew Heero would not let me break this rule.
He quirked an eyebrow at me, not being privy to my inner conflict.
I still decided to close the distance between us to give him a grateful hug. I whispered in his hair: "You're a pretty amazing friend." I snorted at my own understatement. "I don't know how to thank you." There was no guarantee Nash would never display that picture or use it against me, but the fact that Heero protected me eased away my concern that he might have stopped caring about me since the start of our arrangement and with his impending departure. I tightened my arms around him, burying my nose in his wayward hair that smelled of his cheap shampoo, a plain though not unpleasant scent. It felt good to have him pressed up against me. In spite of our physical activities we didn't hug a lot and it didn't seem like the manly thing to do, but it felt right.
He melted into the embrace, tucking his head under my chin, practically nuzzling his nose against my chest. His fingers interlocked behind my back and he heavily and comfortably leaned into me.
An undeniable peace and calm settled in my mind. I was happy being with him, happy in a way that I had never been before and happy in a way that I couldn't imagine ever being again without him. Was that true friendship or was that love? I didn't bother with questions of the sort in that moment, instead enjoying and cherishing the simple pleasure of holding him.
The embrace wasn't a sexual thing to me, not until Heero communicated otherwise. The lock of his hands released and one hand trailed down, slowly and sensually. When it moved back up the hem of my shirt got caught on his fingers and I shuddered favorably as the long, cool digits ran back up, following the curve of the spine.
I tilted my head down and saw him looking up at me innocently. I smirked and moved both my hands down his back as well, but not being as subtle as he was, I placed both hands over his behind and squeezed the round cheeks, effectively grinding his hips against mine.
The innocence was swept off his features, replaced by a blush, hooded eyes and temptingly parted lips. He redirected his hands to my front, pulling his upper body slightly away from me to let his hands freely roam over my shirt before they unceremoniously pushed up the fabric and he leaned forward to kiss my chest, a kind of intimate attention he had never paid to me before.
I sucked in air at the feel of his soft lips placing open-mouthed kisses on my heated skin and one of his hands cheekily moving down to cup the growing bulge between my legs.
Just as I was about to reach for his private parts, he jerked back suddenly. "The door-"
I cut off his sentence by roughly pushing him back until his back connected with said door. While I leaned into him, I quickly turned the lock before returning that hand to his body. I greedily kissed his neck, his jaw and his ears as I rocked into him. We gasped and moaned in unison at the straightforward friction. I took his shirt off him and then raised my arms to let him rid me of my sweater. Then I promptly knelt down in front of him and started work on unbuttoning his jeans and peeling the denim down his long legs. "Do you want me to get the lube?" I looked up at him. He knew what I was really asking.
"Yes," He breathed eagerly.
I got up and retrieved the tube. When I turned back around I saw Heero had pulled the same trick as the last time; turning around so we wouldn't be face to face. I came to stand behind him, put my hands on his hips and gently tried to turn him around, but he wouldn't budge, instead shooting a warning glare over his shoulder. I prepared him quickly. I didn't know when I could stop doing that, but I knew it was better to be safe than sorry. The tube of lube I carelessly threw onto the bed once I poured a liberal amount straight onto my member. I put my slick hands on his hips, having him angle them a little, and breathed heavily in his ear when I asked: "Are you ready?"
He could only nod and then, once I had pushed inside him in a single thrust, he could only moan.
I took my time building up to a slow rhythm, keeping my chest pressed against his back and my mouth near his ear to kiss him and nip at him teasingly. We were both getting sweaty but to me it only added to the eroticism. "You're going to have to take yet another shower after this," I remarked with a breathy chuckle, picking up the pace slightly.
"Nnn, I'll never be clean."
I suckled on a spot of skin on his neck, though taking care not to leave a hickey, although I wanted to. I sped up a little more, drawing more moans from his lips. "Does it feel good?"
He groaned, unable to speak.
I bit down on his earlobe a little more harshly than maybe I confessed candidly: "I want to see your face as I fuck you."
"No," He grunted in reply.
"I need to see your face," I rephrased.
"No, it's embarrassing."
If that was his sole reason than I felt it was my duty as his friend to cure him of his embarrassment. Without warning I pulled out of him and forced him to turned around.
He glared at me although the stare lacked its usual intimidating viciousness considering how clouded with passion his eyes were.
I bent forward to take one nipple into my mouth while I also took his hard dick into my hand.
"Please, let's just do it like we have been doing it," He pleaded with a deep-red hue on his cheekbones.
I straightened back up and leaned my forehead against his. "No, either we do it face-to-face, or we don't do it."
He bit his lower lip and let out a groan.
"Please…"
"The no-kissing rule still applies," He reminded me sternly.
"I know. I just want to see you face."
He sighed. Momentarily he looked deeply into my eyes and I worried he would say no, but then he started: "How do you propose we do this?"
Enthusiastically I grabbed his thighs and lifted him up off the floor.
Heero yelped.
Sandwiched between me and the door he instinctively wrapped his legs around my hips and rather than placing his hands on my shoulders for support, he extended his right arm to grab the foot of the top bunk and with his left hand he took hold of the coat-hook on the wall behind the door. With his weight sufficiently supported I could take one hand off his thigh to guide the head of my erection back to his entrance. It was wonderful slipping back into him, he was slick, stretched and heated and it felt like I was being welcomed back inside. I kept my gaze affixed to his features. Heero refused to meet my eyes, instead focusing his gaze somewhere behind me, through the window perhaps. I made the first, tentative thrust and was pleased to see he was so overcome with pleasure he had to fight to keep his eyes open. I started fucking him unapologetically, unable to resist the carnal urges any longer. With a whisper I begged him to look at me and I moaned deep in my throat when he obliged and I could look into his endless, blue eyes.
It was more difficult not to give into the desire to kiss him, in that position, with his lips so close to mine, but I managed.
His hot breath washed over my face as he panted. He stared into me and I realized that it was the most intimate connection we could ever achieve, even more so than the uniting of our bodies. And I presumed even more so than locking our lips, so I was content.
With one hand still underneath him to support some of his weight, I used the other to stroke his erection.
He momentarily closed his eyes and moaned freely.
"Ohh, yeah baby, you like that?"
His eyes flew open at the nickname.
"Sorry," I breathed, but I smirked.
His eyes soon softened while I continued jerking him off and thrusting into him powerfully. He let out a shaky breath and announced: "I'm going to come."
I only grunted in response and sped up the rhythm of my hips and my hand on his cock, wanting to bring him to orgasm, wanting to see it on his face and in his eyes. "Keep looking at me," I growled, when it seemed like he was about to shut his eyes in pleasure.
"Are you close?"
My only answer was a curt nod. Very close.
"I'm so close… Please, fuck me harder."
With a snap of my hips I instantly obliged and on the fourth inward thrust I felt him tighten around me and I felt his warm semen on my hand. His mouth was open with a subdued moan – keeping in mind that the door wasn't very thick. His eyes were half closed, the cobalt blue appeared several shades darker, but warmer, somehow.
First he let go of the coat-hook and wrapped that arm around my neck, then his other hand released the footboard of the top bunk and he wrapped that arm tightly around me as well. He rested his head on my shoulder.
I didn't have to wait long for my own completion. I moaned into his ear when it overcame me and I felt truly sated and content when I felt him placing light kisses on my sweaty skin and raised his head to lightly bite on the shell of my ear. Unfortunately he stopped when he realized he probably shouldn't do that, since it was 'only about the sex', after all.
Carefully I lowered him until his feet were on the floor. I straightened back up and noted I felt weak and shaky all over. Heero also appeared to be unsteady, leaning back against the door for support.
With a crooked grin he deadpanned: "I guess you've found a way to thank me."
I chuckled sheepishly. I approached him again and with a slight touch to his hip I urged him to turn his back to me. I pressed myself against him, leisurely kissing the back of his neck and nuzzling his hair, elated that he let me. Feeling cheeky I briefly inserted two fingers into him. He was full and slick with my semen and it made me crazy possessive. I bit down on the juncture between his neck and his shoulder and he let out a single, startled laugh.
"That's going to leave a mark!" He chastised.
"Hmhm…" I soothed the spot with my tongue. I felt him shiver and I dared to think it was a good sign.
"I don't like that you've reduced me to this basic creature of need and desire, so much so that I willingly let you sodomize me like this," He softly confessed. Yet in spite of his words I didn't get the impression that he disliked it all that much.
"Please, don't think of it like that. It's nothing like that," I begged. It wasn't just basic need, it wasn't sodomy, those words didn't do justice to what it was – what it was to me at least.
"Then what is it?"
After some contemplation I replied: "I don't know."
It wasn't love. I wasn't in love. I couldn't be. More importantly: I shouldn't be.
Should this be categorized as 'bitter lemon?' :P