Poor guy, Heero's beat. We aren't as young as we used to be.

I know, I know, I sound like an old fart, but factor in what we were put through when we were just barely teens, and you can see what I'm talking about. Heero's got it the worst of all. He's in great shape mentally and physically, but things just take their toll on him easier than they used to. I think it's because he pushed himself so much harder than the rest of us did, and we weren't slackers by a long shot. Look at him right now. He's sitting on the couch fighting to stay awake. It's Tuesday, it's eleven thirty at night, and by now, on a work week, we'd either already be asleep, or were getting ready to be on our way to bed. His clock is pretty rote.

I guess the beach wore him out. After spraying me down with the sunscreen (to which I had found out afterwards that he had stored in the freezer for just long enough to send me into a coma because it was so cold… payback…) we caught up with a few guys strolling past with a volley ball under their arm. To be fair to our new friends, we played on opposite teams. I won't mention which team (his) kept winning, but hey, we all had a great time.

After the game, I went back to thinking about that hug, but at the same time, I kept telling myself to get it out of my mind. Heero didn't mean anything by it and for me to get my hopes up about it… Well, I just reminded myself that he didn't mean it the way that I wanted him to. I don't look forward to the day when my heart catches up to what my brain already knows. Anyway, it started driving me crazy, so I walked away from him while he stretched out beneath the big sun umbrella he had set up, and I decided to comb the beach.

I guess it's pretty easy to lie to myself. I'd sit in the surf, my fingers picking up tiny shells and some beach glass, by feel, as my eyes would be looking in Heero's direction. He didn't move much, and I was fascinated by the way the wind kept pushing those thick dark bangs off his face. He is so handsome, I don't get why he has to hide behind all that hair. I saw the looks the women gave him as they walked by and I had to stop and chuckle at the memory of Playboy trying to get Quatre's attention. There were a lot of women who practically did laps around Heero. Poor girls, you just didn't stand a chance.

We had an early dinner at the local Italian place after we cleaned up at the beach and changed into some decent dry clothes. It was casual, but since I was pretending we were dating, I had all sorts of romantic scenarios running through my mind. With each non-committal grunt he made, I pretended it was some profound statement of our domestic bliss. He surprised me by ordering a second glass of wine that evening, and as we walked to the car, he bumped into me once. I had asked if he was okay to drive, but he just gave me that stoic penetrating glare he's so good at aiming in my direction, so I put my hands up and conceded that I wasn't allowed to drive his precious Jeep.

And of course, Mr. Can't Get out of Perfect Soldier mode, once we got home, he fired up his laptop and went back to work. I decided to do a bit of the same, since we were more or less done with the fun.


I can't get this case out of my head, I don't care how cold it is, I just can't let it go. Not for the friends, not for the family involved. I hate murder, I really do. I hate when lives filled with so much potential are cut short. I don't care how long it takes me, I'm going to get this guy if I have to personally hunt him and any accomplices down, and drag them to justice myself. I'm good at that.

I guess I have been letting this case get to me. I haven't slept much because as soon as my head hits the pillow, another idea hits, so I spring up and am back to work either making phone calls, remaking phone calls, or hacking away as I try to keep up before the scent fades and throws me off the trail. So, that's where I am now, hunched over my desk and staring at this screen, waiting for the leads to reach out and slap me on the cheek.

Heero just went into the bathroom and I can hear the shower running. Not even the image of his naked, wet, dripping body can deter me from my… okay, so I allow one little weak moment of detraction to give me a break on my work. One little daydream of just marching in there and claiming what's mine. And now, I have a tent in my shorts. Just perfect!

I can't win, but at least I can scurry to my bedroom unnoticed before Heero sees the spectacle I'm making of myself and starts asking pointed and embarrassing questions. If he cared, he'd ask pointed and embarrassing questions, wouldn't he?

Wouldn't he?

Flopping back on my bed, I reach in, fish out my best friend and begin to take care of business. I get comfortable on my mattress and tuck one arm under my pillow as I do what a man's gotta do. I let the sounds of the water splashing off the shower walls encourage my body to respond as it pleases; not intent on hurrying anything along. Maybe I need to have a little talk with Quatre. I know he went through hell trying to capture Trowa, who at the time, loved Quatre, but had no intention of being in any sort of relationship. It's not that he didn't care, like I said, he loved Quatre; he was just clueless, absolutely clueless. Maybe I should talk to the both of them, I know I can trust them with any secret, even to the death, but Heero and Trowa are best friends, too. What if Trowa knows something about Heero that I don't? Like say, I don't stand a chance on Earth or space to be with him?

I don't want to hear that. I don't want to know that. But at the same time, curiosity is driving me up the wall. I need to know something, I need someone to at least toss me a bone and I don't think that's too much to ask. The more time that passes, the more I realize that I have not only fallen in love with Heero, but that I have indeed loved him for such a long time. I need closure. I need to stop thinking about such serious matters while I'm enjoying my alone time. With a sigh, I tuck my now disinterested buddy back into my shorts and haul myself up off my bed. Heero's still in the shower, so I go to the kitchen and wash my hands before going back to my desk and staring blearily at the monitor.

I lost myself in my work; actually, I was so absorbed in it, that when Heero put his hands on my shoulders, I nearly wet myself. And here I thought I was the master of stealth! I crouched down and wrinkled my nose as I pretended to be more interested in the case file open before me than the feel of those strong hands.

What are you doing, Heero? I lament to myself. Why are you doing this to me? Don't you understand how you're torturing me?

Of course he doesn't. Just like me, he can be pretty touchy-feely to those he feels comfortable around. I guess that should make me feel good; that he's comfortable around me. I've seen the man just up and walk away from people who simply want to engage him in conversation. Male and female alike.

"Lead?" he asked. His voice used to sound deep and nasally when he was younger. Now, it's just deep and smooth, and with him touching me, it was as if it were made of pure electricity that coursed from his voice box, down his torso, through his arms and into his hands. I had a cold chill that I couldn't control and he released me from his grip. My shoulders were still warm from where he held onto me.

"Nah," I answered.

"Are you going to stay up all night working on it?"

"No, my plan is to actually let my head touch the pillow so I can get another train of thought going, get up and then work on it for another few hours before I get stuck and then try it again."

Heero paused on his way to the couch, and then sank down onto it. "Sounds reasonable."

"Yeah," I sighed.


The sunlight was bright and painful to my morning tired eyes as I staggered with zombie-like glory to the kitchen. I needed coffee; my brain juice was coagulated and wouldn't sluice through the ole meats without a high octane dose of caffeine running through my system. I was a few steps down the hall when I heard it, and my steps shuffled.

Heero was in the living room, doing knuckle pushups with his back to the entryway. With each thrust upwards, he let out a deep, forceful grunt.

I canted my head to the right and tried to remember how to blink. He was wearing nothing but a pair of spandex, and with no lines between it and his flesh, I knew he was commando. I shivered once and then enjoyed the view while I composed love poetry to his biker shorts. The thin material clung to his well-toned rear like they were made for it. I remembered to blink and shook my head. Yeah, they were made for it, wasn't that obvious? Boy do I need coffee, but just the sight of him, pushing up and coming back down in quick succession, his loud breathless grunts of exertion as he panted from his efforts, was enough to render me temporarily stupid.

Yeah, thanks, Heero, but no thanks to you, I'll do nothing with my life other than walk around with a perpetual hard on as long as I am living with you.

"Coffee's fresh," Heero managed between grunts and I felt my blood run cold. He knew I was standing here? Hopefully he didn't know I was ogling him.

"Thanks," I responded right away. No sense in being embarrassed. He probably heard my door open.

"I'll grab breakfast after my run."

"I don't know where you get all this energy," I said, shaking my head as my eyes watched the way his muscles moved fluidly beneath his flawless skin. Well, if you consider scars flawless. I do. Some of those old wounds I had even dressed myself. I felt my mouth go dry as he arched his back upwards, like a startled cat on Halloween, and then rise from the ground in a fluid motion. He turned to look at me then, a sparkle in those Prussian blue eyes that denoted a playfulness hardly anyone that knew him well had seen.

"Yeah yeah yeah, you gripe about love for pizza and we're over, pal," I said as I turned to the kitchen and shuffled towards the coffee pot.

"You'd choose pizza over me?"

"You're giving me a choice?" I fired back. He might have been playing, but I was serious. I turned my face away from the doorway as he came through it, and began to doctor my coffee.

"Never," he said. "I trust your choices."

And with that, he grabbed a t-shirt, slipped it over his head and left the apartment.

"Great, thanks Heero. Now I get to spend another day playing tag in my own head because you have to go and get vague about things like that," I groused at the door when I was certain he was long gone.

Now, let's see… where was I? Oh yeah, quick rundown, let's make a list so I can absolutely drive myself crazy for the day.

He trusts my choices. What did he mean by that? He's concerned that I would choose something I loved over him? Was he playing with me, or was that an innuendo? Does he pay that much attention to me and honestly know what I hold important and what I don't? And he trusts my choices. He was doing knuckle pushups in nothing but spandex with his back to the door, oh boy what a great view and then… before I could stop myself, I was howling laughter. Heero had gone jogging in spandex; commando. I slipped my phone off the counter and gave him a quick text.

::You're jogging sans panties, aren't you?::

::I don't wear panties,:: came the message a few minutes later. I sipped my coffee and got comfortable at my desk.

::So I noticed this morning. If you did happen to have underwear on, you're darn good at hiding the lines. Maybe you should teach a seminar on hiding panty lines, think of all the women who'd come. You'd be filthy rich!::

::Does this conversation have a point?::

::Are you jogging and texting?::

::Yes, and does this conversation have a point?::

::Think of all those hot women seated in the auditorium, looking up to you with desperation in their eyes::

::I think the rumors are true::

::What rumors?::

::You don't have an off button::

::No, no I don't. Are you still jogging and texting? Do you know how dangerous that is? You could run out in front of a car::

::I'm waiting for a light to turn so I can cross the street. And if you didn't text me, I wouldn't be in so-called peril.::

::I can't see through your eyes, I don't know what you're doing when I text you. Why don't you wait to text me back?::

I couldn't focus when the next ping came, announcing that I had a text. On top of the conundrum Heero had given me this morning, I had just given myself a fresh one. He always answered me back. Well, not at the beginning, when we were soldiers fresh into the first Operation Meteor, but still, even back then he hardly kept me waiting for correspondence, even when he was on a mission. Today, I could text him and he always answered back at the drop of a hat. How many times have I seen him screen his phone? It brought back a memory of a few years back.

Relena had invited us to her Christmas ball. Despite everything, I really do like her. She saved a few dances for me that night, and we had a great time. I kept looking over her shoulder when I would spin her around (I can't dance that well, but she had the compassion to take me into the ballroom an hour before it started and gave me the basics. I winged it from that), trying to see where Heero was. Every time I spotted him, he would be looking in our direction, his eyes shielded, but intense. I thought perhaps he was jealous that I was dancing with his girl. He only danced with her once that night, and she had asked him for another several times, only to be politely declined.

When I excused myself after our last dance, I went to the bar and got a glass of white wine. There was this massive plant at the corner of the bar, and I liked that, because it gave me a sense of privacy and security. I turned around on my barstool and looked out over the crowd. Heero was easy to spot; he's always easy to spot when my eager eye seeks him out. He was standing by a balcony door, speaking with Trowa and Wufei and every now and then, he would look at his phone and place it back into his pocket. Screening texts. I couldn't help but to wonder if he would screen me, too, so I pulled out mine and sent him a quick message, something along the lines of it being too humid in the large mansion due to all of the body heat that was building up.

With a little ball of dread in my stomach, I watched him pull out his phone, glance at it and then type. He agreed. My heart pounded and I knocked back half my glass of wine in an instant. I waited for a long while, watching him screen his texts and chat with our friends, and then I sent another, telling him that he should go get a dance with his girl before the night was up. He pulled his phone out, glanced at it, and then texted back that Relena wasn't his girl and he didn't feel like dancing.

I waited a little bit, and then sent back that if she wasn't his girl, why was he staring at her and me while we danced.

He had to scroll through to get to my name this time, but he answered that he was just making sure I didn't trip over both of my left feet.

I told him that he was just jealous that I was taking up all her time, and this time, he ignored me. I didn't mind, because out of all those people messaging him, and with two of his closest friends talking to him, he still gave me the time of day. It made me feel real.

I didn't realize I had been sitting there, staring off into space until my phone rang, startling me. I nearly dropped it before I hit answer and put it to my ear. "What?"

"I asked you a question fifteen minutes ago, you never answered," came Heero's breathless tone. "What do you want to eat?"

"Heero, you weren't wearing underwear, where in the world did you put your wallet?"

"Same place I keep my phone," he answered shortly. "In my fanny pack. I grabbed it on the way out of the door. You know that's where I keep everything when I go out. What do you want to eat? I'm standing here like a fool staring at two different stores while trying to read your mind."

"Huh," I smirked. "Well, give me another fifteen minutes to think about it, and I'll call you back. In the meantime, just keep staring there, big fella." I held the phone away from my ear at the very Maxwell-like rant that came back to me. "I swear," I called out with a laugh as I kept the phone at arm's length, speaking over the colorful verbal assault meant just for me. "Do you kiss your Glock with that mouth? No need for such language, you're gonna give me the vapors or something."

Sheesh, you'd think I've rubbed off on him or something with a mouth like that. Heh.

Waitaminute… did he just say he was trying to read my mind?

It was a good thing I was already sitting down because when the phone fell from my limp fingers, I didn't join it on the floor as I sat staring at my blank computer monitor, my mind buzzing numbly.