Kiss Me Again
by Ashura
for Saishi
disclaimer: mine.
all mine. yeah right.
notes: yaoi, sorta citrusy,
though no sex...it may look at first like Heero is OOC, but I don't think he
is, I think he's very Heero, just a different side than the one we usually get
to see.
****
I've been trying not to
stare at him for over an hour.
That's how long we've been
here, setting up, starting repairs.
He's crawled up inside the Deathscythe, swinging on things, hanging from
them; half his tools are stuck in his belt and the other half in his hair. There are things unfinished between us, and
he knows it as well as I do, but if he does not let it distract him from his
work, how could I do differently?
After all, I'm supposed to
be the serious one. So I'm setting up
surveillance, checking security, making sure we are as safe here as we seem to
be. But my mind keeps drifting. We had just landed--we won, of course, but
it seemed that he hadn't been so sure of our victory as I had. He sailed up to me as I dropped to the
ground, and swung me around, and--and kissed me.
It surprised me, that's for
sure. I guess I always kind of thought
that Relena would be my first kiss.
It's not even that I have any real insistent desire to, but she likes me,
and I've always been led to understand that if you're a boy, you're supposed to
kiss a girl if she likes you. Shows
what I know.
I don't know, in all
honesty, if he really even saw it was me he was kissing. I think it was just an extension of his
exhilaration and the adrenaline pounding through his blood; probably he would
have kissed whoever had been standing right where I was at that moment, just to
prove he was still alive. It's nothing
to worry about, then. He's not getting
attached, and neither am I.
But if that's the case, why
do I feel a little disappointed every time I tell myself that's all it
was? I keep dragging the memory out,
turning it over, analysing it again, as if I'm hoping that I'll find some hint
that he meant it after all, that it really was me he was seeing.
After a while I start to
wonder if maybe he's not as unaffected as I thought. He's either stalling, or a hopelessly inefficient mechanic. I suppose he's really just giving me what he
thinks I want--to forget about the whole thing and think of nothing but the
mission.
Come on...I know I put on a
good show and all, but even I can't think mission perametres /all/ the
time. My brain would melt. And I'm really getting tired of sitting here
dwelling on this all by myself. I'm
going to ask him about it, since it's become apparent he won't be the one to
bring it up.
"Duo." I can't see him, but I know where he is--I
can hear him, incoherent mumbles consisting mostly of profanity and the
occasional thump of a hammer echoing inside gundanium plates. A moment after I call his name he appears,
his head poking out of a hole in a rather unfortunate part of the Deathscythe's
anatomy.
"What's up?" He
sounds cheerful enough, but tired.
"I want to talk to
you." I see his expression darken
at that, worry-lines creasing his forehead before he nods, pushing his hair
back from his eyes.
"Sure thing,
Heero. Let me finish this up and I'll
be right down."
It takes him one minute,
twenty-seven seconds to finish the job.
I wonder how long he would have been at it if I hadn't distracted
him. All night maybe. He drops to the ground, puts away the rest
of the tools, and brushes his hands off on his black jeans as he approaches. His braid swings behind him, careless, as if
it is just as relaxed as the rest of him seems to be.
I have a can of chili
cooking over the Coleman gas stove. I
wasn't sure at first if we should use it, but it's rained here recently and
everything is still damp enough I think it's all right. He spreads his jacket on the dirt and flops
down onto it. "What's on your
mind, Heero?"
I stir the chili. It means I don't have to look at him when I
make a total idiot of myself.
"I've been thinking about when you kissed me."
He's guarded, wary--he was
expecting it, I think, for all he pretended he didn't. "Yeah, well, I was excited. Sorry about that."
"It's all right,"
I tell him honestly. "I didn't
mind. I just...wanted to ask you about
it."
When I look back at him, I
notice a difference. The masks are
gone--it's such a subtle change, that if I hadn't made such a practice of
watching him over the last few hours, I don't think I would have noticed. But he's too tired to keep up the facade.
It's been a long day for both of us.
"Okay," he
says. He hunches forward, his chin on
his hands, his cap pulled down over his eyes, chewing absently on the end of
his braid. "Shoot."
Now I have the audience I
wanted, and no real idea what I'm trying to ask. Fortunately, chili has to be stirred pretty much constantly or it
sticks to the pot. "Did you mean
it?"
A suspicious-sounding cough
draws my attention back to him, to his face.
Behind his hair and the brim of his cap I can see one bright violet eye
glinting at me. He smiles wearily, and
counters--"Did you want me to?"
Now that's not fair. I'm the one who's supposed to be asking the
hard questions. "I don't
know." He waits, watching me, as
if he's expecting more, so I add, "Nobody's ever kissed me before."
"Ah." My confusion now seems to make a little more
sense to him. "Did it bother
you?"
"Not--not
exactly." I am not yet ready to
admit the sort of 'bothered' the kiss had made me, how my traitorous body had
taken leave of my hard-won control and pestered me with urges and feelings I
barely understood and had no power over.
"Well then," he continued, his voice still calm though I
could see the impish twinkle in his beautiful eye, "did you like it?"
My fingers clench harder
around the spoon. "I--maybe--I--"
I never saw him move, but he's behind me now, his hand easing mine open
as he slides the wooden spoon from my grasp.
"Easy, Heero, don't take it out on the supplies, you'll break
it." It occurs to me that he
speaks to me as if I were a wild animal, or a small child. It's both soothing and irritating at
once. I need to remind him that I am
neither, that I am a soldier and a young man, just as he is. I grab his collar and pull him against
me. He yelps, surprised, before I cover
his mouth with mine.
I'm probably not a good kisser, since I really don't know what I'm
doing. Once he gets over being startled
he seems ready enough to guide me--until he rips away, pushing me back, one
hand in the centre of my chest, the other still clenching the spoon.
"Okay," he says, panting a little, as if he's out of
breath. "You're right, Heero, we
definitely need to talk. Let's eat
first, okay, and put the stove out, then we'll get this figured out."
I don't think he really knows what he's going to say or do any more than
I do, and the food gives him time to consider his plans. I think I have already lost control of this
situation, so I eat fast, and get the dinner things put away while he's still
scraping the last bits from his bowl.
I take it from his hands and set it aside. "It's empty."
He nods, his expression wavering between expectant and confused as I
kneel in front of him. "Kiss me
again."
His lips quirk in a smile--I love his smile, even though it sometimes
makes me feel like he's keeping some secret from me that I will never
understand. "Are we
experimenting?"
I think I'm blushing. "Is
that okay?"
Now I /know/ he's trying not to laugh at me. And not doing a very good job.
"Guess not...I'm game."
He pulls me close.
We bump noses. I let out a
startled noise, and Duo giggles.
"Come here." He's
laughing, but I'm not so sure it really is at me. I think he's nervous, and that the whole scene is probably pretty
funny when looked at objectively. He
stretches out on the damp ground, so that he's lying down, and motions me to
lie next to him. "If we're going
to do this, we should do it right...." he explains. He wraps his arms around me, holding me
close against his body. I can feel the
hard planes of his body against mine, and feel his hair tickling my skin as it
falls across my back, and my body gets hot and tight and uncomfortable
again.
"Relax, Heero," he murmurs into my hair. His breath is warm against my skin. His fingers trace the line of my jaw, and
I'm wondering how exactly he thinks I'm supposed to accomplish such a task--I
couldn't relax now if my life depended on it.
His body is firm and wiry, he smells like the damp woods, and engine
oil, and a little bit of sweat. His
thumb brushes across my lower lip and I close my eyes; sight only obscures the
sensation of his touch.
"You're shaking," he whispers, but I am sure I'm not the only one.
I'm warm now, so warm, but not for all the world would I leave the
circle of his arms. His fingers brush
my temple and slide into my hair, and at last his soft lips meet mine. Gentle now, not quite the vibrant kiss of
earlier in the day, but equally ecstatic in its own way--his tongue caresses my
lips and slips between them, tickling almost playfully at the roof of my
mouth. Fumbling, I follow his lead, my
own tongue exploring and duelling with his.
I hear a muffled moan, but I am not sure which of us it escaped
from. My hands clench in his shirt, but
his have more freedom, they roam over my back and down my sides, awakening my
body to fire.
His arms tighten around me and he rolls, bearing me above him, clinging
to me while I adjust myself to straddle him.
My body still refuses to listen to my instructions, the difference now
is that I have ceased to give them. I
have surrendered, though I'm not sure to who or what. When I have balance at last, Duo's fingers loosen and stroke down
my cheeks, lifting my face reluctantly away from his.
"Well?" He tries to sound impish, but he's as breathless as I
am.
"I liked it," I confess, once I can convince my tongue to form
words again.
He chuckles, brushing his finger across my lips once more. "Yeah, I kinda guessed that. So did I."
His cap fell off a long time ago.
Wisps of chestnut hair escape the confinement of his braid to coil
around his face, fringed with dirt because despite his jacket we're mostly
lying on the ground. His face is
flushed, and his eyes are shining as he looks up at me, meets my gaze.
There is only one thing I know for sure to say, so I do.
"Kiss me again."
~Owari~
