Running Smooth
by Juu-chan and Abandonment
Note: For all warnings, disclaimers, and notes, see Part One.
- - -
Part Five: Ethan
- - -
Heero awoke. He left sleep slowly, its fog dissipating from his mind with reluctance, the way one wakes from a drugged sleep. If he had awoken in this way three years ago, Heero would have been alarmed; now, he was not. The war was over, peace had come, and he was waking with Duo's arms around him.
Heero lay unmoving, one arm holding Duo to him, and waited for the other to wake. It did not take long. Soon, Duo began to stir, his eyelids fluttering open. His grip tightened when he recognized his position.
"G'morning, Hee -" Duo began, his greeting interrupted by a yawn.
Heero did not reply. Instead, he rolled over to press chest to chest against Duo, and - first pulling Duo's head back by his braid - kissed down the underside of Duo's chin and down to his neck.
"Not now, Heero, I'm tired." Duo's whine fell on deaf ears, and so he continued. "Really, Heero, we were up late enough last night, I just wanna -" He broke off and breathed a moan.
When Duo stopped talking Heero halted his downward progress and asked, "Should I stop?"
Duo arched his back, pressing against Heero. "No," he said, "if you want to, then, sure, go ahead."
"Hn."
Heero resumed.
- - -
"We should get up," Duo said, staring up at the ceiling. He nodded. "We really should." He made no move to rise. There was silence that was not really a silence, filled as it was but the sounds of life and morning, as both lay in bed.
Heero was thinking, as he seemed to do very often when in Duo's company. He had spent the previous day - although it had not been the daytime now that his sleeping hours hand changed to conform to Duo's - in inactivity. He had organized his belongings, had gone shopping, had put through the last forms for his resignation as a bodyguard, and had busied himself around the apartment. He was being reduced to housecleaning - Heero needed something to do.
Heero told this to Duo, just past one in the afternoon, as they remained in bed. When he finished he lapsed into silence again and waited for Duo's response.
"Yeah, I can see what you mean," Duo said. In the pause between sentences his breath was a content, post-orgasmic hum. "What you need is something to fill your time. A job. A…" He stopped to think, then broke out, "I know! I'll get you a job at the club. If I recommend you, you'll get a job. No problem. Sound good, Heero?" The breathed hum rose in volume, becoming a broken tune. Duo was very complacent after sex.
"Yes."
"I'll talk to Bill tonight. You should have a job within the week."
A few days later Duo informed Heero that he had a job working electronics at the club - lighting, sound systems, DJ decks, so forth. When Duo delivered the news he did so with a pronounced lack of enthusiasm. He appeared reluctant, but the offer still stood and Heero accepted it.
While Duo made up his face in glitter and kohl eyeliner, Heero changed into the outfit Duo had picked out for him. "It's not flashy," Duo had said, "but it's sexy enough to fit in." The pants were black, flaring out around the calf where a bolt of silver decorated the side. The top, also black, was short-sleeved and skin-tight.
The ride to the club was uneventful. They took a taxi, although Duo told him not to get used to it.
"I can only afford it now 'cause my pockets are full from any summer pay," Duo had warned Heero. "Fall don't pay as well, and winter even less so. I'll start riding the subway and walking soon."
Heero was silent throughout the ride, and Duo was also quiet. This was a part of Duo's life Heero had not yet seen, and he experienced it the way he did most things: without comment. From Duo, Heero felt a sense of reservation - he held his body too still, he said too little, he was turned away from Heero. The body language read of nervousness, reluctance, and regret. Heero cautiously applied the labels and considered them. Then, the cab stopped.
After exiting the vehicle, Duo walked to the driver's window. "Thanks, buddy," he said, paying the driver.
Heero looked around him. The night was quiet and there was no one around. As the cab pulled away Duo noticed that Heero was searching for the club.
"This is the back entrance. Employees only. Follow me."
Duo let him to the back quarters of the club and left him there, in the care of a woman named Maria. She was young, dressed sharply in black and florescent green.
"Duo may not have mentioned much about me," she said after the said man had slipped away. "We don't know each other well - our positions here don't overlap much." She stopped, looking to Heero as if she expected him to add something to the stunted conversation.
Heero did not believe in saying any more than was necessary. He remained silent.
"Well," Maria was eventually forced to continue, "I'm in charge of the electronics here. Until today I worked from opening to closing time, but now I'll just be setting up stuff and taking it down. I'll leave when you show up, and come back again for the last while and then close. You keep everything running, you keep your job. Got it?"
Heero nodded the affirmative.
Maria then began to show him how to operate and maintain the electronic systems. Her cheer disappeared as she instructed him and Heero found her much easier to communicate with. She began backstage: the wiring, the storage rooms, other behind-the-scenes miscellanies, and a quick overall tour. Heero processed what information she gave him and collected more by observation. She had no care in handling the plastic-protected wires - unlike the fine wires that his been within his Gundams, these were not fragile. The contents of the storage room were ordered on shelves, and from this Heero knew that organization was very important to either Maria or whoever owned the club.
On completion of her tour of the backstage area, Maria brought Heero to one of the three doors leading into the main body of the club. There she paused.
"You been in one of these lately?" she asked.
Heero shook his head: a jerk to the right, then to the left. "Never."
"I didn't think so. Duo mentioned you weren't the club type. You don't look it either. Anyway - the noise is going to amaze you. It pounds in there."
Heero frowned at the door before him, listening to the sounds coming through.
"No kidding," Maria said, and pushed open the door.
It was an assault on all of his senses. Against the darkness of the backstage rooms the lights, ever changing color, were blinding. The sound, a waving melody and ground-shaking beat, made his eardrums shudder and then ring. The smell of the place, the same scent as the room after he had sex with Duo only a thousand times over again, filled his nose and coated his throat.
Maria pushed him into the room.
For Maria, passing through the dense writhing crowd was an unconscious skill. Heero followed in her wake, keeping close. She stopped at the side of one large speaker. The noise from it was deafening.
"Not much to do on these during the night," she told him, her voice raised over the music. "But if one breaks down, you need to be able to fix them." She then demonstrated how to care for the speakers, and pointed out the most common problems they developed and how the problems could be corrected. Then she moved on to the wiring, then the deck system. Heero dedicated himself to the task, impressing Maria with the speed at which he picked up the skill.
As they began to return to the back rooms, Heero allowed himself to look around the club. His eyes had adjusted, as had his hearing, but it was still a sight that set him back from Maria by over a pace. The floor was packed with dancers, bodies writhing and hair snapping in the air. Some dancers were coupled, moving in a way that made blood rise in the membranes of Heero's nose, threatening to make the vessels burst.
Heero then saw Duo in the crowd. The longhaired man was surrounded, dancing with abandon. Heero stopped in his tracks and watched. Duo's arms raised above his head, making the hem of his shirt rise. People weaved between Heero and Duo, blocking Heero's view, but over their heads he could see Duo's braid fly and his hands tighten and then stretch.
With Duo lost from sight, Heero was able to move again. He fought his way through the crowd until he had caught up with Maria and then followed her out of the main area.
When the door closed behind them, Maria turned to Heero. Her eyes flicked to her watch, and then back to his face.
"You think you can take it on?" she asked him.
Heero nodded.
"Good. I trust you. And now I can get out of here with time to spare. Good luck, Heero." She then paused, hesitant to speak. Finally she said, "It's none of my business, I know, but I'm curious: how do you know Duo?"
Heero's brow tightened and began to knit. "What do you mean?" he asked.
"Duo's never mentioned anything about his personal life to anyone here. No one's ever seen any friends. Except…" she trailed off into a dry chuckle. "Hey, never mind. I know it's none of my business. Take good care of the place. Make a round every half hour or so, okay?"
In a flurry of jacket, scarf, and noise, Maria was gone, leaving Heero wondering in her dust.
Except? he thought. Except /what/? But no answer was forthcoming. Heero turned his back on the question and made his first check a full 27 minutes early.
As the night progressed, Heero adjusted to the club. By the second hour he had come out of his hideout in the back rooms to hang around the edges of the dance floor, people watching. Every now and then he saw Duo, often dancing but at one point at the decks, hips swinging as he controlled the records. The twice-hourly checks became routine.
Heero was on his fifth check when something happened to stop him cold.
He was on the stairs to the platform that held the deck system above the crowd, the DJ dancing as she mixed. He was crouched beside a speaker, one of many. The sight of Duo in his peripheral vision distracted him and, knowing that it would do no harm to watch for a moment, he looked away from his task.
He looked to Duo, seeing that the American was now alone, dancing on a small stage. In the center of the stage and in the center of his movements was a metal pole. His dancing was quite possibly the most suggestive thing he had ever seen. Duo turned around the pole, press himself to it, rubbed up and down against it. At one point he wrapped one slim, fishnet clad leg - he wore short, tight shorts over the stockings - around the pole, pushed against the pole with the other leg, and leaned back, body arching until it made a supple ark and his fingertips touched the ground. All the while as he moved he kept the beat of the music.
Duo was flexible, and strong - this Heero had known. Duo was also naturally graceful, and Heero had known this as well. But Heero had never seen anything quite like this from Duo. He was awed, and impressed, neither of which where emotions that he often felt; never were they displayed. But now Heero found himself watching, eyes fixed.
This made him pause, momentarily and partially incapacitated. It was something else that made him freeze.
While watching Duo, Heero noticed a disruption on the dance floor, beginning at the entrance and moving further in to the room. None of the security appeared alarmed, and so Heero did not move, but he continued to watch.
The disruption, caused, as Heero could now see, by a single young man, moved further into the room. And then, it was below Duo's platform. Using the faults in the platform and a nearby speaker the man that had caused the disruption scaled the height. He reached the platform.
Duo was standing, his body moving, twisting, like a ribbon in the wind, wrapped around the pole. When the man reached him, standing nearby, he slowed to a stop. His braid swung a final time and the other grabbed it, wrapping it around his hand, and pulled Duo towards him.
Heero's jaw tightened. Duo did not resist, but turned his head the best he could with the hand on his hair, searching. He did not look towards the decks, and so he did not see Heero.
Duo and the man Heero did not know held each other and kissed as Heero and the entire club watched.
Heero turned away, refusing to think, and went back to work. He could not look away for long.
He checked the wiring on one speaker. Duo was whispering into the other male's ear, both bodies swaying slightly. He made his way up two steps to the next speaker. The man was speaking to Duo. He crouched by the speaker, checking the dials. Duo tossed his head and laughed. He neared the decks, where the DJ was changing records. Duo was gone, and Heero had to search to find him making his way to the back rooms, pulling the other behind him.
Heero completed the round with only the clubbers to watch.
Five minutes later Heero was fighting his way through the crowd, anxious to reach the backstage area. Neither Duo nor the other male had come out - Heero knew that they were both still back there, somewhere. He reached the door, slit it open. Rainbow light flooded the bowels of the club, revealing nothing. Heero had not expected them to be in the main area; there were many small rooms that extended, cave-like, from the main one and that was where they would be. He did not how them all and dared not search them. However, there were only three doors leading into the back of the club: one that opened to the main body of the backstage area, one down the hallways to the left, and one down the hallway to the right. From where Heero was, he could see down both halls.
He waited for them to come out. It took nearly twenty minutes.
Heero was standing, back against the wall, arms crossed, when they emerged into the left-hand hallway from one of the many rooms. Heero watched through a soldier's trained eyes, seeing the other man clearly for the first time.
He looked to be about 25, possibly 26 years old. Muscular build, around six and a half feet, clothing that seemed unsuited for the club: jeans, ripped and patched, and a long-sleeved white dress shirt with cuffs and top buttons undone. His hair was unruly, shoulder length, brown with russet when the dim backstage lights caught it. His eye color was unreadable in the shade of the hall, but it was dark; eyes hazel or brown, Heero estimated.
Heero then looked towards Duo. He was hanging on the other's arms with one hand, the other trailing over the man's back, finally coming to rest at his waist with one finger through a belt loop. His clothing was disheveled, his braid was coming undone. He was humming his tired, content hum that Heero knew Duo only broke into after sex. Interrupting himself, Duo said:
"Hold up, Ethan-baby, I gotta rebraid my hair." He pulled the other - Ethan - to a stop and unwound his hair tie.
A red haze over Heero's vision obscured the view of Duo putting back his hair. It frightened him - this had happened before, but only while piloting Zero during the war. He covered his eyes with his palms and scrubbed at them until tears began to form. His hands dropped, he blinked his eyes. He could see again.
"Done?" Ethan asked. His voice was lower than Heero's, unaccented, decidedly less nasal.
"Done," Duo answered, swinging his braid back over his shoulder. "Back to work again, I guess."
Duo cracked open the door, speaking to Ethan as he searched the dance floor. Heero strained to hear him over the noise that seeped in from the club. "I'm gonna be busy tonight, 'kay? Extra time tomorrow, I promise."
Ethan grunted his acknowledgement, frowning. His eyes wandered over his surroundings. Then, he saw Heero watching them.
"Keep your eyes and your mind in their own fucking place," he said, not calling his words but saying them with a clarity that carried them through the hall.
"Who you talkin' to, Ethan?" Duo asked, pulling back from the door. He spotted Heero. "Shit," he said and was then silent.
"You know him?"
Duo nodded; Heero spoke:
"Yes, he does."
"Well, I really don't care. As long as you stay away I won't bother you. Got it?"
Without waiting for a response he pulled Duo back into the club. Duo had no time to meet Heero's eyes.
by Juu-chan and Abandonment
Note: For all warnings, disclaimers, and notes, see Part One.
- - -
Part Five: Ethan
- - -
Heero awoke. He left sleep slowly, its fog dissipating from his mind with reluctance, the way one wakes from a drugged sleep. If he had awoken in this way three years ago, Heero would have been alarmed; now, he was not. The war was over, peace had come, and he was waking with Duo's arms around him.
Heero lay unmoving, one arm holding Duo to him, and waited for the other to wake. It did not take long. Soon, Duo began to stir, his eyelids fluttering open. His grip tightened when he recognized his position.
"G'morning, Hee -" Duo began, his greeting interrupted by a yawn.
Heero did not reply. Instead, he rolled over to press chest to chest against Duo, and - first pulling Duo's head back by his braid - kissed down the underside of Duo's chin and down to his neck.
"Not now, Heero, I'm tired." Duo's whine fell on deaf ears, and so he continued. "Really, Heero, we were up late enough last night, I just wanna -" He broke off and breathed a moan.
When Duo stopped talking Heero halted his downward progress and asked, "Should I stop?"
Duo arched his back, pressing against Heero. "No," he said, "if you want to, then, sure, go ahead."
"Hn."
Heero resumed.
- - -
"We should get up," Duo said, staring up at the ceiling. He nodded. "We really should." He made no move to rise. There was silence that was not really a silence, filled as it was but the sounds of life and morning, as both lay in bed.
Heero was thinking, as he seemed to do very often when in Duo's company. He had spent the previous day - although it had not been the daytime now that his sleeping hours hand changed to conform to Duo's - in inactivity. He had organized his belongings, had gone shopping, had put through the last forms for his resignation as a bodyguard, and had busied himself around the apartment. He was being reduced to housecleaning - Heero needed something to do.
Heero told this to Duo, just past one in the afternoon, as they remained in bed. When he finished he lapsed into silence again and waited for Duo's response.
"Yeah, I can see what you mean," Duo said. In the pause between sentences his breath was a content, post-orgasmic hum. "What you need is something to fill your time. A job. A…" He stopped to think, then broke out, "I know! I'll get you a job at the club. If I recommend you, you'll get a job. No problem. Sound good, Heero?" The breathed hum rose in volume, becoming a broken tune. Duo was very complacent after sex.
"Yes."
"I'll talk to Bill tonight. You should have a job within the week."
A few days later Duo informed Heero that he had a job working electronics at the club - lighting, sound systems, DJ decks, so forth. When Duo delivered the news he did so with a pronounced lack of enthusiasm. He appeared reluctant, but the offer still stood and Heero accepted it.
While Duo made up his face in glitter and kohl eyeliner, Heero changed into the outfit Duo had picked out for him. "It's not flashy," Duo had said, "but it's sexy enough to fit in." The pants were black, flaring out around the calf where a bolt of silver decorated the side. The top, also black, was short-sleeved and skin-tight.
The ride to the club was uneventful. They took a taxi, although Duo told him not to get used to it.
"I can only afford it now 'cause my pockets are full from any summer pay," Duo had warned Heero. "Fall don't pay as well, and winter even less so. I'll start riding the subway and walking soon."
Heero was silent throughout the ride, and Duo was also quiet. This was a part of Duo's life Heero had not yet seen, and he experienced it the way he did most things: without comment. From Duo, Heero felt a sense of reservation - he held his body too still, he said too little, he was turned away from Heero. The body language read of nervousness, reluctance, and regret. Heero cautiously applied the labels and considered them. Then, the cab stopped.
After exiting the vehicle, Duo walked to the driver's window. "Thanks, buddy," he said, paying the driver.
Heero looked around him. The night was quiet and there was no one around. As the cab pulled away Duo noticed that Heero was searching for the club.
"This is the back entrance. Employees only. Follow me."
Duo let him to the back quarters of the club and left him there, in the care of a woman named Maria. She was young, dressed sharply in black and florescent green.
"Duo may not have mentioned much about me," she said after the said man had slipped away. "We don't know each other well - our positions here don't overlap much." She stopped, looking to Heero as if she expected him to add something to the stunted conversation.
Heero did not believe in saying any more than was necessary. He remained silent.
"Well," Maria was eventually forced to continue, "I'm in charge of the electronics here. Until today I worked from opening to closing time, but now I'll just be setting up stuff and taking it down. I'll leave when you show up, and come back again for the last while and then close. You keep everything running, you keep your job. Got it?"
Heero nodded the affirmative.
Maria then began to show him how to operate and maintain the electronic systems. Her cheer disappeared as she instructed him and Heero found her much easier to communicate with. She began backstage: the wiring, the storage rooms, other behind-the-scenes miscellanies, and a quick overall tour. Heero processed what information she gave him and collected more by observation. She had no care in handling the plastic-protected wires - unlike the fine wires that his been within his Gundams, these were not fragile. The contents of the storage room were ordered on shelves, and from this Heero knew that organization was very important to either Maria or whoever owned the club.
On completion of her tour of the backstage area, Maria brought Heero to one of the three doors leading into the main body of the club. There she paused.
"You been in one of these lately?" she asked.
Heero shook his head: a jerk to the right, then to the left. "Never."
"I didn't think so. Duo mentioned you weren't the club type. You don't look it either. Anyway - the noise is going to amaze you. It pounds in there."
Heero frowned at the door before him, listening to the sounds coming through.
"No kidding," Maria said, and pushed open the door.
It was an assault on all of his senses. Against the darkness of the backstage rooms the lights, ever changing color, were blinding. The sound, a waving melody and ground-shaking beat, made his eardrums shudder and then ring. The smell of the place, the same scent as the room after he had sex with Duo only a thousand times over again, filled his nose and coated his throat.
Maria pushed him into the room.
For Maria, passing through the dense writhing crowd was an unconscious skill. Heero followed in her wake, keeping close. She stopped at the side of one large speaker. The noise from it was deafening.
"Not much to do on these during the night," she told him, her voice raised over the music. "But if one breaks down, you need to be able to fix them." She then demonstrated how to care for the speakers, and pointed out the most common problems they developed and how the problems could be corrected. Then she moved on to the wiring, then the deck system. Heero dedicated himself to the task, impressing Maria with the speed at which he picked up the skill.
As they began to return to the back rooms, Heero allowed himself to look around the club. His eyes had adjusted, as had his hearing, but it was still a sight that set him back from Maria by over a pace. The floor was packed with dancers, bodies writhing and hair snapping in the air. Some dancers were coupled, moving in a way that made blood rise in the membranes of Heero's nose, threatening to make the vessels burst.
Heero then saw Duo in the crowd. The longhaired man was surrounded, dancing with abandon. Heero stopped in his tracks and watched. Duo's arms raised above his head, making the hem of his shirt rise. People weaved between Heero and Duo, blocking Heero's view, but over their heads he could see Duo's braid fly and his hands tighten and then stretch.
With Duo lost from sight, Heero was able to move again. He fought his way through the crowd until he had caught up with Maria and then followed her out of the main area.
When the door closed behind them, Maria turned to Heero. Her eyes flicked to her watch, and then back to his face.
"You think you can take it on?" she asked him.
Heero nodded.
"Good. I trust you. And now I can get out of here with time to spare. Good luck, Heero." She then paused, hesitant to speak. Finally she said, "It's none of my business, I know, but I'm curious: how do you know Duo?"
Heero's brow tightened and began to knit. "What do you mean?" he asked.
"Duo's never mentioned anything about his personal life to anyone here. No one's ever seen any friends. Except…" she trailed off into a dry chuckle. "Hey, never mind. I know it's none of my business. Take good care of the place. Make a round every half hour or so, okay?"
In a flurry of jacket, scarf, and noise, Maria was gone, leaving Heero wondering in her dust.
Except? he thought. Except /what/? But no answer was forthcoming. Heero turned his back on the question and made his first check a full 27 minutes early.
As the night progressed, Heero adjusted to the club. By the second hour he had come out of his hideout in the back rooms to hang around the edges of the dance floor, people watching. Every now and then he saw Duo, often dancing but at one point at the decks, hips swinging as he controlled the records. The twice-hourly checks became routine.
Heero was on his fifth check when something happened to stop him cold.
He was on the stairs to the platform that held the deck system above the crowd, the DJ dancing as she mixed. He was crouched beside a speaker, one of many. The sight of Duo in his peripheral vision distracted him and, knowing that it would do no harm to watch for a moment, he looked away from his task.
He looked to Duo, seeing that the American was now alone, dancing on a small stage. In the center of the stage and in the center of his movements was a metal pole. His dancing was quite possibly the most suggestive thing he had ever seen. Duo turned around the pole, press himself to it, rubbed up and down against it. At one point he wrapped one slim, fishnet clad leg - he wore short, tight shorts over the stockings - around the pole, pushed against the pole with the other leg, and leaned back, body arching until it made a supple ark and his fingertips touched the ground. All the while as he moved he kept the beat of the music.
Duo was flexible, and strong - this Heero had known. Duo was also naturally graceful, and Heero had known this as well. But Heero had never seen anything quite like this from Duo. He was awed, and impressed, neither of which where emotions that he often felt; never were they displayed. But now Heero found himself watching, eyes fixed.
This made him pause, momentarily and partially incapacitated. It was something else that made him freeze.
While watching Duo, Heero noticed a disruption on the dance floor, beginning at the entrance and moving further in to the room. None of the security appeared alarmed, and so Heero did not move, but he continued to watch.
The disruption, caused, as Heero could now see, by a single young man, moved further into the room. And then, it was below Duo's platform. Using the faults in the platform and a nearby speaker the man that had caused the disruption scaled the height. He reached the platform.
Duo was standing, his body moving, twisting, like a ribbon in the wind, wrapped around the pole. When the man reached him, standing nearby, he slowed to a stop. His braid swung a final time and the other grabbed it, wrapping it around his hand, and pulled Duo towards him.
Heero's jaw tightened. Duo did not resist, but turned his head the best he could with the hand on his hair, searching. He did not look towards the decks, and so he did not see Heero.
Duo and the man Heero did not know held each other and kissed as Heero and the entire club watched.
Heero turned away, refusing to think, and went back to work. He could not look away for long.
He checked the wiring on one speaker. Duo was whispering into the other male's ear, both bodies swaying slightly. He made his way up two steps to the next speaker. The man was speaking to Duo. He crouched by the speaker, checking the dials. Duo tossed his head and laughed. He neared the decks, where the DJ was changing records. Duo was gone, and Heero had to search to find him making his way to the back rooms, pulling the other behind him.
Heero completed the round with only the clubbers to watch.
Five minutes later Heero was fighting his way through the crowd, anxious to reach the backstage area. Neither Duo nor the other male had come out - Heero knew that they were both still back there, somewhere. He reached the door, slit it open. Rainbow light flooded the bowels of the club, revealing nothing. Heero had not expected them to be in the main area; there were many small rooms that extended, cave-like, from the main one and that was where they would be. He did not how them all and dared not search them. However, there were only three doors leading into the back of the club: one that opened to the main body of the backstage area, one down the hallways to the left, and one down the hallway to the right. From where Heero was, he could see down both halls.
He waited for them to come out. It took nearly twenty minutes.
Heero was standing, back against the wall, arms crossed, when they emerged into the left-hand hallway from one of the many rooms. Heero watched through a soldier's trained eyes, seeing the other man clearly for the first time.
He looked to be about 25, possibly 26 years old. Muscular build, around six and a half feet, clothing that seemed unsuited for the club: jeans, ripped and patched, and a long-sleeved white dress shirt with cuffs and top buttons undone. His hair was unruly, shoulder length, brown with russet when the dim backstage lights caught it. His eye color was unreadable in the shade of the hall, but it was dark; eyes hazel or brown, Heero estimated.
Heero then looked towards Duo. He was hanging on the other's arms with one hand, the other trailing over the man's back, finally coming to rest at his waist with one finger through a belt loop. His clothing was disheveled, his braid was coming undone. He was humming his tired, content hum that Heero knew Duo only broke into after sex. Interrupting himself, Duo said:
"Hold up, Ethan-baby, I gotta rebraid my hair." He pulled the other - Ethan - to a stop and unwound his hair tie.
A red haze over Heero's vision obscured the view of Duo putting back his hair. It frightened him - this had happened before, but only while piloting Zero during the war. He covered his eyes with his palms and scrubbed at them until tears began to form. His hands dropped, he blinked his eyes. He could see again.
"Done?" Ethan asked. His voice was lower than Heero's, unaccented, decidedly less nasal.
"Done," Duo answered, swinging his braid back over his shoulder. "Back to work again, I guess."
Duo cracked open the door, speaking to Ethan as he searched the dance floor. Heero strained to hear him over the noise that seeped in from the club. "I'm gonna be busy tonight, 'kay? Extra time tomorrow, I promise."
Ethan grunted his acknowledgement, frowning. His eyes wandered over his surroundings. Then, he saw Heero watching them.
"Keep your eyes and your mind in their own fucking place," he said, not calling his words but saying them with a clarity that carried them through the hall.
"Who you talkin' to, Ethan?" Duo asked, pulling back from the door. He spotted Heero. "Shit," he said and was then silent.
"You know him?"
Duo nodded; Heero spoke:
"Yes, he does."
"Well, I really don't care. As long as you stay away I won't bother you. Got it?"
Without waiting for a response he pulled Duo back into the club. Duo had no time to meet Heero's eyes.
