((Okay! Another one! Wheee! I'm having so much fun with this
story. Still fighting sicklies. Pneumonia is a kicker, let me tell you.
Do'nt be messing with your lungs if they start to complain! It's bad
news.
Warning! Yaoi! Don't know what it is? Don't read it, kay?
Okaysie! Anissa!!!! Ya gonna post any fics? I'm dying to read your stuff and it's all "No fics for YOU" whenever I click on your name. And yeah.. I really have this soft spot for an introspective Heero. I like him hard and dumb as a rock too, but I prefer him with some brains in that amazingly smart head of his, and it seems to me that in order for him to be as good as he is at soldiering, he would have had to have powerful observational and mimcry skills. Thus - learning how to be human all on his little lonesome. Awe, but don'tcha just wanna take him home and cuddle him?
Sara-chan: Hee hee! You're tempting me! I want to keep Heero a secret somewhat though, in this fic. I wish I could give him the spotlight, and it would ruin my ending if I gave in. BUT, I think I'll let stuff show every now and then, fair enough?
Earthgurl: Hee hee. You think Tyrin's having a tough time! Mr. Heeseman here, has just about promised to murder me in my sleep if I don't let him out. He's having to put up with all of the internal ramblings as the muses go. (I think I'm down to two, he blasted one after she suggested something about roses and vanilla pudding - don't ask) I'm so glad you liked it, honey! Whee!
Okay, enough of the author prattles. On to the show, eh? ))
Never Did Do "Morning-Afters"
The dream wasn't bad this time. He only turned a few times on his side before waking. But instead of going to sleep, Heero remained on his back, staring at the ceiling and listening to the silence. Yet it was a silence not complete, for covering it, like a dawn filled haze, was the gentle typing on a keyboard. He turned his head, propping his temple into his palm and stared across the small dorm room at the bent over figure there. Some considering glance passed the figure to dance on the screen.
"Writing?" he finally murmured into the darkness. Strange, to feel comfortable with darkness.
The lateness of the hour, combined with a fervent need to throw something out into the world by which he might consider what had just happened, conspired to leave Duo unaware of his roommate's awareness until that soft word. It hurt, the comfort that came with that one word. There was no judgment, no condemnation, no questions, no demands, no desires in it. No - nothing but the indomitable experience of knowing Heero and his quiet way of living life.
Had he never truly understood until this moment, the truth of Heero? That despite Duo's attempts to be real, to live his life fully, to generate enough joy and madness to mix in with the normal world, it was Heero who had come to transcend the rush for reality and form his own version of it. Heero who had, no matter the austere beginnings of his life, managed to carve out a place solely for his self, one that fit as closely as a glove fits a hand. All this time Duo had thought that maybe Heero was following him, needed him. But now, the thought came that perhaps, it had been the other way around. Maybe he had been following Heero. It wasn't Heero's nightmares that needed someone around to trust. Heero could handle them all on his own. He didn't need Duo. Perhaps he might have before, but he didn't need him any longer. Heero was complete now. And in the end, it was Duo who had been trying to keep Heero close, even so far as to hound him when they were apart, to call him once every few days when they didn't live near one another, to open doors and beckon, because it wasn't the dreams Duo had to fight, but the real life nightmare of living a life not fully human.
But then, such thoughts were the product of late nights and confusion that he simply wasn't equipped to think too deeply on this late in the day, night... whatever.
Still, despite not knowing Heero was awake, Duo wasn't surprised at the voice, for it fit into the workings of the early morning. Heero fit into the workings of everything. And that was a thought for another time as well. So Duo turned a mega watt grin on with a flick of a switch, found the breakers were not functional, and managed a grey sort of smile instead as he leaned back and tucked his loose hair back over his shoulder while looking at Heero's form, half muddled by the blanket tucked around his chest and pooling at his legs. "Yeah.. Guess I just had to... ah.."
"Work things out." Heero's quiet kept to the heavy silence left after Duo had stopped typing.
"Do you have to do that?" Duo was surprised at the shortness of his tone. Annoyance rising in his chest like a painful squeeze. "Do you have to always finish my sentences? Do you have to always know so damn much? Do you have to act like you've got all the fuckin' answers and... and.." who was yelling? He sat back down, unaware he'd stood up, and unclenched his fists, staring at them where they sat, lifeless on his bare thigh, fingers curled upwards like leaves just fallen. A knock on the wall was the warning to shut up and he took a deep, steadying breath. When had this all slipped out of his grasp?
He remained, looking down, even when there was the familiar rustle of blankets and the soft pad pad of bare feet on the concrete flooring. Heero didn't stop at his side though, but continued on, to the small fridge they kept just inside their shared closet. A snap of a door open, then closed, and the clink of bottles against one another. When the beer was placed next to his keyboard, Duo grinned true this time.
Heero pulled up a chair and settling next to Duo, leaned in. "So, you feel up to sharing?"
[] [] [] []
Truth be told, there was something of a relief in showing the fictions to Heero. Because the Hiro in the stories was close to real and yet wasn't real enough. To have the true thing looking over his copy and smiling, even laughing at times, was a way of freeing up his pen and letting it dance into fantasy without marring the reality any longer. Thing was, he was surprised to find, that the stories had garnered some lasting power of secrecy and shadow which they needn't have had. True, Duo wondered at times when Heero would get too quiet, because he thought it was better when Heero was amused by it all and he feared the thoughts lurking in that pensive silence, but for the most part, reading the things he had placed down on paper (even if it was electronic paper) drew all things into the light and left them withering, showing themselves to be a wasted, shadow of the reality that truly was.
Heero had a discerning eye as well as a good hand for commentary. It was nice to hear compliments directed at what he'd done well, while at the same time given some thoughts on how he might have done something differently. That Heero would have such an ability was not a surprise in the least. The man was a computer with a human body for the most part. But then, that was why he managed while Duo didn't. That was why he didn't care while Duo did. That was why...
That was why he was complete and Duo was still broken.
A bittersweet moment, that. Duo watched his friend reading through another one-shot about Trowa and Wufei, and found his mind, without the excuse afforded by the mental author's pen, swallowing the sight of Heero's profile with a hunger he hadn't known he could have, let alone contain. Didn't he have every cell of Heero's structure memorized by now? It had been years and he'd studied his friend often enough, learning the subtle differences between sounds and an arch of the brow or a quick quirk of the mouth. The sensation had nothing of the fierce ache that had taken him into Heero's arms only a few precious hours before. Rather it had a comforting pang that he could identify and hold in the cup of his hands, watching it squirm and wriggle in the warmth of his palms. Such a strange, powerful creature it proved to be. He could sense its ability to tear at the very soul and yet, surrounding it, was something far greater, far more powerful, something that he'd noticed just moments after setting fire to Heero's lips with the spark from his own. Had the emotion had a corporeal form, it might have seemed much like a hard cased worm with a mouth by which it could swallow kingdoms entirely and be hungry for more. And around it, as if made strong by it, a light, all encompassing, casting no shadows but lifting what is in shadow to sight, as calm as the ocean and as deep though it might have seemed but a small thin veil over the hunger it held. It made the hunger incapable of harming anything, even himself. And it tinged the world about it with something that ranged from sadness to joy, both inciting tears to the eye.
How could one put such simple words such as Lust and Love to things that were so much more than that? Yet lust it was that drove him to stare and love it was that held him back, patient to wait and see what might come next. That he even had such an extent of need for another human being should have shocked him. But then, hadn't he always had Heero to begin with? Though Heero didn't need him, they pair of them were together as a single unit in their own way. If this did not lead to a completion of some suffering sexual desire, what mattered that? He had the rest. He had Heero's laughter, his calmness, his quiet passion (for Heero was a man of passions, though they followed guidelines and did not rush out to meet the more flaring passions of Duo), his friendship, and his love. Just as he had the same for all the rest of his friends - his small family. He could not say that he loved any one of them best. And but for the desire spiking at this moment, Heero was no greater a force in his life than say, Trowa or Quat or Wufei.
Duo's mind spun at implications of something so deep he couldn't begin to unravel it, and - wisely - he chose to leave it to itself. To join Heero in the readings and laughter and somber silences, and that was that.
It was seven when they finished with most, though not the one Duo had written for Howe, that Heero promised to read another time. And Duo sat back with a grin and picked up the empty bottles, taking them out to the recycling bin outside the dorm, his hair sliding across his back like cooled water, pressed by a passing breeze. He stopped on the way back in, leaning against the door jamb and staring out over the parking lot down the stairs and a bit to the right of the dumpsters. Strange, that moment seemed so ethereal. He wasn't sure he could quite grasp the meaning behind it, no matter that his heart was calm in where it stood. It seemed to him that all of this should make some kind of alien sense. But he was too human to understand it. Did he love Heero? Of course. He loved them all. How could he not? The desire was a surprise, but in the context of someone he trusted so completely, it wasn't as frightening as he'd supposed it would be when he'd finally crept back to the dorm room, not knowing what he could have said to Heero had his roomie been awake. But then, Heero hadn't been awake and Duo had spent a good two hours writing his thoughts into some order so that by the time for the confrontation, there was nothing left to confront.
It was chilly here, but not cold. Christmas close by and some people had lights worked in with the plants on their balconies. The sun would remind them of greater warmth in a few hours and Duo's skin wouldn't be able to hold even a single goose pimple. So he was comfortable enough to cross his arms and watch the wind brush the tops of trees and some of the earlier classes file into the almost deserted college town streets toward UECU five blocks down.
"Duo Maxwell... why what is it about this scene that will keep me up tonight?" the teasing words and a brush of skin on his arm turned him about. The RA, a nice girl two years their younger, smiled at him, her hair swept back from her brow and her brown eyes dancing. She was a plain enough girl, but far more pretty in his estimation than the cookie cutter, copy cat, bronzed, big breasted girls wandering around with their sleek hair and perfectly done make up. This girl, instead, seemed comfortable enough with going bare faced but for the smile. It wasn't that he quickly let people in, but he'd found he held a special place for her easy company. Though it was not even close to the blood like bonds he felt for his fellow ex-pilots.
"Hey Nadine," he tucked an arm around her and then pushed her away as she started to run her hand up his chest. "Hands off, babes. This merchandise is pawned off. Can't be paying for it if it gets damaged."
She laughed. "You asked for it, walking around in your boxers and hugging strange, hormonal women. Didn't they teach you anything in the war?"
Perhaps that was another reason he liked her. She didn't pull any punches, either. "Nah. Not about women, unfortunately. It was all about how to break heads and draw blood.. you know how it is." He hated the self deprecation he could hear in the words he was saying.
She seemed to hear it too, because she frowned and punched him lightly in the arm. "Don't be an idiot."
"Ow!" he grimaced, rubbing his arm. "You're the second person in less than twelve hours who has done that to me."
"What? Punched you? You been getting into bar brawls again?"
"No... hit me in the arm and called me stupid." He laughed.
"Ah, but I called you an idiot, not stupid. There's a difference." She would have quibbled with him but curiosity won out. "What'd you do to the person who called you stupid?"
If there was ever anything like a full body blush, he would have been sporting it. "Kissed them."
She arched a brow and grinned. "Damn, should beat you up more often if that's what I'd get in return. C'mere, I've always needed a punching bag with a libido."
"Ah bite yerself, Nadine.." he gave her a slight shove. "Don't you have class?"
"Mmm..
yep!" she was all smile now. "But I don't think I've ever heard of
someone kissing someone who called them stupid. Who was it?" Then at
his silence her face turned crafty. "Isabelle? Was it her? I know she
was complaining about how you weren't putting out, but -"
"No!" he almost shouted it, aghast at the concept of girls sitting around talking about his ability to "put out."
"I'm joking, Duo." Nadine ran her hand into her hair again because it was still drying apparently, and then tucked it behind an ear. "So no go on who it is, eh? Well, that's okay. But I'll figure it out, never you mind. I want pointers. I've been trying to get a good smack of the lips off of you ever since you showed."
"Ha ha.." he intoned and leaning forward, kissed her cheek. "There, that's for the punch. I'm gonna go back to bed. Think I'm gonna be sick today."
"Augh! A kiss on the cheek. Why does that not strike true? I think you gave the other person far more than me! It's an injustice I tell you!"
"Awe, go practice law or something!" he chuckled, watching her dance down the steps.
"They wouldn't let me in! Said I was too opinionated. I've had to go for anthropology instead!" and with a wink, she was gone.
After she left he remained a few minutes more. He simply had too many questions and too many answers and nothing to connect them up with. He'd lived in his emotions so long that he figured his intuitive powers were something that led a separate life from the rest of him. Yet his ability to put the emotions into a prioritized list left him confused most of the time. He simply couldn't make it through the emotions on his own. But then, Heero wasn't really offering to help and he wasn't sure he wanted to go at it so directly. He preferred to leave that kiss to the dream world it seemed to reside in. The last thing he needed was something real and that powerful in his life. It would upset the entire palace of cards he'd erected around himself.
The room smelled of beer and maleness when he closed the door behind him, looking over at Heero's bed, made with clothing folded atop it, awaiting their owner. Heero was nowhere to be seen and his shower caddy was gone. So the Perfect Soldier was going to school, buzzing and exhausted. Why wasn't he surprised? Nor was he surprised when Heero entered in his towel, looking as fresh as he might have before a mission.
"Anyone tell you that you're not human?" Duo groaned as he lay back into bed, covering his face with the pillow.
"All the time.." came the retort, a common one to Duo's common complaint. At least it wasn't a grunt though. That was good, wasn't it?
Still, something was just.. off somehow. Duo shuddered and tucked his feet up so that his knees formed a human pair of mountains, and stared sidelong from under the pillow. Heero dressed with his back to Duo and there wasn't anything about the play of muscle on the shoulders and back thighs that Duo didn't already know by heart. But it didn't seem to change the fact that something coiled hot and heavy in his gut and left him uncomfortable to the point of wanting to jump up and go for a long hard run, leaving behind everything that even smelled like Heero. Still, that long brand of heat wasn't enough to dispell the nervousness that he couldn't lose. They hadn't exactly talked about what had happened and Duo wasn't about to bring up the topic. But this morning after stuff was getting pretty damn old and while things were repaired to an extent with the late night and the beers and the reading of those night borne fictions and fantasies, there was something that he wasn't so sure about.
Heero slipped his shirt over his back, the bunching and lengthening of muscles at his lower back running smooth as under currents against his skin. Then he bent over, gathering keys, some loose change, and a watch from his side table and depositing the first two into his pocket while the last is latched onto his wrist. It was a tradition, without change, this way that Heero readied himself for the day. Next was an energy bar and a piece of precooked ham from the fridge or a boiled egg, and Heero sat at his computer, reading over mail as he ate. Then after this, getting books and his pack from a chair before leaving, letting Duo sleep until his late morning class.
But Duo wasn't sure he wanted to have to come back to a room with this morning still hanging over his head. So after Heero had fitted his pack against his shoulder, Duo interrupted the routine. "Hee-chan?" Dammit, his voice was like a little child's. Did he suddenly not have control over his own voice anymore? Lately it had seemed to be somewhat difficult to throw a noose around and guide.
"Mmm?" that same sound, the one that relaxed his muscles and left Duo feeling as if the world were revolving around him at just that right moment.
Sitting up, Duo stared at his roomie, half turned from the door, hand still on the latch but no sparing of attention directed to Duo despite his motion being on hold. "I.. I just... "he bit his lower lip and chewed on it a moment, wanting to get this right. "Are we ... okay? I mean, are things okay between us? Am I gonna have to do something or say something to make it better? And if I do, then what? Because I -" he drew back in alarm as Heero left the interrupted schedule plan and came near, sitting on the bed beside Duo. Duo could feel warmth from Heero's side enter into his calf muscles and instead of making him more wired, the contact served to calm him.There was a moment as Heero contemplated the answer and then with a small smile, rare in it's visibility, reached out and grabbing a stray lock of brown gold hair snaking over Duo's shoulder, gave it a tug. "Yeah. We're just fine."
Duo's smile didn't melt right away. Not after that assurance. So that long after Heero had left, Duo had settled into a daytime doze with the happy grin still curling the corners of his mouth and the worry lines dissipated from his brow like a long forgotten night fog, just a dream which - in the end - meant little to the waking.
((Ahh! Okay, I know this is sort of a set back. But it's got a mind of its own! I swear I began this fic with a total different idea in mine! Rar!! I really need to make my muses obey me. Feel free to review it, eh? And next "fix" is gonna be another Review doc. The fic should be done by the time Christmas comes for the boys. Two weeks is all they're giving me time to do it in! And Duo's being difficult, darn him.))
