The next morning finds me waking up in my bedroom, still curled against Heero. Heat flares in my cheeks. God, I'm so humiliated. Just one more thing for him to hold against me, to help prove to the scientists how unfit I am to fight with a Gundam.
No, I stop myself, the Heero hidden beneath the soldier would never exploit my weakness. Because when I lift my head to look at his face, I know his weakness are the same as mine. We are the same.
His eyes are as puffy and swollen as mine, dried tears grace a trail down his cheeks. And I can't help it. I'm relieved that we are finally on even ground. He must feel my movements because his eyes flutter open and I am locked into the most incredible indigo gaze that I have ever seen. His eyes are unguarded, sharing in turn what I had shared with him last night.
His eyes, how could I have ever thought of them as cold, stilted? I see old pain, resurfaced from our mission last night, and warmth, caring. Beautiful, wonderful, perfect. Maybe not the perfect soldier, my mouth quirks slightly, but certainly the perfect man.
I start to drift towards him, towards that gaze. My eyes drift lower to catch a glimpse of his lips; soft and full. I'm unashamedly hypnotized and I want to kiss him. His eyes drift closed and I lean in further. I can almost feel his lips against mine, taste them.
"Duo? Heero? Are you ok?" I jerked back to look towards the voice in the doorway and nearly fall off Heero's lap. I would have, had his arms not tightened around me, held me in place. Wu Fei watches us from the doorway and my cheeks burn as I struggle futilely to release myself from Heero's grasp.
The stupid man seems content to have me in his lap. I don't think he realizes how this looks to Wu Fei. I glare at him stop scrambling for a foot hold, realizing I'm being ridiculous. I cross my arms, stubbornly against my chest and continue to glare at him. Fine, no skin of my back if Heero isn't gay and gets grief from Wu Fei later.
A little voice chirps in the back of my mind, reminding me that Heero was going to kiss me a second ago. He wouldn't kiss me unless he was gay, right?
"Duo and I are fine, Wu Fei. Thank you. Did you want something?" Without blinking an eye, Heero hauls me back into a more comfortable position in his lap one that makes me put a hand behind his neck to keep from slipping. I know my face is still beet red but Wu Fei takes it all in stride. After all, he survived Trowa and Quatre's hook up, which was quite a feat in itself.
He snorts at our antics. The bastard must find this incredibly funny to even acknowledge it and leans against the door jam in resignation.
He heaves a sigh, "A decent breakfast." my brow creases in confusion. Wu Fei couldn't cook worth a damn and neither could I.
And then it dawned on me. A glass shatters and we all wince as a loud clatter from downstairs and an exclaimed, "Oh, Allah!" proclaim the breakfast maker. Wu Fei rolls his eyes and Heero chuckles. I feel an answering pull in my stomach as his laugh reverberates through his body. God, what a man.
I studiously ignore my position on Heero's laugh and I grin as more sounds float up the stairs, "And where is Trowa?" Wherever Quatre is making a mess, Trowa can be found running behind, cleaning it up without his boyfriend noticing. It's a strange relationship, but it works. I count down mentally in my head, waiting for Trowa to run past my door.
5...4...3...2...
Trowa pops his head into the door (1...) and glances around, "Do you guys have any laundry? I'm trying to distract Quatre so I can save breakfast but he already did all of our laundry yesterday." He looks down at his too small shirt and we all share a chuckle.
Quatre loves to help us out even if he doesn't know what he's doing. We all take turns helping explain it to him but he never wants us to be bothered with it. It's a vicious cycle.
I point to my dirty laundry. He blanches.
"Ahhh...Duo...I think clean clothes would be better. He'll just throw away your dirty ones and buy you new ones to replace them. This way he can iron stuff." I wave my hand towards my duffel bag on the floor and he grabs it and races downstairs just as the smoke alarm starts to go off.
Wu Fei tilts his head down to hide a smile (Quatre is everyone's favorite), tosses us a wave and pushes himself off of the door jam to walk downstairs and help Trowa. I'm left alone with Heero. I try to pretend that the sense of comfort I'm feeling isn't from him and the fact that in his arms, last night, my sleep was dreamless.
I re-cross my arms and tense up. I don't want to think about him like that. Smarten up, Maxwell. Perfect soldier boy doesn't like other boys.
"Let me go, Heero."
I feel him sigh against me and he dips his head to look at me, " Are you sure you want to get up?" I scowl up at him.
Annoyed with myself because all I want him to do is grab me and never let go, I get defensive. Coward. "What the hell does that mean? If you don't let go of me now, you'll find yourself unable to procreate little soldier babies."
I swear to God, his lips turn upward, he is smirking at me as he releases me. As I sit up and out of his lap, his smile increases a millimeter, "Wouldn't that be a pity, hmm?"
I stand, brush off my wrinkled pants and look down at him, "Oh yeah, the world's female population will weep."
Heero's smile deepens and he rubs at his tingling shoulder where I had lain all last night, "I imagine they already do." I snort in disbelief and bound out of the room to scrounge up some breakfast. By now, Trowa had to have put out the fire in the kitchen.
My rest of my day, thankfully, is spent uneventfully in the hanger repairing my gundam. I avoid Heero like the Bubonic Plague, determined to build back my walls before letting him close to me. The man is dangerous. He makes me want things, things that I can't want now.
I'm branded, marked by the demons haunting me. Even in daylight they watch me. I can feel them, their excitement growing as daylight crept towards darkness, as the sun dipped below the trees. I work diligently until the lights in the hangar need to be turned on to see. I drop down from the cockpit to do just that when the lights flicker and turn on.
I glance towards the door and tense, expecting to see Heero. But it's Quatre and my guarded expression turns into a smile of greeting as he jogs towards me. I wipe my sweaty forehead with a towel hanging from my belt as he stops in front of me.
He smiles at me, "Hey Duo! I brought you some dinner," he hands me a basket brimming with food and a cool thermos. I take them warily. He laughs, "No, relax. Trowa cooked dinner tonight." I opened my mouth to deny that I was even thinking of being worried about the food when he waves a hand, breezily.
"I'm not stupid, Duo. I know I'm awful at household chores. But I enjoy them because it makes you guys think of things other than war and destruction," which is true, when Quatre cooks, war is the last thing on our minds. He leans towards me, "Plus, I like to watch Trowa when he tries to make excuses for not eating my cooking or following me around all day during chores. He's the sweetest guy ever." we chuckle and he leaves me to my meal.
After I finish eating and clean up the work area, I head inside to take a shower. It's late, but the stars are covered by thick, fierce clouds. There'll be a storm tonight. Good, it suits my mood perfectly.
I can't sleep again tonight. So I plant myself at the window but the blanket lands in a heap at my feet. It's useless and it makes me angry that I am now so defenseless. I sit in the window seat and wait. I can feel them, the demons, coming closer and closer. I'm tired of being hunted; tormented. The fury rises inside me and I jump up to face them. They lurk around my feet as they hunt me.
I whirl in a circle, to encompass them all in my hate-filled glare, "Go away, damn you! Why do you haunt me?"
They hiss at me, no more than a breathless chanting, "Because you are worthless, soulless. You kill for pleasure, laugh in the face of death, but you fear us. It is fitting."
I clench my fists, "I kill for pleasure? You think I enjoy knowing my hands drip with the blood of those I murder, that I'm proud of what I do? I'm supposed to fight for a cause but the only cause I see staring at me when my scythe flies is little children clinging to their parents' pants! I laugh in the face of death because if I fear it then I will succumb to it. I can't betray my comrades by failing. I won't!" the demons fell back during my enraged speech but swarmed even closer. They could feel I was breaking, coming closer to letting them overtake me, to win.
"When you see us, know we represent everyone you've killed, every horrible thing you've ever done. We haunt you because you deserve to be haunted, no one cares, no one wants you, you're nothing. Nothing."
"You can't have me! Ever!" I drop to my knees, guilt, self-hatred, pain warring for greater space in my body. Tears well in my eyes, drip to the ground. I hear the door slam open and look up to see Heero hurrying to me. The demons scatter as he enters, but he can't see my personal torturers, for they are only mine to see.
He reaches me, hauls me off the floor and into his arms. He cradles me against his chest as he carries me to the bed. I'm weak and I'm ashamed. Not of being seen crying in front of Heero but of what I am inside.
A murderer.
He lays me under the covers and crawls in after me. He wraps an arm tightly around my waist and pulls me against him. I clutch at him and he lets me latch onto him and hold on like I'll never let go. He doesn't say anything, he doesn't need to. He just holds me, rests his cheek against my hair as I press my face into the crook of his neck.
Exhausted, I fall asleep.