Same Disclamers apply - Don't own it or the movie that the title is named after. That movie is an older one, I won't go into detail on it, I don't think a lot of people liked it, but it did win an award - The Atlanta Film something or other. Anyway please enjoy!
These Boots Were Made for Racing
City Boys Dream of Beaches
On the radio played a soft-rock song about love or life or some equally obscure and overdone notion. Heero found his attention repeatedly drifting from the road to the creature sitting in his passenger seat. Duo had unrolled the window and stuck his elbow and half of his heart shaped face was leaning on it watching the city fly by. Wisps of hair that had fallen loosely out of his braid during the race now softly floated around him. He was a picture of serenity and yet in those eyes a storm was always on the horizon. Those eyes, they were violet, the most beautiful and unique shade of color Heero had ever seen. Most of the time they were an intense indigo, but right now with the sun hitting them they had changed into a purple storm. Maybe it wasn't the sun, maybe it was whatever his mind was lost in that turned them to that amazing color. Heero knew this color would haunt his dreams just like the boy's voice had been doing. He hadn't been able to keep is mind off his rival since he had accidentally walked in on him singing. The song and the boy had been so depressingly optimistic; he had been hooked.
Duo turned to face his adversary, he really was having a good time with this guy and he couldn't figure out why, honestly the guy was just flat out frustrating. Duo had become obsessed with this young man during the race because he had been a challenge on the track, but now the boy had become a challenge off the road too. He was definitely the most exhausting man he had ever met, he got the distinct feeling that the boy with bed tossed hair was trying to get a rise out him. Now he just wished the boy would try to get a different kind of rise out of him. He stopped his thoughts there, no way was he going to think that way about his biggest rival. Even if his biggest rival was the sexiest thing he had ever seen with those brooding blue eyes and ruffled hair that begged to have fingers run through it, which the guy compulsively did every fifteen minutes to push his long bangs out of those damn eyes. Man he needed something else to focus on.
He flipped the radio to a rock station. "What was that sissy crap? I thought only love sick prom queens listened to that kind of music." Duo head banged a little to the bass of the rock song and tapped on the dash in front of him, completely in beat with the music. He started to sing very quietly along with the song, but stopped abruptly as though he just realized what he was doing.
"So what hotel are you staying at?" Duo kept his eyes focused on the road. "The races will last all this week, I'm not racing tomorrow but I'll go down and check out the competition."
"You're very dedicated." Heero had spoken aloud the thought that had been plaguing him, how could someone who seemed so carefree, be so dedicated to goals he had set for himself. Most kids their age were busy falling asleep in their high school classrooms. Heero was almost positive that winning every race wasn't the braided man's main goal, but he couldn't figure out what truly drove the boy to work as hard as he did.
"Yeah well, you got to be in this business, or you're going to get left behind. I'm not going to let anybody beat me." Duo suddenly seemed so deadly serious, his entire persona shifted to something darker. He looked like he was lost in his thoughts, or memories. It was as if half of Duo was the guy you saw by day, the carefree, sarcastic, confident man. But the other half of Duo lived in the past and was a much darker more solemn being. It made Heero wonder what had happened in the boy's past that he couldn't let go of. There was so much under the surface Duo Maxwell, if you didn't pay attention to the little details, the small sly comments, you would miss it all and just assume he was a reckless punk that loved the kicks of the fast lane. He was amazing at covering up what he was really thinking, and he never slipped up and gave away information about himself. If Heero wanted to find out about the mystery that was Duo Maxwell, the only thing he could was hope to get the longhaired boy to trust him enough to tell him about himself.
"I'm staying at the Plaza." Heero changed the topic by answering Duo's question, he could tell Duo was getting uncomfortable and he didn't want to force the braided man to talk about something if he didn't want to. He didn't really know him well enough for that, not to mention Heero wasn't the type of person to hold long meaningful conversations.
"Oh yeah, I think that's where they put all the driver's for this race. I forgot about that, what's your room number, maybe we're close to each other?" Duo was thankful to get his mind off his need to win this race, he didn't want Heero to know anything about that. He didn't think Heero was the kind of guy who would pity somebody, but he still didn't want Heero to know and he wasn't even sure why, that was just a part of him that he wasn't ready to share with people.
"I'm in room 307." The hotel had been nice looking when Heero had arrived yesterday, not extremely fancy, but putting a bunch of racecar drivers in a really rich hotel probably wouldn't have been the best of ideas. It had a nice location, far enough away from down town to avoid getting crowded, but still close enough to drive there in less than ten minutes. It had a large area out back that contained a pool, a hot tub, and a lot of grass. It was four stories and spacious, each room had a huge bathroom with a sunken tub and a shower. Hotels were always booked in advance for the race drivers, even though the price of the room was included in their racing fees it still helped to book ahead of time to ensure that the participants wouldn't end up fifty blocks from the track. They even got rooms for the crew. Heero and Trowa had opted to share a room and split the cost. It wasn't unusual for team members to share rooms; it was cheaper and easier to go over strategies especially for the driver and his main engineer. Quatre and Duo had also decided to share a room for these practical reasons, but also because they loved to hang out until all hours of the night, and if they weren't doing that they were playing practical jokes on each other.
"I'm in room 320, we're on the same floor. That will make it easier when I come to get you for the club tonight." The station changed songs and Duo seamlessly transitioned into the new beat. He reached over and bopped Heero lightly on the top of the head when the drummer hit nothing but symbols. Heero glared at the enigmatic racecar driver, but couldn't help the small twitch of his lips. Duo was lost in his own world creating his beat with everything in sight. When he slapped Heero's knee for the tenth time, a little higher up on the thy for this beat, the hand stayed in it's spot. When the hand didn't move after almost a minute Heero started to get very uncomfortable, he glanced over at the source of this pleasurable torture and found Duo sticking his tongue out at the six-year-old boy in the hatchback next to them. The boy was making grotesque faces and breathing onto the car window. Heero squirmed under the warm hand, his face betrayed nothing but he was afraid his body might eventually. Duo had been open in interviews about the fact that when it came to love gender wasn't an issue for him, but that didn't mean he wanted Duo to find out about his very specific attraction. Well he may have been a little obvious with the dare to kiss, but that could be taken as a publicity stunt, and it was a lot less definite than the evidence that hand was going to produce in his lap.
The hatchback turned off onto another street and Duo found himself hyper aware of the heat penetrating into his hand. He removed it as nonchalantly as he could, but the feeling of that tense corded muscle lingered in his mind. With nothing else to focus on he found his mind drifting to that feeling as images of that muscle bared and sweaty flooded his mind. His imagination went further and there were blue eyes and wonderfully wild chocolate brown hair. In Duo's mind bodies began to take form and move with each other. Duo quickly stuck his head out of the window to let the cold wind blow sharply at his face and slap those images out of his mind. He thanked all the stars not yet in the sky when he saw the hotel come into view, he was still way too aware of his rival's close proximity. Heero turned left into the front of the hotel. They both quickly jumped out of the car, glad for the distance, and Heero handed the keys over to the valet.
"You sure do treat those keys like they're yours." Duo said as he held the door open for his rival.
" Hn." Heero brushed past the braided man and headed for the elevator. His mind was still reeling from his time he spent alone in the car with Duo. The had talked and yet Heero still knew nothing about him, if it was on purpose he was damn good at it. Duo joined him in his wait for the elevator, when it opened and they stepped in the boys made sure to put a lot of distance between them. Heero hated the fact that when he got close to this guy he lost control, his adrenaline would tie his stomach in knots. He knew he was going to be in trouble at a club, that's why he hadn't agreed to go, but damn that blonde kid has super powers or something.
"Ooh, the strong silent type." Duo batted his eyelashes like a schoolgirl then let out a barking chuckle. "So what time should I wander down this hall to get you for the festivities?"
"Seven I guess. It's still hard to believe I was talked into this." Heero waited and watched as the number of his floor lit up. Duo too kept his eyes focused on anything but the sexy man standing in the enclosed space with him.
They stepped out of the elevator and the doors slid closed behind them. For a moment their eyes met and a jolt of electric adrenaline passed through their bodies. Duo quickly looked away, "yeah, that Quatre has got mind powers, there's no fighting him, he could convince a man in the desert that water was bad for him." Duo patted him on the shoulder. "Don't feel bad that you lost Quatre, you'd have to not be human to win against those baby blue eyes."
"Yeah, not human." Heero mumbled, and began to walk off toward his room. Duo gave him a funny look, he hadn't caught what Heero had said but the guy just walked away with no warning.
"Okay, so I'll see you at seven." Duo turned and strolled down to his room, he whistled an old blues tune he had heard while he was in New Orleans last week. He looked around the hotel as he walked to his room, he hated hotel carpet, it was always red. He pulled the keys to his room out of his pocket and fumbled with them, trying to remember which way was up for the lock. He opened the generic door, the gold of the room numbers flickering with the shadows as he pushed the door. When he entered he turned around to close his door and caught a last glimpse of Heero as he turned into his room. It was quick, but they locked eyes one last time before Duo hurriedly closed his door.
A shower, what he really needed right now was a shower. He was so tense his shoulder muscles felt like solid masses of rock. He gently massaged and prodded his sore muscles as he walked over to the linen closet and grabbed one of hotel's white fluffy towels. He breathed in the fresh clean sent of unknown washing detergent, he never could get his own towels to smell quite like this, almost like they were hung outside in the fresh breeze to dry. He had put all his shower supplies in the bathroom last night. He walked into the fairly large bathroom and took a minute to debate between the shower and the sunken tub, he decided to stick with a shower, he really needed the water pressure tonight to relieve his aches from the race. His mind whispered to him 'You're not usually this tense after a race,' and he quickly told himself to shut up.
He turned the water up to a near boiling hot, he loved the water as hot as it could get, if his skin wasn't bright pink in five minutes it wasn't hot enough. He stripped out of his racing gear starting with those damn boots, they killed his feet by the end of the day. When he was completely undressed he pulled out the rubber band around the end of his braid and shook his chestnut locks loose. He stepped into the shower, the steam already beginning to fog up the windows and mirrors. He started by soaking his hair all the way through so he could easily pull it over his shoulder in front of him. He pushed the head of the shower down and stepped back into it letting the pounding water work out all the kinks that were imbedded in his muscles. He let out a sigh and grabbed his shampoo. So he massaged his scalp a lot longer than what was needed to get the shampoo in, hell he was tense and it felt damn good.
He flipped his soapy hair up and blindly groped for his luffa and body soap. He found the scrubber but dropped the soap, a squirt of blue liquid now making it's way down toward the drain. He reached down and picked it up already able to smell the fresh ocean breeze aroma, his favorite scent. He loved things that smelled fresh, it made him feel clean for a while, he never felt clean anymore. Using the luffa, he roughly scrubbed all over his body turning himself even pinker. The smell of the ocean soap assaulted his nose and triggered his favorite relaxing place in his mind, the beach at sunset. Yeah all right so it was a cliché, but he had only been to the beach once and it was when he was young and nothing had yet gone wrong in his life. Well other than the fact that he was an orphan on the streets, but he considered his life great. He was too young at the time to know how bad he was living and he was happy during those days with Solo.
His imagination took him to a small beach cove closed off on both sides by a cascading cliff. The ocean was a beautiful bright blue, for some reason this time the blue seemed a lot sharper and deeper of a shade. The red-orange from the sun drew a line straight down the middle of the ocean. It touched his cheeks with a faint pink-orange glow, and highlighted the red strands in his hair. In his mind he looked to his left and discovered that he wasn't alone. Standing by the cliff was a man with hopelessly messy brown hair. The sun tinted the young man's lean muscular body to a golden bronze color.
"What are you doing here?" Duo watched himself walk over to stand behind the young man. He placed his fingertips on the golden skin and let them travel down the sculpted arm. The young man turned to face him, it was Heero in all his half naked glory. He was wearing a pair of black swim trunks low on his hips, and that infuriating almost-smirk that drove Duo nuts. Duo took a step back, why was his imagination doing this, it was such an irresistible torture.
"So you're afraid of me. Of what I offer you, of what we could be." Heero closed the distance Duo had created, and reached out his hand to let it rest on Duo's hip. The braided man's breath hitched and he couldn't control himself, he leaned forward into the man stroking his hipbone.
"I'm not afraid. I'm doing it for your own good, getting attached to you could mean your death." Duo whispered as he leaned and touched his body flush against the other man. He gasped and released his breath against Heero's neck when their flesh met. Heero shivered at the contact and the warm breath against skin. Heero's arms encircled the other man's waist and stroked his lower back.
"I feel healthy, wouldn't you agree." Heero's entrancing monotone caressed Duo's ear as he pressed the hardness of his lower body into Duo's thy, his fingers digging into and massaging the driver's hips. Duo moaned into Heero's shoulder.
"We can't do this, I can't do this." Duo began to struggle. He looked into Heero's eyes and found himself hypnotized by the ocean in those orbs. That face was so tragically beautiful, and those eyes, that tempting mouth, and the voice that flowed from it like water. He was devastatingly handsome, Duo could barely hold himself back. He was panting heavily in the shower, his hand began to travel down his body seeking release from this intense sexual pressure. It traveled lower, caressing his abdomen. In his mind it was Heero's hands traveling all over his body, encouraging tiny moans to fall from his lips. Their hands ran desperately over each other's bodies, trying to touch anything and everything all at once. Duo watched as Heero's eyes closed tight and a panting moan escaped from that wonderful mouth. His lips just barely, and yet not at all, brushing against Duo's jaw. Duo leaned in slowly with the intent to capture those tempting lips with his own. He could almost feel Heero's breath mingle with his own, could almost taste the man in his mouth. His whole body begged for this contact, the agonizing tension in his groin was threatening to explode in fiery bliss. He was so close, he wanted this so bad.
"And that's exactly why I can't." He said after a long decisive sigh. He ripped himself out of his fantasy very reluctantly. He turned around and spun the dial all the way to cold. The freezing blast of water that hit him definitely knocked out the remnants of the fantasy. 'Now my relaxation image is ruined for me.' He let the cold wash away any last trace of his arousal before he flipped the water off and stepped out of the shower. He was still a little tired and a little tense but he pulled his hair into a loose wet braid and wrapped a towel around his waist. He grabbed his dirty race suit and threw it in the hamper. Tugging his towel a little tighter around his hips he stepped out of the bathroom, a wall of smoke escaping with him. When he stepped out from the steamy haze he froze.
"How the hell did you get in here."
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Thanks so much to everyone that's been reviewing, starting with this chapter nothing is prewritten so I hope it doesn't all go down the drain now, updates may be a bit slower though. So if you like what you read or see what I can improve please review, it makes a first timer like me very happy. Oh I also take tips on HTML coding for webpages, or any tips at all, cuz it's my first time doing that too, and it's looking kind of pitiful. It's like one morning I woke up and decided I'd take a crack at this whole 'internet' thingy, see what all the hype is about, and well I think all I did was confuse myself more. But I digress, reviewing is fun and I need to know how to make the story better, it's a win-win situation so feel free to hit the review button (don't worry the button is not harmed in this process, he likes it, it tickles)