Carry Me Home

Everyone kept telling him he was crazy and he couldn't disagree. Still, he stood in front of that apartment building on Tuesday evening, looking up at the windows. Not even knowing which were of the apartment he had been in the Friday before. He took it as some sort of sign that he was able to remember enough of the address to input in his car's navigation to get him there. A misremembered street name that corrected automatically to the right one and a house number with a three too many led him to a street that he recognized and he slowly drove along, antagonizing other traffic, until he found the red brick building.

There weren't any names on the doorbells by the front door. He had no idea which apartment was Heero's. He had started ringing random doorbells and had begun to second-guess himself right away.

This was crazy.

And a little stalker-y too.

He idled on the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, uncertain what to do. Did he really want this? Did he want it that much? He couldn't even begin to fathom what he would be getting himself into.

The door opened and Duo looked up, freezing as he was met with a familiar blue gaze. He waved, only to realize his hand was caught in the pocket of his coat and it just looked terribly awkward.

"Duo?" Heero let the door fall shut behind him and he approached him. He didn't look much different from the night they had met: pairing clunky boots with skinny jeans and a loose top. He carried a cross-body shoulder bag that appeared heavy judging by the way the strap dug into him.

"You remember my name."

"Of course I do."

"Sorry, I didn't mean-… That was a dumb joke."

"Do you remember mine?" Heero countered with a smirk.

His name rolled of his tongue deliciously. He could actually taste something sweet in his mouth.

He adjusted the shoulder strap. "You left pretty quickly last Friday."

"You caught me off guard."

"Sorry about that." He looked down and scraped the sole of his boot along the pavement. "Should I not have told you?"

"Nah. No. It's cool. I'm happy you did."

"You were kinda shell-shocked."

"Yeah, well… it's not something that has come up yet."

Heero nodded in understanding, but he checked his watch. "I- uhh, I need to get going. I have a class in, like, ten minutes, at the XYX Youth center."

"Oh, you work there? Is that why you were at the club, because of the charity thing?"

"Yeah, I teach a couple of evening classes at the center. And my friend, Quatre, he volunteers too and is involved in all the fundraising stuff. He made me come."

"To sow oats, I remember."

Heero checked his watch again.

"The center is only a couple of minutes away, right?"

"Yeah, straight through the park." Heero pointed across the busy road.

"Can I walk with you?"

"Sure."

They crossed the street and headed through the park. Duo wasted much of their time with an uncomfortable silence. A wiser man would have figured out what to say before showing up on someone's doorstep. But Duo had never been accused of being wise. "So, you checked with Quatre and his boyfriend if it was okay to drink and if it was okay to take me home because-…"

"Because I'm having their baby."

"Right." He chewed on the inside of his cheek. "And that's why we couldn't-…

"Since I've been doing hormone treatments for the past two months, I'm super fertile. So even with condoms, we couldn't risk it."

"Yeah. Yeah." He swallowed. "When-…?"

"The appointment is Thursday."

He nodded his head and kept his gaze focused on the gravelly path that they followed. The building of the youth center was already visible up ahead.

"Should I have told you before? Should I not have hit on you at all?"

"No. No! You wanted to sow oats and I was happy to help. You didn't owe me any explanation."

"Okay. I-… I get the feeling you're upset, though." He stopped walking.

Duo turned around and met his questioning gaze. "I am… a little."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "I wanted to see you again. But that's weird now."

Heero didn't disagree. "I really need to go. If I'm late those kids are gonna throw my own speech on punctuality right back at me."

The tall man snickered. "How long?"

Misinterpreting the question, the other replied: "Probably, like, at least the entire class. Or as long as I live."

"No, I don't mean how long would they give you shit for being late." He smirked. "How long does your class last?"

"Oh. It's ninety minutes."

Duo fished his phone out of his pocket to check the time. In an hour and a half, it wouldn't be too late for dinner yet. "Wanna grab a bite to eat, after? Or… I guess you already ate…"

"Yeah, I had a pretty substantial granola bar, just now."

Duo released a laugh when he realized what Heero meant. "So, you'll be pretty hungry after class."

"Definitely. And I have to start eating for two anyway."

He pressed his mouth tightly shut, stifling another laugh that simply didn't feel right; too self-conscious and bitter.

"Sorry. Too soon?"

Duo shook it off and the two of them arranged to meet in that very spot in an hour and a half. The long-haired man watched the other head into the building. His house was too far away for him to go home in the meantime and he didn't know the neighborhood well. He meandered through the park and planted himself on a bench that looked clean enough.

Slouched on the seat he produced his phone again and searched for nearby restaurants, only finding a classic diner two blocks from the center. Other than that there were a couple of coffee shops and one supermarket, in the mostly residential area. It wasn't the nicest part of town. But it didn't feel like the right occasion to drive out to a proper restaurant. He wanted to keep it casual.

What else he wanted, he wasn't sure of yet. All he knew was that he had spent every minute since last Friday thinking about the other man and not a single distraction or very sound logic sufficed to keep him from longing for Heero.

The situation was laden and not in the least conducive to a budding relationship – or whatever it was, or whatever it could be. Duo had never been with an XYX person, much less one that would be pregnant in less than forty-eight hours. At least, as far as he was aware of.

Depending on who you asked, XYX individuals were either the next step in evolution, or an abomination. Because of the latter opinion of the two, XYX centers, where struggling youth could find each other, advice and solace, were not a luxury. The occurrence of the XYX chromosome combination, meant that the individual who presented outwardly as completely male, also had a functioning "female" reproductive system – but in politically correct terms it was called an "XY-compatible reproductive system". Most required hormone treatments to kick start the final developmental stage that made them "compatible" and fertile. As a result, the "condition" was undocumented for a long time, considering how rare it was to begin with and how few people discovered they were different. Nowadays, one of the services XYX centers provided were free tests, another being providing support for the .01 percent of people who tested positive and education of people who were negative.

There was a lot of additional stigma surrounding XYX because it was commonly assumed that any XYX individual would necessarily be gay, when that was not actually the case.

After ninety minutes, Duo had a headache going over all the same things that had been on his mind for the past few days. He hurried back to the center, where they had agreed to meet and he watched from across the street as a handful of teenagers poured out, shortly followed by Heero. Even from the distance, Duo noted the surprise on Heero's features, alerting him to the fact that the teacher hadn't actually expected him to stick around.

"Disappointed?" He asked, when the shorter man joined him.

"No, relieved actually. And that scares me a little."

They walked to that one diner that Duo had been able to locate, since Heero confirmed there were no better options nearby.

They took a seat across from each other in a booth and ordered milkshakes, burgers and fries.

"Quatre and Trowa will probably not let me have any of this stuff for a while to come."

"I'm pretty sure they have no right to dictate your diet."

"I don't know. It would be their baby. In my currently minimally-hormonal state," he said with a wink, "I'd get it. But ask me again in a couple of months." He scrunched up his face and amended: "I didn't mean-… I'm not saying you'll be around in a couple of months."

"What if I would be?" Duo blurted. He boldly made eye-contact and pushed away his basket of fries, not caring that they would go cold.

"Uhm… what do you mean?" He chuckled sheepishly. "You want to date?"

"Why not?"

"Oh, I don't know… maybe our Zodiac signs aren't compatible." He snorted sarcastically.

"I'm gonna sound crazy. I know that. My friends have told me. My mom has told me." He shook his head. It had been an eventful weekend. "There something between us, right?"

"Sure, maybe, but-"

He didn't let the other continue. "Why wouldn't we give it some time to see what it is exactly? If we give it a shot and we're not a good fit, what's the big deal? We'd go our separate ways. But if it is right, we could make the next nine months work, and then continue on from there."

"Duo. I'm going to be pregnant. And hormonal. And fat." He let out a little laugh. "I'm not going to be at my most charming."

"I'm not convinced that means we shouldn't give it a chance."

"You do sound crazy," he chastised mildly. He was going to say something else. His mouth was open but no sound came out as Duo's hand reached across the table and covered his.

With a kind smile, the man said: "Aren't we both a little crazy? You're the guy who agreed to carry his friend's baby. You're the substitute teacher who stripped on stage at a gay club, in front of hundreds of people."

"A valid point."

"So, what do you say?"

Heero took a moment to think and in the end the only answer he felt comfortable giving was: "I should ask Quatre and Trowa first. I need to know how they'd feel about it."

Duo sat back. In spite of the uncertainty that remained, the possibility did become just a little bit more real and being faced with it was intimidating. But the memories of Friday night still thrilled him. He didn't want to let this feeling go and end up always wondering if he let something wonderful slip away because of something as transient and abstract as 'timing'.

They finished their meals, even though it was lukewarm at best. The humorous innuendo's at least kept the conversation heated. Before parting ways, they exchanged phone numbers and shook hands. Which was surreal and had them both laughing.

He hadn't been expecting an answer soon and he assured Heero as much over dinner. Yet, his phone screen lighting up in the middle of the night, interrupted him staring at his ceiling and he rolled over to snatch the device off the night stand.

[They think we're insane.] read the first message, quickly followed by more, before Duo had even unlocked the phone. The thing vibrated in his hand.

[They're worried about me.]

[But they don't mind.]

His heart thrummed in his chest and he hesitated. If he opened the app, Heero would see that the messages had been read. But this had been his idea, right? So why wasn't responding easy?

Everyone kept saying that he didn't know what he was getting into. While it was true that there was a lot unknown, he did consider how complicated and difficult it could be. That they both risked getting hurt needlessly, when they could still walk away unscathed.

But Duo had never been about avoiding risks, not when it came to relationships. He always followed his heart and it had led him to hurt, but it had also led him to happiness. Even a happiness that was fleeting, should not be dismissed.

The timing was bad, but everything else felt right.

He opened the messages and typed his reply: So we're doing this?

[We're doing something.] was the quick reply. The emoticon took a little longer.

[Sorry, had to search for a face that said: let's not put any labels on this and take it one trimester at a time…]

Duo chuckled. Yeah, hate to say it. But that's not it. He laughed harder when random faces started popping up and his thumbs moved quickly to reply as often as possible along the lines of 'nope' and 'not it' and 'try again'. He stopped typing when an image loaded and he opened the selfie of Heero, solemnly looking into the camera, with a slight, somewhat frightened smile on his lips.

You found it.

It's a good look on you though.

He opened the picture again and zoomed in, marveling at how incredibly blue his eyes were in the flash of the camera. When there was no playful response, he decided to be more serious himself:

How about a proper dinner tomorrow?

[Going a little fast, aren't you?] The wink that Heero added put Duo at ease.

Wanna make sure you're actually as pretty as I think you are, before you get all glow-y and I can't be objective.

[Sweaty. You mean sweaty.]

It dawned on him Heero was trying to deflect, so he prodded: Dinner though? Tomorrow?

There was a delay, but then finally: [Yeah. Okay. We'll figure out the details tomorrow. Text me.]

[Goodnight, Duo.]

Goodnight.

He switched off his phone and put it away, thinking to connect it to the charger. Whenever he dated someone, battery life always became an issue.

It took him until lunch the next day to text Heero back with an address to a little café, closer to his own house. It was his favorite place for a first date. It was more like a library, that happened to serve great food and drinks at a fair price. It was a central, open area, surrounded by three floors of book shelving, branching out in every direction. It wasn't only books, but random knickknacks too, things that patrons brought and placed there, to add to the collection. It was an establishment full of icebreakers and Duo had a sense they could use that from time to time.

Part of him wished the date would go horribly, because it would make everything so much easier. It would make so much more sense. But Heero was frustratingly enigmatic. A good story teller. A good listener. He dabbled with creative outlets, like writing unfinished screenplays, poetry and short stories. He had similar experiences to Duo, growing up without having a father figure around, but with a strong mother with enough personality for two. They were both only child. Moved around a lot in their teenage years. Didn't get good at making friends until their early twenties. Each loved music. Heero had taught himself to play the piano. Duo had taught himself to play the guitar. They had both lost a loved-one.

Heero's mother died last year, in a car accident. He cried briefly when he pushed the words out of his mouth.

Solo, Duo's previous long-term boyfriend, died of HIV-related complications. He cried too.

Duo and Heero were both negative.

They loved their friends and family more than anything and would do anything for them.

After all, Heero was about to be a surrogate for his two best friends. Neither of whom were XYX and the woman who was supposed to be their surrogate initially, backed out at the last minute, which had cost them a lot of money and heartache.

And Duo had donated part of his liver to his mom three years ago, when she had recovered from her alcoholism, only to be diagnosed with liver failure. He lifted the shirt to show his scar again, even though Heero had seen and felt it that Friday night.

"You're just showing off your abs."

That made Duo grin. It was true.

They shared their coming out stories and how it was the last straw for both their fathers and had made them walk out on the family. Heero was forced to come out when a medical exam uncovered his XYX status and everyone around him assumed he was 'a fag' because of it anyway. Duo had no choice but to come clean when his dad had walked in on him experimenting with kissing a boy at only eleven years old.

Their fathers gave them shit about it. Their mothers never let the assholes get away with any of it.

Conversation was so easy. Opening up felt so safe. In a way, the odd situation they were in, made them more trusting towards each other. They were both in a bit of a rush to find out if there was any sense in pursuing this and thus no secret felt too intimate, 'too soon'.

It was surreal.

The owner of "Food For The Soul" came to find them in the back of one of the narrow corridors, to tell them they were closing. It was past midnight.

The two men walked outside, quiet for the first time since meeting up right there on the curb, hours earlier.

"Since we're being so honest," Duo started, his breath white in the air of the night, "I have to admit that this wasn't what I was hoping for. I was hoping you would be a dull prick."

Heero cocked his head and grinned at him. "Same. At a certain point, I started saying every raw and personal thing that came to mind, kind of hoping I would blurt something that would scare you away."

"Didn't work."

"Apparently not." His smile softened.

"What do you say we try to ruin this again over dinner tomorrow?"

Heero chuckled and looked down at his feet. "I can't. I have my appointment tomorrow. Someone is really going to be 'sowing some oats'."

"Right. But still, boy's gotta eat, right?"

He shook his head. "I should really just crawl in bed tomorrow. The doctor said I'd be having cramps and stuff and probably get nauseous from the extra shot of hormones."

"Yeah. Okay." He hesitated a moment, before wondering sheepishly: "Should I come? To the appointment?"

"I don't really think it's a second-date kind of activity."

"True. Spending an hour with your legs up in stirrups is more of a fifth-date thing."

They both laughed. They dragged their feet on their way to their cars.

"This was a really good first date. I enjoyed myself," Heero said, when they reached his car first.

"I'm glad. And: me too." He stepped in a little closer and they exchanged a smile. He touched a finger to Heero's chin and followed the sharp line of his jaw to the shell of his ear. He leaned closer and closer, enjoying the build of pleasant tingles in his belly and the way he started feeling heady, with his eyelids becoming heavy. He kissed him softly and politely, as if it was the first time. The merging of their lips was chaste, but Duo could tell this was something that would last – 'this' being that feeling of warmth and joy that made him want to crawl into Heero's coat and wrap his arms around his waist and wrap his head around the idea that this could be eternal.

It was a nice kind of fear; exciting and titillating. It wasn't the first time he had felt this way and that's exactly why he trusted it. Because he hadn't been wrong the last time. He just didn't want this to evolve into heartbreak again. He was already invested.

He watched Heero drive away and then went home himself.

The next day, he got out of work early, and stopped by the grocery market for ginger tea, crackers, pretzels, three different flavors of ice cream and a bottle of wine.

He hadn't been able to stop thinking about Heero all day. He knew the appointment had been at three and that the Japanese man had the rest of the day off and tomorrow as well. Duo resisted the urge to text and to call, not wanting to intrude when Heero had playfully let it be known the evening before that Duo wasn't a part of this process – not yet at least. He wanted to respectful. He didn't want to meddle, but he also didn't want to seem unsupportive.

A little while later, he stood in front of the red brick building and he texted the other man.

Knock. Knock.

He stared down at his phone screen intently, noting the message had been read, but no reply was being typed. Then, he looked up when he heard his name on the wind. Four floors up, Heero half hung out of the window, looking down at him with both a frown and a smile. He disappeared and shut the window and a few seconds later the door buzzed and Duo rushed to push it open.

He jogged up the stairs. He wouldn't have been able to find the right door if it hadn't already been open, with Heero leaning against the frame. He was wearing grey sweatpants and a college hoodie, he looked tired, but happy to welcome his guest.

Duo proudly showed off his loot.

"I can't have that anymore, if this thing took." He nodded at the wine.

"Tsk. The wine is for me. The ice cream is for you. If you're feeling up to it. If your nauseous, I got you some other stuff that should help. Always helped my mom feel better." He was let into the apartment and he shook off his coat and draped it over the back of a dining room chair like he was coming home. "How are you doing?" His tone was meant to be casually inquisitive, but he scrunched up his face at how concerned and mothering he sounded.

"I'm okay."

"You look tired."

"Rude."

He let out a breathy chuckle. "I mean, you look beautiful, of course."

"Of course."

"But also a bit tired. Was the procedure…?" He didn't know how to finish that question.

"No, it was fine. I didn't have to do anything but lay there." He talked as he put the ice cream away in the freezer, pausing to comment on the excellent selection before admitting: "Didn't sleep much last night."

"Oh?" Neither had Duo. "Why?"

He made a vague gesture. "A lot of… thinking. I actually considered-" He stopped himself and looked guilty.

"What?" His smirk was crooked and unsure.

"I considered not going through with it. Which is so, so horrible to say! After what Quatre and Trowa went through with that woman before…" he ran a hand through his hair.

"Why did you have doubts all of a sudden?" Heero had sounded nothing but sure of himself when they had talked the evening before.

"Because of you." He bit his lip. "You're a great guy… and I was… being selfish."

"You're not being selfish."

"I almost was. I almost chose a guy I've known for less than a week, over a lifetime of happiness for my two closest friends."

"You don't have to choose. You can have both." In two confident strides he closed the distance between them and he put his hands on Heero's hips. He wanted to lean in for a kiss, but instead kept their faces close and stared at him until Heero would meet his gaze and he coaxed a smile out of him with an impish quirk of his eyebrow.

"Duo… I don't expect a new relationship to make it through hormone shots, sobriety, morning sickness, disgusting cravings, mood swings, and all-round misery. It's not going to be sexy."

"We were going to take this one trimester at a time, right? And I think it's still pretty sexy…" He scooted in closer, bringing their hips together.

Heero glanced down at himself. "You think this is sexy?"

"Depends. Is that stain mustard or puke?"

"It's mustard, you dick."

"Then yeah… still sexy…" He teasingly touched his lips to Heero's and liked how the younger man sighed into the kiss. But then he felt those soft, pretty lips form into a grin and he stilled.

"Also can't do anal for six weeks, to confirm that the embryo took and you can't knock me up instead."

Duo groaned but then deepened their kiss regardless.

They sparred heatedly and Duo's hands explored the tight figure under the baggy clothes. It ended with a chuckle from both and they parted in spite of the fact that they were both hard. Duo stared at the other mirthfully and simply nodded when he was offered a bowl of ice cream – a little of each flavor.

They curled up on the couch, putting on a series on Netflix. When Heero didn't respond to Duo's joke about him letting his ice cream melt, midway through the first episode, he realized the man had fallen asleep against him.

Duo knew he was in deep. Faster than he had ever been. It was terrifying, but there was no running away from it.

So, yeah, in this alternate universe people write text messages with proper spelling, grammar and punctuation (within the limits of my own language proficiency).

Only a little less than 35 thousand words to go until I hit 2 million! So:

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Unless you're gonna vote for Dirty Job… In all honesty, everyone who votes for Dirty Job makes me die a little on the inside. Imma tell you right now, if you make me write a sequel for this story, I'm gonna kill some folks (and with folks I mean characters). Since it keeps edging out all other nominees, I've been thinking about what I'd do with the sequel and some major characters deaths are the only way to give any kind of closure that validates having a sequel to begin with. Otherwise it'll just be an aimless, open-ended tag-on. #fairwarning