Okay, I'm finally back. Thanks for all the super reviews, you guys really keep me going! I love getting all this stuff from you, and it really does help. So don't hesitate to drop a line whenever! I'd be thrilled! (And if I'm taking too long, don't feel so bad you don't jump down my throat. I have a lot of stories up that I'm working on (damn muses won't let me rest) so I might get lost and forget.) Yes, I know I just put a parentheses in another parentheses. Bite me.

*Warning* - There is sap, a bit of content, and a bit of angst. The dog is nonexistent in this, but he shows up eventually. ^_^o Poor thing. . .

Disclaimer - The gundam boys are in no way mine, and are owned by Sunrise or somebody else. Don't sue me! I own nothing. . .

Footsteps

Chapter 6

Heero stood in shock. What? That was all he could think. . . . What?

He stood stock still for so long he felt his muscles cramp. He shook his head, but couldn't stop the pounding in his ears or the incessant hum of his madly beating heart. Duo had. . . what? He looked at the man he loved and saw a strange dawning in his eyes. Duo seemed to have realized that Heero really hadn't known.

"Oh, God," Heero heard, but couldn't be sure that he hadn't said it.

Then he was up the stairs, holding Duo in a fierce embrace, tightening his hold when Duo would have wriggled away. He burrowed his face into the boy's shoulder, though he had to bend over a bit to achieve it. The scent of Duo's cologne had his mind go blank for a moment before he remembered just what he had heard. "You what?" he choked, and it sounded so helpless and feeble that he abruptly stood and backed away. Duo faltered a bit, showing that he'd been ready to lean into Heero. Heero winced when he realized it must've seemed like he hadn't wanted the contact. "Duo, are you serious? Did you really try to. . . ?" He remembered that one thing he'd read in Duo's journal.

`If I had the courage, I would do it right now. . .'

Heero shuddered as the memory shifted in his mind. A chill raced through him that had nothing to do with the slow breeze that flowed around them both. Oh, hell. Duo. . .

Duo had, however, decided to clam up. It seemed he believed that he'd already said more than enough.

"Why?" And then Heero remembered that he'd already been told why. Because of him. Because Duo had thought that he hated him. It was his fault.

Something heavy and painful lodged itself into his heart. His fault. Duo had. . . had done only God knows what to himself because he had shoved him away. Because he had failed to understand him.

Oh, God.

He realized he was breathing heavily and took a great effort to control himself. He looked again into Duo's eyes. "I think we should talk inside."

Duo looked at him once, then again, before nodding tersely and opening the screen door, of which he held open for Heero. Heero quickly walked through it before Duo could change his mind, then turned to face him. After Duo had locked the door, Heero grabbed his shoulders and turned him so that they faced one another. He searched the boy's eyes for one more second before crushing their mouths together.

Duo opened his in surprise, and Heero didn't wait to be asked. He slid his tongue inside Duo's wet mouth and tasted him for the first time. He was masculine in every way Heero wasn't. Not pushy, but still confident. Not stoic, but still holding that quiet aura of strength. Not cocky genius, but funny intellectual. They were the opposites that attracted. They were the proverbial one plus one equals one thing.

They were perfect.

He didn't know who groaned, but suddenly Duo's head slid back, allowing Heero deeper access, and he groaned in satisfaction. The sweet taste of Duo was bringing Heero's senses to a head. He found that their bodies were stuck together like two pieces of velcro. He felt Duo's nipples under his shirt, felt Duo's hard erection on his thighs. He moved across Duo, lining their erections together until they were grinding into each other.

They both groaned then.

Heero couldn't think. His head was heady with thoughts of Duo under him, on the sheets, looking up at him with those amethyst eyes as he took them up higher and higher. . .

He stopped abruptly, coming back to nibble on Duo's lips when a pathetic whimper rose out of the braided boy's mouth. He groaned and grabbed Duo around the waist, holding the boy upright when he would have fallen from weak knees. They stayed that way for a while, panting and gasping and unable to uncross their eyes. "Does that seem like. . . I don't LIKE you?"

Shit. Perhaps it hadn't been smart to do that. But that mouth had been begging for a kiss since Duo had stepped onto the porch and Heero hadn't been able to get that broad chest out of his mind and then. . . Duo had said that and. . . his control had snapped.

Duo mewed something unintelligible and Heero smiled. "I don't hate you," he whispered into the other's ear, and delighted in the shiver that ran through Duo at the words' caress. "And I won't leave you again. Not even if you order me to."

Duo shook his head. "No," he managed, "I don't want you to. . ."

Relief flooded through him, and he didn't allow Duo to change his mind. If he had said that because he was still partly drugged on Heero's kiss, Heero wasn't about to argue. "Discuss it more in the morning?"

Duo `uhmmed' a response and lightly sagged against Heero more. Heero knew he was falling asleep, and let him fall under, watching with a small smile. His crystal eyes drooped, then finally closed, and his breathing evened out. Heero lovingly picked him up and brought him into the bedroom at the end of the hall. He slowly opened the door and took a quick look around. The walls were painted an eerie blue that unnerved him a bit, until he realized that the color was the same as his eyes. The comprehension made him smile as he laid Duo down on the soft, black sheets and covered him with them. He stepped back and looked around again, seeing a picture of Deathscythe on a wooden bureau on the far side of the room. Beside it was a picture of the gundam pilots from back during the war, in a newspaper clipping detailing what they looked like to citizens.

His mind now haunted, wondering just why Duo had kept that, he crept out of the room and walked back down the hall. He'd be sleeping on the couch tonight. He thought about Duo's face when he'd come up for air just moments ago and barely managed to stifle the groan. It was going to be a long night.

*

A/N: Hi! Okay, that was also dedicated to Dee, who is probably going to be e-mailed quite often. ^_^o Anyway, I'd like to thank anyone who has read this, and would like to thank in ABUNDANCE anyone who reviews. Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you. . .

Kanashii: *Rolls her eyes* I wish I had more of a part in this.

Ai: I'm glad you aren't. You would've killed Duo off in that suicide thing and had Heero weeping when he found out that he was too late.

Kanashii: A ruined waste of a good almost-deathfic!!! Gah!

Ai: Please support my idea of keeping them both ALIVE by reviewing!!!