Disclaimer - as per usual.

Note - many, many thanks to Kaeru Shisho for beta-reading; to Snow for encouragement, to Wolfje for letting me steal the 'escaping hair' skit, and to ckhushrenada for techical input.

A very happy 2009 to everyone!

Fragments of Blue:

In the end, my 'quick' shower turned out to be somewhat on the more leisurely side.

Before I'd closed the laptop, Heero had suggested calling Rashid and getting him to collect it and maybe see if he could make head or tail of anything Quatre had written. It was a perfectly good, logical suggestion; Rashid knew Quat, he spoke Arabic, he could probably get one of the other Maguanacs to help him with encryption.

I just hated handing over my friend's personal thoughts to be looked at by someone who was bound to disapprove. Quat would be furious at his privacy being violated like that; I knew I would be in his place, but as Heero had pointed out, the important thing was to find him and we could deal with everything else after.

He was right; of course he was right. But I'd still decided to lurk upstairs until Rashid had been and gone, not being all that keen on another encounter. It was bad enough when total strangers looked at me like at me like I was dirt. I'd become used to that when I was just a kid; most people have this special expression they reserve for the homeless.

It hurt like hell when someone I'd liked and respected looked at me like I was a particularly virulent and contagious strain of bacteria.

The main bathroom in the cottage didn't exactly encourage a quick shower anyway. It had always been one of my favourite places in the universe. My room did have a more than adequate en-suite, but it didn't have miniature citrus trees planted around the shower, or one wall of sheer, curved glass. Even the tub had a built-in telescope if you fancied a bit of star-gazing while you were lazing in the water.

The only problem was that it was very hard not to think about Quatre in his own bathroom, using his favourite lemon-based toiletries, which were produced in a citrus grove in Sicily and were made according to an ancient family secret, passed on from generation to generation. They were handmade exclusively for a tiny list of privileged customers by the unmarried daughters of the family, and Trowa had always joked that for the price, each bar of soap or bottle of shower gel should have come equipped with its own attendant virgin.

But they felt damn good.

It all made me feel just how far I'd come from the kid I'd been when we first met. I'd seen my first real bathtub at the Maguanacs' desert base and it had taken me a while to figure out just what it was, and how to use it. I'd ignored the extensive range of toiletries in the cabinet, and used my own sliver of carbolic soap, that Howard had given me.

Seven years on, I was showering in a marble bathroom, using products that had probably cost the annual budget of a small country. And Quat was missing, possibly dead. And pretty much the last thing he'd said to me was that Heero had only ever wanted me for a quick, casual fuck, that I'd never been anything more than just a cheap little L2 whore.

It was still hard to register that he'd said all those things to me, even though they occasionally scratched across my brain. Bad stuff doesn't always stay in the box, the way it's supposed to.

Of course, he wasn't the first person to say that sort of thing to me, but he'd been my best friend. The one person who'd always believed in me. He'd never lied to me.

Fuck.

It took me a few minutes, longer than usual but it had been an emotional sort of day, to wrestle all that shit back under lock and key.

By then, I'd pretty much used every product there was, and there wasn't much excuse to stay in the shower for much longer. I was as all scrubbed and shining and lemony-scented as I'd ever be.

I really hoped Rashid wasn't going to stay for too long. Heero, who had all these weird ideas of Japanese hospitality, would feel compelled to ask him in for coffee and Rashid, who has all these weird notions of Arabic courtesy, would probably feel bound to accept. Hell, between the two of them, Rashid would probably end up moving in with us.

Dressing took up a fairly good chunk of time, or at least scrabbling in my closet for the outfit I wanted did. Most of the clothes I'd left here were very casual, but one of the younger Maguanacs had been married a couple of years ago, and Quatre had insisted giving us all special outfits for the ceremony. Not the sort of stuff I'd ever wear on Earth so I'd just left it here.

Looking at myself in the mirror, I thought maybe it was a bit over the top. Sure, Heero had talked about 'romancing' me, and it was suitably romantic. But maybe he'd only been joking, or he'd decided to jettison that idea in favour of a nice, long gossip with Rashid.

No, surely he wouldn't do that. I called Wufei to give him a brief, lack-of-progress report and then thought about calling Hilde. I really didn't want her finding out about Heero and me on the news, but I didn't exactly feel up to telling her we were back together and being yelled at for gross stupidity. Not just yet.

'Duo?' Heero's voice called from downstairs. 'Rashid's gone if you want to come down now.'

'Just a sec,' I yelled back. Damn, was I really all that easy to read? I sent Hilde a brief text instead, and then headed down, not bothering to change. If Heero thought I looked stupid, I could just say I'd put on the first things I'd pulled out. It was sort of true, if you discounted the fact that I'd spent a good ten minutes rummaging around in the closet first.

Heero didn't say I looked stupid. For the longest time, he didn't say anything at all, just stood at the bottom of the stairs and - looked at me.

'I - uh - don't have an awful lot of clothes here,' I faltered, when I was standing in front of him.

'You're beautiful,' he said softly, leaning over to brush his lips over mine. 'You're breathtaking. I still keep thinking that this is all a dream.'

'I'm not a dream,' I told him, finding it just a little hard to breathe, the way he was looking at me. It had almost scared me sometimes, that I'd could inspire so much intensity, but sometimes that sort of loving scrutiny had made my life worth living, made the whole universe make sense. I wasn't quite sure how I felt this time; just a little uncomfortable, but maybe that was because of the stuff I'd been thinking about upstairs.

'Rashid didn't stay long, did he?'

He shook his head. 'Just a few minutes. He said he'd call us if he found anything. Duo…' he hesitated for a minute. 'I don't think you should take his behaviour earlier too personally.'

'I don't take it personally,' I said flatly. 'If some other ex-street kid with an unsavoury past tried to sully his perfect Master Quatre, I'm sure he'd treat them just the same.'

'That wasn't what I meant. He is desperately worried about Quatre; I'm sure he never meant to be so discourteous to you earlier.'

Yeah, right. 'Just leave it, 'Ro, OK? I know damn well what Rashid thinks of me, and I'm used to it by now. I don't suppose he had any other news?'

'Actually, yes. Apparently, the security codes here were changed a month ago. Only three people had the new combinations; Trowa, Rashid and Quatre himself.'

'Really? I know Trowa wasn't here, and if it had been Rashid, he'd hardly have drawn attention to the fact. It must have been Quat.'

He shook his head. 'Rashid called Quatre's assistant and got a print out of his schedule for the day in question.' He handed me a flimsy piece of paper. 'She confirmed he attended all of these engagements. There's no way he would have had time to come all the way out here.'

No shit. I ran my eyes down the list; I couldn't even see where he'd have had time for a bathroom break. From a breakfast meeting at six thirty, to a conference call at midnight, his entire day was marked out in regimented, fifteen-minute segments. How the hell had he lived like that? Sure, he'd always been totally committed to WEI, but he'd been good at balancing things. Eighteen months ago, even if he'd wanted to run his day like that, there was no way Tro would have let him.

'This just gets progressively weirder, doesn't it?'

Heero gave me an odd little smile. 'Curiouser and curiouser, in fact.'

'Hey! You finally got around to reading Alice!' It had always been one of my favourite books, but he'd always refused to try it. He dismissed most fiction as escapist nonsense anyway, and especially a book where talking animals held tea parties. 'Did you like it?'

'Not really,' he admitted. 'I didn't understand most of it, but I remembered some parts that you'd quoted to me, parts that you'd liked. It …made me feel close to you, sometimes.' I thought he was going to say something else, but he just gave his head a shake and took my hand to lead me into the kitchen. 'You know, we should probably have dinner before it gets cold.'

Despite what he'd said, there was no sign of any dinner preparations in sight.

'I thought you'd said something about dinner!'

'Maybe I got bored waiting for you and ate everything myself,' he teased.

'Maybe if you were bored you should have come up and scrubbed my back for me,' I quipped back, and swished my shining braid so it fell neatly into his hand.

'If I'd done that, I don't think there would have been any dinner, and you haven't eaten since breakfast.'

Good point. Especially as most of breakfast had ended up down the toilet bowl at the Embassy.

'Ah. So you are planning to feed me, then?'

He reached out and reeled me in with one hand on my waistband. 'Of course. There's just one little thing I want to do first.'

He started slowly, pressing light kisses around each corner of my mouth, sucking gently at my lower lip, sliding his tongue over my teeth before flicking inside.

'Mmm. You smell very good.'

'Quat's shampoo,' I explained. 'Is that more to your taste than eau-de-spider?'

'I'm not sure. I may have to check again; I don't want to make any rash decisions after all.'

'Oh, yes,' he decided after a few minutes. 'I definitely like it. Now, you might want to bring this.' He handed me a jacket he'd obviously found in the downstairs cloakroom, and laughed at my expression. 'You know it gets cold at night in the desert.'

'What, we're going for a hike?' I glanced down at my feet, bare from the ankle under my gauzy silk pants. 'Do I need shoes?'

He shook his head. 'We're not going far, just to the dunes behind the house.' He slung a backpack over one shoulder and picked up a couple of smaller bags. 'It's a lovely night; I thought it might be nice to eat outside. We could have a picnic, if you like?'

'Another picnic?' I couldn't help grinning delightedly at him. Oh, come on. He'd just kissed me like it was going out of fashion, he'd obviously got this romantic evening all planned out for us, and, well, it was a pretty foregone conclusion at this point how things would end up.

Actually, a definitely foregone conclusion, I decided five minutes later, following him up one of the sand dunes behind the cottage.

'Wow.' He'd obviously sneaked out earlier to get things ready; there was a fire crackling and a couple of blankets neatly laid out.

'This is your idea of a picnic?' I demanded, watching as he unfurled all sorts of gourmet goodies from his bag.

'More of a fine dining al fresco experience,' he intoned, sounding like a commercial, and that cracked me up.

'Wow, it looks awesome.' I accepted a plate and took a bite. Roast monkfish and some sort of vegetable-and-cheese dish. I hadn't realised just how hungry I'd been. 'How the hell did you manage to get all this stuff ready so fast?'

'I cheated,' he said simply, handing me a glass of wine. 'The chef at the Sanque Embassy let me raid his freezer. I just had to warm it up.' He lifted a forkful to his mouth. 'It seems odd to see you enjoying fish, when you used to hate it so much.'

'Wufei's influence.' I shrugged. 'He always cooked when we were living together, and fish is his favourite thing. It was either eat the stuff or starve. I got to like it eventually.'

He grinned at me. 'Do you remember that seafood pizza, during the War?'

'Uuurgh,' I grimaced at the memory. 'I thought you were trying to poison me. I mean, you knew I didn't like fish, and you let me eat it. No wonder I thought you hated me back then!'

He snorted. 'I did try to stop you; you just moved too fast. It's a dangerous thing to get between Duo Maxwell and food!'

'Huh! I didn't realise back then that seafood was the same as fish. And some of it was shellfish and that was even worse! Ick!' Once, I'd truly believed that I'd never turn my nose up at any sort of food, but fish had just seemed.. unnatural. Actually, the bodies of water they lived in seemed sort of unnatural too. Vast expanses of some new element with all these weird…things moving around under the surface.

'I suppose you eat raw oysters now, given the chance,' he teased and then hesitated. 'Duo, you never really thought I hated you, did I?'

'Um, you never said two civil words to me in a row, you called me Maxwell all the time, you stole parts from my poor innocent Gundam after I'd helped you, you were always criticising me for every damn thing, including my hair…'

'Enough,' he picked my hand up and kissed it, his tongue tracing the lines on my palm. 'You weren't exactly perfect either, you know. I seem to remember you going out of your way to irritate me.'

'Well, yeah. Anything to get you to pay me some attention! Even if it only got me glares and Japanese curses.'

'I always paid attention to you. Even if you didn't always notice.' He was…paying me considerable attention as he spoke, taking each finger in turn into his mouth, and bathing it with his tongue.

'My fault,' I said a little shakily. 'I just hadn't copped on back then that those glares were really a sign of attraction.'

'You always were slow on the uptake.'

'Not always.'

He nipped gently at my thumb and released me. 'Not always, no. Dessert?'

'Um, do you mean actual dessert or it that slang for something else?'

'Actual dessert. For now.' He delved into the magic bag. 'Dark chocolate mousse and raspberry purée. I trust that is satisfactory, sir?'

'I guess it'll have to do,' I tried to sound lofty and then gave it up. It was delicious. OK, It would probably have tasted a hell of a lot better, eaten off Heero's stomach, but I wasn't entirely sure how to broach that particular subject. A nice merging of sex and chocolate.

'You know, I'm not sure why we're going for an 'either/or' scenario here. I'm sure we could think of a couple of creative ways to combine dessert and….not dessert.'

'One thing at a time.'

'I thought you'd finally worked out how to combine business with pleasure.'

'I think what you're talking about would be a mix of pleasure with pleasure.'

I started a little grumble about legal semantics, and then entirely lost the thread of my complaint, absorbed in watching him lick mousse of his spoon.

'So...what's the deal? If I eat up all my dessert, I get another treat?'

'Possibly.' Damned tease; he actually stuck one finger into his little dish and then sucked it clean. Right in front of me, staring into my eyes.

Well, two could play at that game as well as one. I actually managed to elicit a low groan from him, swirling my tongue around my spoon, making sure I licked up every last bit of chocolate.

Hah!

Perfection, really. Such a beautiful night; just the two of us, with the lights shining from the other side of L4.

'I always forget how bright the lights are on this colony; it's almost like seeing stars.'

Heero nodded. 'Do you miss it? Space?'

'Not really.' That had been something of a surprise actually; I'd once assumed that, if I survived the War, that I'd go back. I'd wanted to. But if you defined home as a place where you felt happy and safe and loved, it didn't apply to L2. Home, for years now, had been the house I shared with Wu and Zechs. 'I used to come here all the time, anyway, to visit Quat. And I sometimes get to fly on my shuttles' test runs.'

Heero took my empty dish away and topped up my wine glass. 'Progress evaluation report?'

'Satisfactory. You did mess up on one little detail, the moon should be full, just to provide the perfect romantic atmosphere.' It had been full for our first time; there'd been a fire then as well, and blankets, and moonbeams gleaming silver on the ocean.

He grinned, knowing exactly what I was getting at. 'Actually; that's your fault; abducting me like that threw my schedule right off. If you'd given me a little more warning, I might possibly have found some way for us to see the moon from a Colony.'

'You had a schedule?'

Well, of course he had a schedule; I didn't know why I felt so surprised.

'Not like that,' he assured me quickly. 'It wasn't like I had a - a timeframe or anything. But I thought I finally had a chance to try to get you back, to prove to you that I'd changed. At least try to be friends again.'

'We are. And more than friends by now, right?'

He nodded emphatically. 'If you really want the moon to be full, we can wait 'til we get back to Earth.'

'I really don't think so.' No way. 'Heero, I'm sorry about earlier. For bringing up all that stuff about Relena. It's not like I was celibate or anything, so I shouldn't talk. I just wanted to be sure about us, you know.'

'Why are you apologising?'

'Um, you had this wonderful evening planned, and I dragged up all that past stuff, and then I gave you a long list of all the ways you irritate me. That wasn't exactly romantic; we could have had a massive row or something and this date would never have happened.'

'Oh, it would have,' he informed me. 'Even if I'd to drag you here by the hair.' He laughed as I instinctively took a quick hold on my braid, just in case he wanted to try it.. 'And we didn't fight; we had an open discussion and aired our respective fears and grievances.'

'Very funny,' I snorted. 'Are you mocking me by any chance?'

'Positively not. You were right; there were things we both needed to talk about.' He shrugged. 'And we did. Incidentally, I do have an idea about our future. I thought we could live on a very small, uninhabited desert island, just a sandbar really, with no convenient hiding places, and nowhere for you to run. And you would have to spend a large part of every day listening to me tell you just how wonderful you are.'

'Agreed!' I clinked my glass against his. 'Provided you're willing to spend the rest of our time watching me swim with killer sharks, and flirting with the local mermaids.'

'Or even the mermen,' he suggested dryly. 'Well, I could possibly accept you flirting with mythical creatures, if you really want to.'

'And the sharks?' I teased.

Heero snorted. 'They'd choke on your hair. And that's speaking purely from personal experience.'

'Hey! Leave my hair alone, Yuy! It was only that one time, and you're the one who always wants it loose anyway.'

'Very true,' he admitted, leaning around me for his bag.

'Don't tell me you have more stuff in there! What's next? Vintage champagne? Fireworks? A full orchestra?'

'Just a couple of little things,' he produced an insulated thermos flask, and handed it to me, unscrewing the top.

'Hot chocolate!' That one little detail sent me catapulting into his arms, and we were both panting when I let him go.

'I do love that you're the only person in the universe who can be seduced with hot cocoa!'

'And I love the fact that you're the only person who knows it. ' I reached down to kiss him again. 'Are you planning to seduce me, then?'

'Certainly not,' he grinned at me, sitting up and tugging me on top of him. 'That sounds ..somewhat one-sided. I thought perhaps we might seduce each other.'

'We might.' I shifted position in his lap, just a little, so I could look up at him, and he pressed a light kiss to my forehead.

'I'm just nervous.'

'Oh, Heero,' I slid one hand through that ridiculously unruly mop of hair, sweeping it away from his brow. 'You don't have to be. I know you'd never hurt me.'

Damn. He'd always been so scared, especially at the start, that he'd somehow end up hurting me. My fault; I'd been such a mess after he'd rescued me from a mission that had gone wrong. It wasn't as if anything really bad had even happened, but he'd gone through weeks of my nightmares, of me trying not to panic if he touched me without warning.

'I - I didn't mean the physical part. Not entirely.'

Oh-kay, what the hell was he on about?

''Ro, the physical part is sort of the main event. Remember? Or…do you not want to do this with me?'

He didn't say anything for far too long; just gazing into the fire. There was spark of blue at the base of each flame, the exact shade of his eyes. Oh, God, my thoughts were whirling all over the place. What the hell was this evening about if he hadn't been planning to seduce me?

'Of course I want to be with you,' he said finally, and very firmly indeed. 'Duo, my love, if I say something to you, can you please try not to get angry? Just listen to me?'

'I - guess I can try,' I said uncertainly.

'Right,' he took a deep breath. 'I love the fact that we've been talking to each other over past few days. Even if it's not always pleasant for either of us, we're being honest. I - missed that, after the War. Being able to talk to you about anything. I still - I look back and try to work out when it all started to go wrong between us. I wanted so much to be everything for you. To take care of you. And everything I did was wrong.'

'It wasn't your fault, Heero,' I whispered. 'You have to know that. We were both stupid kids, who didn't have a freaking clue what normal life was like. Hell, I look back sometimes and I think it's a miracle we lasted as long as we did.'

'We are both … very stubborn,' he admitted.

'Yep. A couple of stubborn bakas,' I took his hand and squeezed it gently. 'I know what you tried to do for me, love. But you couldn't protect me from the entire world, not when I was hell bent on destroying myself. We're not teenagers any more. We can do this. And I don't want you worrying about hurting me, OK?'

'I'm not,' he told me, sounding just a little - off. Like he wasn't sure what to say next. Then he put his other hand over mine. 'I want this to happen because you want it. I know, when things weren't going well, you used to…initiate sex, sometimes, and I used to wonder if you were just using it as a distraction. That you didn't really want to.'

'No!' I gasped. 'Heero, I swear, it was never like that. Never! I know I … used to jump on you sometimes if I didn't want to talk about stuff, but I always wanted you. Always. You must have known that,' I finished in a small voice. 'It was the one way we could actually communicate that we never managed to fuck up.'

'In a manner of speaking,' he proffered me a slight smile; just a quirk at one corner of his mouth, that I had to lean over and kiss.

'I'm sort of nervous too.' I hadn't meant to say anything, but this was Heero and me under moonlight, and we could have been the only two people alive in the universe. And this was the point of no return, really. Sure, if either of us got up and walked away at this juncture, it would hurt like hell. But I'd survive.

'You've always known how fucking messed up I am, Heero, if anyone does.' There wasn't really any point in elaborating that particular point. 'What little bit of self-esteem I'd ever had came from you, how you felt about me. That maybe I'd had some small value besides being useful for sex and mass destruction. When you left, I lost all that, and I lost the entire centre of my world as well.'

His abandoning me had pretty much left me with a few tattered remnants of confidence and it had taken years to patch my confidence back up so that the rips and shreds didn't show too badly.

'I am so scared that if you leave again, I'll go back to the way I was the first time. I'm not sure if I can go through all that again.'

'You won't,' he said so absolutely, that I just goggled at him.

'I know,' I said quietly. 'I know we both have all these intentions and maybe it will work out for us this time, but you can't say for sure.'

He shook his head. 'That…wasn't what I meant. Duo, you're not sixteen any more. You said I was the centre of your world, then. I won't be that now. You have a career and friends and a life you've built by yourself. You have so many things to live for.' A sigh. 'Please. Give me one chance.'

'I - I said to Trowa, a while ago, that when you've got someone's initials carved on your heart, you can't just - forget them. And I meant it.'

'May I let your hair down?'

'Sure, give it its freedom,' I took another sip of wine, and laughed. 'Wouldn't that be your ultimate nightmare, though? If my hair decided to return to the wild?'

He laughed, although I couldn't help noticing that he'd also winced, ever so slightly. 'You haven't had that much to drink.'

'Maybe I'm just high on the company?' I turned over, resting my chin on his thigh. 'I can just picture it, you know. Like one of those wildlife documentaries, when they return animals to their natural habitat? You know the ones, all those park rangers gathered around to open the gate, and saying how happy they are to see this hair being given its freedom, but how much they'll miss it?'

'I think your hair has probably been domesticated by now, don't you?' he asked, taking a good hold of it, just in case it did decide to make a break for freedom. 'I doubt it could survive in the wild by itself, not after years of captivity.'

'Maybe.' I peeked up at him through my lashes. 'And maybe not. All those tangles are hell to tame in the morning sometimes. 'Specially if I didn't use conditioner.'

'You don't always use conditioner?' he demanded in mock outrage. Well, maybe it was genuine outrage. The guy has such a hair fetish it isn't true. 'That probably counts as some form of hair abuse. Perhaps I should be reporting you to the proper authorities?'

'What would that be? Would you still love me if I didn't have any hair?'

He considered. 'There are some very realistic wigs available nowadays, I believe.. Ow!'

I kissed the spot I'd punched and then pouted up at him. 'I always knew you only loved me for the hair.'

'I'd love you if you were bald, or if you were totally covered with hair, or if you wanted to cut it all off.' He started to unravel my braid as he spoke, letting one strand at a time slide through his fingers and then spreading it over my shoulders.

'Heero? Are you going to make me beg?'

'No,' he shook his head. 'Are you sure?'

'Yes,' I breathed. The kiss was achingly, agonisingly slow. He ran his tongue-tip around my lips, making every nerve-ending spiral, before darting it inside my mouth. When we pulled apart, just as slowly, he reached into the basket and rummaged around. The tube of lubricant was hardly unexpected. Always prepared, Mr. Heero Yuy. The condoms were a surprise.

'It's, um, it's been a while since I've been with anyone.'

'Me too.'

I shook my head. 'No, I mean it's a really long while. The last guy I was with, properly, was Mischa and that was over a year ago. I - uh - I've had a medical exam since then, so unless you need them….'

I felt my face start to burn; probably the fire. Or maybe not; we'd never needed to have this sort of discussion before. He'd been a virgin, and G had pumped all sorts of antibiotics into my system before I'd started my training, killing off anything that might have been lurking there.

He shook his head. 'No. I don't.'

'Good. So, ah, if it's been a while for us both, you think we'll be able to remember what goes where?'

'Well, you're the engineer. You can probably work out how Part A slots into Part B.'

'Which are you?' I stroked the hair back from his face gently.

'Anything you like, love. Z if you want.'

'You know what I want.'

'I want you,' his eyes, burningly intense, held mine.

Getting undressed while kissing isn't the easiest thing in the universe, but it is doable.

He laid me down on the blanket, scattering kisses all over my throat and collarbone. He'd always loved that part of my anatomy. The slow glissade of his tongue up the side of my neck was new though; and I had about one second to wonder if his last lover had liked that particular move, before he fastened his lips around my earlobe. Such a tiny, insignificant piece of flesh, to produce those sorts of sensations.

I didn't even notice he had the lube out, until he dropped a dollop on my chest.

'Uh, you know, Blue, I think that's supposed to go lower down.'

'Funny,' he commented. 'Have you forgotten all about a wonderful thing called foreplay?'

'I … vaguely remember it.'

Heero Yuy in mission-mode is an awe-inspiring thing. Being the sole object of that utter concentration, that total commitment to a single goal is simply overwhelming. When he sucked at a nipple or nibbled at a particular patch of skin, it was if nothing else existed for him in all the universe.

He is indecently good at this, Every caress was drawn out, taking me to the knife's edge and then pulling back just as I began to fall. At first, I failed even to notice he'd inserted the first finger, so caught up in his mouth moving over mine.

He pulled back slowly, letting me adjust. After that first sting of entry, it wasn't sore, not exactly. He just let me lie there, giving my body a chance to adjust. There was a little bit more discomfort with the second finger, and then he hit that certain spot, and I jerked up so fast that we almost cracked skulls.

'Yes,' I hissed fiercely. 'Again. Do that again.' One of us - probably me - was making small incoherent sounds of loss and needing as he withdrew entirely and coated his fingers with more lube.

He's always had almost inhuman patience for this part of it. Preparation isn't just a perfunctory means to an end; it's a pleasure in its own right. A little ritual to be savoured and drawn out. Of course, he has far more staying power than I have.

By the time he finally pulled his fingers out, my own passion was flaring to meet his.

'I want you, Heero.' Not asking or teasing or pleading; just a bald statement of fact to my lover. 'I'm ready.'

'Oh.' Well, that was probably the nearest my gasp came to any sort of coherent sound. It got me a soft kiss on the mouth, and he just stilled, fluttering soft kisses onto my face, and letting me breathe. Letting my body decide just how it wanted to deal with this new invading presence and letting my mind whirl around in a frenzy, gliding a sudden flare to panic and then settling on the fact that this was Heero, that everything was all right, that he'd never hurt me.

'I think, it's OK now.' I obviously still sounded just that little bit uncertain, because he didn't move, save to brush my hair away from my face with one finger, and then tilted my pelvis up to meet him. Well, actions speak louder than words, right?

At this point, according to Quatre, you are supposed to see stars; whole galaxies exploding if at all possible.

My world has always exploded into fragments of blue.

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Note 2: For various reasons, I'm afraid this will be the last posted chapter for the immediate future.

I would like to thank all the generous people who have taken the time to offer comments, suggestions and constructive criticism. It has been hugely appreciated, and you have really motivated me to keep writing.