What a day of ups and downs. First a huge fight with Heero, then my near-death horse-back ride, and finally my little warm and fuzzy scene Wufei style, which was considerably less warm and kind of prickly. By the time Zechs called for naptime, I had taken about all I could in the emotional upheavals department.

Unfortunately, I could feel Heero's eyes on me as we walked up the stairs, telling me that he had something important to say. It was a battle of the wills, almost, as he just as easily read my posture, saying, "Leave me alone. I can't take anymore." I wanted to throw my hands in the air and ask for mercy. Anything to keep me from feeling any more.

And… it really wasn't that I was feeling too badly about my actions that kept me from wanting to talk. I mean, of course I was feeling bad, I had been a complete jackass to everyone who had tried to save my life. I felt like the biggest loser in the world, but… damn if I didn't feel like a loved and accepted loser at the same time. They had risked everything to save me, even though I was stupid and even though saving me wouldn't help them in the least. They had given everything they had to find me. Everything. For me. That had never happened before.

Which was why I felt that I was nearly full to the brim. Good or bad, I just didn't think I could take any more emotion.

Too bad Heero didn't get the memo. When we entered the bedroom, I felt him come up behind me, then slip his arms around my waist. I could feel his breath on my ear as he gently kissed the junction between my shoulder and my neck.

What the hell?

"Heero, what are you doing?" I wondered, slightly pissed even as I shivered in reaction to his kiss.

"I was worried about you," he replied, which didn't answer my question at all, but it did send a stab of guilt the whole way down my body.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to him. "I never… I mean, I was mad, but I never meant for this to happen. I just..."

"Shh," he soothed, "It wasn't your fault," he told me, which left me wondering who in the hell's fault he thought it was, but I didn't get time to ask as he pushed me to the bed, allowed me to turn to face him, and crawled into my lap, kissing me deeply as he got settled and stopping only to come up for air.

Yesterday, I would have fucked him in a heartbeat. I would have had my pants off so fast they probably would have caught fire from the friction of being jetted down my legs. But yesterday I was an asshole, and everything that had happened since yesterday made me want to finally stop being an asshole and start being as great a guy as all the others were turning out to be. Which made me ask, in my own eloquent style, what he was doing.

"What the hell has gotten into you?"

"You, ideally," he replied, giving me a smirk that was all sex.

There was a little voice inside my head going, "Shit, dude, this is awesome! Look at him! He's the sexiest thing on this planet, and he's crawling all over you! This is going to be so hot! You have got to get in there and screw him silly!"

I just barely managed not to punch that guy's lights out, and knowing that he was me might have been the only thing that kept me from trying. Realizing that even now, after all this, a part of me was still just seeing Heero and the others as playthings that would soon be left behind made my physically sick, especially now that they'd proven they were in for the long haul. It was enough to make me push Heero back, even when he seemed bent on making me as horny as possible.

"Heero, this isn't like you. What are you doing?"

"You, if you'd start cooperating," he growled, but the dirty pun seemed strange and forced coming from his mouth. It seemed so unlike him, and even a little desperate in the way he said it. His tone, if nothing else, made me certain that this wasn't right.

"Damn it, Heero, get the fuck off! And don't even try to turn that into a pun, because it sounds weird when you say it," I told him, pushing him off of me and climbing to my feet. I felt bad about my harsh words, especially when Heero turned away from me with a hurt look on his face, but it wasn't so long ago that I would have been selfish enough to take what he was offering, and I was worried that the temptation would be too much for my new-found good nature. So, instead of risking a backslide, I got some space between us before facing Heero again. I was calmer the second time, sitting beside him on the bed, just out of arm's reach.

"What's going on here?" I asked him softly even though he wouldn't look at me. "The last time I tried to kiss you, you decked me. Now you want screw right down the hall from Zechs? What's the deal?"

"Nothing," he muttered sourly, his eyes never meeting mine as he quickly fled toward his own bed. "It was stupid. I apologize for making you uncomfortable. It won't happen again."

"Now there's were you're wrong," I told him, grabbing his wrist and pulling him back to the bed. He allowed it, more out of surprise than anything, I think. "Unless you tell me explicitly that you have no interest in me, I will continue to pursue you without remorse."

"But… then why won't you…" Heero wondered, confused.

"It's not because I don't want you, that's for damn sure," I told him, finally getting him to meet my eyes. "But I want to know that you actually want me as well."

"Of course I want you," Heero said, glaring in annoyance. "I offered, didn't I?"

"Then why were you so adamant that we screw right now? Why can't it wait until tomorrow? And why this sudden change? Why is it okay for us to have sex now, but it wasn't before?"

"Because," Heero said harshly, turning away from me again. "Because I realized something while you were gone, possibly dead in that storm. I realized that I need Master, but I can't live without you. I won't… I won't deny you anything that I have the power to give, just don't… don't leave like that again."

And there it was. It wasn't sex, or lust, or even love. It was payment. He was buying my cooperation with his body. Whatever I wanted, no matter what it cost him, he would give me to keep me around. I was a mission to him, a job that he hadn't managed to complete, and now he was trying to rectify his error. If anything, it was guilt that brought him to me.

And what about the cost to him? Heero certainly wasn't a prude, but he wasn't a sexual being either. What had it cost him, to openly whore himself like that? And what if Zechs found out? Could he really stand his precious master's anger, or worse, his disappointment?

Which was really at the root of the problem, I realized with a sudden clarity. I was bitter and jealous at Heero's relationship with Zechs, because Heero loved him. It stirred up painful memories of my own master-slave relationship and made me jealous that his had lasted so long and gone so well, while mine had been rocky and short-lived. More than that, I was jealous of Zechs for winning Heero's love and not appreciating it. How could he need more slaves, when he had someone as perfect Heero totally devoted to him? How dare he think he deserved more, or even that much!

But, regardless of my own emotions, I realized that it wouldn't be fair of me to put a wedge between them with my own selfish desires. If Heero's relationship with me progressed while Zechs wasn't looking, that was fine, but it needed to be done because Heero wanted it to, and not because he felt that it had to for him to keep me. So, instead of pulling him close and ripping off his clothes like I wanted to, I sat down in front of him and placed my hands on his shoulders.

"Listen to me," I told him, giving his shoulders a gentle shake to get his attention. "I'm not going to do anything that stupid ever again, regardless of whether or not you sleep with me. Get it? I'm here to stay, even if you don't want to screw me, alright? But don't think that I don't like you, because I think you're great and I'd totally want to sleep with you if I didn't think that you were doing it because you thought you had to and not because you wanted to, alright? Because you are so dead-sexy-hot that you could make me hard even if I were a corpse, which I'm not so-…"

"Duo!" Heero snapped, an amused little grin on his face that was way hotter than his earlier smirk because it was genuine and all Heero.

"Huh?"

"You were rambling. I get it. You won't do something stupid just because I won't have sex with you."

"But I'd really like to if you ever have the urge to."

"Yes, I got that."

"Good, because it's really important-…"

"Duo, get in bed."

"Does that mean…?"

"No, it does not. I intend to sleep with you, but if your dick makes any aggressive moves I will cut it off," he said, completely without humor and keeping to his side of the mattress as we both settled down to sleep.

"Jesus, Heero, what a way to make a guy lose a boner."

"I fully intend to hold you to your promise of not doing anything stupid while I decide if conditions are favorable to have intercourse with you."

"You're gonna torment me with this shit, aren't you?"

"Affirmative."