October 9, 2001
this is another shameless 1-hour fluff.
* bianca
warnings: some descriptions of sex. a little sadness.
pairing: 2x1
There were times that Heero was in love with Duo and times when he wasn't. Usually Heero would be washing the dishes and shivering a little at how the heat of the dishwater seemed cold, and Duo would walk in holding his eye and pester Heero to look and see if there wasn't an eyelash in there somewhere.
Heero loved Duo during times like that, odd occasions when Duo bought a weatherstick that was supposed to predict rain because Duo liked to dress so he wasn't too hot or too cold.
Heero loved Duo, sometimes unexpectedly and breathlessly, deep into the hanging jaw of night or in the backyard on their picnic table. Sometimes it was gentle and slow, with Duo's breath coming in unconscious rhythm with his thrusts, but Heero really liked it better when Duo did him hard and did it fast and then they both collapsed in a tangle of helpless knees and jerky elbows.
Heero liked it that way, because when it was tender, Duo liked to hold him and kiss him after, and sometimes Duo's touches frightened Heero.
But Heero honestly didn't know what to do about when he didn't love Duo, when his off-hand jokes and pretensions at indifference to pain rose to the thin surface. Sometimes Duo walked down to the park by himself at sunset and threw stones into the pond, skipping across the glass skin until they finally descended with a silent pop. Heero followed him once, and the tight lines of Duo's cheekbones were wrought with all the tension he refused to show to Heero.
Hiding behind a tall willow, watching Duo through the tree's shifty fingers, mesmerized by the soft inundation of reds and oranges over Duo's shoulders, Heero's feelings were a jumbled basket of thread, but he was positive that it wasn't love.
It wasn't unrelated, exactly; just not the same, unadultered need to be close to Duo. Heero had to force himself not to tag along during Duo's walks to the park; it was disconcerting, the way that Duo could slip out of himself and assume some secret identity that had no connection to Heero.
"What do you do on walks?" Heero asked one night while they were playing poker with M&M's.
"Just think," said Duo, and folded.
Heero wanted to know if Duo thought about him, but their relationship was still pretty new, and even if they went to bed together and woke together, in between there were things that Heero didn't dare voice for fear of a fight, a splinter in the spidering cracks.
Duo's walks became more and more frequent, and Heero got the first indication that maybe Duo didn't love him all the time either one day while they were in the kitchen, trying to figure out what leftovers they could coerce into a dinner.
"We could put the celery on the pizza," said Heero doubtfully. His face flushed red as he caught Duo rolling his eyes and snorting condescendingly.
One of the best things about Duo's appearance was his eyes, their opulent expressiveness and the slants of his eyelids when he smiled. Heero didn't really care to look Duo in the eye after that.
Strangely, it didn't feel right for Duo not to always love him. Heero had inferred that, since Duo had been the one to initiate their relationship, Duo never grew tired of being around him.
The times when Heero loved Duo grew fewer after that, but when Heero suggested that they take a break, Duo shook his head emphatically and clutched his hand with the possessive air of a puppy protecting its bone.
"Oh, Heero, no." He kissed Heero's cheek lightly, grinning at the slight flush there. "You don't mean that." He looked deeply into Heero's eyes, trying to effect some of the connection that had drawn them together in the first place. "Right?"
Heero actually did mean it, but then Duo started tickling him and he (sort of) forgot all about it (until the next time). Besides, making love was its own troublesome adventure, one that Heero had begun pondering extensively when Duo first suggested it with a finger circling his entrance.
It did feel good, and Duo himself was good in bed, definitely good in bed from what he could gather from his own reactions, but there were some things that just needed getting used to. Heero, for the most part, had mastered the intricacies of social maneuvering, such as getting through a checkout line without biting the clerk's head off, but his experience with the less calculated side of humanity had been nil before Duo.
So even though Heero loved it when Duo crept up to him and pressed his hips against Heero's backside and swayed gently, even though he secretly adored that they had a collection of clothes that Duo had torn up in his eagerness to touch Heero's bare skin, the sounds Duo made in his abandon were all too human, primal and instinctual.
When Duo pressed his mouth near Heero's earlobe and grunted and moaned as their bodies moved rapidly, it was kind of weird and just exciting enough. Heero felt most alive when Duo was inside him, cooing in all the languages of their primitive ancestors, and for that he loved Duo with all the new senses that had awakened at the end of the war.
So their sex life never really went stale the way it was supposed to, but Heero didn't have any complaints on that end. What he didn't like was the way Duo sometimes treated him like a child, as if any negative emotions would have a retarding effect on Heero's emotional growth, as if Duo punching a hole into the wall of their home and then refusing to explain why were some sort of protection.
Heero didn't understand his own emotions sometimes, but that didn't mean that he didn't want to hear about Duo's.
He tried to tell Duo one night after they'd gone to the beach and gotten sand in their bathing suits doing naughty things on the public property. He'd rehearsed his speech, including Duo's interspersed reactions, the entire day, flirted with different sentence structure until it was terse and sweet, until Heero was sure Duo would understand and they would lie on the couch and kiss and watch old romantic movies.
He opened his mouth during an "I Love Lucy" Nick-At-Nite rerun, but all that came out was a sigh.
"What?" said Duo, and his voice held true irritation.
"Nothing. I didn't say anything," said Heero.
"You meant something, though," said Duo, eyeing him with suspicion.
"Sure." Another sigh. As if the sound were the last straw, Duo jumped to his feet and ripped his jacket from the coatrack. "Duo," said Heero, moving to stand. Duo shook his head sharply and held out a hand, not as an invitation but as a command, to keep Heero at bay.
When Duo came back, Heero had already gone to bed. Duo slipped naked between the sheets and started kissing his neck, rubbing his hips and lifting him up a bit.
Heero closed his eyes and let his lover move him.
When it was finished, Heero fought against sleep and toed the line between the boundaries of dreams and afterglow. He said, "I know that it hurts you when I don't tell you how I feel."
"No, it doesn't." Duo leaned over him and toyed with Heero's bangs, stroking them over the sides of his face. "But it hurts you when I don't tell you how I feel." He kissed Heero's forehead, his lips touching more bang than skin, and they slipped under into sleep.
The next day, Heero followed Duo into the park. They were both aware of each other's presence, but it was Duo that broke the standstill.
"Come sit down," he said, not touching Heero. Heero wondered if it were one of those times when Duo didn't love Heero, didn't care to be around him at all.
"I love you," said Heero, staring straight into the sun.
"I know," said Duo, putting his hand over Heero's. It was a kind of consolation that Duo was still willing to touch Heero, even if he didn't really want to. "I love you too," he said and squeezed Heero's hand like a man with his lover.
"What do you do on walks?" said Heero as they watched the sunset.
"Wait for you," said Duo, smiling just a little.
There were times when Heero didn't love Duo, but that was when Duo loved him enough for both of them.
End
Bianca
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