19 Jan 2001
See prologue for all disclaimers, spoilers, and whatnot.
Additional warnings: Citrus! Angst! Citrusy angst! Angsty citrus! Woo!
All previous parts can be found at GW Addiction: http://www.geocities.com/fenris_wolf0
AC 195
"Maxwell!"
"Wu-man."
"Zhou ma! Maxwell, wo-"
"Help myself? Why thank you."
"Ni..." I could imagine Wufei's eyes narrowing. "Zou kai."
I grit my teeth. I know it was just something to help them pass the time but sometimes their incessant fighting drove me crazy.
I was not, as my brain was trying to imply, jealous.
"Oh, what's the *matter*? Don't- Okay! Jeez."
Duo was backing up down the hallway, stopping in front of my room to call back to Wufei. "You know, if you asked me nicely -- in English -- I would have left!"
"Ben dan!" Wufei swore from the other room.
"Can't hear you," Duo sang out. He pinned me with a scrutinizing look. "Can I come in?"
"Are you asking my permission?"
"Um, I think I just did."
I sighed and nodded needlessly even as he toed off his boots and settled on the floor, legs drawn up, elbows resting on his knees.
I swallowed and forced myself to look uninterested. My heart thumped hard, once, before resuming its usual rhythm.
"What?"
"What?" Had he seen the look on my face? I cursed my weakness; I must have been more tired than I realized.
He looked at me oddly, tilting his head to the left, a small smile on his lips. But it wasn't his normal smile; it was the smile he got when he was trying to figure me out.
The room suddenly seemed warmer.
"Wufei so needs to lighten up, huh?"
I blinked slightly at the subject change. "He wants to be alone."
"He could have just said so."
"He did."
The braided pilot grinned. "Wo dong."
It took everything I had not to let my expression slip. "So you should have known better."
He laughed. "Nothing gets by you, huh? I didn't know you spoke Mandarin."
I stifled a smile. "That's my line."
He smiled again, that infuriating, knowing smile, and shimmed a little closer, craning his neck back to look up at me "You two are really alike, you know? I always wondered why you never..." He trailed off, but his eyes held mine steadily.
"Never what?" I was walking right into his trap. We both knew it.
"I just thought, you know, if you ever needed an outlet, it would be him." His eyes darkened.
"An outlet?" I said slowly.
He rose to his knees, his eyes never leaving mine, and I could feel his breath across my collarbones. "To forget all this."
My face burned. I had thought about forgetting in the body of another for a time, but I never wanted to do that to any of my fellow pilots. I was trained to take what I needed, but not with them.
And especially not with Duo. He had to know that.
"I respect him too much." I spoke stiffly, this ground uncertain. But my body swayed involuntarily towards his and there was an uncomfortable tightening in my groin.
"Oh. I see." Pain flashed briefly in his eyes and he sat back before pushing himself smoothly to his feet.
"Where are you going?" My hands clenched the chair back as I twisted around to follow his jerky movements.
"Somewhere else."
The door slammed behind him.
I sat in silence for what seemed like hours before I could command my body to move. It seemed that this happened more and more lately; I found my body betraying me and my emotions slipping out of place.
I propelled myself out of my seat and jerked the door open, stalking down the hall to Duo's room.
He smiled wryly when I burst in, wincing when the door hit the wall. "I guess it's my fault for leaving it unlocked."
"We were talking," I said lamely.
His eyes shuttered. "Why, yes, we were."
"You left." Inside, I cringed. Duo had been the one to help me feel more comfortable around him, but we had never covered him shutting me out.
His face was harder than I'd ever seen it, closed off, dead. "Well give the boy a prize. Excellent observational skills, Heero; Dr. J teach you all that, or is it just natural?"
I felt my familiar mask slip into place and said nothing.
"Nothing to say now? But we were doing so well." He came closer, shutting the door behind me and crowding me against it. "So where were we?" He screwed up his face into a mockery of contemplation. "I think you were just about to tell me all about how much you respect Wufei. So let's hear it. How much do you respect him?"
"Duo." It was as much of a warning as I could muster. I felt trapped, confused, and I didn't like the look on his face.
"What, Heero? We're just talking, right?" He pressed a little closer, and I could feel the whisper of his over-shirt brushing my clothes. "And this is interesting. I mean, you don't really talk to anyone else but me, but even I never got to hear all this stuff. So go on, you won't fuck Wufei because you respect him too much..." He trailed off, as though I were expected to finish the thought.
My mind shut down at the word "fuck" from his mouth, the implication not lost on me.
"Not so talkative now, huh? Well I'll try to figure it out on my own, then, and you tell me when I'm getting warmer." He tapped a long finger against his chin and leaned his other hand on the door next to my head. One eye closed speculatively. "So we've talked about feeling empty... or, at least, I have, and you sort of, you know, nodded awkwardly, right? But I know you feel it as much as I do, even if you won't say it.
"So you decide you need another warm body, to just know you're still alive, and hey, what's this, here's this pilot who's just begging to be fucked. No matter that there're worthier ones out there; but I suppose that's the problem, right, too worthy, too clean. Well, that's okay, this street rat seems to appreciate the attention; I'm sure you'll be able to get him to spread his legs."
I was quivering with rage and I turned to knock his hand away, to just get out of there.
He caught my wrist as my hand came up and twisted it sharply. I reacted instinctively, pulling my arm back, throwing him off balance. But he caught himself on the doorjamb and pressed against me.
He laughed low in his throat. "What's the problem? Now a street rat isn't even good enough for you? You can't be too picky, you know, what with all the pure and noble boys running around here."
"Don't," I whispered harshly.
"What's the magic word?"
I clenched my jaw and tried to still my shaking body. I knew silence was damning in Duo's eyes, but there was nothing I could say to his accusations. If he really feels like that, I have no business feeling anything for the boy.
That was the logical, trained part of me. This new, slightly off-balanced part of me was hurt and confused and angry. This wasn't the way this was supposed to happen. This wasn't the promise his eyes had held all those times we were so close to something.
He suddenly stepped back from me. "I know words aren't your thing. Do you want to settle this or not?"
There was a split second when I was going to say no. But he knew as well as I did what my answer would be. "Hai."
He backed up a little more and dropped into a half-stance, his hands up. "Come on. I'll show you what a street rat can be good for."
I raised an eyebrow to cover the pang of lust that shot through me. This wasn't what I wanted to feel for him.
I just wanted to be a part of something. Of him.
"First shot's free," he said.
I wasn't really trying when I threw a wide left at him, so of course he dodged it easily. His face flushed and he looked angrier than I'd ever seen him. "Treat me like a whore, Heero, but don't insult my intelligence or my skills"
"I don't-" His fist slamming into my stomach cut me off as all the breath rushed out of my lungs and I fell to one knee.
"Don't tell me you don't. But I suppose this is what I get, huh? I was willing to be the one to drive the nightmares away, Heero; I was willing to fill up the emptiness. But not without respect, and not without a measure of equality."
My arm shot out and I grabbed his wrist, twisting it roughly, bringing him down to eye-level with me. "It's not like that."
And it wasn't. He did fill up the emptiness, but I was never expecting sex. He made me whole by filling the void in me with noise and light and the constant challenge of just keeping up with him. Yes, I found my body reacting to him: to the twist of his body in sleep, to the wild gleam in his eyes during battle, to the impossible arch in his eyebrows when he speaks.
But it was never about sex. It was just about him.
"It's not like that," I repeated. It didn't even come close to saying it right, but they were the only words I had.
He was breathing heavily, his eyes glowing with anger and something else, something I was sure was mirrored in my own eyes. "Don't lie to me."
"I'm not."
He knocked me back so fast I didn't even see it coming, and then he was above me, straddling my hips and pinning my arms to the floor next to my head. "Tell me you don't care about me. Tell me it was all for an empty fuck."
I was silent, clenching my hands into tight fists and tugging, trying to get free.
"Tell me all these months of that look in your eyes has been lust and nothing more. Tell me you haven't listened to a word I've said."
I drew my knees up, but that only succeeded in drawing him closer to me. My eyes went half-lidded of their own volition. No, my mind screamed. No, it's not like this. Never him.
"Say you hate me." He was practically begging me, and I knew why. Because I think I was just as scared of him as he was of me.
"Say it!" he barked.
My body jerked slightly, and I tried to twist away. But -- Kami-sama! -- the feeling was too much. I could never hate you, Duo. You saved my life.
"Say it!" He rapped my hands sharply against the floor, punctuating each word.
Pain flared quickly through my knuckles and suddenly the air around us changed. He leaned close to me and his breath whispered across my cheek. My breathing went erratic, coming in short bursts as I felt him press his lower body slightly into mine.
"Say it," he whispered hoarsely. His braid slipped over his shoulder, landing softly on my chest; I could feel it, and him, burning through my clothes.
I wondered what I had done to deserve him. I wondered if I could possibly do this right.
Words failed. I said the only thing I seemed capable of as my hips strained up towards him, needing more and more contact. "I want you."
I hardly recognized my own voice.
And then I was arching upwards, my lips finding his throat, breathing hotly against his already flushed skin. He tasted like nothing else I've ever known.
I felt his answering moan rumble through me and I could barely contain myself. His breath caught and he ground himself into me.
"Duo Duo Duo..."
He grabbed the sides of my head and held it back, staring down at me with eyes that were half pleading and half demanding.
"Mean this," he said. "Onegai."
I made an inarticulate sound at the Japanese word from his lips and surged up, breaking free of his hold so my hands could be everywhere on him at once.
"Heero." He pulled me up so he was sitting on my lap, his legs wrapped around my waist.
I broke the band tying his hair back and it fell over and around us in a curtain. My fingers plunged into the thick mass, and I fisted handfuls of it. "You're real."
"Yeah," he said thickly. "Oh-"
I tugged his shirt out from the waistband of his pants and slid my hands up his smooth chest. He gasped as my fingers found his nipples and they drew into little points, hard against my palms.
He grabbed my head again and then his mouth was on mine.
That first touch was electricity down my spine, shooting along my nerve endings and pooling in the tips of my fingers and toes. His tongue pressed against my lips and I opened them without knowing why.
His tongue sliding against mine was indescribable.
I held him as close as I could, feeling like I wanted to climb inside his skin; anything to be closer. My lower body moved frantically, trying to alleviate the heaviness in my belly.
He laughed into my mouth. "What are you feeling, Heero? Do you even know?"
In response, I kissed him hard, my tongue clumsily finding its way past his lips, catching his groan as I pressed him into the ache between my legs.
In truth, I had no idea what I was feeling, or even what I was doing. I had never really considered the option of doing this with someone, always thought that masturbation was as far as I would ever get.
I never planned on Duo.
His fingers slid along the waistband of my shorts and dipped inside, brushing the length of my painfully hard erection.
A soft, involuntary cry escaped my lips and my head dropped back.
"Are you okay?"
Am I okay? I didn't know. I didn't know what was happening or how it happened so fast, and all I wanted was more, wanted to be against him, inside him.
"Hai," I rasped, my shaking fingers fumbling to get the front of his pants undone, needing to touch him.
His hand, wrapped around me, paused just for a moment, hardly noticeable.
But I did notice, and I froze.
"What?" he said, his voice low and strained.
I pulled my hands back and pulled his away from me with effort, grabbing his upper arms to still his movements against me.
"Never you, Duo. Not like this."
His face fell. "You don't want me?"
I let a short burst of air out through compressed lips and pressed him against the bulge in my shorts, raising an eyebrow at him.
He looked shocked for a moment. "Then why?"
I set him back, untangling myself from him and coming up on my knees. I framed his face with my hands. "Because I respect you too much."
Realization dawned on his face and he took one of my hands in his. "Arigato."
I tried not to smile. "Japanese pronunciation isn't the same as Mandarin."
His eyes widened and he started laughing. "So why don't you teach me, O Wise One?"
"Ninmu ryokai."
He punched me in the shoulder and I caught him and drew him against me, sliding my arms around his waist as he pillowed his cheek on my chest.
"Baka," he whispered.
"That's my line."
He smiled against me.
End Part 8
Feed me!
(:./sparcck/waltz8)
