WARNING: Very High Angst Lemon, Proceed With Caution, Kleenex Warning
[Sequel to Tragic Secrets; Book 6 of the "Secrets" Arc, Final Installment of arc]
Author: Enigma
Written: October & November, 2000
Cumulative Rating: NC-17
Pairings: (1x2/2x1) (3x4/4x3) (5+S)
Category: Angst, yaoi, AU
Cumulative Warnings: Angst, lemon, yaoi, sap, AU, OOC
Be Prepared: Kleenex Warnings!! also: avoid Colas
DISCLAIMERS: I don't own Gundam Wing or any other anime or TV characters I use here, just the ideas in this story and some characters that are new are truly mine. Any reference to copyrighted material or trademarked goods should be considered an "homage" (yeah, right!) Don't sue me, even the lawyers wouldn't enjoy it, except of course for the Ashe and Jojo characters!
NOTE: Timeframe---after the war has ended and the Gundams were destroyed. //yada, yada, yada// = inner thoughts


Silencing The Secrets
Part 15

To put it mildly, Heero Yuy was feeling more than a little confused.

Once an alien emotion, actually all emotions were alien at the time, confusion seemed to be a constant companion now to the ex-Gundam pilot. He was glad to know Duo was much improved now that he was no longer addicted to the drugs Smith had him on, yet the new man he was getting to know was infuriatingly different from who he'd been before.

Over a week had passed since they had returned from DH-1221 and things were settling into a routine. The routine, however, allowed the changes in Duo to become more apparent, as Heero found to his disappointment.

Once spontaneous as a forest fire, Duo now preferred to plan his activities and arrange his day to accomplish certain things. Often, Heero would go looking for him and no one knew where he had gone, just that he'd be back by some particular time or another. While this left Trowa unfazed, it rapidly annoyed Heero. Ordinarily, he would have gone off in pursuit of the braided baka he loved, but realized that form of pressure might be counterproductive if the ultimate goal was reaffirming the previous relationship.

Something else that drove him to distraction was the constant feeling that he needed to watch every little thing he said or did for fear it would be misinterpreted. This, however, was a justifiable fear as he discovered accidentally one day.

Heero had been out running for several hours one morning trying to burn off some of the sexual frustration he felt and had hit a "runner's high" before he decided to quit and go take a swim. Getting to the pool, he yanked off his shirt and running shorts and just dove into the pool naked. He did have the presence of mind to make sure the children weren't home from school yet, but that was about the extent of his common sense for the moment. Turning a few laps in the water, he had his eyes closed as he finally just floated on his back for awhile. While he lay there, an unexpecting Duo Maxwell wandered out to the pool; he was dressed to swim in a skimpy suit but still had his nose buried in a book as he grabbed a seat poolside. He never even noticed Heero laying in the water until it was too late.

Opening his eyes against the bright desert sunlight, Heero thought the image of Duo he saw was yet another desire-created mirage; he seemed to have seen quite a few during his run, most of them in various seductive states of undress. At first glance, this "mirage" appeared nude, however that was just the book hiding the Speedo he wore.

Heero looked longingly at the legs stretched out in front of the boy who had his side towards the pool to avoid the reflectance off the water while he finished reading before swimming.

Heero unconsciously became quite aroused simply looking at Duo sitting there doing something as unsexy as reading. Still unawares of where his thoughts, and his nakedness, might get him, Heero became uncomfortably hard. Deciding he'd had enough fantasy for awhile, he stretched silently back out in the water wishing Duo really was there and was as excited as he was. Without thinking, a hand stole down between his legs seeking some relief from the painful erection. Just as the cool water and a little friction worked together to grant him release, he realized a moment too late it really was Duo sitting there because his "mirage" had moved and was now staring at him.

Realization crashed in on him that in the moment of climax he had called Duo's name and Duo looked up and was stunned seeing Heero seemingly masturbating for him in the pool without warning. With a strangled cry at the exhibitionism, Duo jumped up and dashed off, dropping his book in his rush to leave what had suddenly become an erotic nightmare.

"Damn it!" Heero cried, utterly disgusted with himself as the pieces fell into place.

He'd made slow progress in getting Duo to trust that he would not push him for anything sexual unless they were both ready. This one incident implied everything he'd promised was a lie and thereby undermined all of the efforts both had put into trusting each other enough to give things a chance.

While Duo, utterly bewildered, had locked himself in his rooms back in the estate, Heero had time to reflect on why what had happened shook both of them so much.

He realized Duo wouldn't have reacted as he had if there wasn't some part of him that was interested. If he had thrown the book at him or proclaimed him totally foul for what he'd done, then perhaps Heero would have accepted the option that Duo didn't want any part of him. However, he recalled every detail quite well as he thought about it and remembered seeing the swim suit on his beloved's body become rather tight as well. If things had been more controlled, he might have even seduced the youth into skinny dipping with him and who knew where that might have lead?

No, he was certain that Duo wasn't entirely through with him, but now he'd have to apologize and explain things most likely. But even if they both pretended it never happened, it would haunt any efforts he made to convince Duo to share more than simple kisses and chaste afternoon naps. No, Heero Yuy had made up his mind. He wanted Duo Maxwell in every sense of the word and he was going to find a way to convince the one he loved to love him in return and then they could rebuild from there.

So, Hell or high water, Heero intended to make Duo fall in love with him again and then only *after* he'd heard words of desire fall from those lips would he try to seduce him for real. Yes, he'd decided the next time he was naked around the violet-eyed American it would be because Duo wanted it that way and wanted to finish the act his own imagination had worked so hard to delude his senses with and caused this problem.

Heero Yuy, Perfect Soldier, now faced a new mission, one he was totally unprepared for: The Recapture of the Heart of a Certain Braided Baka!

Even *he* thought it was funny and had sat down to write his own private "mission objectives" and steps in this most critical assignment of his life. The objective was simple, convince one now very confused yet still delightfully adorable Duo Maxwell that he did indeed love him and that, hopefully, Duo still loved him in return.

Based on this one goal, he began canvassing members of the estate household quietly for ideas on how best to accomplish his objective. Rasid and Sadeema, ever arguing over nothing in the kitchen were his first victims. Since virtually everyone there knew of the situation, it took very little explaining before answers were offered.

"Flowers!" Sadeema insisted simply. "Flowers! Master Duo so enjoys the flowers in the gardens and he always enjoyed them in his room, so I'd recommend flowers. But not just any flowers, Master Heero, oh no! Certain flowers have symbolic meaning, so if you can find them, tiny white roses would be best. They mean 'unconditional love' and he's certain to know the meaning."

"Faa, Sadeema," Rasid laughed, "Flowers are your answer to everything!"

"Faa, yourself, mighty general! And I'm usually right, too!" Sadeema preened briefly then left the room.

Laughing, Heero turned on Rasid, "Well?"

"What?" Rasid asked temporarily forgetting the question at hand. "Ah, yes, well, Master Heero, I'd recommend the two of you go away alone for awhile. Perhaps getting out of the familiar will allow you to focus on the issues which separate you currently."

Thanking Rasid for the unquestionably useless advice, Heero sought out further ideas. By midday, he had more ideas than he could ever hope to implement and realized most of them were either impractical or ridiculous. After all, this wasn't some convent raised virgin he was pursuing, it was the worldly-wise, though slightly confused, Duo Maxwell.

Different tactics were definitely needed.

Falling back on his military training even further, he recalled rule number one of preparing for combat: Know your enemy. Or, rather more appropriately, "Know your love interest's interests." So he set about quietly monitoring what Duo did for fun these days from a more deliberately open-minded point of view.

Surveillance of the subject yielded some tantalizing clues.

First, he liked surprises; Heero really felt rather stupid when this realization hit him since Duo had always loved surprises. Each day he waited with Laurel for the delivery truck to bring whatever goody Trowa had ordered, and occasionally he seemed more interested in the mystery of something new each day than the child did. Granted, Heero still was utterly clueless about the strange song Duo and Laurel would sing together, something about a "wagon coming" made little sense, but so much of what Duo did any more was like that to him.

Second, he liked long walks; Duo had never been one for lengthy periods of solitude of any sort, yet now he disappeared on a regular basis. When Heero followed him one day, in the name of surveillance of course, he discovered his koi had established a regular hiking path of sorts walking into town and back simply for the sake of the peace and quiet from what Heero could tell. When he arrived in town, Duo went straight to his favorite ice cream shop, had a sundae, and then walked back. That, of course, added another item to his arsenal, ice cream. Well, if the Braided Wonder liked ice cream, then he'd get ice cream!

Third, he discovered that Sadeema had been correct, he loved to spend time in the gardens. Duo had apparently appointed himself gardener over one particular patch and enjoyed caring for the various things that grew there.

Heero was amazed to find him out there one overly hot afternoon, shirt off, a rare sight since Duo routinely concealed the tracery of scars on his chest, happily whistling and toiling away. It didn't seem too terribly important to Duo just what kind of work he did there, but that day he had decided to do some fairly thorough weeding and he'd gotten sweaty doing it. So, he had yanked the T-shirt off and had ended up laying in the sun for awhile after he was done working. It took all of Heero's self-control not to pounce on him then and there since he looked so wonderful. Somewhere along the line, Duo had actually gotten a fairly nice tan and the sun glistened off of his chest as he lay there. The hours of hard work combined with the walking had toned Duo's muscles to a stage of perfection that out shone what he had achieved during the war, to Heero's surprise and delight. Thus, plants were added to the list of possible tools.

Most amazing of all to Heero, Duo now truly loved to read and he did so voraciously. He was often found immersed in any sort of work he could find. Often it was some topic Heero found too obscure to even comprehend Duo caring about, but just as often it was a delightfully common trashy romance or silly science fiction novel from old Earth that had Duo laughing until his sides hurt. Once, he had noticed Heero trying to nonchalantly observe him and Duo grabbed his arm and pulled him over. "Hey, Heero! Get a load of this!" He smirked happily.

Heero, dismayed at the possibility that his purpose had been detected, sat down and tried to look like he had no idea what was going on. "What's up, Duo?"

"Oh, man! This is a riot! I'm reading this book from oh, well," he looked for the copyright and it was blurred out from age, "Never mind, this really old book and they were predicting what the future would be like! Catch this, the guy who wrote it claimed by the end of the 20th century everybody would be flying around in rocket cars! Plus, we'd live on the moon which would have grass and everything just like Earth. But this," and he almost doubled over laughing, "This is the best part! He claimed we wouldn't need to eat any more! That all we'd need is to swallow a protein pill and that would be that! No more steak dinners, no more dirty dishes, just swallow a pill! Is that a riot, or what?" In his glee, Duo laughed so hard he lost his breath and made little strangling noises. Heero, alarmed, got him a glass of water and sat there until he'd gotten his breath back.

"Are you okay now, Duo?" He asked solicitously.

"Wow, you're a lifesaver, Heero! Thanks!" Duo grabbed him in a very unexpected hug and nearly crushed Heero who barely "eeped" before the spots before his eyes congealed.

"Oh, sorry," Duo smiled, releasing Heero, now dizzy who listed to the side badly. "Hold up there, I've got you." Duo chuckled, grabbing onto Heero again and holding him upright until his vision cleared. Not willing to pass up a good opportunity, Heero clasped him in a brief hug of thanks and found himself wanting more. Duo looked at him quizzically wondering to himself what was going on, when Heero blushed a bit then got up and left.

"Hmm," Duo thought out loud. "Why did that just happen? Granted," he laughed a little, "I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel pretty nice being held by him again, but that was a little weird."

Luckily, just around the corner, eager ears picked up on that tidbit and decided it was time to move out of surveillance mode and over to approach and capture.

on to part 16

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