COMMENTS: Duo is horny for Heero. That shouldn't surprise you. Duo is telling this story. That should scare you, or tickle your hentai fancy as the case may be. And the title is capital "H" period, lowercase "L" period, lowercase "hattai". There is a reason for this which will become apparent later.

WARNINGS: AU-ish/AT-ish, yaoiness, citrusy (not sure if it breaks the lemon barrier)

H.I. hattai
by LoneWolf ( kodoku na okami )

I'd always known there was something weird about Heero Yuy. I just never knew how weird until I found out. OK, so that wasn't very profound. What I mean is, he was always so cold and stand-offish. At first I though it was some kind of superiority complex or something.

Don't get me wrong. He's good at what he does -- damn good. "The Perfect Soldier" is almost perfectly correct.

And I am madly, passionately, to-Hell-with-the-rest-of-the-world in aishiteru and lust with him. Yes. Both at once. Isn't it better that way? I aishiteru him and would do anything to make him happy, and I lust him and would do anything to make him happy -- two different kinds of happy, of course. Heh.

And I know I'm using "aishiteru" strangely, but English sucks when it comes to expressing how two people are bound to each other, so I'll borrow one of my favorite Japanese words because it is perfect. I mean, in English, all I can really say is, "I love Heero Yuy." I love chocolate too -- especially on Heero -- but that doesn't mean I'd want to spend the rest of my life with a bottle of chocolate syrup... Well, as usual, I'm off track. Can't keep my mouth under control, can't keep my pencil under control either. Ramble, ramble, ramble, that's me.

Uh, anyway. I was talking about Heero. I guess the first time I got suspicious was when he got those mission orders.

------------------

He was sitting, staring at the computer. "No, Duo." Heero has about a dozen ways of saying "no" ranging from faking-because-he-knows-he-should-say-no-but-really-means-yes to absolutely-no-way-in-Hell-forget-it-if-you-ask-again-omae-o-korosu. This was about midway on the scale -- not really serious. I still had a chance of getting him to say, "Yes".

"Aw, Heero. I want to go camping and it's so boring alone." Yes, I was whining. It was for a good cause. Camping alone is boring, but that wasn't the real reason I wanted Heero to go camping with me. At the time, I was standing behind him, in that gentle updraft that comes off any warm body, smelling him and horny as Hell. Smelling Heero always does that to me. It's part of the reason we have a very active sex life.

"Go with Trowa or Quatre." Now is that the dumbest thing he could say? I mean, everyone knows about Trowa and Quatre. They would have come, but who wants to be the third wheel with those two love birding over each other. Especially when I'd rather be love birding -- and a Hell of a lot more -- with Heero.

"Nah. They're always, uh, busy." Who says I can't be discreet? "And Wufei is no fun." Tell me I lie. Wufei isn't a bad guy in real life, and Wufei on a camping trip alone is one thing. I think. I guess that's like the proverbial tree falling in the forest. Anyway, Wufei on a camping trip with other people is not a happy sight. And Wufei on a camping trip alone with me is about two steps short of Hell for both of us.

"I am not fun." The way he said that was so funny. It was that cool, flat, emotionless voice, but I could see his face reflected in the monitor. He was frowning. You know the frown. His eyebrows go together and his forehead wrinkles up and he looks so serious. I knew better than to laugh then. He's a little more lenient now.

"Yes you are." I was grinning, and not just at his face. Oh, we weren't like Trowa and Quatre -- yet -- but I hoped we would be by the end of the camping trip. Only had one tent, y'know, and I had a feeling that if I could get him going, Heero Yuy would be a wild animal in the sleeping bag. Heh. I prefer to sleep naked. I figured that would do it. Not that I have the world's most fabulous body -- that title belongs to Heero -- but I was sure mine was good enough to get his attention. Oh, did I mention? It was late summer. Way too hot to sleep *in* the sleeping bags. And if I just happened to roll over against him in my sleep and start calling him and sliding my hand down his Spandex pants... Yes. I had it all planned. By the end of this trip we were going to be screwing each other like a pair of jackrabbits on Viagra.

"I have a mission." Red alert! Big, screaming, flashing alarms went off in my head. My plan began to break up before my eyes. I had been ready for just about anything but a mission. I have known devout Jesuit priests who were less devoted to their mission than Heero Yuy is to his. It was a good sign. I knew that if I could get him to fix that same devotion on me, I'd be set. It was also frustrating, though, because, at the time, he hadn't set that devotion on me and I wanted it from him -- badly.

I grasped at the pieces of my plan, trying to save it. "What? I just--"

About that time, the computer dinged. Heero opened the email, scanned it and deleted it. I was still flabbergasted by his "I have a mission" and didn't think to read over his shoulder until I heard him say, "Ninmu ryoukai." By then it was too late.

But I don't give up that easily. "Can I help?" Good old me. Always trying to help Heero on his missions. Actually, I just hated sitting around waiting for him -- hoping he'd make it back alive and in one piece. And maybe this particular mission would involve an overnighter and I'd have a chance to get my hand in his pants after all.

"Iie." Remember how he said "No, Duo" before and I said he wasn't really serious. OK, this was serious. Whenever he said, "iie" with that hint of cold in his voice and that touch of finality, I knew I had about a snowball's chance in Hell of convincing him otherwise. Less, actually. At least a snowball in Hell might melt and put out some of the fire for a second. My plan exploded into a million burning bits like a spaceship in one of those old sci-fi movies.

Once. Exactly once in all these years, I have broken that, "Iie". It was a good thing too. I'll get to that eventually.

---------------------

So you're sitting there scratching your head saying, "Duo no baka, why would that make you suspicious? He never wants you to go on a mission with him." Well, you're right. Except remember what I was saying before the computer dinged? I was saying, "I just checked ten minutes ago." And remember how the ding came *after* he told me he had a mission. OK. I knew there was nothing there when he said it, which meant he knew that mission was coming before it got there. Too weird, huh? Enough to make me suspicious. Especially when you add the two other times it had happened in the last ten months.

Now you're surprised that I put all that together. Well, let me explain something to you. I may act like a fool, but I'm not. I want people to underestimate me. It gives me the advantage when they think I'm dumb. And I'm good at playing the game. It's fun, in a way, to watch people make that mistake. And everyone does.

Except Heero. I think he underestimated me for about five minutes, then saw right through the act and kept a wary eye on me ever there after. Oh, sure, he used to "Duo no baka" me more than anyone -- still does -- but I think it's just his way of letting me know he knows and isn't going to blow my cover. I've come to love it when he says it. I think of it as one of his ways of saying "aishiteru" so I'll hear it, but no one else will.

Anyway, back to my story.

I was suspicious. I shrugged and said, "Fine," in my best angry voice, and stomped out of the room. That's what Heero would have expected. I always go for a walk -- OK, a stomp -- when I'm angry. It helps me clear my head and vent my frustration on nothing more than the ground and my feet. The ground doesn't complain, and my feet are used to it. But that time, I was only a little angry. Mostly I was intrigued. Oh, yeah. Now you're scared, aren't you? Duo Maxwell was intrigued. World, watch out! So I walked around, thinking and plotting and finally decided what I'd do. I was surprised it took me so long to figure it out. It was so incredibly obvious.

I'd follow him.

Quit laughing. I've followed him lots of times. A few of them he didn't know I was there until too late. Just wait. One of those times is part of this story.

So I went back to the room. Heero was just putting a spare pair of those delicious Spandex shorts in his pack, bent over slightly -- just enough to make his butt stick out. Oh, man, what a beautiful ass he has, especially when it's wrapped in Spandex and leaves just a tiny bit to the imagination.

Everyone thinks naked bodies are so erotic. They are. Believe me, I've seen plenty of them and they have their plusses. But that teasing almost-but-not-quite naked of Spandex or underwear or an artfully draped bit of cloth or a branch or, Hell, even an electric bill held just right. For me, that is a real turn on. It makes me sit there and think, I mean really think about what is hidden. When Heero is there naked right in front of me it's like "OH!" and I stare at him for a minute or two, then the nudity begins to lose its appeal because there is no mystery -- or, more likely, one of us jumps the other and we fuck like bunnies, in which case seeing becomes secondary. But when I'm imagining, even though I know exactly what he looks like, and especially if he's giving me teasing glimpses whether he knows it or not, I can stare and think for hours.

He turned as I closed the door, ruining my view. Oh well, his chest is almost as nice -- the tank top revealing just the lines to set my mind, and other things, on fire again -- and neither chest nor ass can hold a candle to his face. The eyes do it to me every time.

Yeah, so I spent too much time reading Romantic poets and obsessing about the whole "eyes are the windows to the soul" thing. Well, what I saw through these windows was beautiful and frightening. Frightening because they were his mission eyes -- cold, hard, deadly blue like the sky at 30,000 feet without an oxygen mask. Beautiful because I had seen them different once or twice and knew that somewhere under all that freezing ice was a warm, caring person who I desperately wanted to want me.

You see, that was the thing with me. I wanted -- still want -- him to want me.

When we first met, I was an uncertain kid and Heero -- for all he was as young as me and more confused about a lot of things -- he had his act together when it came to what we were there for. He always seemed to know what he was doing, why and how. Yeah, I idolized him for all that I tormented him relentlessly. I wanted to be as good as he was. I wanted him to pat me on the back after a mission. I wanted him to tell me I'd done a good job. Well, OK, I would've settled for just the "good job" part.

A month later, I figured out that I had been hot for Heero since I met him -- still am. He is beautiful, so anyone should be able to understand that. Why did it take me so long? I mean, I was walking around with a club in my boxers most of that month. Well, what can I say? Sometimes I am a fool.

Please don't think this was some teenage gay phase, and please don't bring up genetics or an overbearing mother. I don't buy that shit. I've tried it both ways with both sexes and have found I like being on both sides of the sexual equation. The best way to get that is with another guy who feels the same way. Not to say I don't appreciate a pretty girl, but for sex, guys win hands down. Clear enough?

Anyway, about six weeks after I realized I was in lust with him, I was stomping around campus wondering why in Hell I would want to sleep with someone who was such a complete bastard ... when I realized that was only part of it. What I really wanted was for him to want me enough to stick around after the war. I stopped dead in my tracks. Want *me*, OK? Understand this, not just my ass, but me, Duo Maxwell, sex, kinks, braid, good looks, loud mouth, insanity and all. I knew the only reason I could want that was if I loved him. That was too dangerous. No one survived Shinigami's love. It was too late. I aishiterued him and I couldn't change that. I'm a lot like Heero and his missions when it comes to aishiteru. That's the way it's supposed to be, right? I winged off a quick prayer to God, Mary and all the angels begging them to keep him alive and told myself that if anyone could survive me it would be Heero Yuy. He is one tough bastard, after all.

I was thinking about all that when I felt him patting my face. "Duo?" I think he'd probably called my name a couple of times before that, but I was too lost to hear it.

He touched me, I thought. "Yes, Heero?" I could hear the dreamy tone in my voice and knew I was grinning like a schoolgirl after her first french kiss. But he'd touched me. And not to hit me either. His scent was cloying the air around me, filling me. I could feel the blood rushing from my brain to something that was definitely not what I wanted to be thinking with just then.

"Are you OK?"

"Yes Heero?" Yes, there was still a question mark on the end of it.

Whap!

"Itai!" It wasn't hard. Not really. Just enough to get my attention and make me think I'd been hit. "What the Hell did you slap me for?" Then I remembered how I'd been acting. He saw it in my eyes and graciously ignored the question.

"I'll be back in three days," he said in that flat I'm-on-a-mission-omae-o-korosu voice.

I nodded. He left. I fidgeted. I danced from foot to foot. I scratched my nose. My ear. My head. Played with my braid. Hummed a few bars of some silly song I couldn't remember the name of. When I checked my watch for the tenth time, I decided thirty seconds should be enough of a head start. I opened the door and strolled out into the hall, glancing around, casual, as if I might be considering a trip to the bathroom. Then I walked quickly toward the stairwell.

At the front door of the dorm, I caught sight of Heero maybe a hundred feet away. He was heading east. That was weird. The Gundams were hidden to the north of town. Well, I thought, maybe he's going over a few blocks to make sure no one follows him. I was proud of myself for thinking of that. I knew it was exactly how he would think. Of course, it never occurred to me that I might be one of the people he didn't want following him.

I stayed about a half-block behind him. After six blocks he stopped at a fruit stand. I turned to the newsstand beside me and flipped through a magazine, acting like I was deciding if I wanted it, but watching him the whole time. He bought a peach, then moved on up the street. I put down the magazine I'd been pretending to look at, noticing as I did that it was definitely not my type, and continued after him. At the next corner, he turned north.

I hurried a bit, closing the distance in case he turned again. I didn't want to lose him. I peered around the corner -- and found myself staring at an alley, empty except for the usual alley garbage. I ran down it, thinking there must be a way out at the end, but it was just a dead-end wall. I retraced my steps, looking for a doorway or stairwell or anything that could serve as concealment or an exit. I couldn't believe I had missed him. When I was a kid I survived by seeing all the hiding places the second I looked at an alley or street or in an abandoned building. It was too deeply ingrained in me. There was no way I could have not seen an escape. He'd vanished.

As I stood halfway up the alley, staring around, dumbfounded, something hit me on the shoulder. I looked around. No one. I looked in the debris at my feet and saw a freshly cleaned peach pit. I looked around again -- still nothing -- then heard a soft snort and looked up. Five stories above me, Heero stood on the roof of the building.

I didn't need to see his face up close to know he was glaring at me with an ice glare. And I was pretty sure it was the I'm-really-pissed-omae-o-korosu ice glare, not just the you're-annoying-me-omae-o-korosu ice glare. After a few seconds, he turned and walked out of sight, leaving me to stand there, staring up the blank wall, mouth open, wondering how in Hell he'd made it fifty feet up the side of a building in less time than it had taken me to walk that far on the sidewalk. I shivered. Too weird. There must be a secret way up or something. I decided it wasn't worth the effort to try to find it. If I'd missed it in my careful scan of the alley, I wasn't going to find it.

I bent and picked up the peach pit and put it in my pocket. A souvenir.

I'd just have to think of something else. I had three--

Uh, excuse me. Heero just got up and that always demands my attention. Heh. Wouldn't want to disappoint him.

-------------------

I came back from class three days later and opened the door to find him asleep on his bed, facing the wall, in nothing but his briefs. I stood there, not closing the door because I knew it would wake him -- he's a very light sleeper -- and just drank in the vision of perfection I shared a room with. I think his back is almost as beautiful as his chest. Shit. His whole body is beautiful and I could stare at it for the rest of my life and still find something else beautiful about it every time I looked. OK?

Worry pushed the lust back a bit and I ran through my usual post-mission litany. No blood on the floor. No smell of antiseptic. No bandages. No sign of injuries. Resting peacefully. That was a beautiful sight that had nothing to do with his body. Hey, don't forget that I aishiteru him too.

Someone shouted in the hall. I think it was Osama. He was always shouting at someone in the hall. Yes, there is at least one guy in this world with a mouth bigger than mine. Ask Heero. He'll tell you it's true.

I knew Osama's shout would have broken through his sleep, so I closed the door and walked over to the desk to put my books down. I heard him get out of bed and then that particular musky scent that is distinctly Heero Yuy filled my nose. It's hard to describe it, really. It's a hint of something animal, something sexy, something sweet, something pungent. Now, I know what all those things are, and why they make me hard. Knowing doesn't make it any less sweet -- or arousing.

I turned to find him standing inches behind me, glaring, but not a true ice glare. "Nani?" I asked innocently, trying to suck as much of that smell into me as I could without being obvious, and trying not to think about what it was doing in my pants and hoping it didn't show. Oh, yeah, I wasn't just hard. I was hard and wet. Another good reason to always wear dark pants.

I knew he was going to say, "Duo, if you follow me again, I'll kill you."

"Duo, if you follow me again, I'll kill you."

And I was right. I told you I'm not as stupid as I act.

He didn't wait for an answer from me, just walked right past me, so close I could feel the heat from his body. That didn't help my pants a bit. I turned anyway and watched as he gathered his shower kit, stripped and wrapped the towel around him. I thought about joining him, but he'd know why I was doing it. I always get my showers late in the evening so I can brush out my hair without worrying about something annoying, like homework, or important, like dinner, interfering. Besides, I'd get another chance to see him naked when he came back -- and he wouldn't see that I was hard for him like he would in the shower. I watched him walk out, my eyes following the sway of his perky little butt under the towel, my brain imagining the parts the towel hid.

I've been told that some people mistake Heero for a girl at first glance. I'm not sure how unless they're only looking at his butt. I've never seen a girl with a back like his, or with shoulders as strong as his, or biceps that big, or with hips that narrow. But, maybe, if they were focussed entirely on that butt -- and I can understand how that could happen... Of course, it was more obvious that day. Sometimes, like that day, he walks with his heels a good inch off the ground and takes long, gliding steps with his knees slightly flexed. The heels thing makes his butt stick out a bit and the long steps makes the sway more pronounced. So, yeah, I guess I can see how someone could make that mistake.

I changed into shorts -- loose shorts given my condition -- and my "Fallen Angel" shirt and flopped on my bed. I would have, uh, relieved the tension in my pants, but Heero's showers were too quick for me to really enjoy it. Laying on my belly kept it out of sight and that was enough for now. Besides, Nakamura had brought me an old reprint of "Kozure Oukami" number twelve -- the only issue missing from my collection -- and I was dying to read it almost as much as I was dying to do Heero. Reading the manga seemed a lot safer at the moment.

I had just finished the tenth page and noticed my shorts were no longer uncomfortable when the door opened. I told you he took quick showers. I looked up, keeping the manga in front of me so it wouldn't be obvious that I was staring at him as he walked over to the mirror and began combing his hair. A minute later, as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other, the towel slipped half-off those narrow hips giving me a tantalizing view of two-thirds of his ass, which started undoing all my relaxing. A few seconds later, it dropped off. God, I love looking at his ass.

He didn't seem to care that I was staring -- or maybe he just didn't know. I think he did, though. He can always feel eyes on him, so he tells me. He turned around, giving me a front view, just as I'd hoped he would, then hid everything beneath those awful white briefs he insisted on wearing and slipped into clean black Spandex and green tank top. Heero has never been an original dresser. I've tried to change that and have, to some extent, succeeded, but I think he'll always be partial to Spandex and tank tops around the house. That's OK. It's just more of that not-quite-naked erotica I love, and I get to see it live every day. Damn, I'm one lucky son-of-a-bitch.

"Do you have the assignments for the past three days?" He asked.

He was standing next to my bed. I lay there, smelling him. God, he smells good. Of course, that was all it took to get me back to where I was when he left for the shower. "Uh..." There was no way I could get up to give it to him right then -- not without giving him an eyeful of my hard dick bouncing around inside my shorts too. "Yeah, in the front of my Pre-Calc book." I pointed to the pile of books on the desk, hoping it would be enough. I wondered if he used some kind of cologne. I had a hard time seeing the Perfect Soldier really caring what he smelled like, but whatever it was, it made me lust him more.

As I said, I'm a lucky son-of-a-bitch. Heero walked over to the desk and pulled out the assignment sheet I'd diligently recorded for him, then sat down to catch up on homework. It was going to be a long, boring weekend. Then again, I thought as I turned back to "Kozure Oukami" and pretended to read, I could spend it watching him do homework. Oh, sure, there are a lot of things I'd rather see him doing -- like smiling that secret little smile only I can see to tell me he aishiterus me, or smirking that little smirk to tell me he wants to make love. Or, at that particular moment, taking off his clothes and telling me he wanted to screw me non-stop until the sun rose. But Heero doing homework can be a beautiful sight too. It is to me, anyway. Of course, I'm head over heels for the guy. I might be a bit biased.

I saw his eyes cut toward me. He knew I was watching him and wanted me to know he knew. Oh well. I turned my focus back to the manga, resigning myself to quick glances as he worked. He was doing homework, and there was no need to provoke him. Instead, I thought about the alley and how in God's name he had gotten on that roof. It still bugged the Hell out of me. Enough that I'd gone back and tried to figure it out, just to be sure I wasn't losing my touch -- or my mind. But there was simply no way up that I could find. He'd either jumped, climbed, flown or teleported, all of which were patently impossible.

I also thought about how I was going to follow him next time.

Oh, you think his threat scared me? How many times have I heard "Duo, omae o korosu" from those luscious lips of his? Hell, he even says that sometimes when we're about to make love. I think it means the same as when he says, "Aishiteru," just a bit more sexual. ... Yeah, definitely more sexual. But, to steal a line from Shakespeare, I would gladly "die" in his lap.

Yes, that's right. Just because two people aishiteru each other doesn't mean they can't enjoy a good, hot, sweaty fuck every now and then. More often in our case since we lust each other too. Some of the times I best know he loves me are when he sneaks up behind me and grabs me for no apparent reason and rips our clothes off and then *asks* if I want to screw him long and hard or do I want him to screw me. I mean, as if he has to ask when I'm standing there naked and throbbing in front of him. But he does. I love his tender spontaneity. It lets me know I still drive him wild, and that he cares about what I want, both at the same time. By the way, in case you're wondering, my answer to his question is always, "Both."

Um. So where was I? Oh, yeah. I was trying to decide how to follow him next time. Which made me wonder how I'd been caught. Hey, if you don't know how you messed up, you can't try to avoid the mistake next time. It dawned on me to ask a stupid question. "So how did you make me?" The worst he could do was glare at me and not answer, but I didn't think that would happen.

He looked up, surprised, a bit angry that I'd interrupted his studies, but too proud not to answer, as I'd suspected. "The braid," he said. "There aren't many like it in Japan." He went back to his books.

You will never hear me say that I am not a complete baka sometimes. This was one of those times. It was incredibly obvious. I'd been standing at the newsstand, my face hidden by the magazine, but, duh, my hair had been clearly visible. And Heero was right. Not many people, much less guys, in Japan have yard-long braids hanging off their heads. Even fewer have soft, chestnut-brown hair. Sometimes vanity is appeased at a price.

I thought about pulling it out of the braid next time, maybe leaving a ponytail, but the color would still give me away and it would be a bitch to get untangled. I didn't even think about a bun. I had tried that exactly once and would cut it off before I did it again. Yeah, long hair has its penalties. I also wasn't about to dye it black. Can't you just see me with roots? Besides, black hair, black clothes, pale skin. I'd look like I was trying to be some kind of vampire or something. I would have to think of something else.

Then I heard him say, "I didn't think 'Triple E Tits' was your type of magazine."

Oh, shit. He'd seen me with it at the newsstand. If it had been "Playboy" I could have said it was for the articles. Then I really heard what he'd said. Damn! He suspected -- from the sound of it was pretty sure -- I didn't go for girls. I wanted to say, "Of course it is," but that would have been a lie. The only answer I could come up with that wasn't a lie was, "I didn't want you to see me." That's what I eventually used.

What? You think I was going to outright tell him that I was into guys -- specifically him? I didn't want to scare him off. Then he said something that made my heart stop for a moment.

"Hn. Not mine either."

I stared at him with my mouth hanging open, but his eyes were fixed on his homework. Damn! Had he just said he didn't go for girls? Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Could I ask him? HELL no. He might, just not the ones with five pounds of silicone in their chests. Hmm. But if he liked them flat-chested, maybe I could... I cut off that line of thinking. It was better to try for a straightforward seduction with all the cards on the table. I wanted him to want me, not me pretending to be a girl. Besides, it would be a lie.

I had trouble keeping my attention on the manga or my plans to follow him. My mind was still running circles around his last words and what they might really mean.

Umm... Excuse me again. He's home from work, will be walking in the door any second, and I want to be there to kiss him and say hello and tell him how much I missed him today. I always do that when I get home first, and I mean every bit of it.

--------------------

An hour later, as we were heading to dinner, I finally figured out a way to discover what Heero's secret missions were about. He kept mission logs on the computer. Maybe I could hack them.

Oh, I hear you screaming with laughter, and you're right. Heero is the computer whiz, not me, but, hey, it was worth a try. Now I'd just have to get a few hours alone with the computer. I would much rather have had a few hours alone with Heero -- and a pair of handcuffs, a bottle of fudge sauce and a couple of cans of whipped cream and a cherry complete with stem to hold it in place. I figured I'd need the handcuffs to keep him under control until I could show him he liked it and the rest because I wanted to eat a banana split made with Heero's. I thought he very well might kill me regardless of what I did, so I might was well do something I really wanted to do in case I didn't get another chance.

Dinner that night was the best. The school had a special chef in from one of the local restaurants making sushi for the students. Now, I'll admit, normally the thought of raw fish turns my stomach, but if it's done perfect, I can really go for sushi. I got the chef to give me a sliver of tuna to sample. I tasted it, ready to be sick, then closed my eyes and sighed. I was in sushi Heaven. After I returned to the real world, I told him it was the best I'd ever tasted and I wanted some of everything and was going to recommend him to any of my friends who were looking for a sushi caterer. He loaded my plate. Don't let anyone tell you that flattery -- and an offer of good word-of-mouth -- doesn't work, especially with chefs. No, I didn't have any friends who needed a sushi caterer. But if I had, I would have recommended him.

I think I surprised Heero that night. He was finished with his rice and steamed vegetables -- he was starting one of his little vegetarian kicks again -- long before I swallowed the last delicious bite. I can only think of two things in the world that I love more than perfect sushi. Sex -- with Heero, of course -- and Heero Yuy showing me how much he aishiterus me -- not necessarily in that order. The first always involves the second, be he can do the second from the far side of a crowded room with us both dressed in tuxedos and no one the wiser.

Sushi was the best thing I got that night. We went back to the room and worked on homework. And I waited impatiently for my chance.

--------------------

My chance came a month later when he went off on another secret mission. This time I tailed him for twenty blocks before he stopped, looked right at me and shook his head. He slipped into a knot of people. I knew I'd lost him. At least he hadn't killed me. Maybe he'd treat it as a game -- a challenge to prove he could elude me. I thought that might interest him and it would make it more fun for me. I always love a good game of chase, especially when the quarry is Heero. My pursuit foiled, I went back to the room and sat down at the computer and started looking for Heero's mission logs.

Heero and I think very differently. I am a free spirit, thoughts running a thousand ways at once. Yeah, I know. You'd already guessed that. Heero has this hard, hierarchical way of thinking about stuff. Everything is neat and structured and fits into its little pigeon hole. I guess if you think that way, it makes sense to you.

So, you probably won't be surprised when I tell you I was overwhelmed by the two dozen subdirectories in his personal directory. I mean, I know what subdirectories are, but I only had three at the time -- homework, games and miscellaneous. I could find anything in less than two minutes with my little filing system. And the way he named them. God, please. I guess he spent too much time working with geeky computer systems because none of the names were more than five characters -- and I'm talking romaji, not kanji.

I figured, what the Hell, I had three days to find the mission logs before he got back. I looked in the first subdirectory on the list "aot". The next level contained directories named with strings of numbers -- 19501, 19502, blah blah blah. It took me a few minutes to figure out that they were years and months. I told you his mind is weird.

Well, Duo Maxwell is not someone to be defeated by something as simple as obscurity. Not when his mind is set on finding out something about the most important guy in his life. I printed the whole directory listing. Thirty pages. Man, did he have a lot of shit on the computer.

I started searching through them, trying to guess what the cryptic names meant. There was one, hwk, that I decided was homework because it had eng and chem and jap and other abbreviated class names underneath it. I marked it off. After about three hours, I was down to a half-dozen candidates, one of which I was pretty sure about. I started with it. Of course, the files were encrypted. Never let anyone tell you Heero Yuy is anything but utterly thorough in everything he does -- including aishiteru and lust.

So now you're thinking I was out of luck. Wrong. Heero made one tiny little mistake. Yes. I know that surprises you, but I never said he was perfect -- just close. About a year before, some 12-year-old whiz kid had used a "freeware" password cracker to break into an "unnamed investment firm" and steal over half a billion credits in fractional cents. I had been fascinated with the story because the kid stole so much money and I had thought for a while that I could duplicate his feat. I gave up on that after about a week -- I couldn't even find the program on the Net -- but I remembered its name. When I saw it in Heero's directories I did what I usually do and took a chance. I was, once again, a lucky son-of-a-bitch.

I paused my pursuit to get dinner and do homework and get a shower and... It was late before I finished. I played with the program a bit but I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere with it that night. I went to bed. A good night's sleep and a fresh approach in the morning might help.

I was wrong. It took most of the next day to figure out how to point the program to a file to crack -- no password cracker has ever been designed for a novice -- and about two hours for it to crack the password on the file I thought might be last month's mission logs. Fortunately, Heero wasn't using military-grade encryption. I read some of my favorite yaoi doujinshi to keep my mind off the wait -- and released some of that tension I mentioned before -- several times. Yeah. When you run around horny for weeks on end, you recover quickly.

I was debating which yaoi to pull next when the computer dinged. I ran over to it and, hot damn! It was last month's mission logs. My grin faded as I read it, though. For one thing, Heero's mission logs are some of the most absolutely boring reading material in the world. Where I would say, "I sliced through a Leo with the thermal scythe. It exploded with a satisfying kaboom. Then I turned and..." , Heero said, "14:28:43 -- Dispatched Leo with beam sabre," followed by a precise geometric description of where he'd hit it, right down to angles and distances from key features. Considering that he usually wiped out at least thirty on any given mission... Yeah. Not pretty. By the end of the log, the occasional, " -- Dispatched Aires with vulcan cannon, blah blah blah," was almost exciting.

And that was the other problem. I reached the end of the log and there was no mention of the secret mission. I scanned through again and found the spot in that perfect chronological order where it should have been. There was nothing. No indication there had ever been anything. I set the cracker on four files at once -- the other two months with mysterious dings and two months when I remembered he'd gone on a mission he wouldn't talk about.

It was time for dinner again, and I was hungry. I'd worked through lunch. Yes, I was serious about this. After all the usual stuff, I went to bed with another doujinshi and thoughts of Heero to keep me company. The files should be done in the morning.

The next day I found those missions were missing too. It took me a few hours to go through them and figure out all the dates and match them up with my memory. By the time I was done, it was afternoon. I had time for one more file. I picked a month that gave me a run of five months and waited. At about the same time of the month, there was a blank spot. I couldn't remember if he'd gone on a mission then or not, but I was pretty sure he had.

I was tired. My head hurt from staring at the computer screen and thinking in weird ways for three days straight. I still haven't figured out how he can do that. Heero would be back within the hour. I grabbed the directory listing. I'd already scribbled down the passwords next to each file. For good measure, I added the dates of the missions in each file I'd read and the dates of the secret missions I thought were missing, then shut down the computer and stashed the printout in one of my doujinshi boxes under the bed.

I knew that was a safe place. He hated my doujinshi. Notice I use past tense there. Now, about once every month or two he brings home a yaoi lemon and leaves it on the bed for me to find. I know I positively bounce when I see them because Heero doesn't mess around with anything tamer than "obliterates virginity at thirty yards". Some of them show things even I have never heard of before -- yeah, really. They're always so much fun to read. Together, of course. You don't think I'd waste time reading them without him.

About fifteen mintues later, Heero came back. He looked beat. He glared at me briefly, then got his shower stuff together and left. Need I mention that his smell came in with him? I was glad I had relieved that tension earlier because now it came back with a vengeance.

Another ten minutes and he returned from his shower, combed, dressed, and said, "It's time for dinner."

So it was. We went to the--

Uh. Yeah. I'll finish this later. Heero's standing at the door, naked. Except for a bottle of fudge sauce and a can of whipped cream he's holding in front of his crotch. The tease. He knows how I love having just a little bit hidden.

--------------------

I spent the next week going over the things I'd written down. That wasn't easy to do with Heero in the room. Besides the distraction of him, I was afraid he'd sneak over and see what I was looking at. That would have really pissed him off. But, bit by bit I laid out the dates and narrowed down the gaps and came up with an answer which made no sense, but fit the data perfectly. No matter how I tried to reinterpret it, there was only one conclusion, and it was just too weird.

Every month, Heero had a mission that wasn't in his mission logs. Those of you who know anything about him know that is weird. He is meticulous about mission logs. And these missions were always about the same time of the month.

Why? I mean, what could happen once a month that he'd need to hide from me? I could only think of one thing that happened once a month, and I was damn sure Heero didn't have that problem. I'd seen his equipment often enough to know that even if his ass sometimes looked like a girl's, he was definitely not a girl. I was more determined to follow him than ever and spent the rest of the month plotting and planning and preparing.

I acquired new clothes. All light colors. No black. Well, they weren't really new, they were old and beat up. And, yes, that kind of "acquired". Do you know how expensive used clothes can be when the country is going through a retro fad? I hid them so he wouldn't recognize them when I followed him. I memorized the whole damn city map so I'd know which streets I could use to duck around and spy on him from a different direction. I even practiced a different walk thinking it might throw him off if he spotted me. Oh, yeah, I can be thorough when I'm serious about something -- or someone, in this case. Ask Heero. Even he'll admit I can put together a Hell of a mission plan. They aren't as neat as his, but they're all there. Hey, I've survived this long, haven't I?

So, the month rolled around and, bingo, Heero got another one of those late-ding missions. I pretended to be interested. He brushed me off. You know the drill. After he left, I quickly changed into my "tailing" clothes, tucked my braid down the back of the T-shirt -- you thought I'd forgotten about that, didn't you? -- and pulled on the plain, blue denim jacket so the lump of the braid wouldn't be obvious. A little makeup on my face to make it look dirty. A little more to make my cheeks less prominent. More on my arms to complete the effect. And, voila! I looked like a street kid who hadn't bathed in a month. Believe me, I know the look well. Let's see Mr. Perfect Soldier catch me this time.

I followed him for over four hours as he wandered aimlessly through the streets. Twice I thought he'd spotted me, but the disguise and the dodging around worked. The sun had a little over an hour to go when I realized we were near the northern edge of town. A light breeze blew against my back, cool and whispering that autumn was at the door.

I could guess where he was heading. Yeah. I could have gone straight to the Gundams and waited, but I hate waiting and I love a good chase. It was only fair to give Heero a chance to elude me. Besides, he could have been going somewhere else. Following him was definitely a better approach.

He stopped, cocking his head up to the right, as if he were listening or something. I ducked into a doorway two seconds before he turned around, to glare up the street, pausing at my hiding place. Damn! He'd seen me. I was sure of it. But how had he known I was there? I'd been careful, quiet -- which is quite an accomplishment for me. Hell, I was so thoroughly disguised even Deathscythe might not recognize me.

His gaze swept on up the street, then back down the other side. Maybe he hadn't seen me. His head paused in its scan I saw he was staring at a cat. The cat was hissing at him, back arched, fur up, tail in that little second arch they make when they're really pissed and about to eat you alive even if you did just clean out the litter box, feed them and give them fresh water. He glared at it for a few seconds and got this little snarly look on his face that I'd never seen before. Almost like *he* was thinking about eating the cat. It yowled and ran away.

Have you ever known you were in too deep, but couldn't back down? Let me raise my hand at this point. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that whatever was going on was way way *way* over my head, but that has rarely stopped me before. It didn't this time. Heero moved on down the street in that heels-up, glidey walk that makes his butt look so girlishly cute. A few seconds later I slipped out after him, cut over to a parallel street and hurried along in the direction of the Gundams. They were about an hour's walk out of town.

--------------------

I trotted through the woods, taking a route I'd mapped out to avoid our usual path. Hey, I told you I can plan a mission. For Heero, "mission" usually meant "Gundam", and though I hadn't been sure that's where he'd go, I had prepared for it anyway. It's hard enough to follow him when you're in a city with plenty of people, buildings, and places to hide. What would it be like on an open road with no one else in sight for a mile? I'm not as dumb as I act.

I had forgotten one thing, though. Food. I'd bought a small yakisoba and a beer from a stand on the street while I was following Heero, but that had been just a snack and hours ago. My stomach was growling so loud I thought it was going to climb up my throat and eat me. I spotted a wild blueberry bush and stopped long enough to fill up both my jacket pockets, then ate the berries as I hurried along. It wasn't exactly a balanced meal, but it was better than nothing and it shut my stomach up. God, yes, that was just what I needed. Finally get in position to find out what Heero was doing only to be betrayed by my raging belly.

I got to our hiding place ahead of him. I climbed into Deathscythe and turned his cameras onto our usual path. I sat, waiting and watching.

I didn't have to wait long -- thank God. Heero came into view, scanned the clearing, head cocked again. I zoomed in. He was... sniffing? Weird. I nudged one of the directional microphones to point at him and sure enough, I could hear it. He was damn well sniffing. He glared at Deathscythe for a moment, then climbed into Wing and closed the cockpit. I adjusted the cameras and directionals again. The mikes picked up faint sounds of restraints being fastened. They sounded a little weird, but I figured it was just all that Gundanium messing with the acoustics. I actived Deathscythe's tracking system, tuning to the beacon I'd planted on Wing nine months ago -- just in case I ever had to go bail Heero's ass out of a mission that went charlie-fox -- and waited for Wing to fire up.

Three more minutes passed. The sunlight faded and the first stars began to glow in the east. I could hear him breathing rapidly inside. I switched to infrared in case there was more to see than Wing's armor. There wasn't. Then I heard him scream. It was loud in the directionals. I waited. He screamed again. I waited. A long, drawn out scream of sheer agony this time. I got tired of waiting.

I climbed out of Deathscythe, jumped from chest to arm to ground and raced over to Wing. Climbing onto a prone Gundam is a little harder than jumping down from one, but I'm an agile little bastard and was at the cockpit door in a dozen seconds. I hit the release. Locked. I punched in the access code. Still locked. I punched in the override -- I'd convinced him to give me that in case he was too injured to open the door. It worked.

How do I describe what happened next without sounding like a total nutcase? Probably no way to do that. You're just going to have to trust me on this one. What I saw.

Heero was in the back part of the cockpit, behind the pilot's seat, naked, chained to the rear bulkhead with some of the heaviest chain I've ever seen. It was attached to a too-large metal collar around his neck. He could have easily slipped that over his head. More chains hung from oversized shackles on his hands and feet. The sight -- and the smell -- was a real turn on. Something straight out of one of my "keep Heero tied up so he can't kill me while I fuck him" fantasies. I'd never known he was into chains. "Hey, Heero, want some help?" Hell, I'll try anything at least once.

He turned, seeing me. "Duo, no! Get out!" He screamed again and I saw his body twisting. At first I didn't understand why he was convulsing with pain. There was no one there to touch him. Maybe it was electricity. I thought that would be a little dangerous and very kinky -- maybe even too kinky for me.

Then I realized his elbows were pulling up toward his shoulders. His hands were not right -- too long. I could see his chest becoming more barrel-shaped and his waist getting thicker. The bones around his hips were moving into a different configuration. His back was straightening to a not-human angle. Hair was popping up on that buff body of his. When he looked at me again, I saw his jaw was at least six inches too long.

I remember thinking, "This is definitely not a bondage scene." Yeah, when adrenaline starts flooding your body screaming, "Fight or flight!" your brain is one of the first things to go.

He didn't say anything as he looked at me, just snarled at me like some kind of animal, revealing teeth that were definitely not supposed to be in a human's mouth. He struggled against the chains, slipping the collar over his head, working his wrists in the manacles to slide them down his hands. He had one off when the next convulsion hit and he roared in pain -- it wasn't a human sound -- and then turned back to the other wrist, looking up at me as he did. The look in his eyes. It was more frightening than anything I'd ever seen there before.

I did not survive for fifteen years by NOT knowing when it was time to run. This was one of those times. I ran. Idiot me, though. I ran for the nearest tree and scampered up it. I also forgot to close and lock the cockpit.

More snarls and roars came from Wing. About thirty seconds later I heard a loud howl and it... Heero... whatever, leaped out of the cockpit and sniffed the air. It... he... stalked over to the tree on all fours, looked up at me, and, I swear, grinned an evil grin and howled right at me. I finally realized I was staring down at a wolf. A fucking big wolf the size of a large motorcycle. A fucking big, fucking horny, fucking male wolf the size of a fucking large motorcycle. No, I couldn't see his dick, but, damn, I could smell him, and I finally had a clue what the "animal" and "sexy" parts of Heero's scent had always been.

And, as always, smelling him made me horny as Hell. I mean it. Here I was, twenty feet up a tree, scared to death with a giant wolf prowling around below me waiting for me to fall so he could eat me and I popped an umbrella in my pants so hard and fast it hurt. Call me kinky if it makes you feel better.

I climbed another twenty feet up the tree -- not easy when your pants are poking out -- as those glinting eyes, stared up at me. I couldn't see their color in the darkness, but I knew it was deep Prussian blue.

He sat there for two hours, watching, howling occasionally to see if I'd fall from shock, jumping at the lower branches, trying to scare me, standing against the tree and shaking it. That gave me a good view of his equipment, and I suddenly remembered something I'd read in a book of adult fairy tales. "Who says the big, bad wolf EATS the little girl?" Yeah. I wasn't the only one who was horny as Hell.

He was out of luck, though. When I get into a hidey-hole, you have a better chance of getting a stubborn octopus out of a wine bottle without breaking the bottle. Eventually, he wandered off into the underbrush. I heard the sounds of his passage fade in the distance.

The foolishness of climbing the tree had dawned on me about ten minutes after I looked down and saw the wolf. Now, I decided to climb down and head for Deathscythe. I figured that whatever Heero had become -- if that's what had really happened -- it couldn't eat its way through Gundanium alloy. I was maybe fifteen feet off the ground when I heard a stick break below me and to my right. I froze, looked around and saw a pair of faint lights flicker off and on in the bushes about fifty feet away. Then again. Eyes. Blinking. I climbed back up the tree. A few minutes later, he prowled out and stared up at me again. "Too smart for you, bastard." I shook my fist at him. He barked at me. I could hear the laughter in that sound. He knew I'd been lucky.

I settled down for a long night in the tree, staying there even when I saw him head south at a steady lope. No, I wasn't stupid enough to try climbing down a second time.

--------------------

I woke the next morning and mumbled, "What a strange dream." Then I noticed I was forty feet up a tree. Shit. Not a dream. Heero Yuy was... what? A werewolf? That was crazy. I looked around carefully. Yeah, I know werewolves are supposed to turn back to human in the daylight, but they're also only supposed to come out during the full moon, not the first quarter, and they damn well aren't supposed to be Gundam pilots. Hell, they damn well aren't supposed to exist. I didn't know how else to explain what I'd seen. Then I remembered the blueberries. Maybe they had been hallucinogenic blueberries. That would explain a lot, especially on an empty stomach.

The coast was clear. I climbed down from the tree, the blueberry explanation growing more and more appealing. I saw the tracks on the ground. I modified my theory. There had been a real wolf and I'd hallucinated it bigger than it really was. I walked to Wing and looked inside. That pretty well squashed my blueberry explanation. Inside were the chains, Gundanium no less, and the smell, which made me hard again, and Heero's clothes, folded neatly on the chair. No blood. No body. No gore. I think I could have handled finding him dead and knowing the wolf was just an animal that had somehow gotten into the cockpit while I was running to the tree. Oh, it would have left a lot of things unexplained, but it's often easier to believe a simple, not quite complete explanation than to accept the harder explanation that fills in all the gaps. Shaking, I climbed out of the cockpit and headed back to the dorm. Nothing to do now but go there, wait for him to get back, and hope to God he didn't kill me before I could promise to keep my mouth shut about what I'd seen.

When I got back to town, I was starving. Then I saw the newspaper headlines. Three guys had left a bar on the north end of town heading to their apartments and had been shredded by some wild animal. I had a sinking suspicion I knew which wild animal it had been. I bought a paper and walked a hundred yards to a little 24-hour diner. After placing a large order, I pulled out the paper and read. There were pictures, but they were after everything had been cleaned up -- not that there had been much left to see. An animal expert couldn't classify the teeth marks or paw prints. The coroner was still trying to figure out which parts went with which body. The police said whoever had done it -- cops always look for a "who" -- had played with them for a while before killing them. They had found blood and body parts scattered over four square blocks. I remembered the wolf harassing me as I clung to the tree.

It was all my fault. If I'd left him locked in the cockpit, those guys would still be alive. Fortunately, breakfast hadn't arrived. I would have been sick if I'd had anything in my belly to puke up. I know that sounds odd. I had killed hundreds of people in the war by then, but got upset about three guys walking home from a bar. It was different. They were reasonably innocent bystanders. The people I killed in battle were my enemies. At least they had a chance to defend themselves.

Part of me knew that wasn't true. Earth had nothing to compete with the Gundams. Wiping out a batallion of Leos with Deathscythe wasn't much different from what Heero had done. It was my fault. He'd developed his little ritual of secret missions and chains to protect people and it had worked for all these months. Leave it to me to stick my nose in and mess things up. Damn. He was going to be mad.

The waitress returned with my breakfast about ten minutes later. I put away the newspaper and forced myself to eat. I felt a little queasy as I did, but I was too hungry to ignore the food. Done, I left the paper behind and continued my trek back to the dorm.

I walked into the room, and... The smell... Oh shit.

Then everything went black.

Speaking of black, I need to fold his Spandex. Yes, of course I do the laundry. He still hasn't learned that you can't run silk boxers through a dryer on the cotton cycle. I had to go around the house naked for a week before I had a chance to buy some more! ... Heh. You don't think he planned that, do you?

-------------------------

I came to, my head hurting like a bad hangover. I knew that wasn't the reason, though, because my mouth didn't taste like a pack of dogs had pissed in it while I'd been sleeping. I saw the sky above me. That was definitely wrong. I tried to sit up, and found I couldn't move.

A voice from my left. "Don't bother. You're tied up."

My foggy brain sorted out the voice and the scent. Heero. My first thought was, "Maybe he is into bondage. This could be interesting."

Let me clear up a little detail. I know you're thinking I'm obsessed with the whole tying-Heero-up thing. At the time, I was. Most of my fantasies about Heero required him to be tied up so he couldn't kill me, so it was heavy on my mind. Since then, I've found that sex with Heero is best without a lot of accessories. That's not to say I don't tie him up every now and then and tease him a bit before making love to him. But it's just gentle teasing, and he always knows it's coming and lets me do it -- the man can bend steel, I can't believe terry cloth could hold him if he wasn't willing. Yes, he lets me do it because he trusts me, and showing it gives him a certain pleasure that is better than sex. I treasure that trust. I think he treasures my trust too because he always pays me back in kind a few days later.

Um. Back to the clearing.

I turned my head. That was a bad idea. When it quit hurting enough that I could focus I saw him squatting there, looking at me with feral eyes -- the same look he'd given me last night when he snarled at me. I was still to muddy-headed to be scared. "What the Hell are you doing?" I snapped. I realized I was laying on a sleeping bag.

"Waiting."

Sometimes I really could kill him. He takes so many things so literally, or pretends to. I think he always knows what I really mean, just acts like he doesn't because he wants to see me react. It's kind of like me pretending to be a fool and teasing him.

My head hurt. I was groggy. I bit. "What the Hell are you waiting for?" Yeah, I was in a bad mood before I walked into the room. Waking up tied up, your head throbbing from being bashed by the person you want to fuck you more than anything in the world, who's acting dumb and is making you horny as Hell because of the way he smells -- and because he's squatting with his crotch inches from your face and he's hard as a rock and you can see almost everything through his tight Spandex. That will not improve your attitude.

"Dark. Then the wolf will hunt you down and kill you." He said it in that same voice he uses when he says "iie" and it means I might as well give up because I sure as Hell wasn't going to change his mind.

Several pieces of recent events fit together in a scary combination at that point, and I understood what he was going to do. It was scary because as many times as I've stared death in the face, it was always for just an instant, then it was over -- or I was distracted by the battle around me. I'd never had a chance to think about it. Now, I had nothing to do but lay there and wait and look at Heero, my personal Death, who was going to kill me in a very unpleasant way. I knew the wolf would be angry with me for taunting it -- and escaping -- and would take all night to do its killing. At least the people in town would be safe. My head suddenly stopped hurting. It was too trivial a thing to deal with. My brain just turned it off.

"Why don't you just shoot me? It would be a lot easier and I wouldn't hurt as much." Hey, I never insist on taking the hard way out. He could always lock himself in Wing again. I was pretty well resigned to the fact that I was going to die one way or the other unless he suddenly changed his mind. I didn't think that was going to happen.

He looked away from me then. "I tried," he mumbled. "I can't kill you." Yes, he mumbled. Heero Yuy never mumbles. It got my attention.

I kept my mouth shut and thought about what was going on. Yes, I know that surprises you, but when you're facing a very nasty, very certain death, you slow down and start noticing the details that may just possibly give you a slim chance to save your life.

I looked at the sky and guessed it was about twenty minutes to sunset. I had to work fast, but I had to work precisely too. A minute spent sorting out a strategy would be a minute well spent. The ropes around me were tight. I had no hope of getting out of them, especially with him squatting there watching me. So I had to get him to remove them. If I could get to Deathscythe I should be safe through the night. Tomorrow could wait until I'd survived that long. Now, how to get him to untie me?

I noticed he was looking at my crotch. Yes, even as I lay there contemplating my impending demise, the sight and scent of him had me hard and oozing again. What can I say? I lust him just as much as I aishiteru him. My pants were light this time -- the disguise, remember -- so I knew the wet spots would be visible.

That reminded me of what he'd said about the magazine not being his type "either". Then I remembered what he'd just said and knew the question I really wanted to ask. Why couldn't he kill me? I needed to know the answer before I asked it. Why was it different if the wolf killed me? Part of me screamed that the whole werewolf thing was insanity, but how do you argue with someone who more or less admits they're going to turn into a wolf when it gets dark? Why couldn't he kill me?

He was looking at my face again, wondering why I was quiet and I saw it. Oh, God, I can be so stupid sometimes.

I think it must have been that I was in that slow, observing state. I wondered how many times I'd seen it before and not recognized it because my mind had been running a million miles an hour. Now I knew how I could get him to untie me. I knew I might have a chance of getting him to let me go. An insane strategy formed in my head. It might keep me alive. I wasn't sure that was possible, but it was my best chance. Maybe I wouldn't die being chased by that damn wolf like I was some kind of dog toy. And if he went for it...

"Make love to me."

Whoo-hoo! Have you ever seen Heero Yuy's mouth drop and eyes pop out? I wanted to laugh so hard. I cannot tell you how hard I wanted to laugh. I couldn't stop, though. I had his attention and I had to mean what I said, which meant I had to tell the complete, untwisted truth. "I've been hard for you since I met you, Heero. If you're gonna kill me, at least let me have one good, hot fuck with the guy I've been masturbating about for the last year." Hell, I didn't care what he thought about me. It was true. And I had seen in that momentary glance that he lusted me -- and maybe more than that. I thought I had seen the thing I really wanted from him. And if I had, that was why he couldn't kill me himself.

"We don't have time. It--"

Yes! I was right! Thank you, God! Heero Yuy wants to fuck me! "Shut up, Heero. Untie me, take off your clothes and fuck me. What difference does it make if I die running or with you pounding my ass?" He couldn't hide it now. He was hotter than butter on a pancake griddle -- all for me. "I'll make sure you enjoy it." Oh, yeah. He knew I didn't lie. And he'd heard about my misspent childhood on L2. I knew because I'd sent him the anonymous notes hoping he'd ask about it. Not all my plans work, y'know. "Untie me." I had him now. I could see the hunger in his eyes. This was going to be more lust than love, but I didn't really care at the moment. I wanted him to fuck me and then, I hoped, I'd have a chance to get away before he tried to kill me.

He pulled a knife out of his Spandex. I never have figured out how he keeps so much stuff in there. I was nervous as he held the blade over my chest, wondering if maybe he was going to kill me after all. Instead, he cut the ropes that held my arms to my sides and my legs to each other. I sighed, relived. He helped me stand. I began kicking off my shoes and unbuckling my belt.

"Eep." I felt the edge of the knife against my skin and heard a ripping sound as he sliced downward through the front of my T-shirt. A tiny line of blood marked its passage. He'd barely broken the skin, but it scared me. He still had that feral look under the lust in his eyes. "Uh, I'll undress myself."

He shook his head. "Iie." He knelt, slicing slowly down the inside of one leg of my pants, not cutting me this time. He paused to lick the blood off my belly, then ran the blade down the other leg.

I had never done anything sexual involving knives before, but the touch of that point running against the skin of my thighs was like the fire I feel now when he bites my nipple while we're making love and sends those wonderful waves of burning pleasure through me. His tongue was hot and wet on my belly and chest as he cleaned the liquid red line he'd made. It sent shivers through me. I was so horny I would have done almost anything if he would just fuck me before he killed me.

He slid the knife down my waistband and into my boxers. I was so turned on I didn't even "Eep" as I felt the cold, hard steel against my hot, hard flesh. He held it there for a moment staring into my eyes, then yanked it forward and down, ripping the fabric of pants and underwear. The remains of the jeans fell to the ground and the front of my boxers was open from waistband to crotch-seam, leaving me dangling there in front of him. He looked down and I saw him smile as he cupped my balls out of the way and slid the knife back in, running up my ass now, the back of the blade rubbing against my hole, then ripped again. The two halves of my underwear fell around my feet.

The whole proceeding took less than a minute, and it was better than any foreplay I'd ever experienced before. I stared at him, amazed, wanting him. Heart pounding. Panting. Sweat pouring over me, making me stink of my lust. Dick throbbing and soaking. He smirked faintly as he saw the shock and raw arousal on my face, then pulled me to him and sniffed me, pressing against me. I could feel his dick throbbing in his Spandex as he did. Apparently the smell of me in lust turned him on.

I grabbed him and pulled his shirt, tugging it up. He sheathed the knife and let if fall to the ground, then raised his arms, letting me pull it free. I began yanking his pants down while he toed off his shoes. "Do you know anything about what we're going to do?" I told you I would do almost anything to get him to fuck me. Well, this was one of those things I wouldn't do. I do not like getting my ass ripped open.

"I've read books."

"Shit, Heero. Books are useless. Have you ever fucked anyone in the ass before?"

"Iie."

The Spandex came free at last and he danced out of it. I snatched up the knife and drew it. He grabbed my wrist. "I want to cut off those damn briefs," I snapped. He nodded and released me. I stepped up against him, our bodies touching from thigh to chest, and leaned in for a kiss, forcing my way into his mouth. That got him interested. The smell was overpowering. If I hadn't been so hot for him, I would've said he reeked of sex. But I was, and it only made me hotter. I could feel him hard against me and slid the knife into his underwear, then stepped away and cut the fabric with two quick pulls, moving forward again to reach behind him and yank them off. I grabbed the ass I'd wanted to hold for so long and squeezed the hard muscle I'd seen but never felt. It was even better than I had expected.

His dick lay against me, hard and blazing hot, and I looked at it. It was about average, maybe a tiny bit larger than pure average. I was disappointed. It had always seemed bigger when I'd seen him naked in the room. I found out why later. In retrospect, I have to say he is in the perfect size for me -- not so long he hurts me if I take him to the balls, not so short he can't satisfy me if I don't, not so thick he tears me, not so thin he can't fill me. Perfect, like the rest of his body.

"We don't have much time," I said, releasing him. "Lay down on the sleeping bag."

"Iie." That cold, final, no-way-in-Hell tone.

This was the one time I broke it. "It's my ass and you don't know what you're doing. I'm gonna be on top or you're getting nothing." Now, maybe that was pretty daring of me. I mean, he was hornier than Hell and there was no doubt he was going to screw me. If he really wanted to, he was strong enough to throw me on the ground and rape me in whatever position he chose and I couldn't have done a thing about it, but I was counting on that thing I thought I'd seen to make him go along. He looked uncertain, so I sweetened it a bit. "Besides, I can make it better for both of us if I'm on top of you."

He nodded and laid down, looking up at me. I knelt over him and reached into my secret hiding place in the sleeping bag and pulled out the lubricant I always kept handy. You never know when you'll need it, especially when you're trying to get your roommate to go camping with you so you can get into his pants. I put some on his fingers. He sniffed it, raised it to his mouth to taste it. I grabbed his hand.

"Heero! You really are a complete virgin, aren't you?" I laughed. My last fuck would be Heero's first. What a way to go. I explained the physics of the situation to him and showed him how to finger me open and lube me up. He's a fast learner and I'm a fast stretcher. Both of those were good things. The light was fading. I worked him just enough to get him slick. I didn't want him to blow before I got him inside me where I could control him better. We hurried, but carefully.

I've forgotten most of the details of that first, fast, frantic fuck that I thought would be my last. I remember I had planned to go for about five minutes, then make him come, and then run like Hell for Deathscythe. But knowing it was him inside me made it feel so damn good. I had wanted this for too long to rush it now, and I called on my old tricks of hearing and feeling to sense where he was in the cycle and hold him off. I also vaguely remember that he made all kinds of weird noises. Maybe that isn't surprising. Oh, yes, I've learned them all since.

I do remember the precise details of the moment he came, though. I knew he was close and was getting a little tired and out of control myself. As I tried to pull up for one last bounce on him, I got stuck. Let me tell you, there's nothing that will scare you more when you're taking it in the ass than to get stuck at the bottom of your lover's dick and feel it getting noticeably bigger inside you when you're not expecting it. And when you get scared, guess what happens to your asshole. Yep, that's right, it closes up like a son-of-a-bitch. I screamed, panicked, trying to get off of him. He screamed, both because he was coming and because I was squeezing him so hard.

My natural sense of self-preservation took over as I felt what was going on inside me and realized that only the bottom part had grown bigger -- a knot tying us together. If I did somehow force him out of me, I'd probably rip my ass open in the bargain. I was caught, no easy way loose until he went down. I quit struggling. Then I remembered the time I'd seen two dogs going at it and how the same thing had happened to them. Damn, I thought, he is part wolf. Now that I understood it, it felt very good, pressing on all the right places. And he was still hard inside me when most guys would be on their way down. It was like a dream come true.

I noticed it was dark. Maybe this was the beginning of his transformation. My dream took on a nightmarish quality as I sat, bound to him, listening to him gasping, waiting to feel the wolf underneath me. After about five minutes he said, "Shit, Duo. That was incredible."

"Yeah. But, uh, I'm stuck."

He laughed softly. "I always wondered what that was for." He saw the questioning look on my face, even in the darkness. "You think I haven't masturbated about you too? You're beautiful and always horny and I can smell it and it makes me horny too." He was silent for a moment. I think he was deciding whether or not to say what he said next. "And I don't have a choice about girls or guys. I don't want to reproduce."

I felt him tense beneath me, pulling slightly. Oh, man. That sent a surge up my ass that almost made me come. "Duo, it's dark."

"Yeah. I know. I'm hoping I can get off of you and make a run for Deathscythe before you turn into that wolf." I didn't see any point in deceiving him about my intentions. If he didn't want it to happen, I was pretty sure he could stop me if I told him or not. "Dying stuck to a wolf's dick would be almost as bad as being hunted down." Then again, if it felt anything like this it would be interesting. Hell, everyone knows I'll try anything once. Maybe I could keep the wolf occupied and away from town and amuse him enough that he'd let me live. It's amazing what you'll consider doing when you're really desperate.

"I should have changed by now."

That took a minute to sink in. "Are you sure you've got the right night? I mean, werewolves are supposed to come out when the moon is full, right?"

"I am not a werewolf." He said it in that cool, matter of fact, Heero Yuy voice that warned me I was on thin ice.

Fuck him. "Then what the Hell are you?" I mean, what else do you call a guy who turns into a wolf?

"The doctors--" He snarled that word. No love lost there. "--called me Homo lupus hattai."

I stared at him blankly. I couldn't see him, but I'd figured out he could see me.

"If you were going to turn a boy into a perfect soldier, what changes would you make? Maybe make him stronger, more durable, more resilient, better hearing--"

"Heals like a son-of-a-bitch. Able to see in the dark. And maybe climb buildings without a ladder?"

"Aa. And more. How would you go about doing that?"

I was quiet again, thinking. I got distracted as I realized he was still inside me and still hard. It felt good. I had always hated lovers who got off and pulled out right away. It looked like I had found one that not only wouldn't do that, but couldn't do that. All I had to do was make sure he didn't turn into the big, bad wolf and eat me. "Genetic manipulation?" As long as he was talking, I knew I was safe.

"Aa. More like a complete rebuild. They used Canis lupus hattai because it appealed to their perverse sense of humor."

"What?"

"It's a wolf that used to live on Hokkaido. They thought it would be appropriate for their Japanese wolf-boy." He grimaced. "They added a bit of jaguar for leaner strength and flexibility--"

"And goat for horniness?" I laughed. "You know your scent really turns me on?"

"Duo, I'm serious."

"I know. Sorry. Smelling you just makes me so hot -- all the time."

"Damn pheromones. They're what make you want me. And then I smell you and I get horny and it makes them worse so you get hornier, which makes you smell more and--."

"They may be part of why I lust you." I don't think Heero had ever had anyone cut him off like that before. Certainly not to tell him he didn't know what he was talking about. "But they are NOT what makes me want you."

That also explained why I'd expected him to be bigger. He must have always been half-hard when I'd seen him naked in the room. But, like I said, that part of him *is* perfect and I wouldn't change a thing about it. I had already decided that. No, it didn't take me long to reach that conclusion. I had enough experience to know exactly what I liked.

He was quiet for a moment. I knew he was staring at me and I wished I could see his face to read what he was thinking. I wondered if he understood what I'd said. "They didn't recognize the scent problem, and if they had it would have been a minor side effect on their scale." He sighed. "They really only saw one thing as major."

"You turn into a giant, killer wolf every month."

"Aa. Now. I spent six weeks like that before they figured out how to get me back, and then for eight more months I changed every day for at least a few hours. They finally corrected enough of the sequences they'd screwed up and got it down to three nights a month, but they never could get rid of it. They weren't willing to put me back to normal. Or maybe not able. I don't think they really knew what they had done. I was just an experiment that--"

"Is the best fuck I've ever had." I didn't want to hear him beating himself up. "You should be proud of that." I aishiterued him. "Damn proud, considering it's your first time." He might as well get used to me interrupting him when he started bad-mouthing himself. "So you should be a wolf now." I looked at him -- where I knew his face was and smiled. I could feel that he was still hard inside me and wiggled a little bit, moving around him. "Why aren't you?" He grunted and I felt a throb. He seemed to like that. I squirmed more. He felt very good inside me.

"Hnnn. Wicked boy." He grabbed my dick and began playing with it as I'd hoped he would. Hey, I was still hard too, only I hadn't come yet.

I laughed. "Maybe that's it. Oh, that feels good. Maybe you can't change when you're stuck inside me."

"I hope it's more than that. Aaaa. I'll go down in a few minutes."

He moved his other hand to my crotch and got serious about it, so you'll understand if it took me a few seconds to hear that he was saying he wouldn't kill me if he could help it. I was at least a good enough fuck that he wanted to keep me around for another shot. That was what I'd been hoping for at a minimum. "Me too. Do you know how hard it is to find a guy who'll stay inside you -- ooohhh, yessss, like that -- for more than -- mmm --sixty seconds after he comes?" I was hoping for more than the minimum. I wanted more than just his lust.

He laughed, then inhaled deeply as I squeezed my ass tight around him as his hands achieved their goal. I shouted in ecstasy. I didn't have to. I can come quietly if I want. Some customers demand that. But I wanted Heero to know how well he'd done me -- again.

About five minutes later, I felt him shrinking and leaned forward slightly. He grunted and I gasped as he popped out of me, still a little knotted. I laid down on his chest, not caring that I was laying in the wet spots I'd made there, noticing that even with the stretching he'd given my asshole, I wasn't leaking. I guess that's the point of a wolf's knot.

"If you run you can get to Deathscythe before I change." I had been right. He didn't want to kill me if he could help it.

"Do you know how ridiculous I'd look trying to run after having that baseball in my ass for twenty minutes? I'd rather lay here and die in your arms." I had a feeling -- just one of those weird hunches I get sometimes -- that it wasn't going to happen that way. He should have been a wolf long ago, and I thought I might know why he was still human. And I really wasn't sure I could even stand just then, much less run. "I just got one of the two things I wanted most in life." It was true. There was only one other thing I wanted more and--

"What is the other?" he asked.

And I couldn't tell him or I couldn't be sure about it. I just lay there on his chest, listening to the movement of his blood and his breath. Waiting to feel him twisting and changing beneath me, hoping he wouldn't, and smelling him, feeling the faint arousal it stirred in me, but not a strong as usual. I guess that wasn't surprising since I'd just had the best sex I'd ever had -- enough to satisfy even horny little me for a few hours.

What was surprising was that I fell asleep.

-------------------------

I woke, still laying on him. I was alive. He was still human. "How long?" I knew it had been far too long.

"Almost dawn." All night. He wasn't going to change. I lifted my head and could just make out his face in the faint light. There was a hint of resigned surprise there.

"You're sure--"

"Yes, damn it!" he snapped. "I know how this works. I should have changed."

Sometimes I know when to stop pushing a particular button. I knew he was right about this. Hell, why should I doubt him? So why hadn't he changed? It was important to know, not just because it had kept me alive, but because he needed to know how this worked. If he could control it... I remembered my earlier speculation. "There was really only one thing different this time, wasn't there?" I said as I laid my head on his chest again, listening to his heart rush for a few beats, then slow to normal.

He was quiet for a moment. I felt his hand moving across my shoulders and along my spine. I guess he'd been thinking about why all night, but hadn't made the connection that seemed obvious to me. "Yes. But how--"

"Sex is a powerful thing. Maybe your problem is you need a good fuck every now and then." I grinned. "I'd be more than happy to help you with that."

"This was happening before I was old enough to be interested in sex."

I laughed. "Heero, four-year-olds are interested in sex, they just don't know what it is. Six-year-olds get hard-ons in their sleep." Sometimes he is so naive about reality. "So if you can give me another explanation I'll buy it, but I think it's because I'm such an amazing piece of ass, OK?"

His hand slid down cupped my amazing ass. "You're such an amazing piece of ass, though I have no one to compare you with."

"I am. You can trust me on that." I lifted my head again and gave him my best seductive smile and sultry voice. "Want to camp out again tonight?"

"It's too risky." He frowned. "I don't want to hurt you."

I had been waiting for it and jumped on it with all fours. "Why?" I knew it was going to happen now or never. I stared at him and wouldn't let him look away.

Finally, he said it. I think he was just afraid of it. But, God know my face wasn't hiding what I wanted. "Aishiteru. And I have for a long time. That's why I didn't kill you the first time you followed me."

Yes! I knew it! "Or the second. And probably why you stepped on that stick when you were hiding in the bushes." I grinned at him. "By the way, that was the thing I wanted most. You've just made me a very happy little boy." I pulled up on him and kissed him, sliding my tongue between his lips. His shot across the opening and into my mouth and made me wonder if the gene butchers had slipped a little snake into the sequences somewhere. He found places in my mouth I'd never known existed. A few minutes passed before I reclaimed my tongue and could speak again. "I'll take my chances with you, wolf-boy. At least you won't have to worry about me throwing a litter of pups."

He looked at me and smiled. "So you think you're up to this?"

"Only three nights a month? Hell, yes. I can have your ass the rest of the month."

"Hn."

"Speaking of which, I'm horny again."

"We'll see about that."

-------------------------

We did "see about that". As I'd always dreamed, Heero's ass was as sweet as it looked. This time we went slower so I could teach him a few tricks.

And as for who was going to do what to whom how often, I'm not nearly that demanding, and even if I was, I like getting it in the ass more than three times a month. After that first night with him I was ruined for anyone else. There is nothing like--

Oops. Gotta go again. He's calling me. Sunset is in a couple of hours. We like to spend a lot of time in foreplay.

Hey, like I told you. I aishiteru him and I lust him. Both equally. That is always the best combination.







CLOSING COMMENTS: This started out with the note, "An American Werewolf in..." -- leaning toward "London" more than "Paris". As I thought about it, I realized that a Japanese werewolf made more sense, because Heero exhibits many lycanthropish qualities. Canis lupus hattai was the larger of two sub-species of wolf that lived in Japan as late as 1904. Now, C. l. hodophylax is completely extinct, and C. l. hattai is no longer found in Japan. Finally, real wolves aren't like Heero's wolf form. They typically avoid humans (i.e., run away) unless they're rabid. But Heero's wolf form isn't exactly a normal wolf, is it?

owari

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