Long Odds
4. Expanded Notation
by Saro and Merellia
"Where to next?"
Durstang smiled, crossing his arms as he waited. "Something you will both like, I think: the
mobile suit simulators."
Heero blinked, mildly surprised. "How could Une afford those?"
He followed Duo into the elevator, Durstang behind them.
Punching the button for a floor, Durstang said, "What with
the disbanding of the OZ and Alliance armies, these came up for release and the
director was able to trade in a few favors and do some financial tap-dancing to
ensure we got them, on the grounds that we're very likely to run into mobile
suits and won't always have access to pilots like yourselves."
"Were they made by MilaTech?" Heero asked
Duo's gaze turned away from his study of the different floor
buttons and he asked, "So, have the simulators turned you into a pilot,
Chas?"
The elevator doors opened after only a few seconds of
ascent. "I don't think so," Durstang
told Heero, then grinned at Duo.
"Nothing like. Coordinating all
the input feeds is a stretch for me.
Lucrezia comes down here sometimes, though, if she's feeling pissy and
wants to shoot something. She says
they're a pretty fair substitute for the real thing."
The MilaTech logo caught Heero's eye as soon as Durstang led
them into the programming room with its bank of feedback screens. Even the keyboard designs were identical: it
was the same model simulator J had purchased and modified with Wing's specs to
use for Heero's training.
"Look at that, I was wrong about the manufacturer," Durstang
said, typing a command onto one of the dormant screens, which slowly glowed to
life. "The director herself and
Lucrezia have done quite a bit of work on this for us, updating it with the
specifications for the late model Tauruses and Leos produced after this was
made." More screens brightened, lights
flickering across the board as hardware readiness was signaled. "They even entered some stuff on the
Gundams, though they stopped once you guys passed word along that you'd
destroyed them."
Heero grimaced and stood back as Duo slid into the central seat. "Can I take a look?" At Durstang's nod, Duo worked his way
through the menu system, calling up and reading over what Heero guessed was
probably the incomplete information on the Gundams. "Hah!" Duo said. "What
were you guys on when you thought that?
Hmm." He backed out a couple
levels. "Anyone mind if I correct some
stuff? You guys were a damn sight off
on the speed estimates -- you've got everything moving at 03's level, and 03 was
like a snail compared to some of the others."
"I guess not," Durstang said, bemused. While Duo busied
himself entering data on the Gundams, Durstang said to Heero, "There are a lot
of different practice scenarios we've developed for these -- mostly that
Lucrezia's developed. I've only been
through a couple of the easiest, but apparently she's created some that are
real killers. Zechs was complaining
about one of those last week."
"Will she be back tomorrow?" Heero asked.
"Who, Lucrezia? Most likely. It was only a quick assignment,
to take a look into a rumor we'd picked up about some arms dealing in New
Delhi. I was supposed to go with her,
but after the director spoke with you two, she sent Stepan in my place."
Duo's fingers moved rapidly over the keys, lines of
information scrolling up and off the screen rapidly. Heero crossed his arms.
"Stepan's another agent?"
Durstang moved into the empty seat on Duo's right, saying as
he did so, "Yes, and he's an odd one. I suppose most of us are, one way or
another -- though Sally and Lucrezia are two of the straightest arrows I've ever
met -- but Stepan started out working for the Alliance Committee on
Technologically Underdeveloped Inner Cities as an economist, of all
things. You've heard of C-twitch?
Those guys." When Heero just nodded at
the nickname for the group, Durstang continued.
"So, he was with us first as an analyst, but the director
made him an agent a few months ago. She
says he's got the political gloss and glib tongue that are good to work with
bureaucrats. She says most of us lack
that entirely. I think she's got Zechs
figured as the same type; she's been pairing him with Stepan more than anyone
else."
"When you work with a partner, it's mostly like to like?"
Durstang shook his head. "Not really; when we're sent out in
pairs, it's most often with a partner of complimentary, but dissimilar,
skills. The like to like mostly comes
when the director brings in new agents.
I guess because it gives us more in common with each other, and because
working with someone of similar skills makes it easier to assess what a new
agent's particularly good at." Pushing
one foot against the floor, he swiveled the chair from side to side. "That's how you get Zechs with Stepan and
Duo with me; the director's got you figured for a soldier, which is why you're
with Lucrezia."
"Ah."
"Done!" Duo declared, spinning his seat around and catching
it up sharply to face Heero, his expression alive with good humor. "Want to give it a shot, Heero?"
"No," Heero said.
When he saw Duo about to protest, he added, "You go."
"Yes, why don't you try the simulator, Duo?" Durstang smiled
and said, "Lucrezia will probably want to see how Heero performs in it herself,
and since she's not here... You go ahead."
Duo shrugged and said cheerfully, turning back to the
screens, "You don't have to twist my arm.
Let's see... Ah, here's the scenario Noin's been using," he said,
narrating his movement through the menus with the volubility that seemed so
useless to Heero; the functionality of a running commentary on whatever Duo
happened to be doing at the moment was never more than minimal. "Damn, she's got some pretty good
scores. Hm. Hasn't been doing so well since Zechs started in the simulator,
though. Must not really thrive on
rivalry. Well. If I -- "
"Just go, Duo,"
Heero snapped. Durstang gave him a
startled glance.
"Blow me, Yuy," Duo said lightly, not bothering to look away
from the screens. "If I manage to beat him, maybe it'll goose her to improve
some." The screen flickered as he
changed to a different menu level. "Using a Gundam would be too easy. . . .
I'll give it a shot with a Leo. That ought to make it interesting."
After Duo had closed the simulator door behind himself,
Durstang said cautiously, "Were you two friends during the war?"
Heero thought that over, replying as screens jumped to life
with displays of the scenario and Duo's various vital readings, response times,
and efficiency records. He shot me, I stole his Gundam parts, I
saved him, we had sex. "Sometimes."
"Ah," said Durstang, turning to watch the primary screen.
"Just curious. We all figured you had
to have trained together or something, the way you all appeared at the same
time and with the same type of mobile suits.
But I guess training doesn't always equate to friendship, does it? Sometimes that comes along more slowly."
Heero didn't bother to correct any of Durstang's
misconceptions; if they came up again, Duo was more than capable of deciding
what to inform the agent he would be partnering. He focused on the primary screen instead. As the scenario started to play out, Heero
realized Noin must have developed it in response to potential situations the
Preventers might face: it began with the premise that a rebel political group
had taken over an ex-Alliance supply depot with mobile suits still intact, the
goal being to disable the mobile suits with as little endangerment of the
surrounding civilian developments which had encroached upon the depot's
abandoned territory. The rebel
political faction not having such moral impedimenta, Duo's small Leo was
quickly surrounded by the more reckless fighters.
"He's not killing anyone," Durstang observed in
surprise. "It's really true what Zechs
said, then, that you wouldn't have taken so long in fighting off Mariemaia's
army if you hadn't been avoiding any deaths."
I was planning to kill
someone, Heero thought, but only said, "Yes." On the screen, Duo began to attack, cutting determinedly into the
rebel groupings and leaving behind the disabled remains of mobile suits and
fleeing pilots for the rebels to deal with.
The pilot module thrummed with the bass rumble used to simulate the
vibrations of a moving mobile suit as Duo executed a particularly vicious
assault that fouled one of the rebel Leos with two others, bringing all three
to a standstill of tangled metal and hissing hydraulics lines.
It was interesting to see Duo fighting in something other
than his Gundam, where he lacked the reach and effectiveness of the beam
scythe. In the Leo, he was quicker, pushing
the machinery to the limit as he tried to capitalize on its smaller mass and
the speed of his own reflexes. Heero
wasn't really surprised by what he saw in the constant stream of stats that
flew across the monitor. Duo was
fast -- but he would have had to be, to keep up with Deathscythe.
When Durstang didn't say anything in the minutes which
followed, Heero fixed his gaze on the screen and asked in a monotone, "Is that
why you left White Fang?"
"I'm sorry?" Durstang asked, shifting in his chair when he
looked away from the display.
Heero felt like scowling.
Try to find out some information on Duo's behalf and Duo himself
distracts the process. "You left White
Fang. Because you disagreed with
killing anymore?"
"Oh," Durstang said, looking back at the screen. "I never left White Fang, exactly. The organization... disbanded... before I came to that
decision. I decided to join the
Preventers, if that's what you're asking about, afterwards. I had seen the director when she was
liaising with the colonies and, well -- her views are very persuasive."
On the screen, the fighting stopped as the remaining rebels
signaled their surrender. Screens
blinked and flashed up new data summarizing the pilot's overall performance in
the scenario. "You worked for them as a
hacker?" Heero asked.
"Mm. Yes.
Specialized in tracking arms shipments around the colonies, and in
infiltrating law enforcement systems to tag and erase possible references to
our activities. That's been helpful,
working for the Preventers. It's given me familiarity with a lot of potential
hot spots of activity in the colonies, since I ran into other files than those
specific to White Fang."
Heero shot a look at the pilot module of the simulator,
impatient for Duo to come out and take on his share of the conversational
burden. "Your wife, was she also -- "
Durstang stood. "In
White Fang? No," he said, his brown
eyes wrinkling at the corners when he smiled. "She's a primary school
teacher." He began turning off the
simulator. "As soon as Duo gets out
here, we can call it a day. I'm sure
it's felt like a long one for you both."
"Man, it sure has," Duo said, apparently catching the end of
Durstang's words as he left the module.
"So, we set out here? How'd I
do -- oh, you guys turned it off," he observed, turning to look at the blank
screens.
Heero turned toward Duo, relieved that he'd be able to hand
the social niceties over to his more sociable housemate. "Sorry for keepin' you
waiting," Duo continued, not giving them a chance to respond. He looked -- Heero blinked as Duo brushed past
him, babbling at a tempo Heero recognized from when Duo wanted to control a
conversation. "I was thinking about how
things had gone. Thought it went okay.
That was a pretty neat scenario -- "
Staring hard at Duo's back, Heero followed him and Durstang
out of the room and back to the elevator.
Duo kept talking, his voice rising and falling with grating energy. It sounded off, like an engine in need of
calibration. He tried to catch Duo's
eye a few times, but the other pilot managed to evade each attempt until they
were saying their farewells to the older agent on the ground floor.
"Psych eval at nine tomorrow morning, gotcha. Have a good evening, man, and thanks for
everything today," Duo said before heading out the door. The gate guard was a different man than the
one this morning and didn't give either of them a second look as Duo breezed
past him. Heero lengthened his stride to keep pace.
"Duo." When he
didn't stop, Heero caught hold of his arm.
"Duo."
Duo gave him a look from too-wide eyes in too pale a face
and said, "Gimme a minute, alright?"
Without waiting for a reply, he tugged his arm out of Heero's grasp and
ducked into the store at their backs, some sort of restaurant.
By the time Heero evaded the puzzled seating host, Duo had
disappeared into the bathroom. Stepping
swiftly past confused diners and a waiter carrying a tray of something smelling
like hot cabbage, Heero put one hand on the bathroom door and twisted the knob,
halfway expecting it to be locked. The door, however, opened easily into the
white-tiled room; Heero shut it firmly behind him and engaged the lock. Duo refused to look up from where he was
splashing water onto his face at the sink.
"Duo."
When Duo didn't reply, Heero tried again, moving to stand
next to him. "What happened in the
simulator?"
Duo twisted the cold water knob shut. "Nothing happened."
"Nothing doesn't leave you looking like you're about to
vomit. What's the matter?"
His hands braced on either side of the counter, Duo kept his
head bent, not moving even when his braid slithered over one shoulder and into
the sink. Frustrated, Heero tried
another tack. "Our bargain. You remember?"
Duo smiled, but it was a thin, brittle expression, like
reentry stressed heat shielding. "Shit. That's low, Yuy. It ain't nothing."
The scent of sanitizer was strong in the air. Heero ignored it, pointing out, "If it isn't
nothing, then it's something."
"Fuck!" Duo stalked
over to the wall and turned around, sliding down to a seat on the floor. He fixed his gaze on a patch of tiles and
said tonelessly, "I got scared."
Sitting beside him, Heero stretched his legs out
straight. That couldn't be the entirety
of the problem. Duo admitted too easily to what he felt on any occasion for an
emotional response to have thrown him so off-balance so quickly. "Why?"
The drip of water down the drain echoed in the room, the silence
a palpable thing that dampened even the murmurs of the restaurant beyond the
door. Duo broke it at last, his tone
bitter. "The simulator was nothin' like being in Deathscythe. D'you know that?
Was that why you didn't do it?" Without
waiting for a reply, he continued in rising anger, "It was nothing like. It
didn't feel the same. I didn't feel
the same. It was like being in some fucking metal box, jerkin' it around on
puppet strings if I pressed the right button. And then I think, what if that's
as good as it gets? What if I was at my
best when I was killing people? I'm
seven-fucking-teen, for Chrissakes!"
Heero studied the toes of his shoes, and wondered if Duo
could hear his accent wavering in and out of the speech patterns found in L2's
more impoverished colonies. One boot
had a scuff across the leather.
Considering Duo's question, he began to itemize a list of things he had
enjoyed since the end of the war. He
said meditatively, "Sex is pretty good."
Startled into laughter, it took a moment before Duo
replied. When he did, a thread of raw
amusement was in his voice. "You're
right. There's somethin' else I'm good
at." He paused for a moment. "I didn't mean to be an asshole back there."
Duo slid his legs out like Heero had done; they stretched
half a tile further than Heero's, who said, "You weren't an asshole."
"I am. If I wasn't, I wouldn't have dumped some damn
personal freak in your lap after a first day on a new job. Especially after the shitty night's sleep
you got."
Heero shrugged. "In any case, you can't know it won't get
any better until you're dead."
"God. I thought I was supposed to be the morbid one of us,"
Duo said, getting to his feet and holding out a hand to Heero. They ignored the suspicious look cast at
them by the host as they left the restaurant.
A block away from the subway entrance, Duo broke the silence
that had grown between them. Heero
could almost hear the sound of Duo realigning his demeanor before he said,
"Since you brought up the bargain back there, it's my turn for a
question." He paused as Heero preceded
him through the turnstile, but, catching up on the stairs down to the train
platform, asked, "What date did you put down for your birthday on that form of
Martje's?"
Heero shook his hair back from his eyes and checked the
arrival clock. Three and a half minutes
before the next train arrived in the station. "April fifth."
Duo's lopsided smile did nothing about the pale cast to his
skin, but it reassured Heero that at least he was feeling more like
himself. "That's the date I chose,
too," Duo said, slipping his hands into his jacket pockets. "Next year, then, if we're still living
together, want to have a party? Just for us and the other guys. Sorta a
birthday thing. With beer and stuff."
"Beer?" Heero questioned, looking at Duo. He was toeing the yellow line that marked
the safe edge of the platform and looking down the tunnel from which the train
would come.
Duo shrugged, glancing back at Heero. "We'll definitely be legal by then. I'm pretty sure we're expected to get
trashed."
Heero felt the vibrations of the approaching train through
the floor; a moment later, he could hear the roar it made through the
tunnels. "Here it comes," he said, then
asked curiously, "Have you ever had any?"
After looking around surreptitiously, Duo stepped completely
past the line. "Beer?" He raised his voice as the noise increased
when the train rounded the corner into the station. "Nah. Had some whiskey
once with Howard. It tasted like shit.
And I've had Communion wine. I
think it was really juice, though, since wine would've been too expensive. But everybody drinks beer, so I figure it's
got to be good. Have you ever had any?"
Duo's speech flowed easily once again, reassuring Heero even in its
inconsequentiality.
The train roared past, the wind of its passage blowing Duo's
bangs back from his face as he stood a couple inches away from the slowing
cars. Heero waited until it had
completely stopped before he said, "No."
Duo turned to step through the nearest open door of the
train, still looking peaked, but exhilarated behind that, presumably thanks to
the adrenaline rush he'd just arranged for himself. "Yeah, that's what I thought. It's kinda stupid, isn't it? All we've done and we've never had a real
drink. Seems like our birthday might be
a good time to try it."
"We could do that," Heero allowed slowly, his own thoughts
traveling another direction. "So was
that a one time deal, or is it a fixed trade, straight across? An answer for an answer?"
The other pilot glanced his way quickly, thoughts reflected
in his eyes. "Sure," Duo said after
considering it. Heero could see him
weighing the offer as carefully as he would a new throwing knife. "That sounds fair."
*~*~*
Duo took a shower when they got back to the apartment,
hoping the hot water would blast away the residue of his experience with the
simulator. The adrenaline had just left him feeling worse after it faded
away. He still couldn't explain what
had happened -- he'd stolen Leos during the war, and it had never felt like that. It had never felt so... foreign. It wasn't like Deathscythe, but that was
expected; his Gundam had been tailored to him.
It fit perfectly. Piloting other
Mobile Suits had been sort of like walking in shoes that didn't fit right.
This hadn't been the same at all.
His eyes slid shut and he leaned into the spray, focusing on
his vital signs until they were all back to normal. He wasn't as good at it as Heero or Trowa, but he could still
make his body obey him most of the time.
His mind was more difficult. Try
as he might, he couldn't stop himself from replaying the simulation over and
over again in his mind. The way the
wrongness turned his stomach. The way
it seemed to itch under his skin.
He wanted to pretend the whole thing never happened, or just
forget about it. He needed something to
take his mind off of it.
Turning off the water, Duo stepped out of the shower stall.
All and all, the day hadn't been that bad. Sure, they'd been poked and jabbed and
prodded, and questioned about things that Duo would have rather not been asked
about. There was that incident with the
fake IDs getting in, which had been a little fun, but had probably bent Heero
out of shape more than it was worth, and visiting Lady Une was never a treat,
even when they were on the same side.
But really, it still wasn't that bad.
They'd gotten most of the paperwork done with, and the people they were
going to work with didn't seem like complete incompetents. He knew Wufei, Zechs, and Noin weren't, at
least.
With any luck, they'd get through the training bullshit and
on to something relatively exciting soon.
Preferably something where he'd get to blow stuff up. Duo rather missed blowing stuff up.
Peacetime was surprisingly boring that way. Or maybe not boring, but lacking...
something. Just lacking. He toweled himself dry, pushing that thought
away. Yes, he told himself
firmly, it wasn't really a bad day at all, if you ignore the end.
Hell, we should probably be celebrating.
Duo stopped drying his hair momentarily. Why not?
He and Heero were getting new jobs.
People celebrated that kind of thing, didn't they? And it might help him relax. At least, it couldn't hurt. He'd need a little while to get ready if
they were going to go out, but it wasn't even eight yet. They could catch a late movie, hit a
restaurant, or even a bar, since he was sure they could both prove that they
were over eighteen if they had to.
Screw waiting for a birthday.
Nodding to himself, Duo finished drying off and threw on the
clothes he'd brought in with him before marching into the living room. Heero was sitting on the couch, frowning at
a news report. He looked up at his
housemate's arrival, meeting Duo's eyes.
"I want to go out tonight," Duo announced, watching Heero
for a reaction.
Heero blinked once rapidly, his only outward sign of
surprise. "What?"
"I said I want to go out tonight," Duo repeated, planting
his hands on his hips. "Let's go out
and do somethin'."
"What for?" the other asked, turning off the news.
"Why not?" Duo retorted quickly. "We don't get out much yet, and I don't feel like sittin' around
tonight. I want to do something. You're
coming with me. We'll," he paused,
making an inclusive gesture with one hand, "celebrate getting into the
Preventers and getting an apartment, livin' together."
The corner of Heero's mouth turned up just a little in what,
for him, passed as a smile. "And I'm
going with you?"
"Yup." Duo agreed, then grinned. "Come on. You know you
want to."
"So what are we doing?"
Heero relented. He probably knew
he wasn't going to win this argument; Duo had been almost positive of it. Odds aside, he wasn't in the mood to give
up, and Heero wasn't in the mood to fight.
"Don't know yet," he said, his grin growing broader. He was recovered enough that he was certain
the smile looked natural. "Don't worry
though, I'm sure I'll know when I see it."
"Oh," Heero said,
managing to suffuse that one syllable with more amusement than his stoic
attitude could account for.
Without further encouragement, Duo pulled Heero onto his
feet and down the short hall, where he pushed him into his bedroom. "Wear something nice," he said, before
closing the door after him.
*~*~*
This was not working.
In retrospect, he should have known that a movie was a very
bad idea, and an action movie worse. No
matter how many explosions there were, the distraction wasn't good enough. He quickly found himself snorting after a
house on screen went up in flames after what was supposed to be a gas-main
explosion. "Hmph," he snorted under his
breath, and leaned in close to whisper to Heero, "... only if they kept drums of
diesel under the bed, eh?"
Heero grunted noncommittally. "You picked the movie."
"Yeah, but you let me."
"You said you'd know what you wanted to do when you saw it."
"Yeah," Duo said softly, speaking directly into the other pilot's ear. "But I didn't say I'd seen it yet."
The movie just wasn't distracting enough, even when he was complaining
about the pyrotechnics. It didn't keep
him from thinking about the way something had been missing in the simulator, or
the way something had been missing since then.
Shit, he was starting to suspect it hadn't been there before, either.
Whatever it was, he wanted to go back to ignoring it.
Duo sighed and started to turn back toward the movie, only
to pause when he noticed the way the short hairs on the back of Heero's neck
stood up when he'd breathed on them.
The other pilot had his attention fixed dutifully on the screen, but Duo
could see his throat working to swallow even in the low theater lighting. Smirking to himself, he leaned in again and
purposefully blew a gentle stream of air against the skin under his housemate's
ear, and watched him shiver.
"Know what?" he asked.
"No, what?" Heero returned, shooting him a look.
"I think I just saw it.
Want to get outta here?"
The other hesitated only a moment.
*~*~*
They made it back home in half the time it had taken them to
get to the theater, and were barely inside the door before Duo pressed his
partner against the wall and kissed him fiercely. The feel of another mouth moving against his, lips and tongue and
teeth all working at the sensitive nerve endings, saturated his perceptions. The world narrowed, and some of the things he
didn't want to remember abruptly didn't exist.
He slid his hands inside Heero's jacket, traveling up his
chest and over his shoulders in one broad stroke, then tugged it down until it
caught on his elbows. Heero made a
frustrated noise and pulled it the rest of the way off. Duo was already moving on to Heero's
belt. Then Heero was pushing them away
from the wall and toward his bedroom.
They found the wall two more times before making it to the bed,
less two jackets, a belt, a shirt, two pairs of shoes and three socks. Duo tugged his remaining sock off with his
toes as he climbed on top of Heero. He
wasn't taking his time with the backs of his partner's knees or the inside of
his elbows, or any of the other soft spots he normally paid attention to. Instead he devoured his mouth, his ears,
neck, nipples -- all the places he knew would get him where he wanted to be the
fastest.
It reminded him briefly of their first time, all adrenaline
and distrust, still not sure what game the other had been playing. The excitement had almost been better than
the actual sex, which hadn't, in fact, been anything to write home about. But that moment of penetration, that had
been something.
The memory spurred Duo on, and he yanked Heero's slacks down
ruthlessly, already searching the nightstand for the bottle he knew was in
there somewhere. He could feel the next
few minutes crystallizing, as though he was at the apex of his trajectory;
there was nothing to do but complete the arc.
Heero groaned in the back of his throat, his hands groping
at Duo's shoulders as he struggled to get his shirt off without ripping
it. Duo shrugged out of the sleeves
quickly, then shed his pants with the same haste. This was it: move too fast to think about more than what was
right in front of you. He kissed
Heero's mouth again.
He'd found the bottle he was looking for in the nightstand
somewhere in there -- he couldn't quite remember when, in the order of
things. He tried not to think too hard
about what his fingers were doing as he pressed them inside, tried not to focus
on the way the muscles relaxed under his touch; he was in a hurry, but he
didn't want things to end that quickly.
Instead, he concentrated on the kiss, and on the way Heero's
mouth still tasted a little like the vinegar salad dressing he had with dinner.
Then Heero was pushing him back on his knees, his hand slick
as it wrapped around Duo's erection, as impatient as Duo's himself as he
straddled the other's hips. They fit
together better now, but he was once again reminded of that first time... Heero
trusting him with his body, but not his Gundam...
The former Wing pilot's face was a mask of concentration,
brows drawn together, eyes looking inward as he adjusted to having something
substantial inside him. Duo took in the
expression, saw when it eased into a different sort of frown. Panting, Heero nodded to him, but Duo didn't
need the signal.
They started to move together, hips twisting and pumping in
time. They knew each other, knew the
pace as though it had been rehearsed.
Heero's arms went around Duo's neck at nearly the same moment the
other's hand took him by the waist.
The world had constricted further, until there was nothing
left beyond the edge of the bed, and very little that mattered beyond the
familiar frown creasing Heero's brow and the pressure building at the base of
his own spine, uncurling in his gut.
Duo bit his lip and buried his face in Heero's shoulder, willfully
letting everything else fade away. He
felt his partner's deep-throated groan more than he heard it; felt himself
already starting to tremor with the approach of his climax.
"Not yet," Heero rasped in his ear, then his nearly
soundless groans evolved into a soft, low moan. "Not quite... yet."
Duo nuzzled his partner's neck, trying his best to control
his pace. His fingertips tingled. What little remained of the world was
drawing tighter -- there wouldn't be much more.
Heero freed one hand and began stroking himself. One of Duo's hands joined his, fingers
wrapping around his shaft, urging him faster.
Three more rapid thrusts and Duo lost it. He let go of Heero's cock in favor of simply
clutching him tightly. Heero finished
himself off, following only seconds later.
For a long, blissful moment, Duo was aware of almost nothing
as he held his partner, both of them recovering. Unfortunately soon, though, reality began to seep back in; and
reality was slick, and sticky, and almost unbearably warm. Duo placed a last clumsy kiss on Heero's
chin before disentangling himself. They
both needed to clean up.
"Let's sleep in the other bed tonight," he suggested as he
offered Heero a hand up. "I don't feel
like changing the sheets."
Heero nodded silently, his expression still a little dreamy,
and Duo felt his own face break out in a post-orgasm smile as he watched Heero
walk stiffly toward the bathroom.
|