Chapter eight: Dynamite
Heero POV
My lover smells of dynamite.
The chemical scent of RDX and TNT stains the air, lingering on his fingertips near my lips, as he closes on me cautiously, violet eyes incandescent in the darkness. There is only one light in the room, centred over the table where he's finished wiring the M1 packages to their fuse in record time. He told Barton we would be two hours finishing the HE for our next mission. I thought it sounded like a long time for Duo.
/Hi-Ex, close proximity./
I trust Duo to pack High Explosives properly, there's no danger.
/Close proximity, threat./
At least, not from the dynamite.
"Duo." It's a warning.
"Mission's tomorrow, babe. We got time."
I know that. But the proximity of five pounds of death that can rip through us at twenty thousand feet per second is not helping me drop my defences. My body is poised to lash out at anything that presents itself as a target. If Duo touches me I'll go off like one of his tripwire specials.
/Proximity, threat!/
Duo leans towards me, still not touching. I was packing away the smaller ordnance in a box against the wall when I turned to find him hovering over me with a predatory look in his eyes which did nothing to relax me. But I'm pinned between the wall, the staircase and Duo, and I can't get out-
/Reduced motility, unacceptable!/
- without brushing by him.
Not that I want to.
Duo's been making HE in this abandoned bomb shelter for three days now, replenishing our stocks using some pretty old and sometimes dangerous material, anything Barton could get on the black market with minimum risk. He's only allowed me to get near the place to help him this afternoon, after the most dangerous elements were already stabilized, cooked and packaged. When he wasn't working in the shelter, he was sleeping with us in the single cramped room of the small run-down shack we are sharing with Barton. There has been no opportunity for physical contact during that time, as there was always one of us listening in to OZ communications from the base we are planning to raid.
Duo's been working with the raw material of death for all that time, and I know how that affects him. He needs some physical relief. I know we can't get it back at the shack... but I don't know if I can do this here either.
/HE - Close- Prox- Threat-!/
I hiss a warning and my fist slams against the concrete base of the staircase instead of his ribs. Fortunately, Duo is very fast on his feet.
I see him sniff and rub his nose with a tight grin as he backs up half a step and considers how to approach me. I don't think this is a good idea.
/Mission commences in 22 hours. Analysis of status: Pilot 02./
I don't want him tense and frustrated during our mission tomorrow either. It will be highly difficult and he's been on edge for too many days already.
I lean slowly back against the wall, trapping my hands behind me-
/Vulnerable stance, threat level too high, unacceptable!/
I shift my hands slightly so they merely hug my sides, no longer pinned beneath my body. Better.
/ ...unacceptable threat-level... /
Distraction. "Have you finished all we need for tomorrow?" I deliberately eye the table and the duffel bag near it.
"Sure babe." Duo knows what I'm doing. He's slid his own hands down his back -more sensuously then I did- and he's standing there like a little boy trying to look innocent. He's close, close enough that I can't get by him, but not so close I feel he's threatening me, especially in that position.
"Is the M1 for tomorrow?"
/Completely unacceptable!/
"Aaah, no babe, I wouldn't trust that stuff within half a mile of Deathscythe. It'll be to rig the shack in case Trowa needs to mosey if-... "
If we are captured and he has to escape in a hurry, erasing the evidence.
"What do you have for tomorrow?"
"The usual, M18 on a switch for the storage unit. And some small H-6 charges on a timer in case we need a few Easter eggs. Oh and-"
His eyes had been concentrating on me hungrily while he talked automatically, but suddenly he blinks and grins. "I forgot, G sent me some interesting stuff in that package the other day."
He makes a pass with his hand -keeping it well clear of me- and a small inch-long tube with a pop-cap appears in it. He's wearing cut-off black shorts and a black tank-top, I don't know where he was keeping it.
"What is it?" A very small charge, whatever it is, hardly justifying the excitement that glows in his eyes as he brings the small tube up to his face to look at it in the reflection of the light on the table.
He tilts the tube to caress his lower lip. "Neurotoxin."
"Duo!"
/Danger!/
"Relax, babe. It's a new compound Dr H cooked up, sent it to G as a present or something. Needs a life... Anyway, it acts on cholinesterase but it's non-competitive and reversible."
" ...How long till the pathways clear?"
"Eight long hours of relaxing sleep."
"More like paralytic coma."
"Same diff, same diff. I've only got three, can't wait to try them out!"
"Have they been tested-?"
"Dr H wouldna let me have 'em if they weren't, babe. He intends 'em for civilian targets, like we might run into tomorrow. Takes them down in seconds without damage, gets 'em out of our hair, and they wake up eight hours later with a headache looking for someone to sue. Cool, eh?"
His enthusiasm, like a boy with a new toy, is relaxing me despite its odd cause. As Duo is fond of saying, we're not normal teenagers. I don't know what normal is so I will trust him on that. But whatever defuses the situation now can only be good.
"Soooo." The tube vanishes again, I try to follow it with my eyes but I'm still not sure where it goes, somewhere in his shorts I think. "Where were we." He can feel the lessening of tension in my body.
He leans forward slowly, bending at the waist, hands behind his back again. His head tilts as it reaches the level of my low-cut t-shirt. It's a very vulnerable position. I wonder how he does it. I trust him with my life but I can barely keep my hands stiff at my sides as I lean against the wall, I could never be so defenceless.
/Promity... 02, no threat./
He blows a gentle stream of air along the top of the cloth, teasing the skin he exposes. The caress rises, curls against my collar bone, up the hollow at the base of my throat. His hands are still behind his back, his feet together. My mind worries that he will not be able to dodge another blow, but my body is relaxing, starting to get warm in the cool dank air of the bomb shelter.
/Close Proximity... 02, no threat./
I feel him lick a bead of sweat that has rolled down my neck from the previous tension. The rasp of his tongue makes me twitch but nothing more.
/ ...proximity./
The trail of the tongue cools in the air, as the rest of me slowly starts to burn. He's licking the small dip between my jaw and my ear. I can feel his breath moving my hair, whispering against my skin.
/.../
Finally my guard starts to drop. But I'm still tense, it's a close thing. Duo's hands finally come out from behind his back though they stay low on my body, light touches, his arms and shoulders relaxed. He can read me very well by now. The learning process was difficult and on two occasions painful, resulting in minor injury, but Duo bounced back as if nothing had happened each time, and persisted. He can now disarm me almost as quickly and as completely as one of his bombs.
I breathe his name against his lips, as I can begin to participate, cautiously. My own hands reach out, gentle and hesitant, brushing his bangs away from his eyes and mine, pulling him nearer slowly. He shifts his weight, and we turn a bit so I can lean him back against the sides of the concrete staircase rising above us. This gives me the upper hand and room to manoeuvre, easing me more. He kisses me, slowly to start with then quickly more demanding as his own tension, stacking up day by day like the packages of explosives he's been preparing, pushes him forward. Our bodies rub together, his fingers are working at the hem of my jeans-
CLANG! "Hey - you down there?"
/...!/
Time crystallizes then shatters as my body convulses, shoving Duo against the staircase-
Fortunately he's even faster than me, his hands flying away and flattening against the concrete, his face twisting sideways, eyes snapping shut. The body beneath mine - my hands have slammed against the concrete on either side of him- is instantly as unthreatening as can be. This keeps my guard down, but only by a fraction.
/.../
"Barton." I manage to grind out. Duo's eyes crack open and he slips a sideways glance at me. "We're busy. What is it? Why did you leave comms?"
Barton is at the door of the shelter, in the arch of thick concrete at the top of the stairs, the blue and grey light of evening washing around him. We're in deep shadow and out of his line of sight, on the side of the staircase in the small space between it and the wall. I can't see him, the walkway at the top of the stairs is hiding him from us.
"I've set it recording. We've got five minutes. I wanted to know if you wanted me to relieve you."
"Unnecessary."
"Ok... Need a hand down there?"
"No." I snap.
Duo licks his lips sensuously and tilts his head. "I *guess* we're ok, Tro... Think he could... help us here, Heero?"
I give him a scowl that would have sent him running a few months ago, but now merely amuses him. "No, we're fine. Go back to comms, Barton."
I see his lips shape the word 'Spoil-sport' in the sliver of light reflected from the table lamp.
"OK. Dinner'll be ready in an hour. That OK? You said you'd be finished by then, Duo."
"Yeah, Tro-man, we should be done by then. Scat, will you? We're packing the ex for tomorrow, don't want to get them mixed up."
"In the dark? Never mind, it's your skins. See you in an hour."
"Sure thing, Tro!"
The metal door closes with a clang. I feel tension still running through my body, though. Duo can feel it too, his grin fades and his eyes narrow, wondering how to get back to where we were.
Then, still in the same position, he slides sideways along the concrete. His grin returns, sensuous and challenging. I take a step to keep level with him. His back is now against the metal bars of the staircase's handrail. He tosses his head so his braid coils against his chest. His grin is brighter than the lamp on the table, fracturing the darkness between us, as he slowly lifts his arms and slides them through the bars behind him. His hands twist and grab the bars, anchoring him in position. His back and shoulders flex as if he's stretching; a slender but steely chest flashes in the ghost of light as it moves towards me, my hands.
"You know, babe, I've been working like a dog for the past three days, I'm bushed." His voice is a low murmur, barely stirring the thick silence of darkness and concrete around us. "Howzabout you do some of the work, hmm?"
I lift my hands and bring them in a gentle glide from his face down to the hem of his shorts, then slide my hands beneath the tight material-
/.../
- to rest on firm buttocks, as I lean forward and flex my hips, grinding our bodies together.
"Do you mean... " I whisper, ignoring his groan, "that I should continue packing our charges for tomorrow?"
"Yuy, you take one step towards those charges and I'll stomp on you. With my Gundam."
"Unacceptable. We need to be both one hundred percent tomorrow." I murmur against his throat.
"Well then make sure I'm nice and relaxed, willya?" He hisses, his pulse catching beneath my teeth.
I lift my lips to his. He's left a trace of nitrate compound on his nose when he rubbed it, the smell prickling my nostrils. My lover, my dynamite.
"Confirmed."
" ...man, I love it when you talk dirty."