Disclaimer:Don't own them, don't make any money off of this.
Warnings: Male/Male sex, graphic, language, violence, attempted NCS
Disclaimer:I don't own then and I don't make any money off of this
Warnings:Male/male sex, graphic, violence, language, attempted NCS
Soldier Boys
Sequel to Secrets
Operations
Duo didn't make it past the living room. Trowa and Quatre were standing there and watching him curiously as he came down the stairs.
"What was all that noise?" Quatre asked in concern. "We heard thumping and shouting and then Heero ran past us as if he had just set charges and was making his escape. We were just about to come up to make certain that you were all right."
"Where did he go?" Duo asked anxiously. "I'm fine, but we had a... well... he took something the wrong way and I have to tell him he's wrong."
Quatre frowned, but Trowa arched an eyebrow as he settled into a chair and crossed his long legs. His look was too knowing and Duo wasn't sure he wanted to know what Trowa think he knew. "I heard the shower," Trowa said and didn't expand on that.
"Yes...," Quatre said looking at Trowa, puzzled. He suddenly brightened. "Oh! You two were fighting over the hot water. Did you get too rough?"
Trowa snickered and covered a smile with one hand. Duo glared, suddenly sensing a dirty thought hanging in the air. His face felt hot and he wasn't sure how to handle the fact that Trowa had guessed his predicament so easily. "Can you just tell me where he went?" Duo demanded.
"That way," Quatre replied, pointing to the back door that led to their makeshift hanger. "Duo, if you two are fighting, perhaps I can come and help smooth things. Sometimes, a third party-"
"I think it's more important that we get briefed on the upcoming mission," Trowa interrupted, amusement suddenly turning to irritation. "You can smooth out your relationship with Heero later."
"Heero's making the plan," Duo growled back, not liking the way Trowa had said, 'relationship'. The young man was definitely insinuating something and Duo was too raw and too embarrassed to have any snappy comebacks. "We'll have a get together later, once Heero's gone over the information himself."
Duo headed for the door. Quatre said anxiously, "Are you certain I shouldn't come?"
"I think they would like to be alone, Quatre," Trowa said.
"Yeah, thanks, Quatre," Duo said, turning his flaming face away from them both. "This is something me and Heero need to talk about by ourselves."
"Oh, all right," Quatre replied. "But, if you need me...."
"I'll be sure to call you," Duo finished and then was out the door and headed down the trail towards the hanger.
The thought of Quatre 'helping' him explain to Heero his misunderstanding made Duo's insides turn into an even bigger knot. That Trowa had guessed... Duo tried to convince himself that Trowa hadn't guessed and that his own embarrassment was painting understanding there when there wasn't any, but... Trowa's smirk, his knowing snort, and his words made it hard for Duo to really convince himself of that.
Duo ran a nervous hand over his face. "That's all I need," Duo muttered to himself. "I'm trying to get everyone buddy-buddy with each other. If everyone thinks I'm... That I'm trying to... that I want Heero..." Duo couldn't even finish those sentences as thoughts and he wondered just what he was going to tell Heero when he found him. His steps slowed as he came up empty. He ALWAYS had something to say for every occasion. It was automatic, a product of a street life where talking fast could save your life. So, why was he coming up empty now? How hard was it to say, 'Sorry about that, Heero, I was just wrestling and... and... Hey, Heero! Funny thing, the way we... Heero-buddy! I hope you didn't think anything about what happened back there, because it wasn't... '
Duo pushed the tarp that covered the hanger aside and blinked into the bright spotlights that illuminated the Gundams. Nataku's hatch was closed, but her vents were pulsing, which meant that someone was inside who needed air. Heero's Wing had it's hatch open and Duo didn't have any doubt that Heero was inside.
Duo looked up and up at the tall, impressive mech. "When all else fails, get mad," Duo muttered and took the lift upwards.
There was a lower deck access panel and the sound of someone inside. Duo crouched there and said, "Heero!" as if he were completely furious.
Heero popped up, startled, his gun in one hand. He was at Duo's crotch level and he seemed very fascinated with Duo's zipper for the space of a few heartbeats before he dragged blue eyes up and looked into Duo's angry face. His own looked uncomfortable and guilty.
"I wanna talk to you, Yuy!" Duo snarled. "If you think, back in the bathroom, that I wanted any part of-"
"Duo," Heero began softly. His eyes dropped to the gun in his hands. He holstered it as he continued. "I-"
"Let me finish!" Duo snapped. Anger was a good weapon, he thought. It put people off balance and it made it hard for them to respond. If he could just convince Heero that it was all HIS fault that they had felt that 'whatever it was' in the bathroom, then he would be the one to say, 'Okay, Heero, don't think anything more about it.' It was much harder to sound convincing when the ball was in his court.
And why was that? Duo wondered to himself as Heero's eyes widened at his tone and he looked... hurt. Hurt? Why was Heero looking at him like that? He saw Heero cover it up in the next instant and that jaw tightened and his eyebrows came down in a familiar scowl. It suddenly made it even harder to blame Heero, or to explain that the incident in the bathroom had meant nothing. Why....
"I..." Duo stopped before he could utter another word. It struck him hard and heat and cold shot through his body at the same time as he realized why it was so hard, why it felt so wrong to tell Heero that he wasn't, that he didn't have any interest, that he wasn't.... gay. It was hard, because it was a lie and Duo... Duo prided himself on never telling lies.
"Duo?" Heero asked in concern, seeing Duo flush red and go white by turns. He reached out a hand as if to steady Duo, especially when Duo started shivering convulsively.
"I-I gotta go!" Duo choked out and he scrambled to the lift and took it down,. jumping off the last few feet and landing hard. He ran blindly, needing to get away from Heero and his sudden self knowledge.
"Duo, wait!" Heero shouted down after him, but Duo ignored him and kept running.
Scratched from thorny vines, exhausted from running, full of mud and scrapes from several falls, and soaked to the skin with cold rain from a sudden downpour, Duo at last stopped running and huddled in misery on a fallen tree trunk.
Duo pulled up his knees and hugged them, his face buried there as he tried to think what to do next, how to accept his sudden self knowledge.
Duo twitched and his knife came out of it's sheath as something heavy dropped over his shoulders. Heero stepped back, face unreadable as Duo discovered the dark coat and gratefully slipped it on, even as he kept his eyes everywhere but on Heero.
"Uh, thanks, man," Duo whispered hoarsely and couldn't keep from shivering convulsively as his body tried to warm back up in the thick, wool lined, shelter of the coat.
Heero was unsure of his ground. He was very quiet and then he said, "You don't have to explain, just... come back to the house, Duo."
Duo did look at him then, blinking as the rain dripped from his bangs into his eyes. He was embarrassed, but, having been brutally honest with himself, he found being honest to Heero wasn't so difficult now. He said, his tone almost a challenge, a dare for Heero to damn him, "You know I'm gay. You figured it out before I did. So did, Trowa. Goddamn stupid, isn't it? In the middle of a war, I'm one of the most highly trained people in the known universe, I've done and experienced more things than most 'adults', and I couldn't even figure out that I..."
Duo ducked his head and took a shuddering breath.
"So, gonna hate me now? Gonna laugh at me with the others?" He asked bitterly. "Guess I can kiss goodbye to that whole idea of mine of getting us together as a team. You'll probably all kick my perverted ass out the door." He wiped at his eyes with a trembling hand and couldn't help a sniffle.
"Duo..." Heero frowned and looked at his steel-booted toes.
Duo stood abruptly, sheathing his knife and pulling the coat hard around himself. "So'kay, Heero, I don't know what to think or say either. It's just... I guess I DID know, deep down. I just.... couldn't face it. When you live on the streets, you see a lot of bad stuff go down. People sell drugs, booze, drugs, themselves... Sex isn't something you thought about because the role models I had for that kind of thing didn't make it look pleasant. That's what I thought it was... me trying to get over that and find some girl I could... but that wasn't it at all.... "
Heero's hands clasped together and his knuckles were white, as if he were trying to break his own hands.
"When you live on the street and you depend on your gang, getting that personal is a bad idea too," Duo went on. "Not that I was old enough to think about it then, but you had to not make waves even that young. You depended on each other. You couldn't doubt each other. I really wanted to have that with you guys. I wanted us to depend on each other, to trust each other." Duo cleared his throat and then shrugged dispiritedly. "Shit, why not tell you the whole pathetic thing? I was hoping I could have you guys as a family. That's what my gang was to me. I don't like being alone. I wanted that back, that feeling of 'belonging' to something."
Duo turned away and started walking. "I'll pack my stuff. Guess Shinigami was cursed every which way from birth."
"Is that why...," Heero hesitated, beginning to follow Duo, but stopping when Duo stopped to listen. "Were you trying so hard NOT to... react to us, to feel what you knew you were feeling, that you didn't see..."
"See what?" Duo wondered in a tight tone.
"That..." Heero was having trouble saying it. It went against everything that he had been taught. He was supposed to fight and give up his life for the cause. He wasn't supposed to be thinking about personal relationships. Duo had made that almost impossible though. Duo had given Heero a taste of what real life was like, a taste of wanting and feeling, and Heero was finding it impossible to turn back and forget that he had enjoyed it.
Duo scowled and dug his hands into the warm pockets of the coat. "Look, man, if you're going to say something, just say it and get it over with. It can't be any worse than what I'm saying to myself."
Heero couldn't stand that look on Duo's face any longer; self condemnation, disgust, the beginnings of loneliness, and an all encompassing sadness. He had to tell him and damned what his training was telling him. "Duo... aside from Wu Fei, we are ALL gay."
Duo stood, stunned, a slight frown of disbelief between his amethyst eyes. He turned away and began walking. "I didn't know that you were a joker, Heero," he snarled, "and a pretty fucking cruel one at that."
Duo took two more steps and then it hit him, almost as hard as his self revelation had. Trowa, Quatre.... They had... Quatre had been acting so strange when they had come home... It hadn't made sense, all that blushing and sneaking looks at Trowa... Trowa's irritation and defensiveness... Quatre's siding with him... something that he had done since Duo had known them both...
"Son of a b-" Duo clamped a hand over his mouth, going cold and not from the freezing rain. Trowa and Quatre had been having sex while they had been gone. Trowa and Quatre were.... gay. Hard on that, Heero's words replayed in Duo's ears and he spun, shuddering and his breath going short as he gasped, "You... You, too?"
Heero nodded, once, and seemed very uncomfortable, his hands working as if he didn't know what to do with them.
Duo laughed suddenly and it was borderline hysterical, too many things crashing down on him at once. He covered his face with his hands and then flung them aside as if flinging away his tears and the weight of the world. "This-This is just crazy! I gotta- I gotta think this through.... Let's go... home."
Heero watched Duo stride off, so many things left unsaid, and he sagged a little, as if Duo's burden of secrets and hidden self knowledge had now come to rest on his shoulders. Slowly, he followed.
Trowa was coming down the stairs as Duo entered the house and began trotting up them. "Raining?" Trowa asked unnecessarily.
"Yeah," Duo replied shortly and didn't look at Trowa as he reached the top of the stairs and darted into his room.
Heero entered the house, still at a walk, and Trowa jerked his chin to where Duo had gone. "What's wrong with him?"
"That is for him to say," Heero replied.
Trowa grunted. "He is too emotional," he complained, "Too immature. We don't have the luxury of indulging in such things, especially when there is a mission in the planning stages." He gave Heero a pointed look.
Heero looked irritated. "I don't require quiet and solitude to formulate plans. I am trained to think at many complex levels."
"Then we should call a meeting and decide who is to go," Trowa replied.
"Quatre and Wu Fei should go," Heero told him, eyes staring up to where the door to his and Duo's bedroom was. "It is suited to their particular Gundams."
Trowa's face went tense and Heero looked aside and saw it. He knew the cause, worry for Quatre, and Heero knew then that he and Trowa were struggling with the same demon. A soldier shouldn't care about anything other than the fight and winning. Emotions, especially about other soldiers, could cause many problems. Knowing that, and practicing it, though...
Trying to not let any of his thoughts or emotions show, Heero said, as he began walking up the stairs, "Tell Wu Fei and Quatre that I will see them in one hour for a mission briefing."
"Roger," Trowa replied and his voice was that of a mercenary ready for the fight, other emotions tucked neatly away into hiding again.
As Heero topped the stairs and turned for the bedroom, Heero thought about that, thought about his own feelings, and realized that it wasn't just Duo that had to sort things out. He could see the wisdom of his trainers then, that a lone operative was best. These emotional and social entanglements, and learning what it was to work in a group, was distracting him from his mission, from his appointed goal of assuring and protecting the peace. Yet, being a group had it's advantages too. Mentally assessing their last mission with the Gundams, Heero was very sure that he couldn't have done it alone. Forming at least a trusting, working relationship with the other young pilots had made that possible and Heero couldn't find fault with it. A deeper relationship, like the one Trowa and Quatre were developing, was an unknown as far as how it would help or hinder their goal. Having seen the look on Trowa's face, and knowing that it sprang from a fear for Quatre going into danger, Heero decided to watch them and see how that developed, whether Trowa and Quatre could control their feelings and still fight when they had too. Until then....
Heero was almost able to think, 'I'll keep my own feelings under control until I know how it effects things.', but when he walked into the bedroom and saw Duo huddled under his blankets, clothes tossed about as if he had simply stripped and gone to sleep, he found it impossible to carry that plan out.
Duo looked as if he were sleeping, but Heero knew better. he said softly, "I know you're awake."
"No, I'm not," Duo groused in misery.
Heero blinked, trying to figure out why Duo would think a verbal affirmation would convince him, but then he then he grunted, realizing the joke. "Sometimes, I don't understand you," he confessed.
Duo didn't come out from under the blankets and he sounded very sad as he said bitterly, "Thanks for cheering me up with that observation. Let me open a wound so you can rub salt into it too."
Heero felt as if he had walked into a wall. He didn't know enough to get over it. He could only say, "I'm sorry."
"I just want to be alone right now," Duo told him harshly. "I need to understand myself."
Heero didn't want to leave him like that. Something inside of him ached knowing that Duo was so confused and upset. He walked to the side of the bed and looked down at where Duo's head was under the blanket. "If you need information.."
The blanket twitched, Duo's breath caught, and then he said, "Heero.... don't let the door hit you in the ass, okay? I need to be alone!" He annunciated each word of his last sentence and then curled into a tight ball.
Heero nodded, even though Duo couldn't see it, and then he began to turn to leave. His hand lowered, almost as if it had a mind of its own, and gently touched the rise under the blanket that was Duo's shoulder. It was the lightest of touches that Heero guiltily terminated almost instantly. He clasped that errant hand and wondered at himself. Duo, and every common sense, told him that had been a foolish move, yet he hadn't been able to help it.
"I will be downstairs," Heero said, feeling an odd need to fill the silence.
"Good," Duo said and his voice sounded shaky.
Heero left him then, though a part of him, a large part, wanted him to stay.
Alone, Duo sat up and let the blanket fall away from him. His eyes were swollen from unwelcome tears, something he hadn't wanted Heero or anyone else to see. He had told the truth when he had said that he wanted to be alone. He didn't... couldn't... face anyone right then, at least not until he had his head back on straight, or as straight as he could get it. That touch on his shoulder though... Duo could still feel it and he touched that shoulder as if he could touch Heero's hand in return. Heero had... squeezed his shoulder and wanted... wanted to make him feel better. That was so unlike the Heero that he had come to know.... but he hadn't known that Heero was gay either, so how well did he really know Heero?
Heero. Gay. The two words came together like a thunderclap in Duo's mind and he clutched at his blanket convulsively. Heero was gay. He was gay. If they wanted to, they could be more than friends. If they wanted to.... Duo yanked the blanket over his head and huddled into a ball again, shivering hard. He was NOT going to acknowledge the Duo inside of him, the one he had ignored and hidden from for so long, and the one who was now feeling an eager rush of need/excitment/ and .... Duo clamped down on that hard. No! No! No! One thing at a time, he thought silently to himself. First, figure yourself out, face the other guys, get back to work getting everyone together, and , yeah, fight the damn war. Heero and... THAT ... was going to freakin' have to wait!
Duo huddled quietly for several long minutes, trying not to think, but then he exploded out of the covers again and pulled sharply at his braid in disgusted punishment. 'God ! You are an idiot! Cat's outta the bag inside and out and there's no going back, so go on and say it!' Duo took a shuddering breath and faced his fears and his confusion the same way that he had faced everything in his life, head on and bravely as he announced to the room, as if it were a challenge, "I'm gay!" and I want Heero Yuy, the voice inside of him announced just as fiercely before Duo throttled it and left the bed to put on clean clothes. He was not going to hide under a blanket. He was not going to be afraid. He was going to go downstairs and face the others.