Kracken
Disclaimer:I don't own them and I don't make any money off of this.
Warning:Male/Male sex, graphic, language, attempted NCS
Soldier Boys
Sequel to Romancing Duo
Coming to Terms
"So?" Duo said impatiently. "What's the verdict?"
Trowa was examining Duo's wound. Seated on the couch, he had a towel covered in bits of used suture, antibacterial cream, and discarded bandages. Duo was bare to the waist and his arm was lifted stiffly to give Trowa a clear view.
"My training is very limited," Trowa told him, "but it seems to be healed well enough for you to be able to try limited activity. You'll need to do some stretching exercises to get the muscles strengthened on your side, but I suggest that you not try anything more than that or I will be stitching you up in a body bag."
"Love your bedside manner, Trowa," Duo snorted as he looked over to where Heero was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, watching Trowa work with a false calm.
"He's right," Heero replied.
"I know that!" Duo retorted irritably. "I'm not going to go out and run twenty miles or lift weights, guys! I just want off the damned couch!"
"You are free to do that... if you can," Trowa told him. "You need to get back in shape as quickly as possible, so I suggest that you go to the gym and begin stretching now."
"Don't over due it, get going now," Duo grumbled, "Make up your mind!"
"I'm telling you to do both," Trowa retorted. "We have to move soon, whether Oz is still locking down the area or not. We can't stay out of the war much longer."
"So, I have to get myself ready for a suicide run out of town?" Duo wondered and there was a glint in his eye.
Trowa grunted as he gathered up his things and bundled them in his hands. "You look as if you are eager for that to happen."
Duo grinned and it was hard edged. "Anything is better than rotting here while Oz does what it wants out there. Even if I get killed trying to get out of town, I'm pretty sure I can take some of them with me. Shinigami is not going down alone."
Trowa shook his head and Heero looked concerned. " You have to remember who you are," Trowa told Duo. "You are a Gundam pilot, one of only a handful. "If you go down, killing only a few of the enemy, then that is very bad strategy. It's a waste."
Duo shrugged. "That's why I leave strategy up to Quatre," Duo replied. "But, I'm just saying, if it happens, if we have to run for it and fight our way out of this, I'm not going to Hell by myself."
"I don't think any of us will," Trowa said, "but we'll try to see that it doesn't come to that."
Duo agreed. "I don't want to die, so yeah, I'd appreciate it if Quatre would come up with a plan where I wouldn't have to."
"If it can be found, Quatre will find it," Trowa replied and there was a smile on his lips as he turned and left the room, carrying his supplies.
Duo looked after him. "Why is he so sure about that?" Duo wondered as he pulled his shirt on.
"He's not," Heero replied. He put a hand under Duo's elbow as Duo slowly stood up. He was shaky, but able to walk as they both headed for the gym.
"He's not?" Duo echoed, confused. "He sure looked and sounded like he was."
Heero was quiet a moment and then replied, "He cares for Quatre a great deal."
"Isn't that what you don't like about getting buddy buddy with your fellow soldier?" Duo asked, "Caring about someone so much that you do something that gets people killed?"
"That is what I was taught," Heero agreed.
Duo looked sideways at Heero as they moved slowly down a hallway. "So... what are you thinking? That face of yours would be great to have in a poker game, but it's really not great for conversations."
"I talked to Quatre," Heero admitted. "I asked him about his relationship with Trowa."
Duo was wide eyed. "And?"
"He told me, 'Everyone is different and it is a fool who judges everyone by the standard of a few,' " Heero recalled thoughtfully.
Duo quirked an eyebrow. "Meaning?"
Heero looked sideways at him, his dark, blue eyes sparkling. "It means that Trowa will believe in Quatre's abilities and he will care for the man, but he will not let either of those things keep him from questioning Quatre or from doing what he must to win the war."
Duo frowned, confused. "Okay, so this is a conversation about Trowa acting like Quatre can get us out of anything. What's this got to do with that?"
"You assumed that he said it because he cares for Quatre and that it was making him blind to reason," Heero explained, "I'm reassuring you that it's not."
Duo scowled. "You are making my head hurt! okay, so why did Trowa say it then?"
"To reassure you and to keep you from doing something foolish ," Heero told him. "We can't afford to lose you. We can't afford for you to over do it during your recovery or to throw yourself at impossible odds because you are doubting Quatre."
Duo grunted. "You think too damned hard, Heero. Just say, 'Don't worry about it.' and I'm good, okay?"
Heero smiled slightly. "I didn't want you to question our.... relationship."
"Guess I was," Duo admitted, startled by Heero's intuitiveness. "I am kind of watching Trowa and Quatre and seeing what might go wrong with them. As Dr. G would say, 'Making them my human lab rats.' That's what he said about me when I asked him if he had ever trained someone my age before without killing them, because he sure seemed hell bent on killing me with all those exercises he put me through. He told me there was a first time and that's when you find mistakes and correct them or abort a plan all together. I don't really think he expected me to make it."
Heero was watching him. Duo stopped talking and then hunched in on himself. "That was a damned mouthful," Duo apologized, "Sorry."
They started walking again and Heero said, "There's nothing to be sorry for."
Duo looked uncomfortable. "I hate whining," he said. "We all had it tough, well, except for Quatre, I guess."
"Then you can't expect him to react to a situation as we would," Heero pointed out.
Duo made a face. "I know that makes sense, but I can't stop doing it. They're all I've got to compare with."
"Duo..." Heero began and Duo looked at him when he stopped. Heero reached out and gently caressed him along one jaw. A simple touch and then he was lowering his hand, uncertain.
Duo stared at him and then shivered. "My body's telling me one thing and my head is only half agreeing," Duo told him. He took hold of Heero's hand, marveling at how that touch could send such a thrill through him. "I want it to work out," he said. "More than anything."
Duo gripped Heero's hand hard and then let it go. Heero put an arm around him and pulled him in close as they made it the rest of the way into the small gym room. Once there, he lowered Duo onto a bench.
"Light stretching exercises," Heero said and tightened a lifting machine. "You need to stretch the muscles in your side, but not enough to hurt yourself."
Duo tested the tension and winced at the slight pain it caused. Heero readjusted and he tried again. When Duo nodded that it was all right, Heero crouched beside him to spot him. Duo kept his eyes on the further wall, though he wasn't concentrating on the lifting. He said after a few minutes. "Do you... Do you think I'm stupid? I mean, a baby, or something? Quatre and Trowa figured it out quick and me.."
"Duo," Heero squeezed his knee. "Stop thinking."
Duo gave him a self deprecating smile. "It's all I've been able to do."
"Don't think," Heero urged again. "Let it happen by itself. Stop... pushing... We talked about this. "
"Yeah, I know.... but, I didn't think about..." Duo blushed and hated that he was blushing. "I didn't consider how much... how much I wanted to be... close to you."
Heero smiled.
Duo mistook it for something else. "You do think I'm stupid."
Heero shook his head. He stood up and stripped out of his shirt. "No, never. I... I just never thought that I would hear you say those words. I had resigned myself to keeping my feelings to myself and I never hoped that you could possibly return them. Duo..." He stood, head bowed and face pained. "I have never had a moment in my life where I wanted... needed someone as much as you. I don't blame you for not knowing how to handle it. It's new for me too."
Heero went to sit at a weight lifting machine. Duo watched him begin to work. He tried to keep his mind on his own exercises. Slow, steady, careful. He felt a twinge in his side and paused, waiting for the spasm to subside. While he waited, he began to count how many times Heero's muscles flexed and he lifted that considerable weight in the machine's harness behind him.
Eleven... thirteen... fifteen... Duo was mesmerized despite himself. Heero's skin became slick with sweat and his hair hung in his face. He was not really concentrating on it, his eyes on the distance, mind thinking about... something. Eighteen.... twenty two.... twenty five.... Heero was breathing hard now, his face showing some strain, but he wasn't letting up, wasn't giving in to weariness. Twenty eight.... thirty two... thirty five.... Duo unconsciously began to pant with Heero as the young man became nothing but flexing, sweating, and straining muscles. Thirty nine... forty five.... Duo felt flush and excited. He couldn't name the thrumming pleasure that began to course through him, punctuated by every pant of his breath and every flex and lift of Heero's muscled shoulders and arms. Forty nine... fifty two.... How long could Heero go on? It was clear that he was struggling now, but his face was contorted in... an odd pleasure.... endorphines, Duo thought and had a small corner of his mind wonder if that was what was happening to his own body. Fifty five.... fifty nine... Heero suddenly went red in the face and he made a strangled noise. He jerked and let the weights drop with a loud clang.
Duo felt a shocking feeling of release, as if his body had wound itself up like a spring and Heero's motion had triggered it. Duo found his hand dropping to the front of his pants to finish off what his body had started, all unconscious, and all instinct as he groaned, "Oh, God!" and came.
Heero's head whipped up and around. "Duo?! " he gasped in concern and levered himself up as if his legs didn't work right. He staggered over to Duo and Duo barely had time to snatch a work out towel and drape it over his wet lap.
"Are you all right?" Heero asked anxiously.
Duo was red with embarrassment. He floundered to avoid a lie. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just... I guess it just amazes me how damned strong you are...." He trailed off as he noticed Heero's slight erection and obvious wet spot in his pants. Duo swallowed hard. "So, was it good for you too?" he quipped.
Heero looked down and then mumbled, as he picked up his shirt and placed it in front of the telltale mark, "Sometimes, exercise does that."
Duo looked anywhere but at Heero as he lifted his towel and said, "Yeah, it does it to me too." He blushed even redder when Heero unexpectedly chuckled. Deep, throaty. It made Duo shiver. He loved hearing Heero laugh. "So," Duo said to the room in general. "Do we consider this our first time?"
Heero crouched beside him, shirt hanging between his knees and Duo couldn't help meeting his warm, amused eyes. "I hope not. I think our first time together can be more... special?"
"Special," Duo agreed and managed a smile. "Yeah, I want it to be special too. First times always should be the kind of thing you always remember." He wiped at his pants with a towel. "I'd hate to remember mutual exercise masturbation as being 'it'."
"Agreed," Heero replied, making a slight face.
Duo eyed him. "Uh, were you thinking of anything while you were..."
Heero nodded. "I was thinking about.... You said that you wanted to get closer to me. I was.... thinking about... the possibilities..."
Duo swallowed hard again. "Yeah?" Heero nodded. Duo looked down at his wounded and bruised body. Thin, he thought. Wiry. Long, bruised, scarred, and ... "Guess you must like me for my mind," he joked weakly.
Duo flinched when Heero grabbed his chin, wanting his full attention Duo supposed, as he fell into the depths of Heero's deep, blue eyes. "You are very handsome," Heero told him. "Don't think otherwise."
Duo quirked a nervous grin. "Maybe," he conceded easily enough, "But comparing me too you..."
Heero's expression went dark and he said vehemently, "Don't compare yourself to me. You don't realize what I had to do, what was done to me, to make me this way. It's not something to wish for." His hand left Duo's chin and caressed him along one arm, his face softening. "You are wounded and you have been through a great deal, but... it wouldn't matter even if you stayed this way. You are everything that I have ever wanted."
Duo waited for a joke, waited for Heero to say that he wasn't sincere, but he saw nothing but honesty and deep feeling in Heero's eyes. Without thinking, Duo was suddenly pulling Heero to him and holding him roughly in a tight bear hug that made his wounds shoot painful warnings at him. He clutched at Heero, dug fingers into him, and felt a desperate need to get him as close as possible and to hold on. Heero returned his hug awkwardly, not sure any more than Duo how to express the emotions churning inside of them both.
"I...," Duo tried again. "You know.... I never had anyone close to me... I'm kind of... afraid... I mean, people have cared about me, but... not like this... not like you mean. I've always wanted... I've wanted this kind of thing. I've wanted someone to-"
"Duo," Heero soothed. "I'm not going anywhere. You don't have to hold so tight."
Duo tried to make his fingers relax and couldn't. "Just seems too good to be true. Most of my life, it HAS been too good to be true," he said against Heero's collar bone. "You don't know how much hell I've gone through, how many people I've lost that were my friends, my foster family. I ..." He tried to let go again, but something in his head made him continue to clutch desperately. "I haven't had anything even close to real, to normal, since the orphanage went up in smoke and, even then, it wasn't... it didn't feel like this... this good about being with someone."
"I'm not going anywhere," Heero repeated and managed to twist enough out of Duo's grasp to sit down on the bench behind him, legs on either side and belly pressed against Duo's back. "Let's finish your exercises and then we'll go clean up." He paused and then said in Duo's ear, "I understand."
Duo felt ridiculous. Too needy. Too childish. He felt as if he had revealed too much of the ache in him that wanted closeness, a place, a family, to be loved, so very much. Heero, he thought, wasn't asking him for that, wasn't wanting a child in his lap begging for hugs. Heero wanted a lover; a relationship. He wanted Duo to forget his childhood, at least the remnants that were left to him, and jump headlong into adulthood. Duo became aware of the wetness in his pants again. His body was more than ready, but his mind? Heero must have felt him tense.
"Duo," Heero said, a whisper in Duo's ear. "I told you. I understand. It's all right." He meant more than the need for Duo to hold him tight and Duo wondered at his intuitiveness as he bowed his head and gave a sharp, grateful nod.
"Exercise," Heero prompted.
Duo nodded again. "Exercise," he repeated and finally managed to stop clutching at Heero. He took a tight hold on the exercise machine instead and began pushing against the tension, slow and easy. Heero kept pressing against his back and Duo leaned backwards into him. He thought about Heero's strength, thought about the caring and warmth of a man he had thought was so emotionally stunted as to not be able to feel such things. He also thought about how he had though that he was going to be the one to teach Heero all about life. Instead, Heero was teaching him, leading him, and giving him things that he had refused to acknowledge that he needed.
"Thanks, Heero," Duo said suddenly.
Heero kissed him just behind his ear and Duo shivered at the sensation. "I was a machine, a tool, a weapon," Heero told him, "until I met you and knew what I had been denied. I never wanted until I met you. I only... I only wanted it to end."
Life, he meant, Duo thought, remembering Heero's numerous suicide missions, all of them willingly taken on. "Then we're good for each other," Duo breathed, feeling some of the weight of doubt rise from his shoulders.
"Yes," Heero replied with a passionate chuckle. "We are very good for each other."
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Kracken has a yaoi book, The Angel Within, at amazon.com. and a publishing website
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