Duo whirled, eyes wide, his gym shirt tight in his hands. His fellow Preventer, Heero Yuy, was half turned away, just closing his own locker and twirling the combo lock.
"Heero?" Duo exclaimed, voice a little high and embarrassed. "Did you... Did you just touch my back?"
Heero glared and growled, "Is that something that you think I would do?"
Duo narrowed eyes at him, let a long moment slide by, and then shrugged as he looked around for another culprit.
Behind his back, Heero smiled and kissed the fingers that had just touched
Duo.
---------
Duo felt the light touch on his braid, a simple caress that made him shiver
slightly, as he turned quickly to find the culprit.
Trowa was checking the sight on his gun slightly behind him. Heero was shouldering a pack full of their mission equipment, just to his right, and Wu Fei was going over their mission parameters on a handheld, beside Heero. Any one of them could have touched him.
"Did... anyone... want something?" Duo asked uncertainly.
Trowa looked up from his sight in confusion and shook his head, Heero grunted, "No, baka.", and Wu Fei didn't dignify it with any response at all.
Duo frowned, sure that he had felt... something... and then chalked it up to just a random accident. He turned back around and finished with the charges.
Heero smirked and kissed the fingertips that had touched Duo's braid. Trowa
made a soundless chuckle at the sight. Wu Fei glared at Heero and shook his
head in disgust.
----------
At the head of the Preventer auditorium, Une was giving her debriefing, on
their last mission, to the assembled.
Startled, Duo turned at the finger caress on the back of his neck. "What?"
Heero was busy, head down, typing in notes on his blackberry, wild hair covering his expression. Trowa, looking bored, raised puzzled eyebrows. Milliardo Peacecraft, directly behind Duo, had a distinctly embarrassed expression on his face.
Duo frowned. "Somebody touched me. Was it you?" Duo growled at Milliardo. "Look, you old pervert-"
Milliardo scowled. "I'm only a few years older than you, Maxwell! I assure you, that I would never engage in any type of inappropriate contact with a subordinate offi-"
"Then who touched me, if you didn't?!" Duo exclaimed angrily.
"Captain Maxwell!" Une barked from the podium. "Would you care to share what's more important than my debriefing?"
Duo gave them all a furious glare and then turned back around in his seat, replying tightly, "Nothing Commader Une. Sorry."
Trowa stifled a laugh with difficulty. Milliardo glared at Heero. Heero smirked
under the cover of his hair as he kissed the fingers that had touched the nape
of Duo's neck.
----------
Duo's eyes flew open, gun nosing for a target, and his hammock swinging slightly
in a breeze. He turned his head to one side and saw Quatre fiddling with a
camp light, intent on reading a small book. Turning his head the other way,
he saw Wu Fei just in the shadows of the jungle, on watch, and as still as
stone.
"Where's Heero?" Duo wondered.
"Personal business," Quatre replied, not looking up from his book. He meant that Heero had gone to take a leak in the bushes.
Duo frowned and lowered his gun back to his chest. He was never without it during a mission, even when he was guarded from all sides by his fellow agents. It was that fact that made him dismiss the feeling that had pulled him out of his light doze.
It had felt so real, though. A touch on his cheek, soft, warm... like the ghost of a kiss.
Duo grunted at his own foolishness and tried to sleep once more.
Heero waited patiently, until he was sure that Duo was sleeping, before he silently rolled out from under Duo's hammack and joined Quatre by the light.
Quatre glared at Heero. "When are you going to tell him?" he asked, barely making a sound.
Heero looked uncertain, but then smiled unrepentantly as he touched the lips that had managed to kiss the man that he loved.
===========
"
Son of a bitch! Did you just grope my ass, Chang?!" Duo shouted. "I
knew it had to be you! You've been groping me this entire time, haven't you,
you pervert?"
Duo grabbed hold of Wu Fei in the crowded commissary line and cocked back a fist to punch the surprised man. Another set of hands grabbed Wu Fei, instead, and jerked him away from Duo. Heero shook at Wu Fei and demanded. "Did you just touch him? He's mine, Chang! I'm the only one who can touch him. If you try it again, I'll-"
Wu Fei glared and crossed his arms over his chest with chilly calm, ignoring Heero's hands wrapped in his uniform jacket. "Don't be ridiculous. I never touched him, Yuy."
"I knew it!" Duo snarled.
Both Heero and Wu Fei looked sideways at a triumphant Duo, Wu Fei with a lifted, disdainful eyebrow, and Heero with dawning realization that he had been tricked.
Duo took hold of Heero's sleeve and dragged him away from Wu Fei. "Talk, now."
"L-Let me explain..." Heero tried, in a stammer.
"In private," Duo ordered as he gave Trowa, Quatre, and Wu Fei a glare, "Away from your partners in crime."
"I won't even pretend that this has any sanity attached to it," Wu Fei growled as he straightened his rumpled jacket. "I'm eating in my office."
Quatre looked after Heero and Duo, as Duo pulled Heero out of the commissary, and then glared at Milliardo. "Why aren't you in trouble, too?"
"I am his commanding officer," Milliardo replied as he began to leave as well.
"It's never stopped Duo before," Trowa pointed out and then he growled, "You squealed, didn't you?"
"Milliardo?!" Quatre snarled. "Did you squeal on us?"
Milliardo blushed, but then admitted, "It was either that or lose my hair in the document cutter. I'm rather attached to it. It has family significance, after all."
Trowa sighed. "Well, we can only hope that Heero comes back alive, now, or at least mobile enough to join us on tomorrow's mission."
"Bets?" Quatre asked with a soft smile.
"I am not falling for your poker face, Quatre, love," Trowa growled. "I know you have an inside hand."
Quatre grinned, then. "Yes, I do."
-------------
Duo shoved Heero up against a wall, in a maintenance room, eyes purple fire.
"You've gotta lot of damn nerve!" Duo snarled.
Heero swallowed hard and then looked down at his toes, wincing a little and ready for whatever Duo wanted to dish out. "Sorry."
"Damn right!" Duo barked and gave Heero a small shove against the wall. "What kind of bastard touches someone without giving them a chance to touch back?"
Heero went white, looking up in shock. "I-I..."
Duo reached around and yanked Heero's uniform shirt out of his pants. Holding Heero firmly with a fist in his collar, he slid his free hand up along Heero's back. Heero shivered and groaned, looking into Duo's intense eyes.
Duo's hand slid out of Heero's shirt and then carressed Heero on the back of the neck. Heero felt his knees go weak.
Duo moved in, then, eyes drinking in Heero, needy mouth taking Heero's as that hand on the back of Heero's neck pulled him in tightly for it.
Heero's legs gave out completely and only Duo's fist was keeping him upright as his lips parted and Duo explored him with a probing tongue.
Outside, ear pressed against the door, Trowa snorted irritably. "I can't hear anything."
"That could be a good thing, right?" Hilde wondered.
Quatre and Trowa looked at her. "How did you find out about this?"
"I have fifty bucks in the pool," she admitted. "I've been keeping an eye out on them two."
"Pool?" Quatre wondered, confused.
"The betting pool, about when Duo was going to figure out that it's been Heero feeling him up all of this time," Hilde explained impatiently.
"Everyone knows about it?" Trowa was shocked.
"Loose lips, and all of that," Hilde growled. "Anyway, I lost the bet. I thought Duo would figure it out next week."
"Why?" Quatre asked as if he wasn't sure that he wanted to know the answer.
"Physicals!" Hilde replied in disgust. "Come on, all of Duo, in only skivvies, waiting in line for an exam? I expected Heero to totally 'tent' and give himself away."
"Tent?" Quatre dared to ask.
Trowa snorted, "Let's not go there." He put his ear against the door again and then blushed and pulled away. "I think we should go, now."
"Not if they're fighting," Quatre argued.
"You're the sensitive one, can't you tell they're not fighting?" Trowa wondered.
Quatre frowned. "With them? Everything they do feels like fighting." He concentrated and then blushed. "All right, let's go."
"Not fighting?" Hilde snickered.
"Let's just say that it's gone way past touching," Quatre replied and pulled them both away.