Disclaimer: I don't own them and I don't make any money off of this.
Warnings: Guys having sex with guys. Violence. Language. Graphic.
Support a starving artist, buy Kracken's book, The Storm, under Della Boynton at amazon.com
Ahem... some of you guessed the ending of the series. It does follow a psychological progression, so kudos to some of you for figuring it out. Yes, this is the end. Yes, the real end, no, no more... no, don't beg. The After the Rain series will be ending soon as well, but don't worry, I'm going to do an 'after the war' series and maybe try my hand at some Weis Kreuz. (If I can learn how to spell it. Was that right?)
I'm dedicating this one to my husband who has always been my Heero. This entire arc has been about us and our ups and downs trying to figure out how to cope. We had a happy ending, so, of course, this story does too. ^_^ Love you all.
Quatre's hands shook as he opened the bottle of pills. They spilled out on the kitchen counter. He scrambled for them, mouthing, 'No! No! Not now!' as he scooped them into a pile and then began putting them back into the bottle, keeping two back. That done, he crushed the two pills with the edge of a butter knife, and then poured the crushed mixture into some orange juice. Swirling it around with one hand and carrying the glass carefully, he slipped the bottle into a pocket and then hurried back into the small living room.
"D-Duo," Quatre called softly, not seeing the pilot of Deathscythe immediately and sorely wanting to. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up in alarm, his heart hammering as he tried to see where Duo had gone. "I- I have some juice for you."
"Is something wrong?" Heero's voice at his shoulder, made Quatre start and stumble. Gasping, he turned, pale and trembling, juice shivering in the glass.
"Heero, Praise be to Allah!" Quatre exclaimed in relief. "It's Duo. We were watching a television show, some stupid thing about ... well, that's not important! What is important is that there was a man on the show that... I suppose it reminded Duo of someone from his past. He-He lost it, Heero! I tried to calm him down, but he just became wilder and wilder, shouting at the television and then shouting at me. I-" he looked around. "I don't know where he is. I'm almost afraid to look."
"Go back into the kitchen," Heero told him grimly. "I will take care of him."
"Thank you!" Quatre breathed and eagerly retreated.
Heero remained calm. He surveyed the room, some sixth sense telling him that Duo was there. Heero held up a brown, insulated bag. "These were expensive! If you don't want your gift to melt-"
"Gift?" Duo's quiet voice echoed and then he hesitantly came out from behind the couch, hair mussed and eyes bloodshot and shadowed. His face looked pinched, but he was attempting a fractured smile as he approached Heero with nervous eagerness.
"Bananas hollowed out, stuffed with cherries and strawberries, and dipped in dark chocolate; frozen," Heero rattled off patiently. "All for you, Little Baka."
Duo snatched the bag, settled on the couch, and began eating with relish. He shot several wary looks at the television though, episode not entirely dissipated. He was tense, body poised and ready to leap for safety if he needed too. He looked like a wild animal, Heero thought, and felt suddenly tired, almost too tired to deal with his disturbed lover.
"You frightened Quatre," Heero said and was surprised at the accusing tone in his own voice. A slip. He tried to recover. "I'm sure he understands."
Duo paused in his eating, eyes lowered and face suddenly closed. "Yeah," he whispered. He relaxed then, episode leaving him, normalcy, or as much as he could have, reasserting itself.
Heero had a sudden desire for space and to be alone. There was a mission to plan. A report to make. Two stressful things that needed his attention. They were two heavy weights on his already stressed and overburdened mind and soul.
"Okay?" Heero wondered shortly.
"Yeah," Duo replied, sticking to his nondescriptive response, which meant to Heero that he was unwilling to talk about what had upset him, perhaps too embarrassed to face it just then.
"I'll be in my room if you need to talk," Heero replied. He left Duo sitting there, confection melting in his lap, ignoring the twinge that informed him that he was being less than the sympathetic lover he should have been. Duo needed constant comfort, constant attention, and constant reassurances. Heero found that, just then, he was unable to do any of those things.
Duo watched Heero leave, his troubled, mind coming down from its confusion, the familiar embarrassment, anger, and depression filling its place. He sensed that Heero needed him. He sensed that Heero really didn't want to be alone. It was Duo's problems that he was trying to get away from, not Duo himself.
"That's okay, Heero," Duo muttered to himself as he popped another frozen, filled banana slice into his mouth. "I want to get away from me, sometimes, too."
Duo felt a twinge of guilt. He should go after Heero and figure out what was bothering him, Duo thought, not sit wringing his hands about his own messed up head. Yet, Duo didn't move. The man on the television, the one that had looked so much like a particular customer he had dreaded, was still too fresh, still to ready to send him over the edge again. Heero didn't need that from him, it was clear, and Duo didn't think that he had room to comfort Heero just then. His own problems were too all encompassing, so Duo decided to do the only thing he could, let Heero take care of himself while he attempted to deal with his own demons.
Not good, Quatre thought, as he spied on Duo and Heero from the half open, kitchen doorway. He retreated and turned, starting when he saw the silent Trowa standing behind him, the empty juice glass, that Quatre had left on a counter, in his hand. "You didn't...?!" Quatre exclaimed.
"What is wrong?" Trowa wondered in concern. "Who were you watching?"
"Uh, Heero and Duo," Quatre said as he took the glass from Trowa. "Duo became upset. I was going to..."
Trowa came to attention in alarm and stared at the glass as well. "Tranquilizers or medication for his mania?"
"Tranquilizers," Quatre replied in a small voice. "Just two."
Trowa made an exasperated sound. "Duo is too much trouble! He should find quarters elsewhere, and Heero with him! Both of them have become impossible!"
"They don't need to be isolated," Quatre replied as he guided Trowa to a chair and had him sit down. He began to rummage under the counter, as he continued, "That's been the problem, thinking that they needed their space and time to sort things out for themselves. I'm of the mind that we have taken the wrong tact. I think what we need to do is to re-socialize those two."
Trowa snorted angrily. "You are the only one who is adept at socializing, Lover. Wu Fei and I do not mingle well at parties."
Quatre came out from underneath the counter with a large pot clutched in both hands, blue, expressive eyes determined. "You know I'm not talking about parties, Trowa. I mean sitting down and having a meal, together, playing a few card games, together-"
"And what were you doing when Duo had his latest episode?" Trowa demanded. " What set him off this time? Was it socializing with you?"
"It's not going to happen all at once," Quatre admitted, "but we're a team. We can't cut off parts of the team, keep them isolated, and hope to win this war. Both Heero and Duo have to learn to work with us again. They have to learn to trust us."
"They can't even trust each other!" Trowa retorted. "Sorry, Lover, but your heart is too kind. You would try to tame killers."
Quatre frowned. "Isn't that what you do, Trowa, tame killers? Don't you make the lions at the circus obey you by getting them used to your presence and teaching them to trust you? You desensitize them. You get them socialized. Why should this be any different?"
Trowa hid behind his bang for a long moment and then he hissed in defeat as he grabbed the pot from Quatre and positioned it in his lap. "You will fail, I feel, and I will be there to protect you from them when you do." With that he stuck his finger down his throat and threw up the tranquilizers into the pot.
"You're selfish and out of control," Wu Fei said suddenly.
Duo winced, blinked, and looked at Wu Fei. The man had settled cautiously on the far end of the couch. "Huh?"
The Chinese pilot was staring at the blank television. "You came to me so that I could help you find the balancing point, the inner peace that would allow you to keep fighting, yet you ignore my teachings, thereby ignoring your duty to Earth and the colonies. I heard you. You were upset by this monitor, a collection of colored fluids gravitating together to form a picture."
"Television, Wu Fei, we still call it that," Duo grumbled and hunched in on himself. "You know- You know it wasn't the television I was afraid of, so can't we just drop it?"
"No," Wu Fei replied. He pointed towards the stairs without turning, eyes half closed as if he were about to drop into meditation. He said quietly, firmly; a teacher speaking to a student, "Until you learn to master yourself and rectify THAT situation, you are incapable of being the warrior you should be. You are a liability to this team."
"Team?" Duo snorted, "Look who's talking about 'The Team'. You're a loner as much as I am."
"I have learned not to be," Wu Fei replied. "I have seen the benefit of working together. You have as well. Denying it won't relieve yourself of responsibility."
Duo scowled. "Responsibility?"
"To yourself, to the team, to Earth and the Colonies, and to your partner, Heero Yuy."
Duo bristled. "You mean my Lover? You can't even say it, Wu Fei! Don't ask me to face a situation when you won't either."
"Are you lovers?" Wu Fei retorted pointedly.
Duo went pale and his hands clutched down on the insulated bag in his lap. Wu Fei knew how it was between Duo and Heero. He knew that the two of them hadn't been together since Heero's failed mission.
"You are failing to take responsibility," Wu Fei pressed. "You are failing to deal with your fears and do your duty. Instead, you have closed like a frightened clam, indulging in your own misery while ignoring the pleas of others."
"I fight when I have to fight and I am damn good!" Duo snarled. amethyst eyes blazing. "Don't you fucking accuse me of not doing my job!"
"Job?" Wu Fei sneered. "It isn't a 'job', Maxwell, it's a duty, a responsibility. We are here to protect the weak. To free them. To fight for them. It is an honor, not a 'job'."
"You do it for honor," Duo replied angrily. "I do it for revenge, Wu Fei."
"Selfish," Wu Fei dared.
Duo glared. "Do you know what they did to me? Do you know how many people, good people, I saw them slaughter? I don't consider it selfish to avenge them."
"The Dead don't require revenge," Wu Fei intoned, "Only the living."
Duo curled tighter into himself. "So what? Okay, I'm selfish! I wanna see them pay! That's good enough reason to fight them."
"For yourself. To make yourself feel better," Wu Fei pressed.
Duo sprang out of his curled up position, facing Wu Fei with his hands gripping the couch cushions to keep himself from violence. "And why not?! Why the Hell not, Wu Fei? Don't I deserve it? Shouldn't I get some satisfaction? Shouldn't I feel good for once in this horrible life of mine? I've been fucked and fucked over, Wu Fei! It's all I can do to keep on breathing from day to day. I can't think of anyone else! I can't deal with anyone else! I can only handle what's twisted up in my own gut!"
Wu Fei nodded.
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!" Duo raged.
"You have admitted the problem," Wu Fei replied with some satisfaction. "You couldn't move forward until you had. Now, the rest is obvious, isn't it?"
"Maybe to a freakin' crazy man like you!" Duo grated through clenched teeth.
Wu Fei let a long silence pass, until Duo stopped panting with anger and began to think again. Wu Fei could see his pale face tense as Wu Fei's words played through his mind and formed an idea. Duo wasn't stupid. He could understand what Wu Fei was trying to say without saying it.
"Heero needs me," Duo said at last, very quietly.
Wu Fei nodded. "He can't help himself, just as you can't help yourself. Your pain, and Heero's pain, are eating the both of you alive. You have forgotten the people we are honor bound to protect. You have both chosen the road of selfishness, indulging in your sorrows, thinking only of yourselves, closing yourself off from the team, and each other, because of fear."
Duo remembered Heero's face, his tight expression, his refusal to do anything but the minimum to help Duo, and his need to be alone. They were all warning signs that Heero had given his all, that Duo had drained him dry with his own needs, and that his own problems had reached a point where they were overwhelming him. Wu Fei was telling Duo that he had to help Heero, that he had to give back.
Duo cringed inwardly. Wu Fei saw it. "You are stronger than you imagine," Wu Fei told him. "I have seen that strength. Leave selfishness behind. Look outward and think of honor instead of pain, fear, and revenge. For honor you must sacrifice for the colonies and Earth. For honor you have to forget about self and help Yuy so that he can return to the war a healed man."
Duo stood up. He tossed the bag of confections into Wu Fei's lap. "I'm still fighting for revenge," he replied, "It's all I know. As for Heero... I think you're right that Heero needs help, my help, but you're wrong about the honor thing there too. I love, Heero. That's why I'll help him, Wu Fei. I don't need any other reason than that."
Duo went up the stairs. Wu Fei looked after him and then looked down into the bag in his lap. He took the last banana confection and popped it into his mouth. As he appreciated the taste, he remembered his dead wife and the reason he had joined the war to begin with. Honor hadn't been the reason he had fought either.
Heero was seated on the his bed, laptop in front of him, face serious as he scrolled down lists of mission stats, looking for something in particular. Duo paused at the doorway, knowing that Heero's heightened senses were aware of him. When the pilot of Wing decided not to acknowledge him, Duo sighed.
"We are so messed up, aren't we?" Duo asked bleakly. "We can't even talk to each other now."
Heero closed the laptop and pushed it aside. He did look at Duo then, all pretense dropped. "It's hard," he replied simply.
"Like a burn, isn't it, that you're afraid people are going to touch?" Duo wondered. When Heero nodded, Duo moved into the room and sat in a chair closest to the bed, turning it so that he straddled it and leaned arms on its back, a vulnerable position.
"Is it good to be alone?" Duo persisted.
"No," Heero replied, looking down at his lap, hands knotting together.
"You thought it would be, didn't you?" Duo cocked his head curiously, trying to see under Heero's tangled black bangs, trying to see the expression his eyes always betrayed. "That's the mistake I always make. I push everyone away, including you, thinking being alone is better than being frightened all of the time."
"We can't talk about this!" Heero exploded, scowling furiously.
"We have to," Duo replied. "We love each other, Baby. We can't each go off alone and still expect that to stay true. We have to be there for each other."
"I'm sorry," Heero replied guiltily. "I should have stayed downstairs. You- You were troubled. You needed me."
"I always need you," Duo admitted softly, gripping the back of the chair hard and resting his cheek on his white knuckled hands. "I'm always in trouble. That's not going to change, but, expecting you to- to drain yourself dry taking care of me is wrong."
"I want to take care of you," Heero told him. "I want to be strong for you."
Duo managed a weak smile. "I feel like Wu Fei now."
Heero looked up at him then, puzzled.
Duo shrugged self deprecatingly. "He pinpointed my trouble without much effort. I think I've just done the same for you."
Heero straightened in his cross legged position. "I don't have any trouble, Little Baka. I'm just busy with planning this mission. It is very difficult. It takes up a great deal of energy, energy that I can't divide between it and you right now. I know you understand."
Duo shook his head. "I don't understand, Heero. I don't understand why you're lying to me. You get to see my weak side all of the time, but you still manage to respect me, right?"
Heero nodded. "You are a capable pilot and an excellent soldier, despite your difficulties. That generates a great deal of respect, Duo."
"So," Duo continued. "Why can't it be that way for you too? If you tell me you need a hug, I'll still respect you in the morning."
"I-" Heero began, but was cut off by Quatre who coughed apologetically. Duo turned irritably.
"Uh, I was wondering if you would both come down and help out with lunch," Quatre said. "We're making sandwiches and squeezing lemons for juice."
Duo narrowed eyes at Quatre. "How homey, but we're kind of busy, Quat."
"I shall help," Heero announced as he left the bed and walked slowly towards Quatre. It was a way to avoid the conversation, to avoid revealing anything to Duo by accident, and to avoid the breakdown he had felt that Duo's words were about to trigger in him.
"I don't want a sandwich made out of ration packs," Duo grumbled as he stood as well. "I guess I'll help too." He glared at Heero, "but our conversation isn't over with, Yuy, so don't feel too relieved."
Heero started past Duo, but Duo carefully took his hand. Looking deeply into Heero's eyes, he leaned forward and gave him a tentative kiss on the lips while Quatre blushed and left the doorway to give them some privacy. Heero was tense, closed to Duo completely. He pressed into Duo's lips briefly and then backed away as if the kiss meant nothing to him.
"Do you love me still, Baby?" Duo wondered seriously.
"Yes," Heero replied.
"More than... what? Your laptop?" Duo only half joked. Heero nodded. "Your gun." another nod. "Your Gundam?" Heero looked into his eyes fiercely then.
"More than anything, Duo," Heero replied. "More than anything on Earth or in Space."
"Same here," Duo smiled. "So 'talking' shouldn't be so hard, okay? Don't get all worked up about it."
Heero couldn't reply. He knew it wasn't that easy.
"All right, Quat! " Duo snapped. "We've made lunch, cleaned quarters, played cards, watched paint dry... I think we've had enough togetherness, okay?"
Wu Fei snorted in agreement and walked off towards the makeshift gym. Trowa looked out from under his bang, glowering at Quatre with an 'I told you so' look. Quatre wasn't so easily defeated.
"Duo, you and Heero have been off by yourselves, not with the rest of the group," Quatre protested. "Everything we've done together, you two have managed to make a solitary assignment."
Duo frowned, arms crossing over his chest tensely. "What about it?"
"I wanted us to learn to work together better," Quatre explained. "We can't be an effective fighting force if we are all wrapped up in our own concerns to the exclusion of the team."
Heero narrowed eyes. "What do you suggest?"
"I suggest that, tomorrow, we try this again," Quatre said firmly, "but that tomorrow we stay together, work together, and build some trust between us. We used to have that, Heero. You know how important it is."
"Agreed," Heero replied, but he didn't look pleased.
Duo chuckled darkly. "Anything for the mission, right Heero?"
Trowa grumbled as he stood up, still skeptical, "You are very optimistic, Quatre," he said. "I have never attempted to make my lions cook and play card games."
Quatre smiled, a spot of angelic sunshine amidst the darker, troubled pilots. "Maybe you should try it, Trowa?"
"Yeah, Trowa!" Duo grinned. "Pilots can learn new tricks."
"Can you?" Trowa replied, "I will not hold my breath."
"Duo," Heero hurriedly cut in, seeing the familiar glint in Duo's eyes, the one that warned that he was beginning to feel threatened. "Come with me. We'll talk now."
Duo was distracted at once. "Really? Okay." He glared at Trowa. "Later."
Trowa glared back. "If you think you're good enough."
Duo bristled. "I am-"
"DUO!" Heero snapped.
"Okay! Okay!" Duo snapped back. "You weren't so eager to talk before."
Duo followed Heero upstairs to his room. Duo settled on the bed this time and Heero chose to pace, stopping now and again to stare at his closed laptop as if he longed to be planning the mission.
Duo patted the bed. "Here, Heero. This isn't going to do either of us any good if we don't show some guts."
Heero stared at the spot that Duo had patted. Duo looked pained. "Are you afraid of me? Is that it? Or do I disgust you so much that you can't stand to be near me? I was a whore after all. I did take hundreds of men between my legs. I guess it's possible that you finally woke up to the fact that you weren't my first, that you could shake hands with every fiftieth man on L2 and know that they had spread me and had put me at their mercy. It's something that would turn any man's stomach, even mine."
Heero sat down, looking deeply into Duo's eyes. He slowly took Duo's hands between his own. Both sets of hands were trembling. "That's ridiculous! You don't think that and you know that I don't either. Why say it? I was your first, and you were mine. Nobody ever made love to either of us before. The past is something we both need to forget. If you could simply stop mentioning it, stop bringing it to your mind-"
"I could forget about it?" Duo finished. "You could forget about it? I'm sorry, Heero, but it doesn't work like that. That's why I said those things. It's always going to be between us no matter how we think about it. We have to deal. We have to learn to swallow it whole and live with it, because it's never going away. Can you understand that?" Duo squeezed Heero's hands hard. "We have to acknowledge our problems, Heero. Wu Fei, of all people, taught me that. It's been all one sided up until now, with me taking and needed you to be my rock, the one to bring me back when I fall into the pit."
"I want to keep being that for you," Heero interrupted.
"You can't be my rock when you're standing on quicksand, Heero," Duo told him quietly.
Heero sighed dejectedly. "I don't know what you want me to do."
Duo braced himself, caged his demons as best he could, and uttered the words he had never wanted to say, "Tell me what really happened."
"No," Heero replied flatly and did something that Duo had never thought he would see. Heero brought his knees up to his chest and sat in a clenched ball, face buried there and body trembling.
Duo swallowed hard. He wanted to run. He wanted to hide. He wanted to forget that he had ever asked the question. How was he going to be able to cope with the answer? How was he going to be able to pick up the pieces of Heero afterwards, if he was finding it almost impossible to pick up his own? He almost lost courage. He almost stood and ran. Wu Fei's words came back to him sharply. 'Selfish'. 'Needs you.' He was being selfish, he knew, unwilling to take on any more anguish or hurt, and Heero did need him. How could he turn his back on him? How could he not face all the things that Heero had faced for love of him? They might both lose their minds before it was over, Duo thought, but better that than to lose each other to the demons of their past. Those demons couldn't be allowed to triumph.
"Tell me," Duo insisted. "Please, Heero. I think I'm ready to hear it now."
Heero wouldn't look at him, but he began to speak despite his resolve. He couldn't keep it in any longer. Duo had burst the dam inside of him that had already been crumbling. "I thought I could control my reaction to it," he whispered, barely audible. "I've been trained to overcome it, to treat it as just another torture. It wasn't like my training though. They were sadistic. They enjoyed it. I didn't get free in time to stop them, Duo.... only afterwards."
Duo went white. He whimpered. "They-Th- They raped you?"
Heero nodded.
Duo screamed. He surged up from the bed, ran to the door, and locked it to keep the others out, to keep them from interfering. It was his last coherent thought for some time as he raged, as he beat his fists against the wall, and as he screamed at the bastards who had hurt Heero; wishing them all alive again so that he could kill them, slowly. He collapsed at last into a heap on the floor, face pressed against the short pile carpet, sobbing silently, tears running over his cheeks.
It was awhile before Duo realized something important. He wasn't out of his mind. He was lucid, thinking, grieving, but mentally coherent. In amazement, he sniffled and sat up, rubbing at his tear filled, amethyst eyes.
Heero was still sitting on the bed, clenched in a ball, staring at Duo with a hollow expression and a hand tensed on the butt of the gun at his back. His thoughts were clear. If Duo was out of his mind completely, Heero intended to give them both a quick end with a few rounds of his gun.
"That isn't ever an option for me," Duo whispered hoarsely. He stood up, stiff in every muscle, and began to undress with hands bruised and bleeding from hitting the walls.
"What...," Heero whispered as his hand left his gun.
Duo kicked off his shoes and let his pants drop. Flipping off his shirt, he was then nude, standing vulnerable before Heero. "I'm not a rapist," Duo said very gently. "I'm your lover. Your best friend. The other half of your soul, if you want to get really sappy." Duo sat on the floor and watched Heero with hopeful eyes. "Look at me. Take a real good look, Heero. I'm waiting for you this time. I'm waiting for you to make the first move. To touch me. To make love to me if you want to. You've lost me along with every good time we ever had together. Find me again, Heero. Find those memories. They can be stronger than the bad memories if you let them. You taught me that. You made me happy when I thought I never would be. You taught me trust and that there is something beyond the hurt and the tragedy."
Heero uncurled slowly, staring at Duo. He did look so slight and vulnerable. Heero knew his own strength. He could crush bones without effort. Duo was clever, he could put up a good fight, but he could never really out match Heero.
"They made it... filthy," Heero whispered in despair. "I don't know if I can... I might feel like them...."
Duo slowly unbraided his hair, combed it out with his fingers, and let it drape over him like a chestnut cloak. He leaned back on his hands then, body displayed for Heero as if he were completely relaxed. That was a mask though. Duo was tense, as tense as Heero. He was giving everything of himself, trusting Heero, but not sure how long he could do it before fear set in. Long enough, he hoped, to help Heero, to finally give back to him, the help and security Heero had always given him.
"Will you hurt me?" Duo asked as if he didn't know the answer all ready.
"No," Heero replied with an angry glint in his eye at the very idea.
"Will you hold me down on my stomach and just do me?" Duo continued.
"No!" Heero exclaimed.
"Will you come on me or in me and then just leave, throw money at me for the good time, or kick me back into the trash where I belong?" Duo was trembling as he said that. It had really happened more times than he could easily count.
"No!" Heero cried in anguish.
"Why not?!" Duo demanded. "Why should you be any different?"
"B-because-, "Heero stammered and then gave his voice strength, "Because I love you and I would never do that to you! I would kill anyone who tried. If I could find those men who used you like that, I would kill them, slowly. I would make them suffer!"
Duo nodded, swallowing hard, feeling his heart swelling in his chest and tears threatening again. "I feel the same way about you... so, if we can both agree that we love each other, and that we won't use or abuse each other, then trust is easy, isn't it?"
It wasn't, but Heero was strong and determined. He stood up and carefully walked to Duo, shedding clothes on the way. He went down on all fours as he dropped his shirt, naked, but not threatening, body lower than Duo's as if he were being a submissive supplicant to Duo's whims.
Duo waited. Heero hesitated, and then, very carefully, he leaned forward and kissed Duo. Duo accepted the kiss and opened his mouth. Heero searched it with his tongue, tasting his lover, his mate, exchanging pheromones. Slow, he thought. Very slow. They were both dangerous now, both hair triggers of pain and dark memory. Yet, that taste of Duo, that motionless, fragile seeming body before him, comforted his nerves, reassured raw mental trauma. It was different, he told himself, not filthy, not rutting or animalistic. It was.... love, gentleness, the whisper of skin against skin as tongues touched and reaffirmed that they were one. The rape in the mud by cruel men was night and nightmare. This, with Duo, was day, sweet day, morning sunlight, a tender heat that kindled and grew and wanted release, not in a pounding rush of hurt and humiliation, but in love and caring and pleasure given and received.
"You are a poet," Duo smirked and Heero felt a rush of heat to his cheeks, realizing that he had been saying those things aloud, breathing them against Duo's lips. But it was all true and he didn't regret revealing that to Duo.
Heero's hands ghosted along Duo's skin. Careful, he told himself. Duo was giving, trying to help, trying to overcome his own fears to reassure Heero. It didn't make him any less dangerous. It didn't make either of them any less afraid.
"Feels so good," Duo sighed. "It's been too long, Baby."
"Yes," Heero replied breathlessly. "Too long. I'm sorry-," he began to apologize, but Duo shook his head, making his loose hair tremble and sway. Heero nodded, understanding. He didn't need to say it.
They came together at last, tangling together on the floor, gaining confidence with each touch, each moment that pain or betrayal didn't come. Duo moaned as Heero stroked him, and Heero whispered loving words with hot breaths into Duo's ear as Duo touched him in return. They stayed at that safe level, knowing that anything further was too much, too soon. Still, it was sensual, their fingers brushing skin, their sweet lips suckling and licking, their eyes filling each other's vision, clouded with passion and love. They both wished that it could last forever. When they finally climaxed, it was as if their world exploded, shattering into a millions pieces, but then coming back together, making something new, something better and stronger.
They lay quietly together afterwards, Duo's head pillowed on Heero's chest and Heero gently fingering a long tendril of Duo's hair. The knock on the door didn't surprise either of them.
"Uh, guys?" Quatre's voice came to them from the other side of the door. He sounded hesitant to interrupt, but not worried. Sensitive to their emotions, the blonde Arabian had held the other pilots back, knowing that what had been going on upstairs hadn't been murder, but two souls healing themselves. Now, feeling peace and contentment, he had decided that it was all right to interrupt.
Duo scowled and sat up, one hand resting lightly on Heero's chest, over his lover's heart. "Quatre?" Duo called back in barely concealed annoyance. "Unless we're being attacked by Oz..."
"Oh," Quatre replied, contrite. "I thought... well, I just wanted to ask if you wanted to help with dinner..."
"Dinner," Heero grunted and began to make their excuses. Duo stopped him with a finger to his lips and a glint in his eyes.
"You don't want Trowa to tell Quatre he told him so, do you?" Duo wondered impishly. "Let Quatre tame his lions."
Heero grunted. "You will never be tame, Little Baka."
"You either," Duo retorted. "But Quatre's right, you know, and closing ourselves away from everyone else, even together, won't help us get better. Being antisocial and crazy is okay during a war, but no one wants to see that in the local deli. We have to make a life that includes the pain, Heero, because we can't forget it. That includes learning to be normal, despite it and ourselves, so, let's go to lesson number two of Quatre's finishing school, k?"
"K," Heero replied and stole one more kiss from the man he loved more than anything else on Earth or in Space, the man he had gone through Hell and back for, the man who would always be there for him and he for him. "Got your back," Heero whispered into his lover's ear and Duo laughed.
"Got yours too, Heero, always," Duo replied with all his heart.
THE END! (passes out) *_*