"The problem is your machine, Maxwell," Heero insisted as he climbed into the cockpit of the monstrous ore mining machine.
"Look I.T.!" Duo shouted at him. "I know my work. Your G2380B ore miner program has a glitch!"
Heero gave Duo, in his gray coveralls, and yellow hard hat, a once over, before he said, "Bet on it, Grease Monkey?"
Duo frowned at the insult, nostrils flaring, and then he gave a curt nod. "Bet's on," he affirmed. "What's the stakes?"
Heero thought for a moment and then smiled in a way that made Duo nervous. "You agree on a date."
"With who?" Duo demanded, confused.
Heero hooked a thumb at his own chest as he opened his laptop. "Me."
"We've been over this already!" Duo exploded in irritation. "You're gay. I'm not. End of interest."
Heero shook his head as he sat at the controls of the machine and hooked his laptop into the machine's brain. "You told me, 'I don't know what I want, and some things, I don't want to find out.' It seems to me, that there is an interest. You're just too frightened to find out just how much of an interest you have."
Duo thumped both fists onto the back of the padded chair, making Heero frown up at him."People aren't both, Heero. I really believe that. I was just drunk at the party. I didn't mean any of that shit that I said. I didn't mean..."
"To let me kiss you?" Heero wondered, but then smirked, "or did you kiss me? I don't remember."
"Why can't you forget about it?" Duo exploded.
"Because I don't want to," Heero said with soft seriousness. He turned his attention back to his computer and asked, "What happens if I'm wrong?"
Duo was floundering and confused. It took him a moment to understand what Heero was asking. "Uh, yeah, well, you have to stand in front of the entire I.T. development team and tell them, loudly, how you were wrong."
"That doesn't seem too bad," Heero began.
"Naked," Duo interjected viciously.
"Naked?" Heero repeated tensely as he started his computer on it's diagnostic.
"Are you allowing for my enriched fuel variable?" Duo asked.
"Yes, soon to be date," Heero replied.
"In your dreams, soon to be naked confessor I.T.," Duo shot back.
Heero grinned and showed Duo his computer screen before he unhooked and stood up. "Pick you up tomorrow night at eight. Dress formal."
"Shit!" Duo exclaimed as he saw the line of green bars broken up by a red one, before Heero snapped his laptop closed, tucked it into the sling bag at his side, and then began climbing out of the monster mining machine. "I didn't change the fuel intake filter after I modified it," Duo realized.
Three stories up, the blowing sand of the mine pit whirling around him, Heero smirked up at Duo's look of consternation. "You're not going to be a sore loser, are you? I don't want a sour date."
Duo sighed then and rubbed at the back of his neck. "This won't change anything," he warned.
"We'll see," Heero replied, and continued downward.
__________________________________
Duo stood at the front of his apartment building, hands stuffed into his pockets, and expression both sour and nervous. In black slacks and shoes, white dress shirt choking him with a high collar, and cream colored jacket fitting him tight across the shoulders, he felt ridiculous; a street brat putting on stolen clothes. That he had borrowed the suit from a neighbor was only a technicality.
Heero pulled up in a sleek, bronze sports car, rolled down the automatic window, and smiled at him. "Get in."
"Fuck this," Duo growled under his breath, but he wasn't a coward. He paid up his debts. He jerked the car door open and slid into the leather seat of the passenger side. He stared out of the window, expecting Heero to pull away from the curb at once. When he didn't, he was forced to look at the man.
"What?" Duo demanded with a glare.
Heero was dressed in clothing that not only looked as if they belonged to him, but that he looked comfortable in as well. Slim black jacket that fit him perfectly. A bronze shirt that unintentionally matched his car. Black slacks that hugged strong legs. A slim tie that matched the shirt one tone darker.
"You don't usually dress up, do you?" Heero asked.
"Not my style, Yuy," Duo shot back, ready for an argument.
"You look... good," Heero said instead and gave Duo that damned smile again, that one that was all over him, as if Heero had grabbed him and ...
Duo scowled even more and gave the window his full attention. "Let's get this over with."
"Attitude adjustment first," Heero demanded.
"You'll get a ticket," Duo warned. "Waiting, I mean...'cuz it's not happening."
Heero sighed and pulled away from the curb."Maybe once we get to the restaurant.."
"Might as well expect magic unicorns to sprout out of my ass," Duo growled.
Heero stopped the car, leaned over Duo, and flung open the passenger side door. "Out."
Duo glared at him. "No. I pay my debts."
"You're paying in rocks, not credits," Heero complained.
"Who's fault is that?" Duo barked back. "You want something that I can't give you. I like chicks, Heero. I have sex with chicks. I like chick boobs, chick assess, and chick-"
"You can like both," Heero barked back, cutting him off.
"I don't think that!" Duo replied hotly.
Heero's jaw worked as if he were chewing something that was fighting back, and then he said in a low intense tone, "I know what you were feeling when we kissed."
"Yeah? Well, I was so drunk that I don't even know what really happened," Duo countered. "How can you know what I was feeling?"
"Because I do. Because it was... ," Heero struggled for words and then abandoned it to say, "I don't know why you won't face it, but I can't not try to make you see what I do, Duo."
Duo made an exasperated sound and sunk into his seat. "Let's get this over with, okay?"
Heero looked ready to argue some more, but then he shook his head in frustration, closed the door, and pulled away from the curb again. "This is going to be a long evening," he grumbled.
Duo was quiet, watching the city pass by, and then he grinned and said, "I must be some kisser."
"Asshole," Heero retorted.
"Never pretended otherwise," Duo shot back, "So you've got nothing to complain about."
"Wasn't complaining," Heero chuckled. "It's part of your charm."
"My girlfriends didn't think that was charming," Duo replied despondently. "Probably why I'm still single."
Heero glanced at him and then said, "Or maybe they didn't have what you really wanted?"
"A dick, you mean?" Duo shot back.
"I was thinking more along the lines of love," Heero replied.
Duo stared and then scoffed, "Fuck you, Yuy! You are not going to hand me that bullshit 'love' line to get my ass. If you think I'm that stupid, you might as well stop the car again and let me the hell out."
"It's not a line," Heero replied seriously, "and maybe it's my ass I want you to have?"
Duo choked and blushed. He rubbed a hand over his face to try to stop it and then demanded, "Don't even go there! Let's stick with payback dinner, Yuy. I don't want to hear anymore of this."
"No promises," Heero replied.
"Didn't think I was going to get one," Duo sighed.
----------------------------------------------------
Duo glared at the menu and then caught Heero looking at him in amusement. "What?" he demanded.
Heero shrugged and picked up his own menu. "You look very handsome, tonight."
"That's not what you were thinking, so spit it out!" Duo demanded loudly, but then looked around self consciously at the five star restaurant He lowered his voice and repeated, "Out with it."
"I'm used to seeing you covered in grease, Grease Monkey," Heero neatly evaded. "Can't I admire my date?"
"Don't say that so loud," Duo warned and looked around nervously again. "I don't want anyone getting the wrong idea."
Heero frowned. "I don't care what anyone thinks." As he went back to his menu, he added, "Not that anyone from the grease pit would be at a place like this..."
Duo dropped his menu and tossed his linen napkin on the table. "Okay, Yuy, I've had enough of you suit and ties looking down on us because we use our hands for something besides diddling ourselves. We are professionals, just like you are. If I'm not good enough- "
Heero dropped his menu as well and reached across the table to take a firm hold on Duo's hand. His blue eyes locked on Duo's, contrite. "I'm sorry. I didn't really mean that. It was reflex. We kid each other at work, because we like to compete between work sections, but that doesn't have any place here. I hope I didn't ruin things."
"There was nothing to ruin," Duo grumbled as he pulled his hand away and glared down at his menu and napkin. "This is not a real date."
"Then we should go dutch," Heero suggested, angry now.
Duo snatched up his menu. "Oh, no!" he exclaimed. "You are not sticking me with a bill in this joint! This was your idea, so your treat, Yuy."
"Then, since I'm paying for it, I will call it what I want," Heero retorted. "It's a date!"
They glared at each other over their menus and then hid behind them to find something to order.
"This sucks!" Duo grumbled under his breath.
"So fucking stubborn!" Heero growled under his.
"May I take your order?" The waiter asked and they both started. The man was looking at them as if he wasn't certain whether to take their order or call for someone to remove them.
Noting his tenseness, Heero gave Duo a look that blamed him. Duo glared back.
"I could come back in a few moments?" the waiter suggested.
"Amberjack beer and that fish and almonds thing," Duo ordered, poking the menu with a finger.
"Steak, chive potato, and a bottle of your best french wine," Heero ordered. He stacked their menus and handed them to the waiter.
The waiter turned a little more respectful, but still seemed eager to leave them. Duo watched him go.
"Think he knows who we are?" Duo wondered and then noticed other diners staring. "Think they all know who we are?"
"Probably," Heero replied with a shrug as he sipped at a glass of water.
Duo frowned. "This is going to be fucking tabloid news tomorrow, isn't it?"
Heero put down his water, "Not that it matters to me what they think," he replied seriously, "but we've done everything short of throwing food at each other. I don't think even they are going to believe that we are contemplating a relationship."
Duo's jaw worked. "If you keep talking like that, a food fight might be imminent. I just have to wait for the ammunition."
"Expensive ammo," Heero growled back.
Duo sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. "Look, Heero, you can't change a duck into a goose, as someone used to tell me, and you are not going to get anywhere with all of this. I made up my mind, a long time ago, about really liking boobies, okay?"
Heero pointed his water glass at Duo. "I think 'made up my mind' is the key phrase, here. You decided. Most people don't decide, Duo."
Duo scowled. "This fantasy world of yours is interesting Yuy. Maybe a shrink will think so, too?"
Heero reached out again and touched Duo's hand, giving it a small caress."All I ask is that you give me a proper chance to prove what I'm saying to you."
Duo pulled his hand away nervously and rolled his eyes. "You're asking for more dates?"
"At least one more?" Heero begged. "Somewhere more intimate where we can really talk."
Duo sighed, shaking his head, "No more dates," but then he added, "But maybe we should talk about this... if we survive dinner, that is. After we eat, we'll go to my place and have this out."
"Better than nothing," Heero replied.
"Nothing is what you're going to get, Yuy," Duo promised. "Get used to the disappointment."
__________________________________
"Nice place," Heero said as he tossed his coat onto the back of a red leather chair.
"Thanks," Duo ground out as he sidestepped a small, yapping, ball of white yarn that launched itself from a leather couch. "Lay off, Fu Fu. It's just company, of a sort."
"Fu Fu?" Heero echoed as he looked down at the fierce little black eyes of the very small, hairy dog.
"I'm not worried about my masculinity, Yuy, so don't even try to say that having small fluffy dogs, called Fu Fu, means I'm gay," Duo snapped as he turned on lights and then turned, hands on hips, to confront Heero.
"Furthest from my mind," Heero snickered. "I have to ask, though...?"
"He was a loaner, that stayed," Duo replied, as if wanting the subject over with so that they could get down to business.
"We're not going to have a fist fight, Duo," Heero told him as he joined Duo in the living room and looked around them. The floors were rich wood, the carpeting tasteful, and the rest well lived in by a bachelor.
"Depends on what you have in mind?" Duo shot back and reached out and plucked a leaf of lettuce from Heero's collar. "Dinner wasn't exactly peaceful."
"I don't see why you were so upset," Heero complained as the dog sniffed his pants leg suspiciously.
Duo scowled at him. "You deep throated your bread stick to 'show me your skill', if I remember right. Everyone was staring!"
Heero shrugged. "You have to admit, I am impressive."
"An impressive asshole," Duo shot back.
"You were looking, though," Heero reminded him with a smirk.
"Looking at a moron," Duo countered.
Heero laughed outright and the dog growled at him. "Can I get a drink?" Heero asked as he bent down and tried to entice the little dog to come close enough for a pat on the head.
"This is supposed to be a talk, not a drinking party," Duo complained.
Heero sighed and straightened. "Will you at least sit down while I talk to you?"
Duo narrowed eyes suspiciously, unconsciously mirroring the dog. "Is this going to be a lecture?"
Heero smiled at the notion. "Sort of, yes. Maybe, more of a demonstration."
"I don't like the sound of that," Duo complained.
"That will be the point," Heero replied as Duo moved to sit on the couch, arms crossed angrily over his chest. "If you don't like it, I mean."
The little dog jumped to the couch and crouch defensively by Duo's side.
"Well, get on with it," Duo snapped. "I haven't got all night."
Heero sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and then asked, "Why do you have a concrete bunker between me and what you feel?"
"Hm?" Duo grunted, but Heero could tell that he had hit the nail on the head.
"You don't want to let yourself get involved with me," Heero continued. "I want to know if that's because you actually don't like me or..."
"Or what?" Duo snapped.
"You're a chicken shit grease monkey, who can't face up to whatever he's feeling."
"I hate you!" Duo ground out as if he were eating nails.
Heero looked wounded, going a little pale. "Then I'll go," Heero told him as he turned for the door. "You won't see me any longer."
"Wait!" Duo exclaimed, and then looked embarrassed and confused.
Heero returned to where he had been standing, expectant. "Yes?"
Duo fought with words and then, looking down at the floor, he muttered, "Maybe not... hate."
"Then, let's talk about this," Heero urged. "Tell me what's going on in that head of yours."
"Why talk?" Duo shot back. "I'm not gay, Yuy. It's not like you're going to get anything out of giving me a psych session."
Heero slowly unbuttoned his shirt.
Duo's eyes widened. "What the hell are you doing?"
Heero glared as he finished the last button and pulled his shirt off. "I'm getting more comfortable and making a point."
The dog yapped excitedly and growled, sensing his master's turmoil. Duo put a hand on him, but it was tense and didn't stroke the dog to calmness.
"Well?" Heero asked as he flexed his shoulders as if relieving tension and made muscles ripple. "I'm lean, mean, and hard as a rock. If you're not even the least bit interested..?"
Duo swallowed hard, staring, and then he jerked his eyes away with an effort.
"I think that's a yes, don't you?" Heero needled.
"I-I can appreciate... a... good looking... I mean... everyone's interested in bodies. I'm just... comparing..," Duo stammered.
"How do I compare?" Heero asked, smiling and flexing his arms.
Duo looked again and then looked down in defeat. "Asshole."
Heero sighed, arms going lax at his sides. "Duo, I'm not trying to hurt you, but you need to stop lying to yourself."
Duo scrubbed a hand over his face and said nothing.
"If you don't face who you are," Heero pressed, "Then we don't have any hope of being together."
"We are together," Duo argued flippantly, trying vainly to regain his edge, "I see you every day at work and even Saturdays when we work over time. You bother me. I bother you. We compete. We have lunch..."
Heero blinked at him and then replied, "And then we go home, alone, at the end of every day," he finished.
Duo's expression went tight and he found the dog's fur suddenly very interesting. "Couldn't stand you all day," he said in a small voice.
Heero jerked on his shirt and headed for the door, anger bleeding off of him. Duo was off the couch and fisting his shirt before he could reach it, pulling Heero to a halt. He was still looking at the floor, though, and he said with desperation, as the little dog danced and yapped around them, "Don't!"
"Why not?" Heero wondered, turning and stepping closer. He put hands on Duo's, where they still fisted his shirt, and rubbed at them gently. "If you won't face the truth, if you won't see what we could be together, then I don't have any place here. I'm wasting time."
"It's hard," Duo replied. "The guys... I'm their team leader. They think I'm the best. They want to be me. They joke about people being gay. They use it when they talk about I.T. guys. Even before that... People always use it to hate people, to call someone a name, when they don't respect someone... If they found out, they wouldn't respect me. They'd hate me, they'd make jokes about me. I'd don't want that. I don't want to be gay."
"If they hated you for having red hair, would you dye it?" Heero asked. "If they hated you for being born with one arm... if they made fun of you... would that be right? Would you put up with that? It comes down to not being what you were born to be, Duo, because of what people think. It comes down to denying yourself, and your happiness, because of hatred, because of fear. Do you really want to live that way. Is it really easier?"
"I like my life," Duo replied bitterly. "This is going to change it."
"Being alone, because you're afraid, is not a good life." Heero said as he slid hands along Duo's arms, cupped his elbows, and then slowly pulled him into a careful embrace. "That's part of the lie."
Duo's arms suddenly embraced him fiercely and he took a shuddering breath, burying his face in Heero's chest. After a long moment, of simply holding on, his muffled voice said, "Do you know how long I've been wanting to do this?"
Heero chuckled and replied, "Me too."
Heero's shirt was still unbuttoned. Duo burrowed inside of it and said, shyly, "Your boobies are much better than a chick's."
"Don't call them boobies," Heero groused and then gasped as Duo took one in his mouth.
"I bet... I bet the rest of you is better, too," Duo said as he looked up and met Heero's eyes with a blush of uncertainty and embarrassment.
Heero shivered with tension and asked, softly, "Would you like to find out?"
"Sell me on having you around all day and night, I.T.," Duo replied with intense feeling. "Show me this is worth changing my life for. Give me reason to 'come out', at work and put up with the jokes."
"You don't put up with them," Heero corrected him, but he was kissing Duo's face gently and then nuzzling down Duo's throat. "Love is the reason, Duo. Love makes it all worthwhile. I love you, Grease Monkey."
"Won't tomorrow," Duo promised with a snicker as he began pushing Heero's shirt off again.
"I don't see why not, especially if you keep doing that," Heero gasped, as Duo's calloused hands ran over his chest.
"I need revised specs for the cooling system in the ore processing mech, to match my new specifications. Should be a day and an all nighter, I.T.," Duo told him.
"Only for a Grease Monkey," Heero replied. "I'll have it done by break time."
"You and what load of I.T.'s?" Duo scoffed.
"If Grease Monkeys could do more than scribble blueprints in crayon on coasters, maybe things would get done quicker," Heero complained.
Duo suddenly seized a fierce kiss. Heero's eyes went wide in surprise. When Duo broke it, he said, "Thanks."
"For what?" Heero wondered, mystified.
"For not changing because of... this," Duo struggled to explain.
Heero smiled tenderly. "The only thing between us that will change, is that we'll clock out, and go home together, Duo."
"I've wanted that," Duo replied sadly. "Sorry... Sorry for being a chicken shit... and lying." He smiled then and gave Heero's hand a tug. "Do you think... uhm... I mean... could you show me that bread stick trick again?"
Heero blushed, but his eyes were sparkling with interest as Duo tugged him towards the bedroom. "It would be my pleasure."
END