Please Don't Let me Fall Part 4
Always Kiss 'Em When They're Down
By the time they had gotten back to the safehouse, despite Duo's efforts, Heero had fallen unconscious again. Duo felt the Japanese pilot slump against him right as the safehouse came into sight, as if the sight of a secure shelter had convinced Heero that it was safe enough to do so.
While the others threw camouflage nets over their own Gundams, Duo tried to find the safest way to get Heero out of Deathscythe without hurting him. Even with the black Gundam kneeling, it was still a ten-foot drop to the ground below. Suddenly, Trowa appeared at Deathscythe's feet as Duo was picking Heero up.
"Do you need help getting him down, Duo?" Trowa called.
"Yeah, but I'll carry him in myself and take care of him," Duo said. "He needs some serious TLC if ya know what I mean, Mute-boy."
"Yes. Hand him down here, and I'll hold him until you get yourself down."
"Be careful with him, Trowa. I don't know how bad he's hurt."
"Yes."
Duo gently lowered Heero's inanimate form to Trowa and then jumped down, immediately taking Heero back from him.
"A bit protective of him?" Trowa asked, and Duo saw cool amusement sparkling in his one visible emerald eye. He knew exactly what Trowa meant by the question.
"Got a problem with it? If you and Quatre get married, I support that. Leave me alone," Duo shot back, causing Trowa's cheeks to do a slow burn. Duo turned and started to walk up to the safehouse, grinning widely to himself.
// Trowa: 1. Duo: 1. Tie match, baby. //
He stopped and shifted Heero to get a better grip, carrying him carefully so as not to jar him.
// He may look like a lightweight, but the guy doesn't have an extra ounce of body fat on 'em. All this is muscle, guess that's why you weigh so much, eh Heero? //
Duo staggered slightly under Heero's weight as he carried him up to the dilapidated five room shack that served as their safehouse in this area: kitchen, den, bathroom, two small bedrooms. Not exactly a suite in the Plaza Hotel, but Duo thought it was a lot better than some of the places he had holed up in as a kid on L2. When they had first got there, Wufei had immediately claimed a couch that was falling apart in the den to sleep on, leaving Trowa to share a room with Quatre and Heero to share a room with Duo. No one complained about the arrangement; in fact, that was the way everyone preferred it.
Duo walked Heero through the safehouse and took him to the bathroom, lying him in the bathtub after folding a ragged towel under his bloody head at the edge of the tub for a cushion. He took Heero's bloodstained white sneakers off and threw them over his shoulder. Once he had the Japanese boy laid somewhat comfortably in there, he started to carefully pull Heero's tank top up and his bike shorts down. His skin was hot even as cold as it was outside; he smelled like blood and gunpowder with a feral undertone. Sweat and blood. There was nothing sexual in the act, nothing intimate, Duo reminded himself over and over again.
// Don't be such a fuckin' prude, Maxwell. You've came in at three in the morning so drunk you couldn't see straight dozens of times since you've worked together. And he always did the same thing when you came in: threw you in a cold shower, peeled the wet clothes off you, put you in something dry, and put you in your bed. Then ended up the next morning at noon holding your braid for you while you worshipped the white porcelain. Maybe this is a little intimate for most guys, but not too intimate for a guy who's undressed you when you couldn't do it yourself and held your hair for you while you threw up. So deal with it. //
He started to run the water and soaked a washcloth in it, dabbing at the smaller gashes before working gingerly over Heero's head and thigh. The water began to turn pink, but Duo was starting to see bruised skin through the coagulated gore on Heero's leg and scalp through the mess of blood-thickened hair on his head. Finally, after the water had gone a darker color of red and a small pile of sharpnel shards lay on the toilet lid, Duo stepped back and viewed his work.
"Stitches," he muttered to himself as he studied the gashes on Heero's leg and head.
// Gonna have to get someone else to do that. I have no clue. //
He picked Heero up out of the bloody water and kicked the plug to drain the tub. Then he took a towel and wrapped it around the Japanese pilot, carrying him down the hall to the room they shared.
When he stopped in front of the bed, he didn't lay Heero down immediately but held him a minute.
// Better take advantage of the fact that he's unconscious. Face it, baka. This is the closest you're ever gonna get to him. //
After a few moments, he sighed and put Heero down on the bed, making sure that a few towels were down first just in case his head and leg started bleeding badly again. Then he rooted through his soft black leather travel bag and got out a pair of silk black boxers, putting them on the Wing pilot. They wore the same size in clothing, so to widen Heero's expansive wardrobe of forest green cotton and black spandex, Duo had taken to buying Heero stuff whenever he went out shopping, slipping it in with his tank tops and shorts. Heero wore the clothes without comment whenever they weren't on a mission. Duo remembered, sighing, that he thought this was a good sign. Fact of life, Duo had told him. Unless you're a Jetson, you do not wear the same clothes day after day after day.(1)
Quatre walked in the room. "How is he, Duo?"
"Not awake. Needs stitches, but I don't know how to do them. Do you?"
"No. But Trowa can do them, though. I guess we'll have to use regular thread, it's the best thing we have." Quatre kneeled by Heero's bed with a worried expression on his face, touching Heero's cheek tenderly, closing his eyes.
Duo felt a hot rush of jealousy.
// Mine! //
Then he composed himself before Quatre turned back around. He felt a grin play at his mouth as he got a large bandage from the first aid kit and began to wrap it gently around Heero's torso to brace his broken ribs. While he did so, Quatre carefully gave the Wing pilot a morphine shot.
// Baka. He isn't yours. Not unless you start telling him how you feel and stop being worried that he's going to knock you through the wall when you do. He's hurt, and he can barely stand on his own. This would probably be the best time to tell him. And even if he does go off the high side, he'll have at least two weeks of recuperation to cool off. Worst case scenario, he has a miraculous recovery and kills you or beats you so badly you'll wish he had. And you won't fight back if he does; he's hurt and you're not gonna hurt him any worse. Second to worst case scenario, he never speaks to you again. This probably won't last very long, 'cause he might not say a lot, but he hasn't gone a day without saying at least one word to you. Or he just takes it, processes the information, and keeps on treating you the same damned way because he has no clue what 'love' is. But there's always the chance that he does... //
"Uh, Quatre, could you boil a needle and a pair of scissors and get some thread so Trowa can fix him up?" Duo said, looking for an excuse to be alone with Heero again.
Quatre stood up, smiling. "Sure." He walked out of the room calling Trowa's name. Duo sighed.
// It must be true what they say about blondes after all... dense as a brick. //
He turned back to Heero. The Japanese boy still looked bad, but he looked a hell of a lot better than when Duo had brought him in. After he splinted the Japanese pilot's wrist, Duo stroked the uninjured part of Heero's forehead softly, just watching him sleep. Suddenly, Heero's eyebrows knitted and his eyelids flickered. Normally, Duo would have jerked his hand away, but now he left it there. Heero slowly opened his dark blue eyes.
"Hmmm... uh... Duo?" he muttered. His voice sounded drowsy. Duo would have expected anyone else to yawn at that point, but yawning would probably hurt him too much. He reluctantly took his hand away from Heero's forehead.
"I'm here, buddy. Right here." Duo noticed that Heero's pupils were almost the same size again.
"Wuh... where am I?" Heero tried to look around, and grimaced at his sore muscles instead. "Home," Duo answered without thinking about it. "You're home, pal."
// Home? We don't have one. //
"Aa," Heero agreed, surprising Duo. "Home." This time he did yawn, and gritted his teeth against the pain in his bruised jaw.
"You gotta have some stitches in your head and your leg, so you should probably go back to sleep, buddy," Duo suggested.
Heero's eyes narrowed; the look almost pulled off "fierce" if it wasn't for the "I've-just-woke-up-with-the-worst-hangover-of-my-life" expression on his face. With it, Heero's glare just looked comical. "Don't... cut my hair."
Duo laughed. "I didn't know you were so vain, Heero. Isn't having hair just an obstacle? It'd be easier to put stitches in your head if you let us take some of it off."
"Maybe... but that doesn't mean I don't like having hair. If I wake up and any of it is gone, you will wake up one day in the near future... with about three feet of yours missing. Do you understand?"
Duo laughed again. "Heh, yeah..." The room got very quiet and still. Suddenly, Duo couldn't take it anymore. The grin left his face. "Heero... I... when you didn't answer the radio... and I didn't know whether you had been captured or died or what... I've never felt that way before."
Heero just kept looking at him wearily as if to say "Are you trying to make a point?"
"What I mean is... uh..."
"Duo... spit it out."
"What I mean to say is, Heero, I love you." Duo just came out with it, and it sounded so easy and natural to him. His eyes widened.
// Did I just say that out loud!? Oh my God! //
"Nani?" Heero said sleepily. Then he smiled, touching Duo's arm. "Sure, Duo, love you too. You're *yawn* a great guy."
Duo's jaw gaped. He closed it with a snap.
// Yup, definitely a concussion. Heero in his right mind would never say something like that. //
Nevertheless, he had started, and he was determined to finish.
"No, no, Heero," Duo said. "Not like that. I really love you. I think you're the greatest guy I've ever met. I've loved you since I first saw you at the military port, and I always will." Duo leaned down and kissed Heero soundly. Heero brought his hands up to Duo's shoulders in protest, then stopped struggling so hard almost immediately. Duo was the one who broke the kiss.
He pulled his head back, gauging Heero's expression. Confusion. Confusion. And oh yeah, that all-time favorite, confusion. No anger, no fear, no disgust, no disapproval. Duo could have sworn that it looked like Heero didn't know what had just happened to him, or what was just said to him.
"What was that for, baka?" Heero asked, not unkindly, but with what Duo thought sounded like mild curiosity. Duo felt a cool wave of relief wash over him.
// Better curiosity than disgust or anger. Either one could end up with me just as beat up as him. //
"I don't know. Because I know you don't have the energy to kill me right now."
To Duo's utter shock, a small smile played at the corners of Heero's mouth. "Why would I do that? Taking advantage of your partner while he's incapacitated is pretty cowardly, Duo." Before Duo could answer, Heero had fallen asleep again.
// Huh... weird. //
Smiling back down at him for a minute, Duo turned away and went to get Trowa.
// Yeah, just bask in it while you can. Tomorrow he'll have his wits back, and then your pipe dream is gonna be busted, Maxwell, not to mention your face for that little stunt you pulled back there. Just you wait and see... //
TBC...
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