Moments of Haven Part 63
Just Looking
Duo glanced at his watch nervously, knowing exactly what it would tell him. Time elapsed at a rather fixed rate, after all. He sighed, crossed his arms over his chest so his wristwatch was tucked into his armpit, then fidgeted and tried to get back into his magazine. Thirty-two seconds later, he glanced at his watch again, chewing on his lower lip. His eyes automatically went upwards, envisioning the bathroom beyond the ceiling. He first saw the pipes in his mind's eye, then the tiles, and then the man inside, and he shivered.
It wasn't his business what was going on in there. So what if Heero had started taking longer showers? It had only been two days, and they were only a minute, maybe two at most, longer than usual. Certainly not long enough for... He shook his head. Nope. Wasn't going to go there. Was going to concentrate on his article.
He finished one paragraph, started on the next, and realized he had no idea what it was discussing. Frustrated with himself, he drummed his fingers on the cushion beside him before succumbing and looking at his watch again. He predicted about four more minutes until the water shut off.
Managing to keep a lid on things for all of ten seconds, he finally gave up and ran lightly upstairs. When he got to the top, he paused, and after he finally forced himself to take those last unwilling steps to the bathroom door, he paused again, hesitating.
What was he doing? Just... putting his mind at rest. That's all. He was allowed to do that, right? Heero wouldn't want him fretting over anything, after all. He'd be appalled to know that something so innocent was eating Duo up inside. Of course, Duo could just ask, but... how could he ask a thing like that?
Was it any better to just find out for himself? Well, no probably not, but his hand was already on the knob and turning it, so what else could he do? He went in, despite the voice in his head readying its 'I told you so's.
"Heero," he called out, not a completely idiot in his idiocy. A person didn't just jump Heero Yuy in a moment of vulnerability without announcing himself first. "Hey, can--"
He'd hoped his hand would wait out of deference to his voice, that perhaps he could ask the question before his hand could do it for him, but no, his hand was already in motion. Fractious creature. It grabbed the edge of the shower curtain and whipped it back, revealing one wide-eyed and startled Heero Yuy, clothed only with water and a few suds, with his hand cradling his testicles.
Heero let out a startled gasp, but Duo made a full-on strangled sound as he stumbled back a step, whipping around one hundred eighty degrees and hunching in on himself in a growing panic until he was on his knees, arms wrapped around his middle. "Shit, shit, shit!"
There was a moment of stunned silence before the water shut off and Heero ventured bravely into the gap. "...Duo?"
"Shit," he muttered one last time before pivoting around to face him. "I knew it! I knew it, I knew it!" His eyes glanced reflexively downward, but quite fortunately Heero had crouched down to his level, revealing nothing.
Heero blinked at him cautiously. "Knew what, Duo?"
"That you..." He gestured vaguely in the direction of Heero's crotch.
The power of suggestion was strong, and Heero also looked down for a moment, despite knowing full well what was there. "Duo... I wasn't..."
They stared at each other for a few seconds, hoping there was some sort of a miscommunication going on. Heero broke first, but only because he realized that, in leaning out of the tub to get closer to the object of his affections, he had started dripping on the floor. He reached outside to pull the bathmat flush with the bottom of the tub to catch any and all stray drops.
When he looked up, he found Duo not making eye contact anymore. Instead, he seemed distracted by the dripping of Heero's hair, and in particular a patch of small bubbles still lurking in the wet mass above his right ear. His unruly fingers rose to brush over them. "You missed a spot," he whispered.
Heero reached for his hand, taking it gently into his own and drawing him closer. "What else have I missed?"
His gaze slid down Heero's neck, down to where a glistening drop of water was clinging precariously to a nipple, before it turned quickly to travel the length of Heero's arm. Their joined hands brought his visual focus back to Heero's eyes, and he licked his lips nervously while Heero waited patiently to find out what the problem was. "Um. Nothing?"
He got that Look, the one that said, 'nice try.'
A second attempt seemed to be in order. "Um. I was just... er. You were...."
Heero got enough of the point. "I wasn't..." He trailed off, suddenly wary of saying the word. He worked around it. "I was... just looking."
Duo's shoulders spasmed in a choked laugh, and things seemed a little easier as that trickled through all the convoluted layers of his mind. "Shit, you would, wouldn't you?"
No self-defense was offered, though Heero did squeeze his hand. "I wouldn't start the party without you."
The disconnected part of his brain snickered at the phrasing. The rest of his brain decided to run around in little circles. "You can, you know...," he answered hesitantly, not quite sure if he really wanted that or not.
"It's your party."
"Um, no, I think it'd be your party."
"Wouldn't be a party without you. I've told you that."
Not like that really made him feel any better. A pang of performance anxiety hit him. "...Yeah."
Heero put on an easy-going quarter-smile as he crossed his arms on the edge of the tub. "So... any particular reason you came in here?"
"Umm." Unfortunately, the only answer that came to mind for a while involved 'hot', 'shower', 'sex', and a question mark, a thought which absolutely paralyzed his vocal cords. "I missed you?"
"Really." Heero's lips twitched fractionally into half-smile.
"Yup." He kissed him solidly, partly for a distraction, and partly because Heero was a severely hot distraction. "So, um, I'll just let you carry on now."
Heero stopped him from getting up with a touch of his hand. "I don't have to, you know. 'We' don't have to."
"That's not what I'm saying." Not at all. If that was what he was saying, then his heart wouldn't thump in his chest so painfully at the idea of it.
"I know. Doesn't mean I can't say it anyway." Heero, at least, enjoyed the freedom, the lack of pressure. He was certain Duo felt the same way.
"Heero..." He laughed nervously. "You know me. Just going off on nothing." He discreetly choked on the 'getting off' that had quite nearly emerged from his lips by accident.
"Nothing, eh? Nothing doesn't usually have you coming in here muttering obscenities."
"I was not... Oh. That was barely obscene, Heero." The years with Duo had not done much to potty-fy Heero's mouth. "That was more like... cursing under my breath."
"Never minding the over-the-breath volume you had."
"Yeah."
"I see." He shivered slightly, the water on his skin giving him a chill. "Hey, why don't you let me finish washing up, and then we'll talk about this, okay?"
Duo let out an amused sigh. "That's what I said before." Half of it, anyway. He considered appending more onto the comment, but he had difficulty thinking when Heero stood and pulled the curtain back into place at the same time. In light of their current discussion, it was a little disturbing to note how he had unconsciously leaned toward the opening in some sort of attempt to catch sight of exactly what he hadn't been wanting to catch sight of just a minute before. He smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand, and let the sound of the water cover it up.
Heero heard the anomalous noise, but let it go as he finished rinsing himself off, paying attention to the suds Duo had pointed out. Once the water was shut off, he pulled the curtain open, only to pull it back again immediately, enough to cover up most of him. Duo was still out there, sitting on the toilet seat lid now. "Hand me that towel?"
The towel was handed over without a glance in his direction. He pondered the reasons behind that as he did a quick pass over his torso before wrapping the towel around his waist and stepping out of the tub. Reaching past Duo for a smaller towel, he was surprised when Duo beat him to it, fluffing the towel out before pushing a bemused Heero into position in front of the bathroom sink. As he started carefully soaking the water from Heero's hair, Heero chuckled. "You just love me for my hair."
Duo kissed his neck. "It is a plus."
"Have you ever thought about... cutting yours?"
His hands paused momentarily before resuming their task. "I like your hair short, not mine. Me, I'm kinda used to it this way now. Keeps my neck warm when it gets cold. Wouldn't be half as fun playing with the short stuff if it was connected to my head, anyway. That'd just be vanity. This is... something else entirely." He paused again. "You know, it kind of reminds me of how animals groom each other, which isn't very flattering, I guess."
"Humans are animals, Duo. And nowhere is that more evident than in their sex practices, if you ask me." When the hands moving over his hair stopped and started to withdraw, he reconsidered his words. "...I didn't mean it like that."
Leaving the towel hanging around Heero's neck, Duo shifted his hands to rest lightly around Heero's middle. "Then tell me what you meant."
Knowing that his words were important, Heero took a few moments to give them some thought. "I just meant that... we like to think that humans are these great, rational, intelligent creatures that have somehow surpassed all others on this planet to gain dominance over them, and we forget that it's just through some whim of evolution that this is so. For all of our vaunted qualities, we are still held to the same basic principles that govern animal kind. We still perform arcane mating rituals. We still groom each other. We still mate. And it's all quite often very irrational, something that cannot really be explained by any of our 'uniquely human' qualities. I don't think that's a bad thing. It's like... humans in the vacuum of space. I'm just pausing to remember that we really don't own the cosmos. We're just a very small part of something so much bigger than we are that we can scarcely comprehend it."
"...You like being in space, right?"
"Yeah."
"So the logical conclusion of that is..."
"Yeah."
"You think really weird things sometimes, you know that?"
"Yeah." He half-smiled when Duo kissed his shoulder. Laying a hand on one of Duo's arms, the hold settled into a comfortable embrace. "So. What really weird things are floating around in your head tonight?"
A semi-annoyed frown landed on Duo's lips. "I dunno. A mishmash of things, I guess. There's probably a 'holy shit, what are we doing?' in there. Along with a 'holy shit, that's Heero!' And maybe a... well, you know. Just a bunch of 'holy shit's, I guess."
"Whose bright idea was it to make shit holy?" Heero murmured to himself, shaking his head. "Anyway. So... is it me in the shower, or is it what me in the shower means?"
"I don't know," Duo sighed irritably. "It's not like we haven't been heading in this direction for a long time. It's not like I have a real problem with it or anything. I don't have any problems groping at will, after all, and everything's just a logical extension of that, right? I don't know why I'd have a problem thinking about... you know. Gah! I can't even say it. Having. Sex! I'm going to have sex with Heero Yuy! This is going to involve someone sticking his dick up someone's ass and someone is going to get fucked! AUGH!" He muffled his garbled shout of frustration against Heero's shoulder when he found himself shaky just from listening to himself.
Well, Heero thought. This was an interesting development. He waited patiently for Duo to finish his vocal venting before squeezing his hand comfortingly around Duo's arm. "Do you want to try and figure this out, or do you just want to scream out the details of our personal life to the entire neighborhood?"
"There's no window in here," Duo mumbled into his skin. "No one's gonna hear."
"Guess that means we'll try and figure this out then." Duo lifted his head to stick his tongue out at Heero's reflection, which only made Heero cock an eyebrow up at him. "If I had to come up with a possibility, I might propose that maybe... I don't know what you want to call it. Being gay? Maybe that just doesn't come naturally to us."
"One hole's as good as another, Heero. My dick won't know the difference." He paused to consider the other half of the equation. "Um. Okay, so I guess someone's going to know the difference."
"Are you afraid it'll be you knowing the difference?"
That gave him a moment of hesitation. "...No. I mean, I've known... some pretty colorful people in my time. I'm pretty sure I'm perfectly fine with this sort of thing. Well. In theory, anyway. I think it'll probably be kind of weird from either end... argh." He thumped his forehead on Heero's shoulder again. "I'm such a fucking virgin."
The skin around Heero's eyes crinkled as he held in a laugh. "You and me both, Duo."
"I know. But you're you, Heero. You've barely just started thinking of your dick as a sexual object. You were just in here conducting recon, for chrissake. I'm not supposed to fumble as much as you are!"
"Gee. Thanks. Inexperienced, Duo. Not stupid."
Duo rubbed his tummy in apology. "I know. Sorry. Just... Yeah, we're on relatively equal footing here, but I'm not freaking out in a, omigod what is he going to think of me? kind of way. That shit's for girls, man. I'm just... you know. Wow. It's you... and me... my bestest friend in the whole wide world and roomie and partner and all that good stuff... and we're gonna do what now? Geez, how long has it been now? You'd think I'd be done wrapping my head around this by now."
"I hate repeating myself, but... we don't have to."
"I know. And... well, it's sorta weird to say that I want to. I mean, life would be fine without it. Either I've gotten past the wet dream stage of life, or I just haven't gotten there yet, but either way, I don't want to, if you know what I mean. It'd just be... kinda nice, I think."
"Now you sound like me."
"Okay, fine. I'll be more assertive about it. I'm a guy, Heero. I have needs. God knows where they are right now, but I'm sure they'll surface sooner or later. And by the time they do, I'd like to have this squared away between the two of us, 'cuz I'm getting the feeling that there isn't going to be anyone else. And because if things get to the needy stage, then I'm probably going to be hasty and do something really stupid, and I don't want to be stupid if I can help it."
Heero chuckled low in his throat, the sort of laugh that vibrated through him and into Duo standing flush behind him. "I won't let you do anything stupid, Duo."
Duo pinned him with a direct look. "Are you going to be stupid, too, Heero? You going to do this just because I'm saying we should? Or you really think it'd be... 'nice'?"
"I'm interested in doing this, Duo," Heero reassured him solemnly. "I think it's already been nice, doing what we've done, exploring this... this 'thing'. I think it's only going to get nicer."
"Yeah, yeah, you get giddy as a schoolgirl 'exploring' new things. What's gonna happen once it's all old and boring?"
"It's never going to be boring, Duo. Should our imaginations fail us and leave us with a mere finite range within a sea of infinite possibilities, I'd be more than happy to go back and review the things we'll have already covered."
"I know you, Heero. You like finding the best way of doing things, and once you've found it, you stick with it."
"Only as a local maximum. Perfection, though? No such thing. Only an endless quest for perfection. There is always room for improvement. Variables can always change. New factors can always come into play. Paths that are optimal in one respect may fail in another. It won't get boring, Duo."
He stared at Heero for a good long moment before tentatively offering a response. "So what you're saying is... you like being and then staying giddy as a schoolgirl?"
Heero smiled over his shoulder. "I don't think there's a good answer to that question."
Duo licked quickly at his skin, catching a stray drop of water trailing down his neck. "Damn. You're pretty smart, flyboy. You're no fun sometimes."
He rolled his eyes. "Please tell me you're not into schoolgirls, Duo. I don't want to know if I want to go there."
Trying to picture it in his mind, Duo found the image far more amusing than it was sexy. "Well, I already got in you a skirt," he pointed out laughingly, hand slipping across the front of the towel Heero was wearing, then back up to palm his crotch. He sucked lightly on the angle between Heero's shoulder and neck. "I don't know what the point of dressing you up would be. If I really found it sexy, I think I'd just want you out of it as soon as possible."
Heero leaned his head back lazily. "I believed you when you said you had no problems with groping at will, Duo. You don't have to prove it to me."
The happily groping hand groped a little harder through the worn towel, feeling consciously for distinct contours beneath the cloth this time. "Just helping you out, Heero. Contributing what I can to the data from your recon." Doing a little recon of his own, maybe. He closed his eyes and visualized what his hand was telling him about the landscape it was exploring. A part of him got warm. Another part was trying to get over the fact that holy mother of mercy he had his hand on Heero's dick. Around it, nearly, if only his fingers would have the courage to really take advantage of their position with more than a loose hold. The warm part was slowly spreading across him, maybe even threatening to spread to one other part of his body in particular more than any other. Maybe. Sometime soon. Just as soon as that other part of him calmed down and learned to deal.
Heero engaged him in a leisurely kiss, and oh yeah that helped distract that uncooperative part of his head. It lost itself in Heero's mouth, leaving a clear path for the warmth to really spread. He found himself rocking slowly against a pliant Heero, the movement a gut reaction to his hand moving in such a fashion. Never mind that it was on someone else's body. It was in front of him, doing what it was doing, and his body knew what it was supposed to do in response.
He let the kisses trail off when the alarmist voice in his head declared insistently to him that holy crap he was humping Yuy's ass. "What the hell are we doing, Heero?" he whispered.
Heero chased after him for one more brief kiss. "Taking things one step at a time, Duo. One step at a time."
"Then maybe..." He stopped to steal another kiss. "Maybe I oughta stop here."
"We could... but we don't have to."
Already somewhat breathless, that one just made it worse. He blinked at Heero's expression, a bit startled maybe to find it looking at least half as warm-hazy as he felt. A little off-balance, he dropped his gaze to his hand, noticing while he was there that the towel had fallen open, exposing a long slice of skin along Heero's flank and all the way down to his toes. The only things holding the towel up now were his hand on Heero's crotch, and his own crotch pressed up against Heero's ass. This made for the fourth holy crap! of the night, and that side of his brain finally fizzled and collapsed, steam leaking from its ears as it desperately waved a white flag begging for mercy.
Duo was inclined to grant it. "Fuck," he muttered, letting his head fall on Heero's shoulder. "I think... I think you need to secure your towel... and then I think I need to get out of here."
There was a moment of silence before Heero kissed the side of his head and did as suggested.
OWARI
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