Moments of Haven Part 78
X'mas AC198 - Part VII

Duo glanced over his shoulder just once, twisting his torso under the guise of a stretch, to make sure that Heero and Wufei were getting along nicely outside before continuing on into the innards of the chalet. He headed toward the kitchen with the others still in tow to nab himself a glass of water.

"So...," Quatre started, settling down on a stool at the breakfast bar. "Do you?"

"Do I what?" Duo blinked at him over the rim of his glass.

"Top?"

Water dribbled messily down his chin as he twitched in surprise and stopped himself on the brink of taking a swallow and probably choking on it.

"Something wrong?" Quatre blinked innocently at him, because really, Duo was the one that brought it up with that 'I'd come out on top' comment of his.

Duo scrubbed at his chin with the back of his hand, noting as he did the lines of wetness that trailed down the front of his shirt. At least it was only water. Surely he had misunderstood Quatre. He used a moment to finish that aborted sip and convince himself that he hadn't heard that. "So... did you guys have any ideas about something to do today?" Other than talking about his sex life, he hoped.

"Because honestly, I can't really see it either way."

With a pained expression, he resigned himself to the acceptance that Quatre really had meant it the way it had sounded. "Could you please stop picturing us in compromising positions?"

"Don't you?"

"I think it's a little different when you do it and when I do it." Besides, Duo didn't really need the 'picture' when he could just go right to the source and bring his pictures to life. Sooner or later, anyway.

"Seriously," Quatre insisted. "I mean, maybe you're more up to speed on this stuff than I am, but I don't see either of you... you know."

He really didn't think he wanted to know, actually, though he thought he did. It was probably one of those things that was going to take a little more time to finish wrapping his head around, and he wanted to have it well-wrapped before anything became a reality. Otherwise, things were going to get messy. "Do you always do this, Quatre?"

"What?"

"Try and picture your friends having sex? 'Cuz if you do, that's just wrong, man." Oh good lord, now he was wondering if Heero ever pictured such things.

Quatre shrugged. "Hey, you guys brought it up."

"Yeah, like, days ago. And I don't remember ever being explicit about anything. If your mind wandered over into that territory all by itself, well..." Duo snorted. "Hell, you really do need to get laid."

"Do I really?" Quatre asked curiously, putting an elbow to the counter and resting his chin on his hand. "I mean, is sex really the end-all be-all solution to everything?"

Wow, things would be so easy if it was. Heh, then maybe they really could have the Terran Commune. If only. "Well, it's probably the cure for sexual frustration, yeah."

Quatre swung his legs a few time, knocking his toes against the wood of the cabinetry as he contemplated his inner state. "I don't think I'm sexually frustrated."

"Yeah, well I wouldn't know for sure, and since I'm a decent guy, I really don't want to think about it." He glared pointedly before turning back to his water with determination.

"Though I guess...," Quatre mused, leaving Duo in tense anticipation. "Maybe I could use a good roll in the hay."

Somehow, Duo thought Quatre's bedding was a good deal better than hay. "You could go roll with Trowa's lions for all I care. Don't wanna hear about it." Cheerful leering and oblique references were one thing, but actually talking about sex was something else entirely.

"Leave my lions out of this." Trowa flicked a crumb across the countertop in Duo's direction.

Duo blew him a raspberry. "Tell Quatre here to leave me out of his sexual fantasies."

Quatre straightened defensively. "I'm not having sexual fantasies about you."

"Maybe these fantasies don't actually involve you, but it seems to me that conjuring up sexy mental images of me and Heero qualifies as a 'sexual fantasy'." He set his glass down on the countertop with a thump as something occurred to him. "Whoa, hey now. You trying to tell me something, Q?"

"Like what? I was just asking a question."

"So you're not, like, gay or something? 'Cuz I hate missing something like that."

"What?" It was finally Quatre's turn to be startled. "No, of course not!"

Switching tracks rapidly, Duo made an exasperated sound. "Hey, what is it with this 'of course not!' thing, or this 'don't talk about my lions that way' thing? You guys sure you don't have any problems with me and Heero?" This was getting to be like Ami's 'why would you want to kiss Duo of all people?' thing.

Quatre shook his head vigorously. "That's not what I meant. I just meant... lord, I don't know what I meant. I was just trying to ask a question!"

"Yeah, a question about gay sex."

"I wasn't asking about the sex. It was more... personality-wise, I meant. You're both so..."

"...Alpha male?" Trowa volunteered.

Quatre snapped his fingers. "Yeah, that's it. Alpha male. I was just wondering... I don't even know how you two get along sometimes."

Duo glanced back and forth between the two of them. "What, don't, um, what were their names? Kamal and Tevel? Don't those guys get along?"

"Tevel's no alpha," Trowa said verbally. His expression said, 'nice try.'

"Oh." Damn.

Quatre snickered. "You know, I actually used to worry about you two, back in school. You guys always did seem sort of... something. Like you guys seemed to have some sort of understanding between you, but you were still at each other's throats every other day."

Funny. Duo didn't remember it that way. Though he did wonder if that was just retrospect painting everything with a hazy warm glow. He remembered a little animosity from time to time, and maybe some of it was even serious, but it had never been enough to really rock the boat. They hadn't meant enough to each other for that. He defended himself anyway. "No, we weren't."

A light furrow formed on Quatre's brow as he reviewed his memories. "I don't know, maybe that was just your standard mode of communication. Which is exactly my point. Neither of you willing to back down."

"Hey, we compromised plenty, back in the day. Had to, if we didn't want to kill each other." It was maybe even something that had brought them closer together, in the end. They'd just been 'roommates' back then, thrown into the same room with each other without much say in the matter. They just had to tolerate a few months of it, and then they'd be free. That light at the end of the tunnel had probably made them more willing to accept some of each other's odder quirks.

Quatre drummed his fingers on the countertop. "Well, if you did, you certainly didn't show much of it outside of your room. Don't I remember you two actually getting into physical fights with each other once or twice?"

Duo dismissed them with a wave of his hand. "Nah, those were nothing. Just letting off some steam, yanno? And heh, I guess we're still letting off some steam, every once in a while. It's healthy, don't you know. We've just grown up past the schoolyard scuffle stage."

And veered off into completely unexpected waters, Quatre thought. This was hardly the next logical step in his book. "I still can't figure you guys out. How did you two ever manage to get to this point?"

"You mean you've been trying to figure us out this entire time?" He rolled his eyes. "Geez, Quatre, forget about it already. You're not going to get anywhere with that."

"You haven't figured it out yet, either, have you?"

Like he was going to admit it. Didn't really matter, anyway. "Hey, I got the basics down. I mean, me and Heero. We have a good time, yeah? What more do you really need?"

"So no... fights for dominance?"

"What makes you think that ain't half the fun?" He bestowed them with a wink. See, oblique references. Far better than outright discussion of the physical mechanics of their relationship. "Me and Heero. We are who we are, yanno? You don't get to be a Gundam pilot by being a pansy. No surprise there. And if there's another thing about being a Gundam pilot... you learn that there doesn't always have to be a winner and a loser in a fight."

Quatre grinned. "Don't know about you, but there's always a Winner in my fights."

Duo reached across the kitchen island and flicked Quatre's forehead. "Well, I'll tell you this much: at least Heero doesn't make any lame jokes like that."

"You've got low standards, Maxwell," Trowa said from the sidelines, though really, he'd seen lower.

Quatre pounced happily on the new thread. "You'd jump anything that didn't tell a lame joke? Wow, you must really have been desperate."

As much as he didn't want to talk about it, there were times a guy just had to speak up for what was true and right in the world. "Hey, I didn't get together with Heero because I was desperate, okay? I'm not so much a loser that I'd have to jump my best bud just to get some."

"Well, I never got a straight answer out of you yesterday, so I feel perfectly at liberty to start making assumptions."

"We thought we could make a good thing even better." He shrugged, sort of liking that explanation. "Like I said, what more do you really need?"

*****

"So didja talk to him about it?" Duo tugged eagerly at the hem of Heero's shirt. "Didja, didja?"

Heero glanced over his shoulder reflexively as they strode down the hall to make sure the others were still safely back in the common room, waiting for him to change out of his workout clothes. "Yes."

"Well?" He'd noticed that Wufei had seemed a little uncomfortable at times during their morning breakfast, but after sharing those concerns with Heero, he had hardly expected the opportunity to address those concerns would pop up so quickly. He'd also been quite happy that the opportunity had fallen into Heero's lap and not his own.

"There's nothing to worry about."

Duo waited patiently for all of a few seconds before bumping his side quite deliberately into his partner. "Wanna be a bit more specific?"

Heero bumped back. "He was concerned about whether our personal relationship would ever become an issue in our working relationship. He's perfectly content to keep his mouth shut about us, even though regulations say we shouldn't work together. I assured him that we wouldn't put him in a position where he'd have to choose between his friendship with us and his duty as a Preventer. Case closed."

"That's it? He was worried about Preventers regulation? Geez, what a stick in the mud."

"What, you preferred that he had larger concerns?" Heero certainly hadn't. He was somewhat relieved that the situation had been resolved as easily had it had been.

"Of course not," Duo answered, elbowing him lightly. "But really. That's just... boring."

Heero threw an amicable glare at the offending elbow. "Boring's not so bad, these days. But he wasn't really worried about Preventers regulations. Like I said, he would have kept his mouth shut. He just hoped there wouldn't be a day when he would have to betray our confidences. And I suppose he was concerned for us as well. He said the regs are starting to tighten up. He was letting us know what to expect, what to watch out for."

"Well, fine," Duo huffed magnanimously. "I guess that's okay. Not like we were going to go make out on the sofas at work, anyway."

"They have sofas?"

"Yeah, in some of the staff lounges."

"Hm." He'd never paid much attention to such things, but now that it was mentioned, yes, he could recall one or two. They hadn't been nearly as comfortable as the ones around here. "Did you talk to the others?"

"Um." Reaching their room, he covered his pause by opening the door, and then shutting it again once they were both within. "Let's pretend I didn't."

Heero blinked at him. "Excuse me?"

"Trust me on this one. I don't think it was nearly as, uh, productive as your conversation with Wufei was."

TBC...

 

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