Surrender Part 2
I check the clock as I walk in the door. I am running very late, but not as late as I had feared. I still have at least 30 minutes before Heero comes home. If I'm not where I'm supposed to be he is going to be very upset with me.
I pull off my uniform quickly and head for the shower. I pull my braid up and off my skin, pinning it to the top of my head so that it won't get wet. Heero wouldn't like that.
I shower quickly, washing away the sweat and grime that had accumulated during the day. I get out of the shower and undo my hair, brushing it out as I head for the closet.
My oldest pair of jeans, ripped up and holey in the knees are sitting on top of my dresser along with a small stack of accessories. Heero is always through, though the manacles are missing and I wonder why. He usually leaves those for me with the rest of the regular stuff. There is only one thing I have to do before I put the jeans on- everything else can be done afterwards. I do it quickly, wincing a little bit at the pain, I don't have time to be comfortable.
I wonder for a moment about the jeans as I pull them on. These aren't part of the usual outfit...
I scoop up the accessories and head for the hallway. I need to be in place and I am running out of time.
I place the accessories on the floor and look at what Heero has left for me. I must have done something to anger him- usually the leash alone is hanging on the wall and waiting for me to clip to the collar that never leaves my neck. But today the manacles are clipped to chains that wrap around a small hook in the ceiling.
What had I done? I had stuck to the terms ... I hadn't disobeyed...
A glance at the clock shows me that time is moving fast. No time to speculate now.
I pinch my nipples, biting my lip at the pain, sliding the clamps on once they are firm enough. I have to unzip my jeans to put the ring in place, and I wonder again about the jeans as I zip them back up and place the rest of the accessories in my pocket.
I place my back against the wall. The leash snaps onto my collar. I glance up at the chains. They are way over my head. This is going to be tricky.
I pull the gag from my pocket and secure it in place. Then the blindfold around my eyes. Everything else has to be in place before I can secure my hands. Once those manacles are around my wrist, I have no way of getting them off again. Only Heero can.
I run a quick check- have I forgotten anything?
No. So I raise myself upwards on my toes, fingers reaching for the cuffs. I manage to snap them into place around my wrists. Then I let myself relax into the bindings. Done and in time. Heero won't be upset.
Though something had to have happened to make him angry... otherwise, why the chains? He hasn't used them on me for a long time. Not since the beginning when I committed my sin against him and he had caught and punished me for it.
I had thought then, that he would kill me. That he hadn't amazed me. Instead, he had wanted this... and I had agreed. I didn't tell him that I didn't consider it punishment. I didn't tell him that I loved every moment.
I think he knew.
I also knew our time together had to be coming to an end soon. I had committed my sin out of desperation. Heero and Relena had been getting closer for months. Office rumors had them dating. I didn't know for sure, he never spoke of her to me.
He is out with her now, having dinner... and I ache with jealousy. This part is my true punishment. Waiting for him to come home from his time with her. Having to smell her perfume on his coat.
I wait in agony. He doesn't arrive.
It has to be past the usual time for him to come home from one of these evenings out. He is late.
The apartment is quiet, only the faint ticking of the clock and the hum of our refrigerator mar the silence. I wait, what else can I do? I have bound myself here. I could leave, but I choose to stay. I will stay until he tells me to go.
I swallow, the familiar feeling of the collar tightening for a moment. Heero had put it around my neck two months ago. I had never taken it off since. My Preventers uniform hides it, and here in the apartment it is unnecessary to hide it. Part of our 'terms' that he had set- I am to be always ready for his leash...
He had caught me as I tried to slip away that night. I had made a fatal mistake and for a moment I had thought he was going to strangle me. Instead he had pulled me back to his bed and bound me with the same chains I had used on him.
He had kept me there for the rest of the weekend, going out only once, and drugging me insensible before he did it. He came back with the collar. We discussed the 'terms'. To be fair, he discussed and I agreed. He made me promise to accept them and I had. I needed to pay for my sin.
Then he had let me go. Life resumed its normal pace. We went to work, we came home. Except that if I was home first, I was to be here, leashed and waiting for him in the hallway, my hands bound in front of me.
Sometimes he ignored me there when he came home. He'd go to his computer or to the kitchen to start dinner. Sometimes he'd unclip the leash and pull off the manacles and we'd have an ordinary night of dinner and TV. On those nights, I would almost know in advance, since just the manacles and maybe a pair of shorts would be waiting on my dresser.
Most times however he'd leave other things for me to use with the manacles. Things to get me ready for him.
On those nights, the leash was pulled off of its hook in the wall and I would be pulled along to the bedroom, or couch, or sometimes not even that far. Sometimes I would be pinned against the wall in the hallway, or made to kneel there on the wood floor. Sometimes he finished with me quickly, and the evenings finished off the same way the 'normal' ones did. Sometimes he didn't, and I wouldn't get to sleep until the small hours of the morning, sore and worn out.
A few nights, he had returned home before me, and I would find him on the sofa, leash in hand, waiting for me.
A few nights he had been gone on cases. A few nights so had I. It was hard hiding the collar from others at times, but I had done it.
One night I had come home with a fever, hacking and coughing. That was one of the nights Heero had been home before me. He had gotten up from the sofa, met me in the hallway and took me to bed to rest.
Sometimes he is gentle.
I don't deserve his gentleness, but I treasure those times.
I hear footsteps down the hall, more than one set, that can't be him, I think. It has to be our neighbors coming home...
But the feet stop in front of our door. I hear the key in the lock. I bend my head and wonder what is going on. My place is behind the door, on the hallway wall, whoever was on the other side will have to come all the way in to see me.
"It's late, Relena," I hear Heero's voice say and I hear the squeak of the door hinges.
No...
"But Heero, we haven't finished talking yet..." Relena's voice is softer. "Why won't you invite me in? I'm sure Duo won't mind."
"He wouldn't but I would. You need to go home. We've said all we need to say." His voice is chill and I shiver to hear it. I haven't heard that tone for weeks...
"You may have, but I haven't." Relena's voice is pleading. I want to tell her it's no use. I know this mood of Heero's.
"You never stop," Heero's voice loses a bit of its chill. "You're as bad as Duo." He sounds tired now.
"And you aren't as bad as you pretend," now her voice is the chill one.
"You think not?" I hear a faint sliding noise and the sound of the door being slammed shut. "Let me show you something." The click of the lightswitch. A faint hissed indrawn breath.
"Duo!" Relena's voice is horrified. "What are you doing to him?"
"He's being punished." There are some faint rustling noises. "Don't!"
"I'm not going to let you treat him like this! What did he do to you?"
"He loves me. How do you know he didn't ask for it?"
A sharply indrawn breath. "Because you are trying to show me how bad you are. If Duo wants this, then you wouldn't be using it as evidence."
A part of me wants to laugh. Are we in a courtroom? How bizarre. Heero in his suit and tie, Relena no doubt in one of her chic dresses- and me, half naked, bound on the wall...
Footsteps draw closer to me. "Don't touch him." Heero snaps.
"So protective," Relena sighs. "So you won't let him take off the gag to speak to me?"
"No."
"Why is he being punished, Heero? What did he do?"
I wait for Heero to tell her what I had done to him. Wait to hear his version of my crime. His answer is unexpected...
"He tried to run away from me."
"So you're forcing him to stay?"
"Yes."
"That's not how love works."
"That's how I work. I told you. I'm showing you. Do you believe me yet?" Another pair of footsteps moves close to me, hands reach out and unhook the chains and the leash from the wall, pull me down the hallway, half-stumbling in his wake, Relena's heels clicking behind us. What has made Heero so angry?
Then Heero's hands are between my shoulder blades. I fall, sprawling, my hands encountering the couch on the way down. I curl up next to it on the floor. Heero is never like this with me...
Fabric brushes my cheek, the couch moves. Heero sits down on the couch. A tug on the leash and my head is on his leg.
I wish I could take the blindfold off. I want to see Heero's face, try and figure out why he is tense and angry.
"You're being an idiot." Relena snaps. "I don't know why you think you have to be this way."
"Why would I be any other way?"
What the hell were they talking about? What was going on?
"I tell you something that I hope, one way or the other, is going to be a kick in the ass for you and you act like it's no big deal." Relena's vocabulary startles me for a moment. She must be mad. "At least admit to yourself Heero that you are jealous. You are jealous of the fact that someone else has admitted an attraction for the person you love. You are worried that your rival will beat you..."
Someone else is in love with Relena? No wonder Heero is pissed. Damn it.
"I am not worried. I don't care."
"Liar." Relena snorts and I heard the click of her heels going down the hallway. "Keep that in mind when you find yourself alone again!" The front door opens and then closes with a bang. Relena is also very pissed off apparently.
I hold absolutely still, unsure of what to do.
The gag loosens, my blindfold slides off and Heero pulls me up into his lap. He kisses the corners of my mouth, frowning slightly.
"You pulled the gag too tight," his fingertips brush over the marks.
"I was running late." I lean against him, waiting.
It doesn't take long, and what he says is not what I am expecting. "I'm sorry for these..." he touchs the chains. "Relena has been... pushing me lately. I shouldn't take it out on you." He opens the manacles, drops the chains on the floor.
His hand picks up the leash next, wraps it around his fingers, pulls it tighter.
"Your promise?" He whispers against my mouth.
"I won't leave until you tell me to go. I will do anything you ask. I won't take off your collar..." I repeat automatically.
"Would you promise me the same thing now? Or would you ask to go?"
"Whatever you want." He sighs.
"What do you want, Duo?" He asks, and then kisses me so that I can not answer. We don't leave the couch that night.
~*~
The next day, I'm assigned to a bodyguard duty- a special request of Vice-minister Peacecraft's. It is not an unusual request, but today I have no idea what to expect and I admit to feeling a wee bit worried as I head towards the Minister's office.
Relena is working when I get there. Meeting after meeting passes and I do nothing but make occasional checks as people pass in and out of the room.
I relax a little. I wonder which of these men or women is the rival she spoke of to Heero. I watch them all closely, and I watch her reactions to each. I find that I can not guess.
~*~
At the end of the day, the last people file out and I prepare to turn her over to her personal security when they arrive to pick her up at the office.
"Duo," she says a quiet voice as I wait by the door. "Why do you stay with him?"
"I love him." I tell her.
"What if I told you that there was someone else who loved you? Someone who wanted to cherish you? Someone that wouldn't make you do those kinds of things to prove your love?"
"Heero lied to you." I look at the door so that I don't have to meet her eyes. "I'm not being punished because I tried to run away. I'm being punished because I did something very bad to Heero. So bad that I thought he'd kill me for it."
"Why?"
I shrug. "I don't know. I have no excuse, nothing that I can rationalize to you. I just had to do it. I knew he'd kill me for it, but I didn't care."
"Surely you've paid for it by now?"
"No." I shake my head. "I know I don't have much longer. Once you and Heero straighten out what's between you, I'll be gone again..."
"What's between us?" She laughs a little. "Nothing is between us. Nothing but friendship, and after last night he might take away even that."
"What?" I turn and look at her finally. "Why?"
"I've been trying to tell him for months that he loves you. He kept saying no. I tried to convince him to at least try a relationship with you. I didn't know..." She shrugs, uncomfortable. "I knew he needed something. I tried to push it last night. I told him that there was someone else in love with you. Someone who would be happy to take you away with them. Someone who wanted only your happiness."
She smiles a bit more. "It backfired of course. You saw what he did. I hope he didn't take it out on you..."
"No," I assure her. "Heero isn't cruel."
The door chimes, informing us that her security is here, and our conversation ends.
I drive home. Many thoughts go through my head. Heero. Relena. Someone who loves me. The leash. The chains. My promise. Heero's anger. My sin. My punishment. Heero's demands.
When I open the door to the apartment, Heero is on the couch, my leash in his hands, turning it over and over in his fingers.
He gives me a half-startled, half-worried look.
"You're late."
"Relena's security was late." I tell him as I hang up my jacket.
"Did she- did you -" He takes a deep breath. "Are you going to leave?"
"Will you let me go?"
His eyes close for a moment.
"Yes."
I walk over to the couch and kneel at his feet, my hands pulling off my tie, opening my shirt collar, exposing the black band that encircles my throat.
Heero reaches out, runs his fingers over it and before he can undo the buckle, I reach for the leash and snap it into place.
"I want to stay."
"What if I tell you that I forgive you for that night? That I wanted what you did? I could've freed myself..."
"I know." I climb up beside him on the couch and put my head in his lap.
"You'd be better off with..."
"I promised to stay. I will stay. And now you can't make me go."
His hand touches the top of my head.
"I don't want you to go."
I smile. "I know."
OWARI
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