Author: Sunhawk
Pairings: 1x2x1
Rating: R
Warnings: Yaoi, fluff, sap, OOC, Heero POV, limey overtones.
Disclaimer: I thought I owned Gundam Wing. But I've looked everywhere and can't find the paper work. So I guess they aren't mine after all.
Thanks to Christy for beta reading at the drop of a hat!
This little work of gooey fluff is the total responsibility of Lev of Lev's Lair. Challenge MY ass will you! HA, I say! I can write short... you never said it had to be GOOD!
Feed-back...? I'm not sure I want to hear about this little sucker. Fluff... I wrote fluff.
Doubts
I suppose you could say I noticed it before I actually thought about it enough to realize something was odd.
I work with the Preventers, and my hours are sometimes long. Duo works in construction and is usually home before me. We've lived together since the end of the war. It took us a while to settle into the life we have now, I resisted the lure of the Preventers at first, before facing up to the fact that it truly was the place for me. Duo bounced from job to job, trying a little bit of everything before settling on construction. He found the hard physical labor helped him deal with the sudden changes in - shall we call it... lifestyle?
It had rather surprised us both, I think, when the war had ended and our previous... physical relationship had blossomed and taken root. He had shocked the hell out of me one night by moaning his love for me in the throes of passion. It had been an odd... relief to suddenly understand that we were going to stay together. That the future was not something either of us was going to have to face alone.
We got jobs. We bought a house. We shared the mundane chores that I had expected to hate and instead found that I loved. We were building a life, it made those things... wondrous instead of tedious. Who the hell would have thought?
Duo did most of the cooking because he was usually home first. I did most of the laundry because it balanced. We shared everything else, because we loved this strange, new domesticity... but scrubbing toilets still sucked.
We developed routines and I thrived on that. Order and regulation; that's what makes the world go round. Duo had chaffed a little at first, during those early months, but his new job was so physically taxing that I found he had calmed and was finally settling down. His massive amounts of excess energy had found an outlet and he had mellowed into a wonderfully comfortable partner.
As I was saying, I noticed something was... odd, before I really noticed it.
Duo usually has supper on the table when I get home at night. I call him when I leave the office so he knows what time to expect me, since it's seldom the same time two nights in a row. The first night that I can look back and truly say I noticed a slight change in the routine, I arrived home to find Duo on the computer and no supper on the table.
'Shit!' he blurted as I walked through the front door and he shut down whatever he'd been working on, dashing for the kitchen. 'Man... I totally lost track of time! Sorry about that, I'll have something thrown together here in a few minutes. Why don't you go ahead and shower, I should have something ready by the time...'
I had been trailing along behind him and finally managed to catch up when he stopped to open the refrigerator. 'Would you stop babbling long enough to kiss me hello?' I teased.
He laughed and I kissed him. He drew away after a moment to look at me critically, eyes roaming over me, taking inventory.
'All in one piece?' he smiled. This was part of his routine. He had asked me the same question every night since I'd taken the job with the Preventers. He hadn't been altogether thrilled when I had accepted the position. They had pursued him too, but he had flat out refused, telling Sally Po and Commander Une in no uncertain terms that he was done with fighting, done with all of it. I think he would have been happier if I'd been done with it too. He asked this question every night in the same light, bantering tone, but the concern was plain in his eyes.
'You worry too much,' I informed him, the same response I made every night.
He kissed me lightly, just as he always did, and sent me off to the shower.
So, I noticed... but I didn't.
Supper was on time the next night, but Duo was on the computer again when I got home. It was becoming part of the routine. But I still didn't think much of it until I finally realized that he never used the system after I got home, and whatever he was doing was shut down the minute I walked through the door.
Call it Preventer agent instincts, but as soon as I noticed... I became curious.
So a week or so later, after supper, while he was in the shower, I sat down at the computer and proceeded to look through the system logs and found... nothing. Nothing to account for any on-line time. No new files on the system. Nothing. How... odd.
I made a point the next night of coming home a bit early, but he must have finished when he heard the car in the drive and, as usual, was just getting up from the computer desk when I walked in. Again there was nothing. At all. It wasn't possible that there would be no trace of any activity; it meant that he was editing the logs.
I felt... strange. We'd never had secrets from each other before. But... I wasn't sure this actually constituted a secret. My curiosity was more than just peaked, it was on fire.
We made love that night and I found myself watching for signs of some distance. For signs that there was something wrong between us. It seemed a stupid concern as he was writhing beneath me, as he was shouting my name and rising to meet my thrusts, but I couldn't quite banish the nagging feeling that he was deliberately hiding something.
I tried to forget about it, but the seed had been planted and I had to know. I tried the direct approach.
'You on the computer again?' I teased as I came through the door. 'Not spending our life savings on Ebay?'
His smile seemed open enough, but I noticed his hands never hesitated in closing down whatever was on the screen. 'Hey!' he laughed. 'I only overbid that one time, and it wasn't that damn much!'
He came to greet me with a kiss before heading off for the kitchen. 'If you weren't done,' I ventured, 'dinner can wait.'
He seemed a little flustered, and I swear there was a faint flush to his cheeks as he glanced over his shoulder at me, before disappearing into the kitchen. 'No... all done.'
He was so ill at ease, in fact, that he forgot to ask me if I was in one piece. I was, oddly... hurt.
I poured over the logs while he finished dinner and again, frustratingly, found nothing.
It began to nag at me. Nothing really seemed amiss... but I couldn't help conjecturing about just what he was doing that he felt compelled to hide from me. There weren't a lot of things I could think of that would keep him occupied day after day that he would need to conceal from me. If he were shopping for a gift for me, it certainly wouldn't take him weeks to do it, and there was no occasion that we observed coming up for months yet anyway.
The next night I parked the car on the street instead of pulling into the driveway and managed to surprise him. There was a rather shocked look on his face as he stuttered, 'Heero! I didn't hear you pull up!' He quickly deleted and closed as I came across the room. I thought he was going to knock the chair over standing up.
'The neighbor's cat was laying in the driveway,' I lied, wondering at the possibilities of moving the computer desk closer to the front door. Though he tried to seem nonchalant, it was fairly obvious that he was disconcerted and off-balance. I set the dinner table while he finished cooking and then I slipped back to the computer.
He had managed to wipe his tracks even in the bare time he'd had, but he'd been a little sloppy in his haste and I found an indication that he'd been using a web cam. A small enough clue... but all I had.
A web cam. What in the hell? My curiosity turned to trepidation. For the first time, I was... a little afraid of what was going on here.
Things seemed fine at dinner; we ate and told each other about our separate days, continuing telling our tales while we cleaned up together. Things seemed very... normal. We watched a little television and went to bed. Nothing out of the ordinary from most of our evenings.
Later, while he was still regaining his breath, while I was still lying between his thighs, I whispered, 'Are you... happy?'
He blinked up at me, the question catching him completely by surprise. 'Of course...' Then something dark flickered behind his eyes. 'As... as long as we're together. Are... are you happy, Heero?'
I saw what my words had implied and smiled for him. 'Very happy,' I assured him and was rewarded with a beautiful smile.
We cleaned ourselves up and lay down to sleep, me on my side of the bed and he on his. I heard a small sigh as he settled there, a sigh that I realized I heard every night and I found myself wondering about it.
I need my space at night. I've never been able to sleep with someone too close. I think sometimes that this bothers Duo, but he's never said anything and I know he understands.
I watched him sleep that night and wondered. I thought about those tiny sighs. I thought about the look of doubt that clouded his eyes sometimes. I thought about the feel of his body, wrapped around mine and the way his striving sometimes seemed almost... frantic.
I ordered the monitoring software the very next day. I had found in the small hours of the night that there was a large part of me that would be crippled beyond healing if Duo wasn't there with me. And I suddenly was having doubts... fears about just what was going on in the afternoons on our computer.
I paid for the expedited shipping but it would still take two days. I took half a vacation day the afternoon I placed the order, surprising Duo when he came home from work. He seemed genuinely delighted, even more so when I told him we were ordering pizza, that he wasn't cooking.
He grinned at me like a little kid on Christmas morning. 'What's the occasion, Heero?'
'I just realized how much I've been neglecting you,' I told him warmly and went to take him in my arms.
The statement brought a flush of warmth to his cheeks, but he raised his hands to fend me off. 'I just spent nine hours on the roof of a house, lover,' he chuckled lightly. 'You don't want within a yard of me.'
'I don't care,' I told him and swept him into my arms anyway, muffling his surprised gasp with my kisses.
I took him to the shower and washed his hair for him, combing it afterward. I made him stretch out on the bed while I ordered the pizza, coming back from using the kitchen phone to massage his sore back while we waited for it to arrive.
'You've been carrying double loads up the damn ladder again, haven't you?' I accused, feeling the tightness under my hands.
All I got was a whimpering little sound that might have been an affirmative or might have been something in Mongolian. I couldn't tell.
When the pizza came, I brought it to the bedroom and we ate in bed. He was positively speechless, watching me with eyes as wide as saucers.
When we were done, I cleared the mess away and slipped into bed with him, propping up against the headboard and pulling him into my arms to rest with his head pillowed on my chest. There was a strange little silence and he suddenly blurted, 'Ok... who the hell are you and what have you done with Heero Yuy?'
I snorted, though the remark made me feel... faintly guilty. 'I just feel like you haven't been getting much of my attention lately. I've been working late so much.'
He raised his head a little to look up at me and there was something in his eyes that tugged at my heart. 'You're spoiling me... I could get very used to this,' he murmured softly.
'Maybe you deserve to get used to this,' I told him tenderly.
Something washed over his face then, some unnamable emotion that spoke to me of need and fear, hope and wonder. 'God... I love you,' he whispered and I bent to claim his lips with my own. I made love to him that night with gentle patience, not letting him do much but lie back and enjoy. When I finally brought him to completion, he came with such intensity that I thought for a moment he had passed out. He was so spent, he couldn't even make his way to the bathroom to clean himself up. I fetched a washcloth and did it for him, wiping up the mess while he whimpered under my hands.
When I climbed back into bed, he managed a shaky, 'Damn, Heero!'
I chuckled at him and kissed the end of his nose. 'Go to sleep.' Then I rolled over to do just that.
I was... somewhat disappointed to find him on the computer again the next night. I didn't bother to check the logs; my software was due the next day anyway.
Things seemed so... normal. I watched him, looking for signs of what I suspected was going on, but everything followed our routine. Nothing seemed amiss. We ate, we cleaned up, I did a couple loads of laundry while Duo vacuumed, we watched some television and went to bed.
I couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. I couldn't figure out what had changed. I lay awake for quite awhile that night, staring at his back and wishing I understood what was going on. Wondering about what I was going to find when I loaded that software... and not sure I wanted to know.
The next day, when my package arrived, I found I couldn't wait. I took a long lunch, went home and loaded it up. It ran in complete stealth mode, didn't even show up in the task list. Duo would never know it was there. I went back to work feeling both anticipation and trepidation. Feeling... guilty. Feeling justified. Feeling damn strange.
I called home after I knew he'd be there, to tell him I would be a little late. Wanting to give him ample time to... do whatever the hell it was he did on the computer.
I was both elated and disappointed to see him get up from the computer chair when I walked through the door that night. I forced myself to stay away from the PC through supper and through showers. I didn't want to risk getting caught spying on him, though there was some small part of me that felt warranted in what I had done, I would be mortified if he caught me.
I made myself wait until I knew that he was well and truly asleep before I slipped out of bed and crept downstairs. When I finally sat down in front of the system and opened the monitoring software, I found myself hesitating to enter the password. Found myself realizing how much what I found out might change things. What if he really were carrying on some sort of on-line affair? What if he was e-mailing or chatting with another lover? Could I ignore it? Could I live with it? I didn't think so. But a confrontation might lead to... something else I couldn't live with.
It was age-old habit that made me begin typing. A soldier, or an agent, should always have all the pertinent information. Anything less was to be unprepared. I pulled up the afternoon's screen capture logs and hit play.
I didn't know whether to laugh or whether to cry. At first I was amused. Then I was hurt. Then I was... consumed with remorse. I think it's called an epiphany, what I experienced in front of that stark monitor. I closed the program, uninstalled the software and went back to bed. I had another night of watching Duo sleep. I thought a lot about... us. About our relationship. About the things he did for me that I'd never bothered to notice before. I thought about all the things he'd given up for me. I thought about that ache I saw in his eyes sometimes. I fell asleep remembering his breathy, hopeful voice sighing, 'I love you.' And trying to remember how many times I'd said it in return.
It's probably a good thing that the Preventers had all but fallen over themselves to get me to join, if I'd had a regular job, I'm sure the hours I kept that week would have gotten me fired. I took off for the afternoon again, but I didn't go home. I spent the hours running around making my preparations, with one eye on the clock waiting for the time that I knew that Duo would be home. Knew that Duo would be logging onto the computer... logging onto the Internet.
When five o'clock arrived, my errands were all run and I was in position, my cell phone in hand waiting for it to ring. I suppose I was wearing something of a smug little smile, but it was only for a mission successfully executed.
I stood squarely behind the puppy pen at the dog pound, ignoring the sidelong glances I was getting from the workers, ignoring the yapping, writhing bundle of puppies clamoring to get my attention, staring straight into the lens of the 'puppy cam'. My cell phone rang at exactly five fifteen.
'Hey,' I breathed into the thing, imagining that I was looking into Duo's eyes through that impersonal lens. Tried hard not to imagine who else I might be staring at.
'Heero?' he asked, his voice hesitant... almost shaky. 'What... what are you doing?'
'Did you honestly think that I could ignore something that took so much of my lover's attention?' I teased him lightly, almost able to see the drop-jawed expression of shock on his face at finding me here.
'I... I'm sorry, Heero,' he murmured and I could tell how off balance he was even over the cell phone.
I cut him off. 'Baka,' I smiled, 'stop apologizing and pick one.'
'What?' he blurted and I listened to several seconds of incoherent noise before he managed, 'I can't ask...'
'You're not asking, now are you?' I told him. 'I'm telling. Now are you going to pick one...or am I going to have to do it for you?'
There was a moment of just listening to him breathe and I understood from the sounds that there was a small struggle going on for control back at home in front of our computer. 'Heero... you don't want a dog... I can't...'
'Hush,' I commanded. 'It isn't always about what I want. What you want is just as important. Now tell me which one, lover.'
I heard a gulping little noise and when his voice came again, it was thick and unwieldy, 'The... the brown one in the corner... with the gangly legs and the ragged ear.'
I looked down into the pen to meet the soulful eyes of the puppy Duo had described. He was easily the ugliest damn dog in the pen.
'Are you... sure?' I had to ask, looking at the feet on the thing and understanding that he was going to end up being a very large dog.
'His... his time's almost up...' I heard over the phone, surprised by the depth of pain I heard there.
'Then we'll grant him a reprieve,' I soothed and felt compelled to turn my eyes back to the camera. Things were very quiet for a minute and I knew that the phone had been set aside.
I glanced back down and found the ugly puppy looking up at me rather expectantly, as though he had understood my words somehow, understood it was him we were talking about. He sat patiently in his corner, while his pen-mates yapped and scrambled around him. Experimentally I reached to scratch his head and watched him flinch for a moment before allowing the touch. I scratched behind the ragged ear and saw a hint of movement in the feathered tail. Big brown, mournful eyes looked up at me and I knew I was lost. I scooped the creature up and tucked him under one arm. With a shake of my head and a sigh, I looked back at the camera and waved the cell phone at it, before placing the phone back to my ear. It took another moment before Duo's voice came back.
'Yeah?' he whispered, his voice wobbly and unbelievably over-wrought.
'We'll be home in about a half an hour,' I told him warmly. 'Why don't you just call out for supper, ok?'
'O... ok,' he agreed and we hung up.
There was a lot more paperwork than I had anticipated and a stop at the pet store with a list that the animal shelter clerk had given me. I ended up having to use the credit card by the time I had accumulated the food, food dish, carrier, collar, leash, chew toy, water dispenser and dog bed that the girl had recommended. It ended up being closer to an hour.
I was a little surprised when I finally got home, to walk into the house and not immediately see Duo. I went into the kitchen and found him standing in the middle of the room with his hands full of Chinese take-out cartons, looking as though he'd never seen the like before. As though he needed someone to tell him what to do with them.
The puppy was safely tucked against my side again, dangling over my arm with all the patience of a saint, bright eyes taking in everything. I went to Duo, and using my free hand, deftly plucked the cartons from him, setting them on the table. Then I plopped the puppy into his arms, leaving him no choice but to hold the beast.
When my hands were free, I cupped Duo's face and forced him to meet my eyes. I couldn't half name what I saw going on there. He blinked red-rimmed eyes at me and whispered brokenly, 'You... you really do love me?'
Our new puppy sat quietly in Duo's arms and looked up at us, first at me and then at Duo, just as though he were following the conversation.
I smiled softly and leaned in to kiss him. 'Yes,' I told him firmly. 'I do... I love you very much.'
It was... painful to see the relief wash over him. Painful to understand how long he'd been living with his doubts and fears because I had problems expressing my affections. Because I had trouble saying those three little words that he gifted me with every day.
His eyes were shimmering brightly and he seemed unable to speak, just staring at me unblinking and I understood that there was a small struggle going on against tears.
I slipped my arms around his waist and pulled him as near as I could without crushing the gangly animal in his arms. 'You've given me my world,' I whispered softly. 'And I took. Took without giving in return.' I stroked gentle fingers over his face and watched him catch his lower lip in his teeth. 'That's going to end. We're partners... equal partners. What you want is just as important as what I want.'
He settled his head on my shoulder and said, his voice thick, 'I love you so much...'
'I know you do,' I told him. 'You've never let me doubt that. I intend to see that you never have reason to doubt me again.'
Our bodies, twined close as we could manage, made a warm cocoon around our ugly little puppy and all of a sudden he seemed to come to life. He'd been very quiet and subdued on the drive home and I'd wondered more than once what the little guy had endured in his short life. I like to imagine that Duo's and my love had granted him a little of the security he'd obviously never had. He was suddenly a bundle of squirming, wagging... puppy, licking enthusiastically at Duo's face and making odd little snuffling sounds. I watched them together for a moment before leaving them to get acquainted while I unloaded the rest of the stuff from the car.
I came back to the kitchen to find Duo on his hands and knees, following the little dog around as he explored the kitchen floor. They didn't seem to notice me as I moved about, filling the water dispenser and setting it out, placing the dog bed in the corner of the kitchen, setting out the food dish. I got the puppy's attention with the rattle of the food sack though, and he abandoned Duo to galumph across the floor to see what was being offered. I took the opportunity to pull Duo to his feet and nudge him toward our own dinner. He went, and he sat, but eating didn't seem to be on his agenda. His eyes couldn't quite decide whether to look at me or the dog. Finally, he seemed to steel himself and blurted, 'Heero, are you sure about this? It's kind of a big change...'
'Positive,' I told him firmly and tapped his plate with my chopsticks. 'Now eat.'
He flushed, seeming to notice the food in front of him for the first time, and took a bite. 'He's going to be a big dog,' he ventured. 'You know that... right?'
'No,' I said blandly. 'He's going to be a stinking monster. The lady at the pound says she thinks he's got a little mastiff blood along with about a half a dozen other things.'
I was pleased to see him suitably taken aback, but he didn't say anything right away and we ate in a comfortable silence, the puppy finishing with his dinner and wandering around the kitchen sniffing everything.
'I just... always wanted a dog,' Duo suddenly said, voice soft, staring down and seeming to talk to his plate. 'It's what nice, normal people do. I just want to be normal, Heero. I want walks in the park... and... and... popcorn on Sunday nights... and the movies sometimes...'
I put down my chopsticks and pushed my chair back, going around the table to him. He looked up at me, his eyes showing a bit of surprise and I nudged him until he pushed his own chair away from the table, giving me the room to straddle his legs and sit on his lap, facing him. He blinked up at me, his eyes full of a dozen questions, but he didn't speak, waiting for me. I brought my hands to the back of his neck, kissing him gently. When I drew away, I held his cross in my hand. I saw a touch of shock and a hint of trepidation cross his face, I don't know that the thing has left his neck in all the time I've known him. Wordless, I slipped my fingers into my pocket and pulled out the gold ring that had been tucked there all afternoon. I dropped it onto the chain with his cross and fastened it back around his neck, giving the two pieces of metal a gentle touch before dropping my hands to his waist.
He just sat and looked at me for a moment, before his fingers lifted the ring to look at it. I watched his eyes widen and then squeeze tight shut, but he was unable to stop the spill of bright tears.
I love you - forever and always.
It had taken a bit of work to find a jeweler who both had rings I liked, and would do the engraving on the spot.
Duo wrapped his arms tight around me and buried his face in my shirt. I held him close until he'd calmed himself enough to look up at me again. He wiped roughly at his eyes, his cheeks turning pink, and murmured, 'I'm sorry...'
I slipped my fingers into my other pocket, pulling out the matching ring on its gold chain. 'Does it... go both ways, love?' I asked gently, holding it out to him.
'Yes,' he breathed, eyes glimmering dangerously again. 'Oh God, yes. Forever and ever and always.' I bent my head and let him clasp the chain around my neck and then I sealed the vow with a kiss.
Drawing away, while his was face still tilted up to meet mine, his eyes just beginning to reopen... I thought he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Joy was a palpable thing that hung in the air around him. I bent to brush the end of his nose with my own. 'Duo?' I whispered softly.
'What, love?' he replied, his voice that slightly husky one he gets when he's feeling... amorous.
'Your dog just peed on the floor.'
His laugh was bright and unfettered, and I reflected that this new addition to our household might not be such a bad thing... if it brought with it these kinds of happy outbursts.
OWARI
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