Battlefields

Chapter 2

 

by Kracken

 

 

6x2, 1x relena, 5x Sally,3x4

Warning:Angst, violence, graphic... the usual.

-----------------------------------------------------------

It couldn't have gone more wrong, even though it started out as almost routine. Routine for pilots of our caliber, is quite different from the routine of regular ones. We rode the edge of the third rail of what was possible in ships such as ours. We flirted with death and made our targets dance to our tune, herding them into position after arrowing out of the sun to take them unawares. A man can't react fast after re-entry and we were coming in hot, right beside them, before they realized that they were dead men.

Ships shattered and scattered towards the ground in smoking ruin, their cargos of dangerous contraband, exploding along with them. We never expected one to detonate almost in our faces, and to carry enough charge to make the sky shake, and our ships fly away at different directions. They were both out of control, then, and far too high up for safe ejection. We could only ride our smoking pieces of ruin down and hope to stay alive long enough.

"Status?" I barked at Duo as I marked our positions and sent out a distress call.

The radio gave me nothing, It was fried. I could only hope that the distress signal was working and that we wouldn't have to wait for headquarters to determine that we were down and in need of rescue. My embarrassment was keen. I wasn't going to relish writing this report, if I survived to make one.

I put on my breathing equipment, squinting out through a burned canopy towards Maxwell's shattered piece of tumbling hell. There wasn't any way to determine whether he was alive or dead. My heart was a throbbing pain in my chest and a litany in my head kept time with it. "Be alive! Be alive! Be alive!" It wouldn't stop, I knew, until I saw his chute open, and the man safely on the ground.

Safe and on the ground had it's own complexities. We were in the mountains, deep ravines everywhere, and snow and ice covering up any hint of the dangers that might lie beneath. Some where, in all of that, there was a secret base, where our targets had been headed. Someone would be waiting for them. Someone who surely hadn't failed to notice their violent demise, or that they would have been our next targets. Getting down, and out of there, were two priorities that were going to be impossible if they scrambled ships, or guns, against us.

A light flashed for safe altitude and I ejected without a second in between. The blast of the charge under my seat was followed by a gout of flame as my ship tried to take me with it. I felt the heat over my skin, even as I flew far from the destruction, and then jerked as my chute opened and slowed my descent. I blinked against the freezing wind, and tried to see Duo's chute.

Duo's ship had disintegrated. I watched smoking bits fly past me, as I craned my head up, my pale bangs in my eyes, and searched the sky frantically. High up, perhaps too high, I saw Duo's chute, half open in the thin air, and the man plummeting. He had ejected too high. Only angels, or devils, or a remarkable stroke of luck, would save him now.

I was shocked when Duo released his straps and let the ejection seat, and it's failed chute, go. I cursed him in the thin air, as if he could hear me, wondering why he had chosen death. Braid whipping behind him, and flight jacket flapping, I imagined him grinning in the face of his own demise. He wouldn't meet it any other way, I was sure.

When a secondary chute opened, at safe altitude, my curse was of another sort, one that was for Duo and the utter relief that I was feeling. The man was the most resourceful person that I had ever known. He could pull victory out of defeat with tin cans and children's glue. Planning ahead, though, had never been his strength. That he had thought to pack a second chute was out of character.

I landed hard, my ankle twisting on rocks and pea gravel. Skin left my side, and one knee, as the chute dragged me until I was able to release it.I ignored pain and limped as quickly as I could to wear Duo was coming down. He hit hard, as if he couldn't keep his feet, and then the chute began dragging him towards the edge of a ravine.

My ankle screamed pain, as I used it mercilessly to reach Duo, grab his chute, and hit the releases. It flew off of him violently and I dug in heels to hold him safe until the chute was gone and he wasn't sliding towards another death. He was unconscious, a dead weight in my arms, and I knew then, that capture, by our targets's, was almost assured.

I dragged him, gong backwards in an awkward crawl, until we were sheltered by rocks from a freezing wind. I couldn't afford to be gentle, or to worry. I slapped him hard in the face, twice, before he blinked open bleary eyes.

"Status?" I demanded.

"Alive," he chuckled brokenly and seemed to be having trouble breathing. He drew in slow, careful breaths, even though his face looked almost blue with the need to draw in air more quickly."Cracked ribs, bruised diaphragm," he ventured, after a long moment of self examination.

"Sprained ankle," I reported in my turn.

"Shit," Duo muttered and then did another assessment. "I can walk. We need to get you out of here."

He was still thinking as if we were in a war. Save the commander. The commander is more important than the soldier. I checked weapons, and my small GPS device, and thought about weather, our lack of proper clothing, and our injuries. "We'll have better odds surrendering to the targets, than trying to walk out of here."

"You sound oh, so confident in our backup rescuing us," Duo growled. "I did get off a distress signal before my ship turned into confetti."

"So did I," I replied, "but they aren't close by. This was supposed to be a simple 'drop the bomb' mission."

"We'll never hear the end of this," Duo sighed in disgust.

I had to agree and felt the same sting of pride as he managed to stand. Looking up at him, I saw his pain, in his expression and the way he wrapped an arm around his rib cage. After a moment of stealing himself, though, he was reaching down to pull me up with him.

"Try not to squeeze anything, big guy, and don't put that two ton weight on me completely," Duo ordered as he slid his free arm around me.

"I am not that big," I groused, needing something to hide my acute embarrassment at having to be helped from the field of battle. "If you weren't so small..."

"Hard living does that to a man," Duo replied and I realized that he wasn't volleying back my attempt to save face. His return was far more serious, and spoke of a history that was dark.

"I'm sorry," I found myself saying, as we began a slow limp forward. I knew how painful it was to have one's past stirred up unexpectedly. I could only imagine what life had been like for a war orphan and a teenage Gundam pilot. I doubt that concern for his health, and enough resources to grow well, had been considered necessary.

Duo didn't reply to my apology. He needed all of the air, that he could force into his injured ribcage, to help me to safety. Where that safety was, was debatable. The landscape looked barren, too open to hide. It wouldn't be long before our targets scrambled to capture us. I could only hope that they had decided to flee, instead, fearing that those back up forces would finish the job that we had failed. That, of course, was a sane, logical, choice. Expecting men, to be sane, or logical, when they had set themselves on a course of destruction and rebellion, could turn out to be a foolhardy decision. Those kind of men tended to act on emotion. Emotions dictated that they get their revenge, for the death of their men, and operation, before self preservation.

"Dizzy," Duo said suddenly, and his steps faltered. "You're right, we're not walking out of here. We need a hidey hole."

I could feel him trembling under me, his breath short and sharp as it labored. Sheer determination was keeping him on his feet as his purple eyes scanned the land around us.

"We need to avoid large holes. Their equipment will pick it up," Duo murmured, more to himself than to me. "Just big enough... to squeeze into."

We walked again, to our right, keeping closer to the edge of a chasm, than I liked. The wind was gusting up from its depths; meat locker cold, and sending both our hair, and clothing, whipping upwards along with it. It was hard to walk in that kind of biting cold. My heart labored and my face felt frozen.

"The cold here, will mess with their heat detection equipment,"' Duo explained, as if sensing that I was ready to order us away from that punishing force of nature."It's also inaccessible to landers. They'll have to walk in to get us.Make it hard enough for them, and maybe they won't bother."

"No, they'll just blow us up," I replied with acute pessimism.

Duo glared, but he didn't have the strength to keep arguing. His face was turning red from the cold. Sweat was making crusts as it froze on hair or collar. He didn't look ready to take another step, but he adjusted my weight and moved forward, hunching behind my size to escape to worst of the wind. I couldn't criticize him for it. I would have done the same.

"There," Duo said at last, and pointed to a cleft of rock that looked like a deeper shadow. He moved us in that direction and I struggled to see the hope that he had.

"Small," Duo noted with a frown and bent down.

I still didn't see anything, until he lowered me to the freezing rocks. While my ankle was telling me, with vicious pain, that it hadn't liked walking on my injury, and my ass was complaining about the sharp, cold, rock underneath it, I bent and peered under a shelf of stone and saw a small opening.

"Too small," I judged.

"Maybe," Duo muttered and, ignoring his own injuries, he slid inside of it. He reappeared just as quickly. "It opens up, once you get inside, but still not by much. There is enough room if we squeeze. I hope you aren't claustrophobic?"

I glared, knowing that he was joking. Men who spent their lives in small cockpits, and in space suits, were not squeamish about confined spaces. "The opening is too small for me," I argued.

He eyed me and then snorted. "You'll have trouble with those big shoulders, but... you can manage. You first, Big Guy."

Duo leaned back against the rock, arms around his middle, and lips beginning to chap. His eyes, full of pain, as he panted for air, were watching me expectantly. I had to try, those eyes said. We were out of options.

Like a contortionist, I forced my way in, leaving skin behind on shoulders and knees, and ripping my jacket. Duo had been right, it didn't open much on the other side of that opening. I had enough room to turn and sit down, my back bowed a bit. The prospect of spending hours like that wasn't appealing at all.

Duo edged in, feet first, and I absently guided his feet to one side and the other, to keep him from kicking me, as I searched for my penlight. When I turned on the light, at last, it was at the same moment that his ass moved into my lap. His startled face lit up, eyes wide, as he realized what position he had put himself into.

"This is... awkward," Duo managed.

I'm sure there was a rule, about straddling one's commander, even in combat situations. I grabbed a slim ankle, and worked his leg over to my other side, to join the other one, but there still wasn't enough room for him to turn and join me on my side of the cave. He was curled on his wall, and I was on mine, but our bodies were forced tightly together and there wasn't any help for it.

"Uhm... so..." Duo tried.

"I'm not bothered by this," I told him and couldn't help a smile tugging at my lips.

He laughed, even though it split one of his chapped lips, and he had to hold his side and choke for air. "Me neither," he replied at last.

That made me warm, even though every extremity was frozen.

"Well done, Agent Maxwell," I told him as I turned out the light to save the charge.

"Not out of the woods yet," he mumbled, as if he were getting ready to ignore everything and sleep

"Still a remarkable, competent, maneuver," I insisted. "I commend you, as well, in your forethought to pack a spare parachute."

There was silence on his end and I almost wondered if he had fallen asleep, when he replied, "Heero made me pack it. Sometimes, he just knows things. Weird, really. He put a note on the thing to put it on, our else. Heero's 'or else's' can be painful. Can we not talk now? It hurts my lungs."

"Status," I insisted.

He sighed, and then replied. "Not good. I need a medic. My chances are shit if we don't get rescued soon."

That sent a chill through me that had nothing to do with the cold. "Rest," I told him. "I'll keep watch."

That was an automatic statement that didn't have much meaning in our position, especially when Duo stopped up the small opening with his coat. If they found us, we didn't have any defense, but to shoot our guns until they were empty, and then be dragged out to an unknown fate. It seemed a time for admissions.

"I want to become serious with you," I said and it sounded so formal that I laughed as he snickered. "I'm asking you, to allow me, to court you, Duo Maxwell."

"At least you didn't ask for marriage," Duo replied, relieved. "Dating is good. We'll date. See you, friday, about 8:oo P.M.. I'll order us dinner."

"Accepted," I agreed and then was left with the solid presence of his lower body in my lap as he slept. It would have been erotic, something hard to deal with, if I hadn't heard the faint bubbling of his breath and understood that broken ribs had punctured a lung.

__________________________

The bombing started some time later. Duo awoke with a start and a gasp of pain, and then we were reaching and clutching at each other, reflexively wanting to keep the other safe, even though it was clear that nothing could be done. Our small bubble in the rock, was going to collapse under the onslaught of enemy fire. We were going to die, crushed under rock, and probably never found by friend or foe.

"Friendly fire," Duo managed, pulling me almost face to face with him so that he could be heard. I smelled blood, that close to him, sweat, and the powder of pulverizing rock. "Time."

He meant that the bombing had coincided with the ETA of our backup forces. It didn't make any difference. We were going to die right along with our enemy.

Duo reached and pulled his jacket away from the opening. Cold blew in and I felt my heart struggle in my chest as our warmth was stolen in seconds. "Go," he told me.

He was sending me out to die more quickly, it seemed, ordering me to sacrifice as if I were a first year cadet. I bristled, even though I knew his reasoning. He didn't have the strength to move any longer. My leg was swollen, but even a limp, or the simple act of crawling, could get me out, and, perhaps noticed by our fellow agents. If they were Preventers, my more cynical side sneered, but it didn't make sense that our enemy would have waited so long to try and obliterate us. Being noticed, on a rocky, wind swept mountain, being bombarded with weaponry, didn't have good odds. I still would have liked Duo to have known that I would have suggested it without his forceful command. I wasn't a coward and I understood the chances of battle all too well.

I pushed past Duo, afraid that I was hurting him as I was forced to squeeze by him to reach the entrance. I leaned in, at the last moment, to kiss him. I said, a parting farewell, "I give the orders, Maxwell. remember that."

"Sorry, sir," he said against my lips, kissed me back, more fiercely, and then hunched away to give me as much room as he could to allow me to get out.

The wind hit me and the smell of burning, exhaust from ships, and whatever there was to burn on that harsh landscape. I slitted my eyes against raining debris from all around me and then huddled down as another explosion seemed to happen right on top of me. I felt rock hit me in the side and on the arms I had covering my head, with bruising force. I found myself counting, using an old method of calculating the fall time of dangerous shrapnel and stones, before rising up again and forcing my leg to take my weight. It screamed agony at me, but I still put my weight on it as I staggered away from the rock face, to the edge of the long drop, and waved my hands above my head. Here I am, I felt I was saying, a clean target to hit.

If being close to death, was an unusual occurrence, a man might think about regrets. My life had been too full of such moments. My entire attention was on the sky, and my hope that the clouds of smoke and fumes wouldn't prevent me from being seen. Far below that, I think, I did have a wish for Duo to come out of our mission safely, but that wish was only going to find fulfillment with me, and with whoever was firing on our position. My mind was on that goal entirely and not on my own survival.

A ship appeared out of the clouds, hovering like a monstrous dragon fly, guns swiveling to track my form with chilling precision. Red laser sights targeted my head and chest. I met that machine of death with a stiff back and a raised chin. I wouldn't die a coward, though no one but me, and whoever was flying that ship, might ever know it. My white hair was an uncontrollable maelstrom, pulled out of it's bindings, and caught up in the winds of the ships' engines. It was my banner, one that any fellow agent could recognize.

The laser sight cut off and the ship peeled away. I felt a slight tremble go through me, a natural reaction to stress. When the Preventer agents came pouring towards me, on foot, I was still standing, still forcing my ankle to hold me up. I gave that up when they caught at my arms and began firing questions at me.

"Where the hell is Maxwell?" Heero's voice shouted in my ear and I turned my head, surprised to see the helmeted ex gundam pilot beside me.

"Thank you for the extra parachute," I told him, almost dazedly, as I sagged in their arms. "It saved Maxwell's life. He's over there, in that small cave, injured seriously. Broken ribs in his lungs, I think. He needs immediate evac."

Blue eyes looked fiercely at me, as if Heero wanted to explode with condemning curses. They would have been deserved. My mission had been totally botched. He was shouting orders, instead, and men were crawling into the cave, announcing that they were friendlies, so that Duo wouldn't mistakenly attack them.

Saved, the both of us. Whatever had been keeping me together, adrenalin or shear force of will, went out of me like water poured from a cup. I began to think that I had more than an ankle injury, when the world began to fade. I clutched at Heero and said, surprising us both, "Stay with him." I let go after he nodded acknowledgment of my order.

____________________________________________

"Idiot," Sally Po muttered as she checked vitals once more.

I wasn't arguing, but when I opened my mouth, she said again, "Idiot!"

I grimaced. "All right."

She sighed and adjusted a drip that was going into my arm. A man couldn't really argue from a hospital bed, that they had been more than careful about their person. I felt a fool, any how, that I had fainted from lack of food. A good meal hadn't been on my preflight check list, and hours spent in a freezing cave hadn't helped matters.

"How is Duo?" I asked.

"The same as when you asked forty five minutes ago," Sally told me as she made notes on her computer pad. "Well, and getting better."

"I want to see him," I complained.

"So does everyone else," Sally replied irritably.

I blinked. "Everyone else?"

Sally continued to look irritated and I had to wonder why. She replied, thoughtfully, "Have you ever had a friend, that you lost contact with, and then, suddenly, they get hurt badly? You remember, then, what a great guy he was, and feel stupid for having lost touch. It's like that with Duo, I suppose. Even Winner came by to see him and he's been eyeball deep in his reconstruction project for years."

"Yuy...." There wasn't a good way to ask if he was still watching over Duo. It was ridiculous to think that the man would be trying to follow the orders of an impaired commander.

Sally was frowning, though. "Most of the time, I think that man hates Duo, or that he thinks that Duo is a waste of time, but then he does something that makes me think otherwise."

I nodded my understanding. The parachute was a debt that I would find hard to repay.

"He's standing guard, outside of Duo's door, as if he's guarding gundanium,"Sally informed him. "He told me that it was your order, but, I don't think it has anything to do with that. He just stands there and looks pissed, but then he looks worried when we go in and perform a procedure on Maxwell. When we leave, he barks at us, 'Status?', and he wants a full report."

I experienced a flash of jealousy, of suspicion, and found it hard to stay calm, "I want to see him," I insisted.

"Yuy?" She was teasing me, and I rewarded her with a scowl.

"Well, your vitals are all stable," Sally conceded. "I'll have a nurse wheel you to Maxwell's room, as soon as he's ready to have visitor's again."

"I thought that you said that he was all right?" I accused.

"He is," she reassured him, "but he has fluid that we have to drain, and procedures to perform that entail things that, I'm sure, Duo would rather not have an audience during."

My impatience wouldn't see reason. "When?" I demanded.

"An hour," Sally told him, checking her watch.

I had to accept that, though I did it with ill grace. My temper didn't improve as Sally finished her examination, and allowed my visitors in. My sister, and her ever present servant, Pagan, were not the company that I wished. She had neither liked my position at Preventers, an organization that was clearly outside the bounds of her pacifism beliefs, or my lifestyle. I suppose that she held some affection for me, despite everything, but I couldn't help sensing the heavy weight of her displeasure during every rare visit.

The hour passed, and the nurse appeared with my wheel chair. I was anxious to have my sister leave me.

"I need to visit the man who was with me, during my last mission," I informed her. "He was badly wounded."

"Duo Maxwell," Relena said, knowing the particulars of my mission already. "I should visit him as well."

'Why?' didn't pass my lips. She was a politician, and they never passed up an opportunity to include themselves in events. "He is still recovering," I told her firmly, mixing lie with truth, as I added, "I'm only allowed to visit, because I'm his commander."

She looked only slightly disappointed. "Give him my wishes for a speedy recovery, then," she said smoothly.

"I will," I agreed, anything to speed her departure.

We said our goodbyes as I was helped into the wheelchair, and I left them, rather than the other way around, as I was wheeled from the room and taken to Duo.

"That was Relena Peacecraft, wasn't it?" the nurse asked with awe in her voice.

"Yes," I replied.

"Two famous people in our hospital, in one day," the nurse gushed happily. "Quatre Winner and Relena Peacecraft."

I felt a sour mood coming on, realizing that she didn't consider Heero Yuy, the man who had saved Earth from destruction, or Duo Maxwell, the man who had fought for peace, to be heroes. I had my own notoriety, but it wasn't a cause for worship or awe. My reputation was something that I strove every day to recover.

We reached Duo's room. Heero was there, standing guard, and he frowned at me, as if I were yet another intruder to be vetted.

"This isn't wise, Commander," he said. "Regulations..."

"Do you think that regulations matter, when a man is in love?" I countered snappishly, after dismissing the nurse. "I'll deal with the fallout when it happens, Agent Yuy."

"His career is important to him, as is yours," Heero replied quietly. "Preventers can't afford the scandal of having two top agents dismissed for fraternization."

He was right and I couldn't not acknowledge that. I nodded, stiffly. "I will speak to Une," I promised. "Maxwell and I won't work any more missions together. I allowed this instance, because... I was uncertain how far our relationship had developed."

"And now?" Heero wondered.

I glared at him. "That is not your concern... or is it? Are you also interested in Duo?"

Heero looked surprised and then annoyed. "Of course not," he growled, but then added, "but I've always found the need to watch his back. It's from the war, I suppose, when we were partnered together during missions with the others."

"That's also called friendship," I pressed, trying to understand someone so thickheaded, that he referenced everything with a military mind set.

Heero only frowned at me, as if my thinking was alien to him. I wheeled myself past him and into the room, glad when he didn't follow.

Duo was sitting up in his bed, looking tired. Tubes snaked out from his arms into bags and he seemed very pale. He managed a smile at my approach, though. "Glad you weren't here a minute ago," he told me in a voice that sounded as weary as his expression.

"They told me that I should wait," I replied as I made it to his bedside and looked up at him.

Duo leaned down a little, wincing. "We made it," he said unnecessarily.

"We did," I agreed.

"I have to cancel our date, though," he lamented."I'm not going to be out of here in time."

I reached up and caressed his hand. "That's all right. We can have our dinner date right here."

Duo snickered. "With green jello and mystery meat?"

"Gourmet green jello and mystery meat," I replied with a laugh. I caressed his hand again and said more seriously, "I won't be able to take you back to my place, after, though, and do what I had dreamed of doing there."

"On our first date?" Duo said with mock indignation. "I don't think so, buddy. Maybe you would have gotten a kiss..."

I tightened my grip on his hand, staying serious. "Not that. I wanted to tell you, Duo, how much I care about you. I wanted to tell you..."

Duo became serious too. "Go on," he prompted. "You might as well say it now."

I looked around us at the sterile room and the invasive tubes and machines. I shook my head and let him go. "Not here. I don't want to remember it like this."

Duo was disappointed, but understanding. "Okay, Mr. Romantic." He nodded towards Heero. "Mind telling Heero to go home? I don't need the babysitter, and the man's exhausted."

A part of me wanted to keep him guarded, even though I knew how foolish it was. "I'll dismiss him," I promised.

"Good." Duo settled back into his pillows and frowned at the doorway. "He's always so critical and professional. I really didn't think that he'd do something like this." He blinked and then added, "but the others came here to see me, too... so, I guess that they do care about me. We've just gone our separate ways, these last few years, you know?. It's crappy, really, that we let that happen. Quatre says that he's determined that we stay more in touch."

"I think that's a good idea," I replied, though I knew better than to say why. Duo needed his friends. He need more than his lover to help him through 'normal' life. Perhaps, all together, we could help him find his way, I thought, and maybe find our way as well.

"What are you thinking about?" Duo wanted to know with a frown. "You got all dreamy eyed, Mill."

I smiled and blushed. "You. I was thinking about you."

He blushed as well and picked at his blankets. "I really want out of here. I want to be closer to you."

I couldn't deny his wish when it was mine as well. I levered myself up out of my wheelchair, using the rail on the bed. Ignoring the pain, the dizziness, and Duo's protests, I reached his lips and kissed him deeply. He tasted a little antiseptic, perhaps from some procedure they had performed, but it didn't matter. I claimed him with that kiss and made promises with the dance of our tongues.

Pain is limiting. It pulled me back down into my wheelchair and we broke apart abruptly. Duo looked concerned and flushed from the kiss.

"That was well worth it," I told him and he grinned at me."Now, promise that you will be the perfect patient, and I will give you more of those."

"With that kind of incentive, I'd be stupid to say no," Duo snickered.

"Good." I reached up and took his hand again. There were a great many things to think about, just then, our future with Preventers and our future together, but, just then, it was enough just to be together, and to heal.

 

____________________________________________

"Duo, you swore that you would be all right, that you would be responsible!" I shook my head in disgust at the mess of Duo's apartment. The man, himself, was stretched out on the couch, in a robe, and propped on pillows. He was watching me pace the apartment.

"My bank account is balanced," Duo told me. "The garbage... most of it... has been taken out. The bills have been paid. The microwave has not been blown up. The apartment isn't spotless, but I'm not a spotless kind of guy."

"I shouldn't have let you say no to a nurse," I grumbled as I began throwing empty containers into a garbage bin.

Duo made an exasperated sound. It brought my attention to him and I saw his angry expression. That put cold water on my cleaning mission. I forced myself to put the garbage bin down and to go to his side.

Looking down at Duo, I noticed that he was clean, that his hair had been braided neatly, and that he didn't look as if he had been neglecting himself.

"I needed help, in the beginning," Duo told me firmly as he reached out and clasped my hand. It was a steady, strong grip. "I'm not stupid. I'm not slow. I learned from the best. You. Don't sell me short, now. I may not keep house perfectly, but I do the basics, okay?"

I took a mental deep breath and then fetched a chair. Placing it by the couch, I sat down, and decided to start again. "How are you feeling?"

Duo's smile told me how much he appreciated my effort. "Good. Pains, still, but I'm getting over it."

I couldn't help reminding him, "Remember your check up at four tomorrow. I'll drive you there."

He let me have that one, but he eyed me critically. "You look tired. How are you doing?"

"I've had a heavy work load," I replied as I leaned a little forward to play with the end of his braid. "I'm seeing daylight, finally, though, and I should have the weekend off."

"We can have that date, then?" Duo was hopeful.

"Yes, definitely," I replied, "If you're ready to go out again?"

Duo frowned and gave my arm a hard punch. It would leave a bruise. I rubbed the area with a wince. "That will remind you, the next time that you try and say something stupid. I think I can handle a car ride and dinner out."

"You're still convalescing," I pointed out. "They only let you out of the hospital-"

"Because I was ready to go," Duo snapped, cutting me off. "The doctor signed the papers, Mill. You're the only one who thought that I should have stayed there for another week."

"I don't see that you're walking around," I pointed out, temper rising as he questioned my judgment."You haven't even sat up since I arrived."

Duo scowled. "That was because I was hoping that you would notice that I'm buck naked under this damned sexy robe and that I was hiding these." He pulled open the chest of his robe and showed me the condoms and the small tube of lube lying there between his perked nipples.

I was speechless, face flaming while another part of me was going into sudden overdrive at the sight of his muscular chest, his hard nipples, and what he was offering me. He closed his robe, again, though, and cinched the robe tight in anger.

"I'm good, good enough to start thinking about getting that much into your personal space," Duo growled. "Now, I don't know. You think I'm an idiot. Maybe I did look like an idiot, because I never did normal things when I was growing up, or while I fought a war, but I can learn."

I bit my lip, hard, and then replied, "Forgive me. I want to be honest. I want to tell you how I feel about you. I did think that you were a child, that you were innocent in so many strange ways, while still being who you were, a consummate soldier. It seemed an odd combination... endearing, really. I liked that you needed me, that I could take care of you. Perhaps I am blinding myself to your accomplishments, because I'm afraid that you may not need me any longer?"

Duo stared and then he laughed. It stung until he explained, "I don't think that I'm ever going to stop needing you. I just need you for different things. Lover. Friend. Not nursemaid, though, and not as a replacement for a mom I've never had."

That level of honesty had been hard for us both. Duo patted his hidden gift and said, sourly, "I guess this is going to have to wait."

I put my hand over his and replied, "It's a gift that's as special as hearing that you care so much about me... but I need to say the words, as well, before we cloud things with sex."

Duo looked troubled, then. "And you're not ready to say it, yet?"

I leaned in close and kissed him. Staying nose to nose, I said, "Duo Maxwell, I love you. I want you in my life, always."

Duo blushed, caught me at the back of the neck with a broad hand, and pulled me in for a fierce, deep kiss. He devoured my lips, sought inside for my tongue, and nearly sucked me dry before he finally released me. "Sex. Now," he demanded.

I couldn't deny him, though I was careful, not to take it too far. We used hands and mouths, exploring and loving each other's bodies, until the heat and the passion took us both over the edge. When we lay, twined together and trying to fit on the small couch, he admitted, "I'm glad that we did it that way."

"Hm...?" My brain was not responsive to conversation, overloaded by sensation.

"I don't really like... you know... catching... or throwing... either... get it?" Duo was stammering and embarrassed by the admission.

"You've had... other experiences that were bad?" I ventured after a long moment of gathering my thoughts back together.

"No," Duo admitted. "But... well... if you don't mind... I just don't like the idea."

I smiled, perfectly sated, and reached out to push the condoms and the lube away from where they had scattered almost underneath us. "There are many ways to have pleasure, and I enjoy them all."

Duo was relieved. "I don't want to cheat you out of something you like..."

"I like... love you," I reassured him. "I wouldn't enjoy doing something that you wouldn't enjoy as well. Set your mind at rest."

Duo yawned and turned his back to me. I curled an arm around him, to keep him from falling off of the couch. His naked backside fitted perfectly against my pelvis.

"Rest, that's what I need," Duo murmured sleepily.

"We over did it," I began to complain but his ass bumped back against me.

"Don't start being stupid again. I make my own choices," he growled softly.

He did make his own choices, and I would have to learn that he could make very good ones.

 

 


This page last updated: