Disclaimer: Don't own them and Don't make any money off of this. If anyone is selling these fanfiction stories, I don't have any knowledge of it, really I don't.
Warnings: Male/Male sex, graphic, Violence, language. Ass kicking.
Kracken
Disclaimer:I don't own them and I don't make any money off of them.
Warnings:Male/male sex. graphic, language, attempted NCS, violence.
Crossing Paths
sequel to Weightless.
Green Grass
"One hundred and two pounds." The nurse looked at Duo with wide eyes. Duo crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at nothing. "I think I need to make an appointment for you with the nutritionist."
Duo looked at Heero over his shoulder. "I already see problems."
Heero shook his head. "There won't be, don't worry."
The nurse looked skeptical as Duo stepped off the scale and shivered in his thin medical gown. Heero's exam had been simple and completed quickly. Duo had been given extra tests and the nurse was writing him down for more. Duo knew that it had gone from a basic agent physical to finding out what was wrong with Duo Maxwell.
Duo reached for his clothes. "Look, poking around isn't going to tell you much more than I already have. This is what I am. If that don't cut it with Po, then I'll be on my way."
The nurse's mouth squeezed into a small, prune shape and then she asked, looking down at her clipboard, "Do you suffer from any eating disorders, Mr. Maxwell?"
Duo sighed. "No. I've actually been gaining weight."
The nurse looked up, startled, and then she put on her professional air again. "You are dangerously under weight, Mr. Maxwell. In fact, the doctor might consider a hospital stay."
"He can consider all he likes," Duo retorted. "I won't be following his advice."
Duo slipped on his jeans under the gown and zipped them before taking the gown off. He hated how the nurse's eyes swept up and down his very thin frame as he pulled on his shirt.
The nurse decided to retreat. She clicked her pen closed and then said primly, "The doctor will be a few moments. Please wait here." and then she was gone, quietly closing the door to the examination room behind her.
Duo glared at Heero. "Well, that was humiliating."
Heero ran a hand along Duo's back and replied contritely, "I'm sorry. This is just a formality, though. We've already been accepted as special agents."
"I'm real good at jumping through the hoops, Heero," Duo grumbled bitterly and then had a thought as he toyed with the weights on the scale. "You know, they might be trying to convince you that I'm better off not being an agent, not being your partner. It's you they really want, after all... This could just be their way of-"
Heero's hand tightened on Duo's shoulder painfully. "I know your abilities," he said sternly. "They will learn them, too, and Sally Po knows that we come together or not at all."
"And she's willing to make the concession..." Duo slapped a weight and then turned to face Heero. Heero, to Duo's surprise, was looking amused. "What?" Duo snapped.
Heero replied, "I find it funny that she knows your abilities better than you do yourself. She is eager to have you on her force. She knows the worth of a Gundam pilot."
"Even a skinny one?" Duo made a face. "She must have a lot of mice that are plotting against the new government then."
Heero took hold of Duo's shoulders and gave him one hard shake. Duo's eyes went wide at Heero's furious face. "Don't!" Heero snapped simply.
Duo sagged and let out a sigh. "Sorry. It just gets to me... the way they look at me... the way they act... it makes me think..."
"About what?" Heero wondered, looking concerned now.
Duo turned an embarrassed shade of red and rubbed at the back of his neck, "Why you don't see me that way."
Heero began to answer, but the doctor chose that moment to enter the room. Duo didn't get the reassurance he wanted and he felt cold and depressed as the doctor flipped through the nurse's notes with a frown and settled in a chair. They waited for him to read everything, the room very quiet, and then the doctor grunted and looked at Duo.
"Well, Mr. Maxwell, I think we'll be seeing a lot of each other," the doctor said as if he were amused by the idea.
"Why?" Duo wondered suspiciously.
"Your exam shows that you are severely underweight and lacking in bone density. That means, bluntly put, that you are going to need an optimum nutrition plan and periodic checks to make certain that your new position doesn't cause your bones to slowly deteriorate from wear and tear, or develop fractures that could cause them to break. I'd like to administer a regimen of certain drugs and vitamin infusions, that should, over time, strengthen your bones. You are also 'on empty' Mr. Maxwell. That means that you have zero reserves. If you should become severely injured or ill, I wouldn't give a nickel for your survival chances. If you were a regular agent, I would stamp a big 'NO WAY IN HELL' on your file, but I've been over ruled on that opinion already. So, all I can advise you to do, is to follow my instructions to the letter, or make a will and funeral arrangement now."
The doctor looked at Duo expectantly. "Uhm..." Duo looked at Heero with a quirked brow and then looked back at the doctor. "Okay," he replied lamely.
"Okay," The doctor repeated tightly. "I hear 'okay', Mr. Maxwell, but I feel that you are humoring me, telling me what I want to hear.
"What's to say?" Duo wondered with an irritable shrug.
The doctor made a note on Duo's chart.
"What was that?" Duo snapped, remembering the cryptic scribbles of the psychologists that had been working for his enemies.
The doctor looked up at Duo's suspicious tone of voice as if Duo had just confirmed something. "You don't trust me and you are not going to follow my advice. I made a note to inform Sally Po of this and to request that you see a psychologist."
Duo frowned, feeling the heat of anger consume him. "I can take care of myself," he seethed, "because I've had enough of people like you!"
"Like me?" the doctor echoed. "If you won't trust your doctor, Mr. Maxwell..."
"I trust ME, nobody else!" Duo exploded.
The doctor's eyes flicked past Duo to Heero and Duo suddenly went cold. He turned quickly and saw the flash of pain on Heero's face before it was gone. Duo reached out and touched his arm. "I-I'm sorry, Heero. I didn't mean-"
Heero met his eyes and the pain was still there in their blue depths. "You did," Heero replied.
Duo felt an overwhelming desire to run, to get away from pain, confusion, and a place that he had learned the hard way to distrust. "I gotta go!" he said as he fumbled for the door knob, not sure why his eyes stung and he couldn't seem to see properly. "I-I'll be back at the ship."
"Duo-" Heero began and then said simply, "I do understand."
Duo swallowed convulsively, nodded once, and then left, needing space, needing
air, needing time to think about the fact that he really DIDN'T trust anyone
but himself completely, not even the man he loved most in the universe.
_______________
"We should talk," Heero said as he ducked into the cabin where Duo was stretched out on their bunk, arm thrown over his eyes. "If this is going to hurt you, we can find another way."
Duo growled back, "How can it NOT hurt me when I get that shit flung in my face? When I can't trust a doctor to give me good advice and a prescription because I'm afraid that he isn't for real and that the drugs he wants to give me are going to hurt me again? How can it not hurt when he points out all the things that are wrong with me, things I know aren't going to change? News flash, Heero, I'm stuck in a skinny boy's body for the rest of my freakin' life! No amount of vitamins, exercise, and hospital stays is going to change that!" He glared at Heero from under his arm, "And no amount of lying to me is going to make me believe that the Preventers is taking on an agent, with the body mass of a wet rag, for any other reason than to have you on their force. So, yeah, that's damned painful, okay?"
Duo sat up, lowering his arm, and facing Heero squarely, "So, my life sucks, what's new about that? Thing is, you have a chance for your life to NOT suck, for it to mean something, and I'm in the way of that. Maybe you should go it alone; toss me, and be something?"
Heero pulled off his shirt and slipped out of his shoes. He poured himself onto the bed beside Duo and propped himself on one arm while he regarded his lover. The tiger tattoo had all its fierceness on his back. The tail, curled about one nipple, was purely erotic. The deep blue eyes Heero turned on Duo were full of warmth, indulgence, and... stubbornness. His free hand traced Duo's shoulder, down his arm, and along one thigh.
"You are lithe and strong," Heero said, "and you have deadly skills. You have a beauty that is all yours; fiery, masculine, intense... You want to see yourself as ugly, skinny, a child, but you aren't any of those things."
Heero took hold of Duo's hand and laid it flat on Duo's own leg. He traced the long, strong line of the thigh to Duo's kneecap. "What do you feel? I feel tight muscle," he said to Duo. "There's nothing weak or ugly about you, Duo. It's only in your own mind."
"And theirs," Duo retorted bitterly. "I'm sure those looks they were giving me were all in awe of my 'beauty'. "
Heero scowled. "When we get our first assignment, and you execute it perfectly, you'll believe, Duo."
Duo traced the line of Heero's jaw with his fingers, pushing it all aside and concentrating on something he could believe in. "I'm sorry about earlier. I was being an ass. I do trust you, you know, where it counts, or we wouldn't be here together at all."
The com link beeped. Heero looked frustrated and answered it. He listened intently for a few minutes and then said, "We'll start immediately. Out."
Duo snorted as Heero disengaged the com link. "You need to work on your phone skills, Heero, that was kind of rude."
Heero ignored the comment, his eyes alight with excitement. "We've been sent the information for our first case. Duo, I need you to be certain that this is what you want, before we commit ourselves."
The eagerness in Heero's eyes was something Duo wasn't going to be the one to snuff out no matter how he felt. If Heero wasn't going to leave him and go it alone, he had to go along. "Let's do it," Duo replied.
Heero kissed him and rolled him onto his back. Heero opened his pants, pulled off Duo's, and made love to him, unconsciously expressing his gratitude through that act . Duo rode the crest of desire with him, but a part of his mind was separate from the pleasure, his eyes staring over Heero's shoulder at the ceiling as Heero claimed him, thrusting in and out of him with gentle care. He could do this, he thought, trying to convince himself, and promised silently that Heero was not going to be ashamed of him or regret choosing to stay with him. He would carry out the mission... no matter what.
Heero rolled and Duo was on top suddenly. He began riding Heero, almost automatically. When Heero caught at his chin and forced their eyes to meet, Heero was frowning. Duo stilled his motions, Heero stiff and large inside of him.
"Don't lie to me," Heero told him, intensely serious.
"Sorry," Duo whispered, not knowing what else to say. "Guess I'm just an insecure little shit no matter what I do."
Heero suddenly pushed him off, leaving Duo empty and wanting. He stood and began pulling up his pants despite his erection. "I don't want you when you don't want me."
"But... I do," Duo protested weakly as he pulled the blankets up around him, clutching at them in anguish.
"I don't pity you," Heero growled at him. "Please don't make love to me out of pity either."
"But..." Duo found himself talking to an empty room. Heero had already gone into another part of the ship.
Duo fell onto his back on the bed and flung his arm over his eyes again. "Fuck up!" Duo snarled at himself and then chewed viciously on his lip. That's exactly what Heero was talking about. He was wallowing in self pity, thinking that Heero pitied him, and letting Heero do what he pleased out of pity too. He wasn't doing Heero a favor by making love to him. He wasn't making Heero feel better by pretending. Heero had said that he didn't give or want pity.
"A breakthrough," Duo muttered self deprecatingly as he pulled up his pants, "and I didn't even need a high dollar shrink either."
Duo found Heero sitting in the command chair, leaning back, legs stretched out to one side, and eyes staring pensively at the station they were connected to. It wasn't much of a view, but it had all of his attention.
"I get it," Duo said simply.
Heero's eyes swiveled to him and he cocked his head to one side. "Do you?"
Duo sighed and perched on the arm of the chair. Heero circled his waist with one arm. "I can't help the way I feel about myself," Duo told him, "not right now, but I can try not to be so damned... whiney about it, okay?"
Heero's grip tightened and he pulled Duo into his lap. "I want to know how you're feeling," he replied, "but you also need to listen when I tell you something that's the truth instead of just nodding and acting as if you were."
Duo was silent. Heero glared up at him.
"Duo...," Heero made Duo straddle his lap and face him, hands cupping Duo's ass tightly. "When you were a Gundam Pilot, did you feel inadequate? You were fifteen and the same size that you are now. Why should you be less able now then you were then?"
"My bones weren't ready to break at a strong wind, then, and I was actually heavier," Duo grated, but then he shrugged. "I have proved that I can still kick ass though." He smirked, remembering the men from their last delivery. "I just have to watch out and not let them get a hold of me."
"Then it's skill, isn't it, and not just strength?" Heero persisted.
Duo looked down at him, surprised and then nodded. "Yeah, I guess it is."
Heero suddenly clapped Duo hard on both ass cheeks and Duo started, wide eyed. "If you try and fail, then I'll allow you to be as hard as you want to be on yourself," Heero told him, "but, until then, shut up, all right?"
Duo laughed. "Okay, deal." He draped his arms around Heero's neck and leaned in close. "Now, can we get back to where we were before... when we were on the bed?"
Heero smiled, "Yes, definitely..."