Pull the Trigger and the Nightmare Stops�

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the Gundam boys, I just like to imagine them in my own little world (which is totally of my making). No profits are made from this story, just gratuitous pleasure.

Summary: They were thrust together at the age of 14, members of an assassins guild, then rudely ripped apart at the age of 21. Now, three years later, Duo walks back into Heero's life. The rollercoaster ride has just begun as they must learn to live together once more and to love each other again. Life isn’t always easy, living with Duo, and Heero has to fight hard to remember that.

Rating: NC-17

Warning Codes: Angst,h/c,violence,AU/AR,waff,anal,m/m,yaoi

Pairings: 1x2


Feedback is appreciated. I enjoy hearing from all of my readers. You are what makes writing worth while. I hope that you enjoy reading it.

My sincere thanks to the following:

To: Kyo-nezumi: I’m glad that I could interest you. I hope that I keep your interest until the very end.

To: Tsukamei: Complications abound, as do the conflicts.

~*~

Pull the Trigger and the Nightmare Stops…

“dear my friends in the time we've spent forever after beyond this when will our nightmare ever end?
pull the trigger and the nightmare stops...”

Part 3.

Heero knocked softly at WuFei’s door, then entered at the muffled response.

“It’s four in the morning, Yuy,” WuFei growled. “What, your wife kick you out already?”

“No, I left him asleep,” Heero said, smiling. “Quatre wants us all to talk.”

“About Duo?” WuFei asked cautiously as Heero came and sat on the edge of his bed.

“About Duo. He thinks everyone should know about Duo’s background, and for all of you to agree about him staying here with me,” replied Heero.

“And if we’re not all in agreement, or comfortable?” WuFei inquired.

“I’ll move out and find a place for Duo and myself,” said Heero, with a noncommittal shrug. “I’ll do what ever I need to do.”

“Alright, I’ll get up. Give me a minute,” responded WuFei. “I just want you to know, no matter what you say, I won’t hold anything against him. I know what you were in the past, and if that’s where you and he got together, well, I’m sure it was for reasons that are between you two. Don’t feel that you need to tell every last little detail about him, either. He should have some privacy over his past.”

“Thanks, WuFei. I knew you’d say something like that,” said Heero. “You’re fair, even if you do have a temper.”

WuFei sat up and reached for the silk kimono that lay across the back of the chair next to his bed. Heero stood and picked it up, holding it open for him, admiring the slim body as he draped the wrap around him. They walked out together, went to the empty lounge and sat to wait for the other two.

It wasn’t long before Trowa and Quatre joined them, sitting on the love seat they had been sharing earlier. Heero had chosen to sit on the couch, his back once again to the hall, and WuFei took the lounge chair that faced the kitchen. The three sat looking at Heero expectantly.

“I’ll answer your questions,” said Heero. “But only what you ask. As WuFei kindly put it, Duo does have some rights to his privacy and far be it for me to spill my guts about every little detail of our lives. So ask, and I’ll answer, and if you don’t ask, I won’t volunteer. Fair enough?”

Quatre looked at Trowa, who just nodded. There was no reason to look at WuFei, as his position was already know.

“Alright,” Quatre agreed. “I guess the first question I have would be how did the two of you meet?”

“We didn’t meet. Treize, our guild master, brought him to our guild house one day when I was about fourteen and gave him to me to clean up and take care of,” Heero responded.

“Where did he come from, before your master brought him to your guild house?” asked WuFei.

“I don’t know, I would assume the slave market. Before that, I have no clue. We never asked questions like that in our guild. They weren’t allowed. A person’s past was his own, we had no lives before the guild was the rule,” stated Heero, flatly.

“You said he was your wife? You were legally married?” asked Quatre.

“As legally as things could be in the guild. Our master’s word was law and Master Treize wanted a bond between us. He felt that we would be a more efficient team if we had some kind of a permanent and unbreakable bond,” said Heero, simply.

“But why ‘wife’? Why not just partners, or a husband. You’re both guys, and ‘wife’ seem a little illogical,” WuFei stated.

“A wife, so I’d be more protective of him, and he’d be more alluring to me. He needed to be delicate, but strong. For it to work, my foil had to have the ability to distract and beguile and, at the same time, still be able to protect himself in dangerous situations, something a woman couldn’t always do. He was trained to be my protection, I stood in his shadow to do my job,” said Heero. “They chose better then they ever imagined. The allure of Duo Maxwell… sweet, hot, sultry. He was all I could think of. He was my whole world, and we were good together. I would have died for Duo Maxwell, and he played his heart out for me. There was no better team then us.”

“You said foil. What’s a foil?” Quatre pounced on the word.

“A foil provides distraction, in much the same way as a magician’s right hand distracts you from what his left hand is doing. Duo would draw away the attention, and I would take care of the objective. All eyes were on Duo, all of the time,” Heero said with a proud smile. “Noin taught him, and she taught him well. She was good, but Duo was better. No one could resist Duo when he was on, being charming and coy. Those times, I would have killed for him. Actually, I did kill for him, I guess.”

Just as Quatre was about to ask another question, they heard soft, hesitant footsteps coming down the hall.

“Hey, babe,” said Heero softly, turning around and smiling at him. “You’re awake. Join us, please?”

“Ah, yeah… about that, well, ah, I’m… I’m just gonna go now, 'Ro,” Duo said haltingly, shuffling his feet, not looking at the group gathered in the living room. “I… ah, I shouldn’t have come here. This wasn’t a good idea. I don’t belong here. I… I’m imposing on you, so, ah, I’m, I’m gonna, ah, yeah… go, you know? So, ah, yeah, g’bye.”

*~*

He turned and fled quickly, his face flaming red with embarrassment, slipping quietly out the door and into the shadows of the darkness. They’d been talking about him. Heero had been telling them about him. He could have at least let him be there to defend himself. He’d been such a fool to come here. Just look at this place. Heero was doing good here, why would he need a gutter rat like Duo around? The four guys who lived there, well, there were four, why would they want a fifth? After all, it had been three years without any word, what made him think Heero really still felt the same, even if he said he did. People change, feelings change. And Duo could see the attraction between Heero and WuFei. So why would he need Duo?

Hell, he crawled back into Heero’s bed, then couldn’t even let the guy touch him, he pulled away, frigid and cold. Sure, he finally allowed Heero to make love to him, but only after Heero started to leave. Heero had even gone as far as to say that it wasn’t important to him if Duo shared his bed, as long as they were together, but Duo knew how important physical contact was to Heero. He liked to touch and fondle, even when he was unaware that he was doing it.

Duo found himself out by the parked cars, but it was still too dark to see where he was going, so he sank to the ground between two of them to wait for the sun to rise. He shivered slightly in the chill of the damp night air, not really being dressed for it. He gave a brief thought to sitting in one of the cars to keep warm, but didn’t want to let himself get too comfortable, so he sat on the ground, his head on his knees, and he waited. His hand went to the gun that he had tucked back in the waistband of his pants, but he knew without even looking closely at it that Heero had done something to it while he was sleeping. It didn’t feel quite right, somehow. So that option was out, but his knives were still razor sharp. A tear leaked out of his closed eyes. His heart was heavy in his chest as he tried not to think about what he would do next.

~*~

“Heero, aren’t you going to go after him?” asked Quatre, worriedly.

“He won’t go far,” said Heero, unconcerned. “Now that he’s found me, he’s not going to be able to walk away.”

“But he’s in such turmoil, I can feel it. It’s like a dark shroud around him, I’m afraid he’ll do something rash,” Quatre agonized. “He has a gun.”

“But the gun doesn’t have this,” said Heero with a smirk, and held up the firing pin he had removed from Duo’s gun.

“He still has his knives. Please, Heero, go after him. Stop him. Help him. He’s really hurting,” said Quatre, a tear trickling down his face. Trowa’s arms closed around him, as his eyes closed, and he lay back in their comfort.

“Okay, I’ll go bring him back,” said Heero, rising and following his errant lover out the door.

~*~

It was still dark, so he knew Duo wouldn’t have gone too far. Seeing the parked cars, he figured that would be the best place to start looking. Approaching silently, he saw Duo’s slight form leaning against the wheel of one of the cars, his head on his knees.

Heero approached him slowly then squatted down in front of him, and looked at him silently for several minutes before finally speaking.

“Duo?” he said softly.

“What?” responded Duo with a sniff, not looking up at him.

“Duo? Won’t you look at me, please?” Heero asked.

“Why? Go back to your house, 'Ro. You don’t need me. You have everything you need there. You don’t need me hanging around you like a dead weight. I was wrong to come here,” came the muffled reply.

“Babe, how can you say that, that I don’t need you? After being in my bed again, after letting me make love to you again, do you think I’ll ever let you go again?” Heero demanded. “Maybe you’re right, maybe you shouldn’t have come here, but you did, and now it’s too late. You’re back where you belong finally, here, with me. Anyway, just how do you expect to leave me? You’re not going to just walk away from me. I won’t let you.”

“You’d keep me against my will?” Duo’s head snapped up, eyes flashing. “You really think you’d be able to keep me if I didn’t want to stay with you?”

“No. No, if you feel that strongly about leaving, if you hate being with me that much, if my touch turns you off, then, I guess I’d have no choice but to let you go,” said Heero softly. He reached out, as if to stroke Duo’s face, but stopped just short of actually touching him, letting his hand drop back to his side. His eyes closed, his head dropped and he sighed heavily. Then he stood up.

“I’m sorry, babe. I love you,” said Heero softly, turning away. “I thought you loved me, too. I guess I was wrong.”

Duo watched as he started to walk away.

“That’s it?” asked Duo, incredulously. “That’s all? You just walk away from me?”

He pulled out his gun as Heero turned back to face him once again.

“What?” said Heero, calmly. “You gonna shoot me? Or yourself? Or both of us?”

“No, you bastard,” Duo screamed, jumping up. “Because you broke it, and you know it!”

He threw the disabled weapon at Heero’s head, but Heero just caught it and tucked it into the back of his pants. Then he stood and looked at the angry Duo.

“So, what, then? What, Duo? What do I do?” Heero asked, stalking slowly back towards Duo.

“What do you mean, what do you do? What are you doing now?” asked Duo, backing into one of the cars as Heero approached him.

“I want to know just what I have to do to make you want to stay with me,” said Heero softly, stopping in front of the trembling Duo. “I’m not going to hurt you, babe. I don’t want to force you, but I won't let you leave me again. So what do I have to do? I want you to stay with me because you want to be with me. I already told you, I’ll do what ever I have to do to make it work. An apartment of our own, separate bedrooms, what ever you want, Duo. I’ll do what ever you want, except let you walk away from me. Now that you’ve come back, I can’t let you go. I love you, Duo Maxwell.”

“I don’t know what you want from me,” replied Duo. “You have so much here, I feel, well, out of place. Unnecessary. Unwanted.”

“Quatre sent me after you, he was worried about you, worried you’d do something silly. WuFei thinks it’s great that you’ve come back into my life. He said that maybe now I’ll be a little more alive. And Trowa, he doesn’t say much, but he didn’t try to kill you when you first pulled out your gun or even try to take it away from you, why I don’t know, I’ll have to speak to him about that. Does that sound like people who don’t want you around?” Heero asked, stepping closer, reaching out a hand to stroke Duo’s cheek.

“I… I don’t want to go, but I don’t want to be a burden to you. I don’t fit in here, in this place, with these kind of people,” said Duo, looking down at the ground as he spoke.

“Babe, why do you keep saying that? You’re my wife, I want you here, isn’t that enough?” asked Heero. “I love you. Don’t you love me? Isn’t that why you came here, why you’ve been looking for me for so long?”

“You’re all I’ve ever had, all I’ve ever known,” Duo whispered. “There’s never been anyone else, ever. Yes, god help me, I love you, more that anything.”

“Then stay with me, love. Let me take care of you, quit trying to run away from me,” said Heero, stepping closer and putting his hands on Duo’s trembling shoulders. “You said we were lovers again. Please, Duo, let me love you. Let me show you how much I love you, alright?”

Duo allowed Heero to pull him in to his embrace, and Heero kissed him gently. He could feel the tension in Duo’s body start to relax under his gentle ministrations.

“No one’s ever asked me what I wanted before,” said Duo. “You’re the first one to ever do that. Everyone else just told me what to do, and I did it so I wouldn’t be punished. Do you really mean it? You’re not just saying it to get me back inside?”

“Of course not, I’d never do that to you,” said Heero, shocked. “But what do you mean, you’ve never been given a choice in what you wanted to do? You chose to come to my bed. You chose to come and find me.”

“No, I never had choices,” Duo disagreed, moving away from Heero slightly, but still allowing him to keep an arm around him. “They took me from home when I was young, I guess around 13 or so, and sold me into slavery to a whore house. My sole purpose in life became learning how to give a man pleasure in bed, to be a whore. They tried to teach me things to do with my hands and mouth, but they were very careful to keep me a virgin at all cost. Higher price on an untouched, virgin boy from the paying customer that could afford it. My virginity was going to be put up for auction to the highest bidder, when I became trained and docile. So the trainers weren’t allowed to beat me severely, or to starve me, but they found ways to punish me if I refused to do what they said. They could and did hit me and kept me on short rations, but I still refused to do what they wanted. I think they were ready to give up on me, because who wanted an untouchable whore that was going to fight every customer that came along? Then your guild master showed up.” Duo paused to sigh bitterly.

“They seemed pleased and wasted no time getting rid of me to him. And he gave me to you. The only choice I ever had was to go to your bed, or be a plaything for the animals in the guild. No brainer there, huh? So I gave myself to you, because from the first day you came into possession of me, you never tried to force me to have sex with you or to do anything I didn’t want to do. You let me have some little bit of dignity, at least.” Duo paused for another moment as Heero pulled him close once more and stroked his hair, murmuring softly and unintelligibly.

“Anyway, you left me alone after that first time, when Master Treize told you that you had to take my virginity, when he married us,” Duo continued. “I guess I wasn’t very good at it. You never tried to touch me again.”

“No, babe,” Heero protested. “You… you were great. When I finally entered you for the first time, started to make love to you, I felt like I had died and gone to heaven, it was so awesome. It was just the way I had always dreamed it would be. I just got the feeling that you didn’t want to make love with me. That I… that I just didn’t do it for you, I wasn’t what you wanted.”

Duo laughed bitterly and turned his head away.

“I wasn’t gay. Despite all of their efforts, all of the lessons, all of the hours spent trying to teach me how to please a man in bed, I didn’t want that. I didn’t want a man’s touch. I didn’t want anyone’s touch, I was only 14, I didn’t know what I wanted,” said Duo, whispering the last part. “But I took yours, unwillingly. I took it because it was better then the alternative.”

“I… I see,” said Heero softly, dropping his arm and shifting away from Duo. “I’m… I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything that ever happened between us that you didn’t want. But I loved you, from the very first time I saw you, and I wanted you, wanted you to want me, to love me. I waited and let you come to me. I loved you so much. And I still love you, and I still want to be near you, anyway that you want it to be. I’ll do what ever it takes.”

“So Master Treize married us and Zechs and Noin trained us to be a team, to work together, to be one with each other, and we did that,” said Duo, continuing. “We were really good together. And you never touched me again after that one time. But we became inseparable, went everywhere together, did everything together, and you called me your dog. And I cried every time you picked up a strange boy and had sex with him. I’d listen while the two of you would have sex, and I’d cry, then you’d take me home to our bed, reeking of some other boy.”

“I never meant to hurt you, Duo, I swear,” said Heero. “They never meant anything to me. I just needed release, and I didn’t want to force it from you, no matter how much I desired you. And I couldn’t think of you any other way than as my dog, because of what I might have done to you. That was my way of keeping you safe from me.”

“I know,” replied Duo. “It just hurt, because here I was supposed to be your ‘wife’, we were legally married, and you were seeking relief in the arms of other guys. I was supposed to be the one to drive a man crazy in bed and I could barely even let you touch me. I guess I was really jealous of them, deep down inside. That’s why, that’s why…”

Duo started to cry at this point and all Heero could do was cuddle him close, pulling his head to his chest, and stroke his hair and back, occasionally kissing the top of his bent head, making small, comforting noises deep in his chest. It distressed him to no end to see his beloved Duo in such obvious pain from the memories.

After a few minutes, Duo seemed to get his crying under control, but stayed within the warmth of Heero’s protective embrace.

“You must think I’m really pathetic,” sniffed Duo.

“No, babe,” replied Heero. “Not at all. I never knew. You never said anything. You just did what ever you were told to do, and I did what I needed to do. I just never thought about it. I was just really happy when you finally gave yourself to me, because I hated picking up those other guys. It was just sex, and I couldn’t get it over fast enough. You were so different, so beautiful, so graceful, so delicate. You made me want to spend hours exploring every inch of your beautiful self. You drove me crazy in bed.”

Heero laughed, hugged Duo tightly and tipped his head up so he could look into teary, indigo eyes. Then his mouth came down gently to claim Duo’s and his tongue invaded gently to caress and play softly with Duo’s, the kiss long, lingering and sweet.

He turned, pushed Duo up against the car, slid his hands to the slender waist and lifted him to the hood of the car. Heero pulled back from the kiss as his hands ran down to Duo’s thighs, pushing them apart gently, then he stepped in close, his mouth starting to kiss it’s way across Duo’s cheek, down his jaw and onto his neck. Duo arched his head back with a sigh, giving Heero access to his soft neck, and his hands tangled themselves in Heero’s soft, silky hair. He offered Heero a soft, breathy moan and arched his lower body against Heero’s, feeling Heero’s arousal against his own burgeoning erection.

Heero’s hands slid around Duo, one on his tight ass, pulling it towards him so that Duo’s hips met his and the other hand went up to tangle itself in the mass of hair at the base of Duo’s head.

Already, Heero was hard and ready. He could feel his cock wet and throbbing through the thin material of his pants. He rubbed it against Duo’s and felt the responding arousal from his lover. Duo was wanting him just as much as he was craving Duo. For several long moments they continued to kiss, the whole while moving against each other. Heero could feel himself almost ready to come, and pulled back panting, pushing Duo down on the hood of the car.

Duo made a soft noise of protest and his hands groped blindly for Heero. Heero’s hands were busy pulling at Duo’s pants. He got the zipper down and pulled Duo’s pants down enough to free his cock and Heero immediately took it into his mouth, sucking fiercely at the swollen head, tongue sliding across the slit that dripped pre-cum. The he started to slide his mouth up and down the throbbing length of the shaft, tongue swirling and caressing, sucking hard. It took Duo only a couple of minutes to come explosively, hands clutching Heero’s hair, back arched, his screams renting the early dawn air. Heero took him deep and let the hot seed pour down his open throat, swallowing in time to Duo’s release. When Duo slumped back in completion, panting and gasping, Heero released his spent organ from his mouth.

He leaned over Duo and kissed him gently, then stepped back to pull Duo’s pants the rest of the way off, dropping them to the ground along with his shoes. Running his hands gently under Duo’s beautiful, sexy ass, he lifted and pulled him forward until he was just at the edge of the hood. Duo lay back, totally relaxed, watching in bemusement as Heero pulled a tube of lube out of his pocket, then started to undo his own pants, freeing his own waiting erection. The gun fell heavily to the dirt, forgotten for the moment. Heero squeezed some of the lube onto his fingers and stepped closer, gently spreading Duo’s legs wider.

Heero leaned over and gently kissed Duo, his tongue tracing Duo's bottom lip before slipping into his open mouth to play softly with Duo's tongue. Heero's fingers slid along the split of Duo's ass, finding the tight entrance to his body. His slick finger circled the tight muscle before the first one gently pushed it’s way in the passage, finding it still slightly slick from their earlier lovemaking. Duo tensed, but quickly relaxed with the kissing and the soft stroking of Heero's other hand on his chest, gently caressing his nipples. The other fingers quickly followed the first, stoking inside his passage gently, searching, then Heero found his prostate and he had Duo writhing and panting, thrusting against his hand in his desire.

He pulled his fingers free, kissing away Duo's moan of loss, and squeezed more lube onto his hand, liberally coating his hard, pulsing cock. He was so ready for this, wanting nothing more then to be inside of Duo and pumping hard, but he needed to make himself go slow. He couldn’t hurt Duo. Not now. Not with so much depending on how he handled this right now. He took hold of his aching cock, giving a couple of hard pumps before lining it up with Duo's opening. He put his hands on Duo's hips and pressed gently. He could feel the muscle starting to give, to allow him entry, the head of his cock just breaching Duo's passage when he stopped. He could feel Duo start to tense up under him, and he hesitated.

He ran his hands up from Duo's hips, under his back to his shoulders and pulled Duo into a sitting position, so they were face to face. Duo closed his eyes and let his head fall back, his teeth gently biting his lower lip, a tremble running through his slender body.

“Duo? Duo, look at me,” said Heero, shaking him slightly. Duo's eyes opened.

“Duo, we’re lovers, right? Duo? Right, Duo?” Heero asked. “Isn’t that right? We’re lovers?”

“I… I… I guess,” Duo stuttered.

“No. No guessing. You want this, right? You want me to do this, right? To make love to you,” Heero said, insistently. “Tell me this is something you want. Tell me you want to do this, Duo. Tell me. You want this. Duo, right? You want me to do this.”

Heero was starting to shake from the effort of keeping himself from slamming into Duo's warm, soft body and raping him right there.

“I… ah… I… don’t… ah…” Duo started to sob. “No, I don’t want it.”

And Heero pulled away, pushing Duo back onto the car, spinning and falling to his knees with a growl through clenched teeth. He grabbed his hard, aching cock in his hand and stroked it roughly, his face a mask of pain and anguish, as he knelt panting in the dirt, his back to his crying lover.

Duo, meanwhile, had curled into a fetal position and rolled off the car to fall in a heap with a bone jarring thump onto the ground, where he lay sobbing with his face in the dirt.

Several long agonizing minutes later Heero came, head thrown back, teeth clenched, holding back his scream of frustration. Then he fell forward on his hands, panting, trying to catch his breath, to regain his control, to gather his crumpled composure. Duo cried softly in the background and Heero's heart broke inside his aching chest.

Finally he pushed himself to his feet, wiping the dirt and the muck from his hands onto his pants. He tucked his now flaccid organ back into his pants and straightened his clothing. With a deep breath, he turned towards Duo.

His beautiful Duo lay in the dirt, half naked, crying and vulnerable. Heero reached down gently and lifted Duo to his feet, holding him to his chest for a moment, brushing the hair back from his face. Then he leaned the boy against the car and helped him into his boxers and pants, getting them pulled up and zipped. Lifting him to sit on the hood once more, he found Duo's shoes and got them put back on.

Still, Duo cried silently. Heero pulled out his handkerchief and wiped the dirt and tears from Duo's face, then he spoke for the first time.

“Let’s go back inside, babe. We’ll get you cleaned up, and you can get some sleep. When morning comes, I’ll call work, get some time off and we’ll look for an apartment for us. We’ll start all over, okay babe? A two bedroom apartment, just you and me. We’ll do it how ever you want it. You call all the shots. The only thing I insist on is that I’m not leaving you, I’m not letting you leave me. Okay? Duo, is this alright with you?” Heero asked. “Tell me, Duo. Is this what you want?”

“What ever you want, Heero” Duo answered, dully.

“No, Duo. It’s what you want. You call the shots. You’re the boss,” said Heero. “You said no one ever asked you what you wanted or gave you any choices, well, all of the choices are up to you. If it’s not what you want to do, we’ll just sit out here in the dirt until you decide what you want to do. I can wait as long as I need to. I’ll do what ever it takes, Duo. I’ll do it because I love you and I want you to be happy.”

“I’m tired and cold, Heero,” Duo said in a small whisper, completely unsure of what to do with the power that Heero was handing him.

“Let’s go in, then. I’ll run you a hot bath, shall I? And make you some tea,” said Heero, holding out a hand, which Duo took gratefully.

Retrieving the forgotten gun, Heero put an arm across the shaking boy’s shoulder and they walked through the graying dawn back towards the house where the others were still awake and waiting in the living room.

~*~

“At least they’re off your car, WuFei,” Trowa stated, as the three left the window and sat back down.

“Damn, I thought Yuy was going to fuck him on the hood of my car,” WuFei complained. “Why couldn’t he use his own car for sex? Why mine? I hate to even think about what’s all over the side of it.”

“It’s just come, WuFei,” said Quatre. “It’ll wash right off. Come doesn’t stick and I’m sure it won’t hurt the paint job. It doesn’t hurt your hand when you jerk off. Beside, your car just happened to be the first one there. I’m sure they didn’t pick it on purpose as the one to have sex on. And they really didn’t have sex, anyway. It was just a blow job, really, and I’m sure Heero swallowed…”

“You’re evil, Quatre. Trowa should spank you and then wash out your potty mouth,” WuFei snapped.

“My potty mouth! You’re the one who was talking about fucking on the hood of your car…” Quatre was cut off suddenly by Trowa as the kitchen door opened.

The three sat quietly as Heero took Duo to the bathroom and started a bath for him.

~*~

“Undress, and get in the tub. I’ll get you some tea, if you’d like some,” Heero offered.

“That, that would be nice,” Duo replied, starting to unbutton his shirt.

Heero paused for a moment, then took a vial out of the medicine cabinet, pulled out the stopper and added a few drops of oil to the hot water.

“Lavender,” he said, smiling, and put the vial back, then walked out the door, closing it behind him. “It belongs to WuFei.”

~*~

“Ah, guys,” he said, stopping in the lounge before heading for the kitchen. “I don’t have a lot of time, but I want you to know, this decision has nothing to do with any of you or the way I feel about you. This is all about Duo, right now, and what’s best for him. I hope you can understand. Anyway, this morning, I’m going to find an apartment for the two of us and I’m going to take Duo there for a while. He needs to, ah, get things back into prospective, so to speak.

“We need some time to work things out together, alone, is what it is. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get Duo some tea and get back to him.” Heero went into the kitchen leaving the others too stunned to speak for the moment. When he had returned to the bathroom, Quatre headed for the phone.

~*~

Duo sat in the hot water and took the cup of tea Heero offered, then leaned back and closed his eyes as Heero departed once more. Things had just moved so fast. It was only yesterday afternoon that he had shown up on the door step of this very imposing house, hoping against hope to find his beloved Heero again. And so much had happened, he could hardly comprehend it all.

Now, Heero was saying he had to make the choices and decisions for their lives and all he wanted to do, really, was let Heero take over the ordering of his life once more. What had happened? How had it come to pass that Heero was making him be the one in charge of what was going to happen to them? It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Heero was supposed to be the one to make sure that everything was going the way it was supposed to. It had always been that way, it was always supposed to be that way. That was the way that their lives had been ordained by the man who had joined them together in wedded bliss.

Oh, well. He was too tired to think about it right now. The water was too warm, and the lavender was too soothing, the tea too relaxing. When Heero came back, he would just have to make him understand that he needed to be the one in charge of their lives, not Duo. Duo just wanted life to be easy for a while, to rest and not to have to worry about things or think about where the next meal or bed would come from, or having to fend off the perverts that wanted to crawl into his bed in exchange for a meal.

That was something he would never do, no matter what they offered. He would never give himself to a man. Well, except for Heero, but that was different because Heero was his husband after all, and that was alright, but not to any other man, because he wasn’t gay. Not in any way, shape or form was he gay. But for his Heero, he would be what ever he needed to be.

He loved his Heero so much, no matter how much confusion it caused in his mind about him not being gay and all, but they could work around the whole not-gay thing, he was sure of that. Eventually, but not right now, because he was too tired and feeling too not-gay. Well, Heero would just have to work on that too. Duo was sure that Heero could fix it. Hero could fix anything. Then Duo's confused thoughts stopped and he drifted off to sleep.

Heero found him sleeping peacefully in the warm water and was loath to wake him, but didn’t want him to get a chill as the water cooled, so he got out some big, fluffy towels, then gently shook Duo and got him to his feet. Wrapping the towels around his body and his wet hair, Heero carried him back to his room and put him on the bed. He rubbed Duo gently dry and got as much of the water out of his hair as he could, then pulled the covers up to Duo's chin. Duo's eyes drifted closed once more and Heero wrapped a dry towel around his hair. He kissed his lover on the forehead, then went out to make some phone calls.

~*~

Thanks for reading, hope your visit has been a good one.