Halloween Bets

Chapter 3

Today was Saturday, and while normally Duo and I would have headed down to the rec center and shot some hoops, I decided to head into the office and finish a couple of items I was practically done with. Thankfully, Duo was still in bed, having been out late the night before, so there was no awkward dance around each other this morning. Not that that kept me from feeling awkward or anything.

By the time I got home from the office, Duo was gone. There was a note written on the dry erase board, though. That small little thing, something that was normal for the two of us, cheered me up so much that it took me a few minutes to actually read the note.

Heero – went to the rec room to run for awhile. Be back.

There were a couple of dots, like he’d been tapping on the board trying to think about what to write next, if he should write what he wrote next:

Is it still ok that I’m riding w/ u tonight?

I smiled and erased the board, and replaced what he wrote with:

Duo – of course. But PLEASE talk to me, we need to talk.

I had no idea how he would react to that, but it needed to be done before the party, rather than waiting until after.

I decided to indulge myself for awhile and took a long, hot shower. I heard the apartment door open and close while I was in there, and so went ahead and finished up. I walked out of the bathroom, towel slung around my hips as was habit, and saw Duo coming into the hall way from the kitchen. He paused, looked around. I stood there, knowing that he planned to take a shower, needed to take a shower, but I didn’t move. I just looked at him. Finally, he looked up at me.

“Listen,” he started. I continued to look at him. “Can I take a shower first, then sit down and talk about,” he waved his hand between us, “this?”

“Of course,” I moved to let him into the bathroom, then reached out and took hold of his arm. He stared at my hand for a moment, then looked up and met my eyes. “But we do need to talk, so please, don’t take too long.” I looked away then. “It’s been too long already.” I let go of his arm, walking into my bedroom and shutting the door.

I changed into regular clothes, as the party didn’t start until 9pm and it was only half past two. I sat on my bed, contemplating putting on socks, but decided that I felt like being barefoot. I walked out into the hallway, the shower was still going, and I headed to the kitchen. Might as well get some sustenance to fortify myself, I thought wryly. I pulled an orange out of the fruit basket proceeded to peel it. I popped one of the wedges into my mouth and opened the freezer. We had some of those little sausages, you know the kind that they have at barbeques and you dip them in that sauce – yum – so I got those out and dumped some into a pan so that Duo and I could snack while we had our little chat. Five minutes later, and I turned the stove off, leaving the sausages in the pan as they weren’t quite done yet, but I didn’t want them to be cold when we ate them.

I kept myself busy in the kitchen, getting out a couple of more little snacks, pulling drinks out of the fridge – soda for Duo, water for me – anything to keep me from thinking about how to talk to the one person in the world that I had never really had a problem with talking to before. Jeez, I felt pathetically awkward.

And I realized how stupid that was. I should be using this time to think about what I wanted to say to him, and how I should say it.

The bathroom door opened. It’s funny, I hadn’t even heard the shower go off. Duo walked out and headed for his room. He saw me watching him, and smiled tightly.

“I’ll be out in five,” he said. Thank goodness he washed his hair yesterday, or it would have been more like be out in an hour . . . or two. I nodded to him and meandered back into the kitchen. I started gathering up the snacks and putting them on the coffee table in the living room. Then I sat down on my seat of the couch and waited.

I didn’t have to wait long.

He came in and plopped down on the other end of the couch, and proceeded to stare at his bare feet. I waited to see if he would say something. A minute passed. He still wasn’t looking at me.

I sighed. “Well, thankfully we have a few hours to spare.” He snorted at that. I pushed his soda toward him. He nodded in thanks, picking it up and taking a drink.

“Duo, look at me.” He did, thankfully. He met my eyes and the look in them was concern. I smiled lightly. “Duo,” I said quietly. “I’m gay. I just thought you should know.”

He looked confused then. “Heero, I know. I found out a week ago, remember?”

“Yes,” I replied. “But it something I should have told you awhile ago. It’s something I should have trusted you with, I should have trusted in our friendship, and that our friendship means more than our,” I paused, searching for the right word. “Orientation,” I said somewhat dryly.

“Heero, I don’t even know what to say.” He sighed. “I’m just so, confused. I feel, I dunno, lost, adrift. Like there’s this huge space between us and I don’t know how to bridge it.” He took a deep breath, and then went on. “I just don’t know how to move on from here.” He glanced at me guiltily.

“Why can’t we just go back to the way things were?” I threw in. I knew it wasn’t what I wanted, but I could still settle for friendship over nothing.

Unfortunately, he seemed really upset at my suggestion. “Heero, you really think you’re going to be comfortable with the way we interacted now that you know I’m gay, and now that I know you’re gay. And who says that I’m okay with going back to that?” He said in that succinct way of his that let everyone around him know that he was kind of pissed about something.

I hadn’t thought about that, and I told him as much. “Well, maybe you should,” he retorted.

“Duo,” I started. “Are you uncomfortable going back to the way things were?” I was terrified he’d say yes.

With his jaw set, he nodded, while looking the other way. It felt like my heart had plummeted into my stomach. “Okay,” I whispered. “I, uh, could always move out.” I was just staring at him, thinking that nothing, absolutely nothing was worth this horrible pain that had settled over my whole being. I felt empty, dry. I could almost feel myself searching for that place inside of me where I knew I could hide from my emotions. But as soon as I had finished speaking, Duo jerked to face me, saying sharply, “No.”

Now I was confused. “But,” I started. He interrupted me with a long sigh. He said, “I do not, under any circumstances, want you to move out. I just,” he paused. “It’s just that you’re right. Our friendship should be strong enough to move past this, for us to still be just as close as we were.” He was looking at his feet again. Thankfully, I had myself in check again. I wasn’t going to hide from what I was feeling. “I just don’t know what my problem is,” Duo added.

I reiterated to myself that I wasn’t going to hide from what I was feeling. I slid across the couch so that I was right next to him. “Duo. Just talk to me. What are you feeling, what do you want?” I spoke quietly. Duo faced me again. I was sitting very close to him, enough so that I was so aware, so focused on him, I wasn’t conscious of what else was in the room with us. But that’s when I saw it, his gaze flickered to my lips. I was more than a little surprised, but there was no way I was going to let that opportunity pass me by. I raised an eyebrow at him, and he blushed, looking so embarrassed, as if he wished the ground would swallow him whole and take him out of this situation.

“Uh,” he began, looking away from me again. “Maybe we should take a break. I could, uh, I mean,” he was searching for something, anything that would let him escape his situation. He kept babbling. My heart was beating frantically. I was taking a big risk, but he had given the indication that it was what he wanted. So I slid my hand under and around his chin and turned him to face me. His words wandered and then he stopped talking as I quietly shushed him. I smiled softly, and leaned in. His eyes were wide, then he squeezed them shut, and my lips met his oh so softly.