CLOSE PROXIMITY

Chapter 13

Day Three 16:47

Heero came into the main room with nothing but a towel round his waist, rubbing his hair dry with another small one. The dust had crept into our clothes, into our hair, into everything - he’d finally showered the filth off him to his satisfaction.

“I’ve been around the site again,” I said, my throat suddenly a little dry. I’d had the first swift shower and was back into clean clothes - just a pair of loose sweat shorts that had shrunk in the last couple of washes, and a brightly logo printed tee shirt. I’d found another set of sweat pants and shirt for Heero to use, and they were piled on the couch beside me. Should have taken them into the bathroom for him, I thought, a little stupidly. Poor bastard doesn’t need to be wandering around looking for some decency. I stared at his half naked body for a moment, seeing the glistening remnants of the warm water on his ribcage. My own clothes felt odd on my body, suddenly. Guess he looked a sight better in my stuff than I did myself. Especially the towels.

I coughed, and stood up awkwardly. I continued speaking, quickly. “Most of the trailers around mine have been emptied now – though some of the guys went more grudgingly than others. Junk went off with Phil in his truck; they rounded up some of the kids who were still playing around, and took all the dogs as well.”

“Good,” he nodded. “We don’t know what to expect from Greg, so it’s best we don’t involve any more civilians.” He twisted slightly to catch a stray trail of water running from his hair down his back, and the muscles at his side flexed briefly along the pale pink slice of his scar.

He’d always done that to me - made the heat flare like a brand through my body.

“How long since Greg’s call?”

I cleared my throat again. Damned thing still felt like sandpaper. “Just over half an hour. I’ve been working on the radio, though I think it’s more your kind of thing. Just need you to tune it in. When you’re ready.”

Maybe there was something edgy in the tone of my voice, but Heero stilled suddenly. He pulled the small towel away from his hair and let his hand hang down gently against his leg. He looked hard at me, and a slight flush appeared on his cheeks. Then both of us glanced at the strangely shaped metal casing that sat on the card table. It looked like a cylinder sliced in half with a few inset dials and meters. Some electrical wires looped along the central seam of it like mustard trails on the top of a hotdog. There was a makeshift earpiece and an amplifier attached, so we could both listen in. Yeah, Phil’s ‘Rare Parts’ business had found us something rather unusual and inevitably of suspicious origin – but I’d been playing with it while Heero was washing, and it had the best fucking reception I’d ever heard on a radio. I was thinking of asking Phil to build me some kind of wacky-but-awesome music system sometime.

I was also thinking some new body parts might be more appropriate after tonight. Fucked if I knew what Greg might have in store for us.

“It’s good,” I said, referring to the radio, though I’m not sure whether that was the only thing I meant. He was still staring at me with that look. I bit at my lip and joked as best I knew how. “Gonna pick up the early evening jazz channel as soon as you’ve reported back to the boss.”

He pursed his mouth and for a minute there was a flash of irritation in his eyes, just like the old days. Then there was brief confusion – then there was the beginning of a smile. “Idiot,” he said, his voice rather low, but strangely affectionate. “You think we’ve got time for a song and a sax?” My jaw dropped at his rare teasing, but his smile just grew broader and he stepped past me to sit on the couch and examine the radio.

Day Three 17.06

It was a hell of a relief to hear Trowa’s voice on the radio. Heero had scorned my selection of music frequencies and spent just a few moments with what sounded like a shrieking banshee and a hissing goose until some human voices came back to him from the contraption. He knelt at the foot of the couch, holding the earpiece and amplifier between us, and he spoke clearly into the microphone until he got response.

Trowa’s voice barked out of the silence like a slap to the face. “Heero? At last! We lost all cell phone connectivity.“

“Yes,” Heero said, his tone very clipped. “We did too. It’s all part of the campaign, Trowa. We’re being isolated, we’re being manipulated and made vulnerable –“

“I know,” Trowa said, interrupting him. Even with the diluted reception, I could hear the suppressed emotion in his voice. “Is Quatre with you?”

Heero looked quickly up at me then back at the mike. “No, he’s being held hostage. He came after you and Greg has him –“ He never got a chance to finish the sentence, as there was some kind of angry, gargled cry from the other end of the channel and a deep scraping sound as if furniture was being thrust aside.

The next voice we heard was even more welcome to me. “Heero? Duo, too? I need to know what’s happening your end. Now!”

I dropped to my knees beside Heero and called urgently into the mike. “Relena! Are you OK? Do you realise who’s behind this? It’s –“

Trowa was talking behind her, his voice sharp and fast and angry, but I couldn’t make out the words. “Duo, be quiet!” Relena said, urgency in every syllable. “Trowa says this frequency isn’t secure.”

“Forget it,” I snapped back. “Greg won’t be surfing the radio waves to catch us, he’s on his way over here right now.”

“What -?”

“Did you know it was him?” I pushed on, talking over her exclamation. “I guess he’s been trailing us all for months. He’s got access to all sorts of places, he’s been stealing equipment and setting traps, and –“

“I knew,” she broke back in, and the tone of her voice was so stern that the words dried on my tongue. “All of us here had come to that conclusion - but not soon enough. After the last attack on the office, my whole room was taken apart; the files were infiltrated and many damaged. Some were removed completely - one of those taken was my unofficial file on Project Dove and the early raid on that obnoxious club, where Heero –“

“ – was hurt, I know,” I gabbled on. “What’s the connection, Relena? I don’t think Greg has any interest in the political agenda of Dove. It’s something far more personal than that.” Only she would know, maybe – only she knew the whole picture…

“He’s only been with us for a little while,” she said, and her voice sounded like she was struggling for control. “He took his own file from my office, of course, but I have a copy of all personnel files at an off-site location, and I’ve had them brought to me here at the hospital. I’m searching them all now. His background checked out fine; there was nothing suspicious, no family history to concern us – an orphan, no family noted at all, actually. And we only took him on as a general assistant; we would have monitored his performance over the course of the next year or so. But somehow he worked his way up more quickly than that, making himself useful to Quatre, appearing to us all as a committed and loyal employee. He joined us about six months ago, just about the time that Heero was in hospital.”

Six months ago…

“I signed off his application,” came Relena’s voice. It was small and sounded young. It was the first time I’d ever heard her show any distress, any uncertainty. “I treated him as I treated Cissy – as Quatre’s best assistant. As a trusted companion.”

I felt the prickle of premonition on the back of my neck.

The thread of anguish in her voice was unmistakable, and when I turned to look at Heero I saw that he’d heard it, too; he was very pale again. No-one needed my specialist sociological skills to recognise overwhelming misery when they heard it. “Relena…” I swallowed, and started again. “What’s happened to Cissy?”

“She was driving me to the hospital. We’d rescued what we could from the offices and evacuated. We didn’t know what other devices there might have been, what sort of timers they may be on. We left it all to the bomb squad and got out. We assumed it would be directed at the building, like before. Not me, specifically. She was driving,” she repeated. There was a shuddering gasp from her, and it was obvious that she couldn’t speak any more about it. That was how we knew the worst had happened.

Heero stared at me. “A car bomb?” I whispered. He nodded back, his own guess confirmed.

We were all silent for a moment, the horror stark and hideous in our minds. Cissy had been a friend to us all – Cissy had been an innocent in all of this. I thought I could hear Wufei’s deep voice in the background, but I couldn’t be sure. I had a sudden, deep compassion for Relena, who treated all of her staff fairly and firmly – and yet showed so often a personal care for them. In that moment, I didn’t envy her responsibility, or her pain.

She was the first to speak again. “I’m on my way, Duo. Heero. You need backup.”

“No!” I tried not to snap, but I knew she’d take no notice anyway. “We can handle it, believe me.”

“Don’t be stupid, Maxwell,” she said. Like I said, she took no notice of me. But it was good to hear the imperious Relena back on track. “He’s dangerous.”

“No,” I said, firmly. “He’s history. Heero and I have some issues with him and we’re going to deal with them. On our behalf – and yours, as well.” Beside me, Heero nodded. His eyes were on me, and they reflected my own determination.

“Relena? You still there?” When she answered, I continued. “What you need to do is to get back to Greg’s hideout, the one that Trowa found. Quatre said he had read up on some of Trowa’s notes and was trying to follow the route that Trowa took – he wanted to catch up with him. He suspected Greg as well by that time, I’m sure of it. So he obviously found the hideout himself – and found not Trowa, but Greg. There’ll be some more clues there, some evidence, something -”

“Duo,” she said, her voice firm again now, the very epitome of our efficient boss. “Leave it to us. Trowa’s already left”

Day Three 17:19

I felt both weary and tense – a strange combination. Heero had spent a little more time on the radio since Relena signed off, but there wasn’t much that could be improved. He’d gone off quietly to the kitchen to make coffee; I just stood staring at the radio. Neither of us wanted the music on; neither of quite knew what to do with our time before Greg arrived.

He was still dressed only – and barely – in that fucking towel.

When he came back out of the kitchen carrying a couple of mugs, I was rather snippy, I guess. “Why don’t you get dressed, Heero?” I sounded rather hoarse. “I don’t see how you can face our lunatic guest in just your birthday suit. And this ain’t easy for me either, you know? I’m pretty reluctant to waste what time I may have left with a bunch of fucking regrets...”

“Regrets?” It was almost a murmur, and it licked round me like spilt, sticky honey. Messy – sweet – too tasty for words. He put the mugs down on the table, slowly and carefully, and my nerves twitched with the sensual memories of many months ago. He straightened up and stared at me. “If you have any regrets left, Duo, shake them off now. Don’t you think that things are moving too quickly for us to be protesting what we should have said and done in the past?”

I nodded, dumbly. Fine words – and true, too. They made me feel fucking stupid at having carried my grudges and my jealousies for all this time, eating away at my pride like ravenous sewer rats – but they also provoked a wave of amazing relief in me.

Things were, indeed, moving too quickly. When did I drift from resenting Heero’s very presence to comparing him to the sweetest, richest stuff that could ever slide over my eager tongue…?

I was a fucking idiot. And was – I suspected - going to be even more so.

He moved, but towards me, when I’d expected him to wheel round and take the clean clothes to the bathroom to dress. His body was warm and still carried the slightly damp aroma that skin has after a shower, and then his hand was lifting to slide around my neck and I was having trouble remembering why I was so fucking tense in the first place. “I don’t know how to say it, Duo…” His words were still just a murmur, but now they breathed into my ear. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m angry with Greg, and I’m upset for Relena and the others, and maybe I’m nervous too – though only because I don’t know what I’ll need to see me through this. But what I don’t need is to dig around in all our old stuff as well, all the old misery. I can feel you here, Duo, every time I breathe, every time I turn round. That’s the only real thing I can think about at the moment. I mean, where the hell have I been for the last three months, not coming to find you, not calling you, not remembering what I liked about you rather than what pissed me off…?”

I felt my head go back as his lips nudged at my neck. My vision was going a little hazy. His mouth at my ear was making me all the more of an idiot, couldn’t he see that? Couldn’t I see that? “I constantly provoke you to argument, Heero Yuy,” I whispered back. “I’m jealous and volatile and demanding and judgemental –“ And always so fucking, fucking wrong about you… my mind growled at me.

“Yes,” his smile brushed at my throat. “You have your moments, I’d say. So it unnerves you to see me half naked. Well, I could say the same for you. If you don’t want this to happen, you need to stop wandering around in those pathetically brief shorts.”

His breath sounded a little hesitant. His fingers were very tight on me. He felt so good…

Then his mouth was on mine and neither of us was pushing off now. No, indeed, his hand grabbed tightly at my shoulder, drawing me in to him, and in return my fingers snagged on the thin loops of the towelling fabric at his waist, tugging him in tightly so that his hip grazed at mine and my knee nudged in between his thighs. He tasted as good as he felt, but then I always knew that, didn’t I? My mouth pressed so hard on him I was afraid I might split his lip, but I wanted to taste it all, lick at it all, smell the skin and taste the lips and feel his smooth muscles flexing under my fingers…

I couldn’t help but notice that the towel was slipping at its knotted fastening.

*

Time was telescoping into just this minute, just this need. The rest of life was a danger, it was a bereavement, it was a mystery – it was a fear.

And now the need roared its way through my veins and begged my arms to hold on to him, tight.

“What the fuck are we doing?” I gasped. When he started to laugh softly, I stuttered on, “I mean – hell, of course I know – but now -?”

“You said we had a couple of hours, minimum,” he panted back. I threaded my fingers through his damp hair and tugged his head back a little. He groaned, and the lids drooped over his eyes like they were too hot to stand it. His throat convulsed – I watched the throb of the pulse in his neck. He gasped out more words. “There’s still time to say things – to show things. We’ve both been around to check the site – we’ve both had some time to prepare for Greg. Now it’s just us, Duo, just us for this short time left. I don’t know what else I want to be doing but this…”

“Jeez…” I might have argued, but the thrill in my nerves was too vivid to think straight. I just wanted to laugh, and punch the air and other ridiculously childish things! My whole body seemed to be shaking, and I felt like I was looking down on it from some other planet, wondering and marvelling at how I was so affected by him. I kissed him again – and again - and then took my mouth around his jaw and up to the rim of his ear and I licked playfully at his neck. He shuddered under me, his tongue darting out to moisten his own lips. Then I seemed to be standing in a pool of damp towelling and the skin pressed against me and writhing under my hands was stark fucking naked. Heero was naked, and his hands were inside my tee shirt and it was the most magnificent feeling I’d had since birth.

“Wow…”

It was a breathless, awed little sound, and I had to double check that it had really come from Heero. He was peeling the shirt back up off my head and I was letting him. He was kissing at me a little clumsily as I wriggled, and my legs banged back against the couch as he pushed possessively at me. He was moaning a little – it was very cute, and I grinned – then I gasped aloud as his fingers brushed against one of my raised nipples. “Wow from me, too…”

“Huh?” he murmured back.

“We sound like school kids,” I moaned. His head bent down in front of me and his lips tightened round my nipple; his tongue flicked over the tip. I winced and bit back a sob of pleasure. “OK, so someone doesn’t act like one!”

He laughed again, a little shyly. “Duo, I don’t want to hold back, I don’t want this to be confused – to upset – to anger us –“

“Never,” I groaned. “I want you, Heero. I want this – I want you.” I was repeating myself; I sounded suspiciously like I was begging. And I didn’t give a shit. How the fuck had I ever managed without him all this time? I’d been some kind of pale tracing of myself, some kind of shadow puppet –

He was pressing up against me and I could feel the tightness of the muscles in his legs. Better than that, I could feel the heat of his groin against the thin cloth of my shorts – I could feel the swelling insistence of his erection, hot and greedy against my thigh. I ran my hand down over his hips, tugging at skin that was too taut to grab hold of, then across his belly and down between his inner thighs. He tensed against me, and then I rolled my fingers round his shifting balls and he groaned deeply. I fondled one, sliding my palm around it, feeling its creases, feeling it nudge against its partner, both of them hanging heavily in the sac. His feet shifted slightly and his legs spread apart further. His breath was very loud. I was conscious of his cock twitching above my knuckles, nudging its damp tip against my belly, the pubic hairs tickling between my fingers.

I ran my other hand down his back, tracing the knobs of his lower spine, running a single finger down between the crack of his buttocks. His breath hitched and his head dropped forward on to my shoulder. We stood there, naked apart from my shorts, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. He had one hand at my neck and one at my waist, but his fingers dug into his palms rather than into me. His tongue darted out and licked at the sweat in the hollow of my throat. He moaned softly.

I kissed at his forehead, the only part of his face I could reach, but it was enough. I stood there as well, one hand caressing between his legs, the other down behind him, teasing at his ass. When my front hand closed firmly round his thick, swelling cock his head snapped back up. His eyes were very bright and for a second they didn’t focus on me. But when they did, the fierceness was deep and dark and shocking - and fucking brilliant. His skin was flushed, his lips slightly parted. I stabbed at them with my tongue – he opened up and sucked hard on me.

I started to pump him and his back arched, pressing his torso against me even more closely. At the same time I slid a couple of fingers down further between his cheeks, probing for his asshole.

“Yesss…” This time it was my moans we listened to, my gasping with childlike delight. “Want to feel you, Heero, want to touch, want to fuck you –“

My fingers found the soft indentation of his entrance, stroked the folds of skin round the tight pucker. He felt very tight, very closed – he felt like a treasure that hadn’t been discovered yet, and I was no fucking Indiana Jones. I was the slightest bit nervous – could anyone tell? Three months apart was feeling like years… I nudged at it with the very tip of my digit, just feeling my way. He arched more, pushing his ass out against my hand, and then my finger slid into him. It was a shock! It was also a thrill beyond anticipation…

We both cried out – so softly, so delightedly. For a few delicious seconds we still stood there, holding each other tightly, as I gently pumped him and thrust my finger into him in the same rhythm. Then he grunted and ran his hand up my head, tangling his fingers in my hair, tugging at the base of my braid. I felt the pressure and paused, and when he started to pull me down, I dropped carefully to my knees in front of him.

“Please…” he whispered. “So good…”

I kept my hand on his ass, my finger still teasing in and out of him. I could feel the muscles opening and closing round me, his conscious effort to relax, his body acclimatising to the invasion. Had he been with anyone else since we parted? The thought had never occurred to me, despite my ridiculous accusations of him, my jealousy of him with anyone else. My blood ran more fiercely – my mind told me he’d been nowhere near mine for months, I’d given him up to whoever else he might want. Hadn’t I?

My body ached with passion and frustration. I couldn’t think of it – I couldn’t accept it, not right now. I’d be sensible later, I’d be mature later, but just now I needed him as mine again. I thrust back into him and heard his groans as I was too hurried. I took my other hand off his cock, the thin trails of silvery pre-cum looping the space between him and my fingertips, and I anchored myself by grasping his hip. His swollen cock jutted out at me, shining with blood-red flesh, quivering, demanding. I moistened my lips, then I leant forward and licked at it.

*

I’d always loved that – sucking him off. It was a greedy pleasure of mine. I loved to feel him shudder against my tongue, loved the way he swelled even further inside my mouth, loved the way he thrust instinctively against me, fucking me in mimicry of how he’d be when he was actually inside me. I started the long, lazy sweep of my tongue from the seeping tip down to the thick base of his cock, sucking the skin back up as it strained against me, flicking the point of my tongue against the thread where it swelled out to the crown. Up and down, and then I sank my lips over him fully. He filled me; I latched on to him, licking, smoothing saliva around him to lubricate it all, just playing with the crown for the moment. My fingers still slipped in and out of his ass though my concentration struggled to cope with the pounding in my head. My own cock was hot and heavy in my shorts and I was sure I had one of those embarrassing wet patches at the front.

I could care less.

I ached for him; I could feel the muscles of my belly complaining, clenched and tensing as I knelt there, my groin nagging for attention. His grip tightened in my hair and his ass clenched round my fingering. His moan was low in his throat.

He was close to climax; I was shocked to realise how surely I knew that. How my body still reacted to the shivers of his, how the passage of his pleasure was still imprinted on my nerves.

He tugged at my hair again and I looked up at him, my lips still busy.

“Don’t swallow it,” he gasped. “We can use it… Duo – this is… fuck…I can’t –“

I nodded to let him know I understood. His head was going back again and his eyes were rolling. Coherent speech wasn’t really an option for either of us. For the moment, I stopped the movement in and out of his ass and just concentrated on the caress of my mouth. A shudder ran the whole length of his body and I gripped at his legs, hoping to hold him upright if they buckled. He grunted something that sounded like my name then he tensed and became totally still. I relaxed my lips and waited – my reward came seconds after. Hot, sharp-tasting seed filled my mouth, spitting out of him in eager bursts, the sensitive shaft throbbing gently against my teeth. I felt my throat tighten eagerly, ready to suck it all down, but I resisted, and let it puddle on to my tongue, thick and sticky and as tasty as anything I’d ever had.

The pain in my groin was becoming less of an annoyance and more of an agony. I rocked gently back on my heels and let Heero’s softening cock slide out from between my lips. They felt well-used and slightly numb. I opened my mouth again, a little gingerly; then I lifted a hand and let the cum trickle out into my cupped palm. It felt cold inside my mouth again, the warmth and fullness of him no longer there. I put my free hand back to the couch to steady me and I got up to my feet, facing him.

He was swaying slightly – there was the shine of moisture in his eyes. His skin was rather gorgeously flushed, and I could still see the pale impression of my hand’s grasp on his hip. The tendons in his neck were raised; a trapped nerve in his thigh twitched instinctively. “Shit…” he sighed. His gaze came back into focus and sought me out. “Duo,” he murmured, neither question nor statement. He gave a rueful laugh, a very gentle, awed sound. “Shit. Your mouth…”

I smiled back. I always had thought I gave good head. I hoped he’d return the favour – I needed release, and I needed it from him. I slipped my unencumbered arm around his waist, breathing in the delicious smell of sweaty flesh, fresh cum and Heero…

Unexpectedly, he pushed at me and I sat back down on the couch with a sharp whoosh of breath. “Hey -!”

He stepped forward, far too quickly and gracefully for a guy who’d just shot such a luscious load into my mouth, but he moved nonetheless and straddled me. He reached down to my lap and started to push my shorts down off my hips. At last, at last…! I thought, the blood in my body in a delicious quandary as to whether to rush to my head or places more pragmatic. I think I was suffering from the flushed business, too, because when he looked into my face again, he smiled at me. It was a smile like I remembered from when we first met – it was one of those smiles that creased his usually serious face, and shone behind his eyes, and lit a flame under my body like I was tonight’s a la carte menu.

A smile to fall in love with.