CLOSE PROXIMITY

Chapter 17

Day Three 21:37

I felt a great lassitude in my limbs; I didn’t really want to wake up. Did I?

Sheri’s voice rattled in my ear, demanding attention. I recognised the tone. It had the soft lightness of a young woman, but the vocabulary of the family she lived with.

“Max – are you OK? Max! Duo! Whatever your name is! Speak to me, for fuck’s sake!”

“Watch y’ language, girl!” That was too low a pitch for her, unless she’d been taking testosterone for recreational purposes. Must’ve been Junk.

She snapped back, but her voice shook a little. “I’ll fucking watch my language when he answers me!”

I woke from yet another unwelcome swoon and felt my eyelids open as gingerly as if the Statue of Liberty and her sister were perched on top of them. I was still in my trailer, now laid back in a half slumped, half sitting position on my less than comfortable couch. I doubted it’d be with me much longer, despite whatever sentimental value it might have gained over the last few days. It had seen too much action – of a variety of kinds. “Sheri?” I grunted. “You OK?”

“Shit, Max!” Her face swam into view, her dark red hair drawn back scrappily from a pale, blotched face. She didn’t look quite as carefully groomed as usual. Tears were rolling down her cheeks, but she didn’t seem to notice them. There was a small cut on her lip and she nursed her hand to her chest. It was wrapped in a very efficient bandage.

“You look good, Sheri,” I smiled.

“Good?” Her expression was struggling between distress, relief and insult. “What the fuck do you mean, spouting crap like that, after all that’s happened, when we nearly got killed, and I must look such a mess -!”

“Just like I said,” I sighed. “Girls… always crying and howling.”

“You bastard!” she snapped, but she was smiling now as well. It was an odd kind of combination. “You saved me, Max. You saved my life!”

I tried to wave such nonsense away – I couldn’t really take the credit, could I? I could hear shouting outside the trailer and the throaty sound of powerful vehicles. The park still seemed to be humming with the excitement of the last hour’s events; Zac’s birds were screeching loudly in the distance. There were many neighbours from the park sticking their head in at my door, so obviously people were moving back into their homes now Greg had been caught.

Inside the trailer, there was a small knot of visitors by the alcove. I struggled to get up, but Junk’s head whipped round from the middle of a muttered conversation with Phil and he glared at me.

“Get the fuck back down on that couch,” he growled.

It looked like - yet again - there were people around me who insisted I took it easy. Lying injured on the couch was getting to be a bit of a bad habit.

Phil had followed Junk’s look and everyone saw I was awake again. There was a buzz of new sound, and Relena pushed her way to the front of the group. I was amused to see the big guys parting the ways either side of her.

“So glad to see you,” I grinned. “Boss.”

Relena smiled back. She looked tired and drawn but as fierce in her defence of her Team as ever.

Junk stood behind her, almost protectively. He looked a little dazed by her. Join the fan club, I grinned to myself. “You really got him, Relena,” I said, my voice dropping to a warmer tone. “I don’t know why you came over here when I told you that Heero and I had it all under control, but I’m damned glad you did.”

She raised a fine eyebrow. “I said we’d be over to back you up, Duo. Last time I checked, it was my job to give the orders, not yours. I’m only sorry it took us so long to get here – we only arrived at the end of it all, as Greg was making a break for it.”

“And isn’t it your job to have guys to do the heavy stuff for you?” I remonstrated.

She was disconcerted enough to blush. “I was a field agent before I took the desk job, you know. Nothing wrong in keeping up the training.”

“In special cases.”

She nodded. “In special cases, indeed.” Her eyes met mine. This one was personal, they said to me.

I grinned again, though there was a painful tug to my neck that made it difficult to move any of the muscles around it. “Wufei Chang’s gonna be glad he‘s found someone who can whupp his ass on high days and holidays. You make a perfect couple.”

Her brow furrowed. “Duo, you may be injured but that’s no excuse for appallingly rude personal comments –“

“Hey, cut him some slack,” Junk broke in, and to my surprise, Relena didn’t immediately slap him down. “He knows a kick-ass woman when he sees one! Like we all do.” I saw Relena’s mouth open then close again. I was even more amused to see the flush deepening on her cheeks. Junk grinned at me. “Just look at this gal! She’s got the balls without needing to carry the bat between her legs, right?”

I tried so hard not to laugh out loud. “Right, man.”

I saw Relena was nursing her left leg, standing slightly awkwardly. I caught her eyes. “Your ankle again?”

She shrugged, but when Junk pushed her gently to the couch, she sat down gratefully beside me. “It’s OK; it’s just flared up again from the activity. I’m already having treatment. Wufei says I should consider acupuncture, and we’ll discuss the benefits when he starts a course for himself…” She broke off, as if embarrassed at talking about something personal.

“Someone told him you’re hurt, yet?” I asked, softly. She shook her head. We exchanged rueful smiles; I imagined there’d be an outraged response when he heard she’d put herself back in the front line. Despite a physical equality in their work, I suspected they might both be harbouring a strong protectiveness towards each other. The way she’d rushed straight to the hospital – the vulnerable tone to his voice when he’d spoken to me on the ‘phone. I felt a strange warmth at being back with her – at sharing things again.

“But what the fuck happened?” Memories were trickling back into my mind. I looked across at the door, suddenly reminded of Greg’s strange exit. “Greg was groggy from the electric shock, OK, but he could still have dodged you and run for it. But he went down outside the door like a ripe pear from a tall tree. What happened?”

Relena grinned then – it was a smile of pure pleasure. “Don’t I always say the simplest strategies are the best?” Junk coughed rather self-consciously behind her, and she laughed. “This smart man came back to the site at about the same time as we arrived. He showed me the quickest way to your trailer, the way through the back so that Greg wouldn’t see us approaching – we had no way of knowing what lookout arrangements he’d made, what weapons he might have. And then when we heard the furore inside the trailer and heard someone fumbling with the door, we had to find a quick and safe way of stopping his flight.”

“So -?” I stared at Junk, suspiciously.

“I took the fuckin’ steps away!” he said, cheerfully. “I said y’ trailer was a box o’ crap, didn’t I? Those steps ain’t been fastened properly for months – you can kick ‘em back and forth as y’ like. Dylan knows it well; he’s been nosin’ them in and out o’ place for the last couple o’ days, seekin’ all the shit that kid left under it. So I whipped ‘em off to the side and when that bastard came out front, he took a runnin’ step into fresh air. Never saw it comin’ – and once he was down, he never had a chance against kick-ass princess ‘ere.”

“Call me Relena,” she said, a little tightly. I smirked and stored the nickname away for future reference. From the glint in her eye, she knew I had.

“And Heero…” I said, slowly. I’d been biting my lip, trying not to gabble on about him, trying surreptitiously to read Relena’s thoughts. “I mean, if he were hurt badly or something, you’d have told me by now, right? If he had to go to hospital – if there were any kind of serious problem at all…”

“Well, of course,“ she began, puzzled. “I thought it’d be the first thing you asked… but I didn’t know what you remembered, how you were feeling, so I didn’t say anything directly. But you knew he was all right -?”

I breathed a little more deeply. “Yes, I knew. You see, no-one does a bandage quite like Heero Yuy.” I smiled pityingly at her confusion. “I saw his handiwork on Sheri. So I knew at once he was OK, more or less. But now that’s enough of the chat and the update on Greg’s capture, and I just want to know that Heero’s more OK, not less, and I’d appreciate being put out of my suspense as soon as fucking possible –“

Another body pushed through the people by the door and then Heero was beside me. I stared at him -- no, much more than that: I drank in the sight of him. My eyes ranged up and down him, checking him for injury and finding nothing. No searing stab wounds; no blood stained shirt; no cold, gasping breath and tortured gaze. He looked tired and messed up, but his eyes were steady and warm like hot chocolate and he was offering the whole damned sweetness to me.

“Sheri says you saved her life,” he smiled. I was watching his mouth, reading the meanings behind the words, just enjoying the low timbre of his voice in my ears. “And then, Godammit, you saved mine too.”

“He didn’t get you… the knife?” I didn’t seem to be able to make a decent sentence. I reached a hand out and he moved quickly to crouch beside me. He took the hand and let it rest in his own. His movements nudged Relena to one side, but she didn’t protest. I only had eyes for him.

“No, he didn’t get me. You got to him just as he tried to stab me. You took the back edge of the knife on your injured arm and it re-opened your wound. He ripped the flesh apart again -- that’s what your pain was. I was winded, and I couldn’t get up fast enough to stop him escaping. All I could see was you on the floor, and blood all over your chest…”

I looked down at my shirt then, and saw the mess for myself. Someone had ripped the material apart at my upper arm, and I was sporting another of Heero’s professional bandaging efforts. I was in considerably more pain this time around. Guess my body was getting well and truly pissed at being target of the day, every day.

“You’re OK…” I said, a little stupidly.

“Thanks to you,” he said.

We continued to stare at each other for a while, until Relena coughed for our attention. “Did you see Greg carrying anything other than the gun and the knife?” she asked. “We’ve searched the trailer and the trail from his van to here, but we can’t see any more evidence of explosives or hidden weapons.”

Heero shook his head. ”I think he was at the end of both his resources and his imagination,” he said. “His whole vendetta was folding up around him, though that just made him all the more desperate.”

Sheri appeared at Junk’s shoulder, holding the rope I’d thrown. “But you got the other guy out as well, right?” she said, looking from us to Relena, then up at her father. “The cute one? The blond? Greg had a pile of this rope, and much thinner stuff, and he’d wrapped it all round him, along with some electrical-looking gadgets like Phil has in his trailer. I didn’t know what it was all for, but then he dragged me out into his van and we set off for here, so I never got a chance to say anything to the poor bastard –“

Much thinner stuff… electrical-looking gadgets…

Heero’s eyes met mine, wide and shocked. “Fuses,” he said. “Detonator…” He didn’t need any more in the way of explanation.

The other guy…

I lurched up, feeling the pull on my wound all over again. “Quatre!”

How the fuck could we have forgotten the danger he could be in?

“Trowa’s on his way to find him – Trowa’s going to walk right into whatever booby trap Greg set up!” I was babbling, I knew, but it didn’t matter because Heero was already reaching for the battered radio, and Relena was on her own cell phone. She spoke rapidly and sharply and then clipped it shut.

I met her horrified eyes. “There are people on their way now to that hideout,” she said. “Believe me - they’ll be there in minutes.”

“Call Trowa!” I groaned. Greg was in custody and no longer a threat to us. But his legacy still held one of our Team members in captivity – our friend! – and it sounded like he’d still had some of those explosives left to play with. He’d left one hell of a calling card.

Save them!

Day Three 22:15

We all waited for the call – I’d never felt so tense in my life. Phil hunkered down with Heero and got the radio working well enough for us all to listen in. Relena stood at their side, trying desperately not to look as fraught as she obviously was. Now and then her cell would ring and she’d go off to answer the call in privacy by the kitchen alcove. At one point, I could see the anger in the set of her shoulders, and she seemed to be bawling someone out; seconds later she was obviously more satisfied with the response, and was nodding firmly.

Sheri tried to get me to rest but I batted her away and went to sit on the floor beside Heero. She didn’t complain – in fact, she brought a cushion to me and tried to get me as comfortable as possible. Then she went to stand beside Junk as our small group clung to whatever hope and prayers we had to call on.

When Trowa’s voice came through, there was a collective sigh throughout the room.

“Status report, Trowa,” said Relena. Her voice was very tight but she was obviously trying not to snap. “Both you and Quatre.”

Trowa’s voice sounded odd, as if he were sleepy. “We’re – alive. I’m at the hideout. I’m injured; there was a small explosion on my entry and the door burst apart in my face. Quatre is –“ His voice failed.

“Why have we lost transmission? Is it the reception?” Relena urged the men in the room. Phil shook his head, bemused.

“No, I’m here,” came Trowa’s voice again. Now he just sounded distraught. “I’m sorry, Relena. I only have my small portable radio with me, and anyway this is – hard…”

I caught Heero’s eye; if I looked half as miserable as he did, things were bad. Trowa’s voice continued, shaky but tenacious. “Quatre is bound at the far side of the room. He seems to be connected up to some more explosives. It doesn’t look too sophisticated, but I’m no expert. Trouble is, when I came in and the first bomb went off, it seems to have triggered the fuse on the stuff round Quatre.”

“You mean he’s primed now,” said Heero, his voice shaky.

“Yes,” answered Trowa. “I don’t know how long we have.”

I had a sudden, vivid image of Trowa staring desperately at Quatre across a dirty, abandoned room and yet not being able to go to him. My chest tightened painfully. Heero was watching me but I couldn’t even formulate words to explain my vision.

“Can he talk to us?” Relena leant in beside me.

“No, his mouth is sealed too. I – don’t want to get too close… in case there’s more… in case I accelerate it.” Trowa’s voice got suddenly higher and faster. “I need help here, Relena! I don’t know enough about explosives. It could be ready to blow any minute!”

“You should get out Trowa, while you can,” she urged. “I have bomb disposal experts on their way now –“

“You should know better than to say that,” he snapped back, sounding more like the Trowa we all knew. “I’m staying here. We get saved or we go down together – whatever it is.”

Heero looked up at Relena, keeping his voice low so that Trowa didn’t hear. “What about Greg? Can we persuade him to tell us anything about the device?”

“No time,” she hissed back. “He’s on his way to a high security facility with federal agents. They’d not release him quickly or easily enough.” I saw her hold his gaze. “Heero, you must help him disarm it.”

*

Heero stared back at her. So did I. “I don’t have specialist knowledge of explosives,” he replied. I thought it was fucking amazing he sounded so calm. “I can’t see how it’s configured, can’t see what we’re really dealing with. I could only guide him through the basics.”

“So we’ll have to hope Greg knew no more than that,” she said. “At least until the experts get there.”

“I think he did know more than that,” persisted Heero.

“But so does Wufei,” I interrupted, urgently. Everyone turned towards me. “Look,” I rushed on. “Wufei Chang is more of a combat guy, I know, but he has a damned good knowledge of weaponry as well -- almost as good as Heero. And he’s been studying the explosion at Heero’s apartment. He’ll maybe have some idea of what Greg used, how he set up the devices, if he has some kind of signature…” I could feel the weight of their gazes on me. I could almost hear the crackle of Trowa’s breath on the other end of the radio connection. “I mean, I don’t fucking know, do I?” I burst out. “But it’s worth a try!”

Relena nodded, slowly, and handed her cell phone down to us. “You call him, Heero.”

Heero stood up, flipped open the phone and keyed in the hospital’s number. As he waited for it to answer, he looked into my eyes. “This is OK with you, Duo?”

“Fuck it, of course it is!” I said, but I knew what he was saying to me. He was seeing if I was truly rebuilding my bridges, if I’d truly had made peace with myself. Three months back, I’d have rather cut his hands off than have him spend any more quality time alone with Wufei Chang. But then – I’d been a prick then, hadn’t I? And I was on a new lease of life now. “I want you to work with him on this, Heero,” I said, urgently. “We’re all on the same side; the two of you will work it out. We must save the guys. I’m fucking well insisting you do this, Heero!”

“OK, OK,” he said quickly his mouth quirking in a small, twisted smile. The hospital connected him and he moved away from the radio to hear his call more clearly. He swiftly started speaking to Wufei.

I turned back to the radio. “Trowa, how much did you hear of that?”

His voice was just a thread by now, but he tried a joke. “You mean you and Heero arguing? It’s like old times…” His voice caught again, and he continued more slowly. “I understand you want me to disable the bomb on Quatre. Heero and Wufei will talk me through.” There was a scuffling noise in the background, but it might just have been interference. “Look, Duo, if anything happens to us, I want you to know how much we care about you all…”

“No, it’s cool,” I said quickly, breaking in. “Don’t say any more, Tro. You’ll both be fine.”

There was silence from his end, then some soft shuffling as if he were easing his way a little nearer to Quatre. I could hear him murmuring words, but I couldn’t make them out. From the soft, caressing tone of them, I knew I wasn’t meant to. They were for Quatre alone.

Heero came back over to the radio with his face set and an open connection to Wufei Chang on the ‘phone. He spoke directly to me, not Relena. “Wufei thinks that Greg had a favourite way of setting his detonators in a domino effect. That’s what happened at the apartment. It’s also borne out by the initial explosion at the hideout, when Trowa broke in. There can’t be many stages to find in such a small place as that unit, so if we can disable a switch somewhere along the line we can probably delay the process until the bomb guys get there.”

Phil spoke gruffly, stepping forward from beside Junk. “I know about detonators,” he said. “I can help some. S’long as you ain’t bothered how I got the practice.”

I started to haul myself back slightly, to keep out of their way. “So get on with it!” I said.

Day Three 22:54

The low muttered conversation had been going on for twenty minutes or so. I was a bit too far away to hear the voices from the radio, but it felt better for me to have some distance. Occasionally Heero turned towards me; then I could see the sweat on his face and the white of his knuckles where he held the cell phone to his ear. I guessed it was going well, but I had the hideous feeling that I’d only know to the contrary if I heard a God-awful explosion from the set. Phil was standing close to Heero, offering help when needed. I prayed the radio would last long enough to get through the job.

Sheri sat beside me on the couch with a glass of water for me. She was watching Phil, too.

“He’s done a good job,” I said, just for something to break the tension. “Are you two dating yet?”

She swung round, a look of surprise on her face. “He asked, but I don’t know… Fuck it, Max, I didn’t tell you, did I? So how come you know that stuff? You drive me nuts. If you hadn’t saved my life I’d kill you myself right now.”

“Funny kinda gratitude,” I smirked. I felt very weary. I was terrified about Trowa and Quatre, and if I clenched my fists much tighter to keep back the pain from my arm, I’d be through to the bone.

She was peering into my face. “You know why I haven’t said ‘yes’ yet, don’t you? It’s because I want you, Max.” She had such a refreshing bluntness; I think I was meant to be flattered. “You’re so cute – and you’re so good to me. I like you. A lot.” She was trying to sound so cool but she blushed, regardless. I hoped Phil was going to be good to her, too, else I’d want to know the reason why. “But you’ve just got me really messed up…”

I knew I’d regret it, but I thought I owed her the discussion anyway. “Why’s that, honey? I never meant to.”

“You and this guy, Heero…” She pushed an escaping lock of red hair back behind her ear and frowned as she concentrated on her words. She looked so confused and so much younger that I wanted to hug her. “Couple of days ago I thought you were an item, even though - let me tell you - I think that’s just the most disgusting waste of two such hot guys, you know? But then there was all that crap you said about him to the terrorist guy…” When she faced me again, her expression was very bleak. “Was that all true? That he treated you like shit and you were glad to turn him over? You were really upset, and then you were fighting, for fuck’s sake. You said you hated each other’s guts, you even offered to kill him. And the look on his face -- shit, Max, there were a couple of times I thought he’d go for your throat!”

I listened to her perceptions of me and Heero over the last hour or so and I was sobered. I knew I’d sometimes thought those thoughts – the hatred, the anger, the aggression – over the last few months. I knew how they felt, deep in the core of me. I’d put passion and sincerity into everything I said to Greg, but I knew what an actor I was – and how far I could go and still retain credibility.

And I knew what shit I could spout, didn’t I? I was never more glad that I could occasionally turn that dubious skill to my advantage.

“It was an act, Sheri,” I said, as gently as I could. “It was something we planned between us. Anything we could think of to unnerve Greg – to unbalance him. I wanted him to despise me, to think me no better than the shit he and his brother had heaped on them in their lives. So that’s what I showed him. I was a failure in my work, suspended from duty; Heero had nothing but contempt for me. He needed to see Heero and me as hostile. Then I could pretend an affinity with him while Heero was the bad guy – he could enjoy the fact we hated each other, rather than banding together against him.”

“The business with the radio?” she said, in a small, rather sulky voice.

“Heero had it wired up so it shorted the live to the casing. I kept Greg preoccupied, then Heero pretended we were going to receive an important message. It tempted Greg to touch it first; we knew he’d get a hell of a shock. I just needed him distracted, then we’d overpower him. Though it didn’t work quite as I hoped …”

“I got in the way,” she said, abruptly. There was growing distress in her eyes. She’d been through such a lot, and I reckoned she was underestimating the effects of shock.

I heard a gasp from over by the radio and was desperate to know what was happening, but her hand was still on mine. I don’t think she knew she’d put it there.

“No you didn’t,” I said, firmly. “You hear me? You helped us – you had a go at him yourself, didn’t you? Hurt yourself, too, which I won’t forgive any of us for. Anyway, we’re friends and I treasure that. We sorted him out between us. It’s all over now.”

“Not just with the Greg guy,” she said, her voice very low. “I meant I might have been in the way with Heero, too. I’m sorry.”

I smiled. “Look, I think you and Phil will have a lot of fun together. I’m not exactly your dream guy, but I’ve never been that to anyone, so I wouldn’t know what to do to live up to it.”

“You are to him,” she said and suddenly her face cleared. “To Heero. I mean, he’s a good actor like you, you know? You both had me fooled.” She blushed, embarrassed about it. “But when he wasn’t looking daggers at you he had a really deep, strange look in his eyes.”

I thought it might have been the anticipation of ‘mission-mode’ that she’d seen, but then didn’t I know now that Heero was made up of a whole bunch of other feelings that I’d only scratched the surface of? I was hoping I’d have a good long time to burrow beneath that surface…

“You look stupid,” Sheri said, but she smiled as she did. “A right dork. If you could see your face… Like you’re in love or something. Two guys, sheesh! What a fucking waste…”

“He’s everything to me,” I said, quite suddenly. It was all very clear to me now. “I want him; I need him. I’m not at my best without him – shit, I’m nowhere near! I need to know that he wants me in return – that he’s with me all hours, that I can come home to him. That I can talk to him when I need to sort things out; that I can hold him when I need comfort. That I can do the same for him. I want to tell him how he makes me feel – that I feel warmer, and richer, and smarter, and sexier…” I grinned, partly in amazement at the strength of my feelings, partly because I’d finally owned up to them. “And you know what? He always made me feel that way, it was always running underneath all the shit and the tension. We just let the crap take over. Fucking shameful. And now he’s done it to me again over these last few days – woken me up to how pathetic I’ve been, kicked my ass like no-one else does, brought all the feelings back…”

The affection. The love. The passion. The need to roll us both down on to some nearby surface and be fucked by him until my body’s so worn I don’t have the breath to beg or laugh or scream with pleasure any more…

Her eyes were wide as she listened to me. I grinned again, suddenly just as embarrassed as she’d been. “I’ll tell you more about it one day.”

“Think you’d better tell him, not me,” she said, sharply, her eyes sparkling. “Guess he knows already, though. Sheesh…” She slipped quietly off the couch as a man walked over to me. It was Heero. He ran his hand through his hair like he was exhausted – which he probably was. But his face was creased with a triumphant smile. Behind him, I could see Phil and Relena doing high fives and Junk fighting off what looked like the urge to bear hug her. There were excited cries and calls out to the people outside the trailer. We had quite an audience tonight.

“It’s OK,” Heero said, knowing I’d know what he meant. Knowing I’d know he knew I knew – oh, whatever! “We disabled the switch nearest to Quatre and then the bomb unit guys arrived. They seemed to think it was a walk in the park for them to take it from there. They dismantled the whole thing – Quatre’s free, and unhurt.”

“Trowa?”

“He’s OK. His upper body took a bit of a beating from the initial explosion, but there’s nothing broken. He’s exhausted and a little in shock, so they’ve taken him to hospital. But apparently the pair of them were demanding they were taken there together, and they were calling for Relena to authorise early discharge, so they sound like they’ll be back in circulation pretty quickly.” He smiled at me, and it had nothing to do with Quatre or Trowa or Wufei or Relena. “They said thanks to us. To us both. Quatre was understandably a bit emotional, but he kept babbling that we made a fine team.”

“Look, Heero –“

“I heard you,” he said, simply. The smile got softer. “I heard what you said. About what you want and what you need.”

“Shit,” I sighed. “That smile of yours…does it for me every time.” We gazed at each other like grinning, inarticulate teenagers for a bit longer, but neither of us seemed to care. “So how soon can we have this place back to ourselves again? What I really need are some painkillers and some rest and some fucking privacy…”

“Never a truer word spoken,” he murmured. “But then you always did speak enough for us both.”

Guess he caught me unawares because there were people moving through the room around us and I was half watching them. Whatever the reason, the next thing I knew was him leaning down and sliding a hand around my neck. Then, ignoring any of those other damned people, he kissed me full on the mouth.

It was nothing short of pure, perfect bliss – it was sweetness and sympathy and a rough, sexy sensuality, all rolled into one, deep kiss. I opened my lips and his tongue thrust hungrily inside me. I reached my good arm round his torso and pressed my mouth back against him, murmuring my pleasure. He tasted of tiredness and tension, but every damned flavour of Heero Yuy was nectar to me! Maybe someone else around us grunted, maybe someone laughed nervously. Like I cared. This was all I wanted to do for at least the next three months of my life and I wasn’t too sure whether I’d even bother to break off for food and some washing of my essentials.

We broke at last, gasping for breath, shared saliva still glistening on our lips and our fingers curled into each other’s clothing, gripping us together like we didn’t want to be parted.

Like I said – that was exactly what I wanted.

“Heero…” I panted, and watched the desire flicker in his dark pupils. “The kissing does it for me, too, you know? Whatever I said to that maniac earlier, I’d say that entitles you to have my ass any day of the week you care to choose!”

He smiled. He understood. He wanted me, too.

Now wouldn’t you agree that all I needed was for those other guys to hurry up and get the fuck out of my trailer?