CLOSE PROXIMITY

Chapter 9

Day Two 20.35

The rest of the day had been a bit of a blur. The painkillers seemed to have been mixed for something about the size of a small bush elephant, thus knocking me out of action for most of the afternoon. I was conscious of Heero moving around the trailer, and at one point there was the smell of food. But it only made me nauseous again, and I let myself drift back to sleep. Any voices were only murmurs in the back of my semi-conscious mind. Then at one stage I wakened properly.

The light in the room was dim, suggesting it was evening. Heero sat across from the couch, cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by his precious papers. He’d shucked off his shoes and socks, and had changed into a thin white undershirt. For a second or three, I watched how the muscles ran across his shoulders, how the ends of his dark hair teased at the exposed nape of his neck.

“Hey?” My throat was dry, but my voice sounded stronger than before. He looked straight up at the sound of it, and his expression was completely unguarded. Maybe that was the same for both of us. I sank swiftly – surprisingly! - into the concern I saw in his eyes. Then he got up, slowly straightening as if he’d kept that position for some hours, and came over to see how I was.

“Your temperature has gone down a little,” he said, gently. “You’ve been feverish. The wound seems better, too.”

“You dressed it again?” I looked down, a little stupidly, at my arm. The bandages were clean and unstained, and rather better wrapped than Hans’ earlier efforts. I was also wearing an old blue tee shirt I’d forgotten I had – Heero had presumably grabbed the first thing in my drawer, just to cover me up with some extra warmth. Maybe it was the effect of the drugs, or the shock, or God knows what, but it felt good to think of his hands on me again, on my skin, working on me - albeit for medical reasons.

Get a life, Maxwell, I told myself, but not holding out any honest hope. Get a new life.

“I’ll get you some water,” I heard Heero say, and I nodded, dumbly.

*

“So what have you found?” I asked. I was propped a little more comfortably on the couch and was toying with the idea of getting up and moving around. Didn’t know how Doctor Yuy would feel about that. He’d already helped me hobble to the toilet, and I’d been impressed with the way I showed my recovery – like I managed not to fall down once, and I tried hard not to wince at the stiffness in my limbs. But I needed to change my sweats, and I needed something filled with more caffeine than water, and I needed –

Anyway. At least my brain felt back on the right track.

Heero was sat back on the floor, though he seemed to have shifted around towards me a bit. The papers were in neat piles, but he had a transcript opened up on his lap. “Trowa seems to have found an echo in the message system – briefings and confidential memos have been diverted to another mail address. It bypasses the normal security prompts, though fairly clumsily. Depending on how long this tag was in place, they would have had access to everything we planned.” He twisted the paper as if it might make more sense the other way up. It almost made me smile – it was so very unlike the precise Heero I worked with. Had worked with.

“It’s encrypted,” he sighed. “A numeric address, with no obvious key.” It obviously frustrated the hell out of him, not being able to find a solution on his own. “Maybe the address is purely random – but I hoped it might have a clue as to the perpetrator.”

“Human nature,” I said, matter-of-factly. “People can’t resist setting up addresses that reflect something about them personally, even if it’s in their own personal code. I found the best passwords were those based on whatever happened to be on my desk that day. Think up anything more significant than that, and you start to let yourself slip.”

He was watching my face and I caught a nod of agreement. It was disturbing how I felt the leap of pleasure in my chest at sharing things with him again. “Pass it here,” I said. “No-one has more warped a mind than I do, right? It’s the sort of puzzle that’ll help to while away my injured hours.”

He looked unconvinced – or maybe he was possessive of this whole thing. “Heero,” I said, very carefully keeping the emotion from my voice. “Neither of us wanted this to happen, did we? Neither of us feels comfortable, thrown together like this – fuck it, neither of us wanted to see the other again before hell froze over. But you’re here now, and we’re in danger, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that we can work well together if we put all the personal crap aside.” I saw him start to move, but I hurried on before I lost my nerve – or my sense. “Don’t have any other choice, do we, until we can get in touch with someone to bale us out. Look, I know I’ve been the worse culprit, always prodding, always angry with you.” So sue me. Call me childish. Guess I deserve it. “But like you said before – this is too important to be hampered by my resentful shit.”

He seemed to take a deep breath whilst trying to hide it from me. Then he nodded. “Like a truce,” he said, softly. I couldn’t make out the tone of his comment, but I couldn’t hear any overt sarcasm. I could see all sorts of confusion in his eyes. I didn’t think I saw hostility, but then let’s face it, I’ve been wrong before. We just had to be pragmatic about this – we had to swallow our personal antipathy and knuckle down to solving this situation…

“A truce,” I agreed, my own voice a little too sharp. “We need to face the crisis together. I can be sensible about it. ”

Why did I think that was the biggest crock of shit I’d served up since this all began?

*

“So what did Relena say?” I hadn’t been able to ask while Junk was still around, and then I’d passed out. I wasn’t sure I liked the answering frown on his face.

“I couldn’t reach her. Cissy said she didn’t know where she was.”

“Crap,” I said, with some enthusiasm.

“I know, Duo,” he said, sharply. “It’s likely that Cissy does know. But she’s not saying.”

“She’s very protective of Relena,” I said. “Always has been.” Cissy was both Relena’s friend and her assistant; you couldn’t get a more loyal young woman. Relena inspired that in people; she treated them well and brought out the best in them. To Relena, her people truly were the most important asset.

Heero hesitated, then spoke again. “There’s been another attack at the Department itself. A letter bomb, sent yesterday.”

”Shit…”

“Relena wasn’t harmed, apparently. But this time it got all the way to the inner office. There were some minor injuries to the staff – Cissy sounded rather shaken. They’re evacuating the building and bringing in some Government security forces.”

“Where has she gone, then? Where might she go?” I realised for maybe the first time that I knew very little about Relena’s personal life. Where she lived – who she cared about. Who cared for her in return; who she dated. If she dated. “How do we know she’s OK, then? And who the fuck is doing all this?” I was totally perplexed. “Just one thing after another, all aimed at the Project Team. What the hell is this all about, Heero?”

His voice was wooden in its reply. “I don’t know. Cissy also asked where Greg was. As if she didn’t know he’d been here. As if –“

“As if Relena didn’t know he was here,” I echoed, knowing that our thoughts were both in accord. “So it obviously wasn’t an official visit…”

And it was then that I realised we were all alone in the trailer.

*

Yeah, I don’t know why it took me so long to notice we no longer had our visitor with us. Blame the drugs, blame my distraction with someone else…

“He’s gone, then?” There was no Greg sat in the corner of my lounge; no frightened protests; no wide young eyes pleading with me to believe him.

Heero nodded. “While I was talking to Cissy, she found a message from Quatre on her email, saying to get Greg back to the Department as soon as possible. It was very urgent, so she said. I protested we hadn’t really finished questioning him – but Cissy insisted.”

When Cissy insisted, it was the equivalent of Relena’s own orders.

“The dog – Dylan - was nosing round outside under your trailer. Greg was so damned nervous about him that I had to ask one of Junk’s girls to see him safely off the site. He said he had a car parked just outside town – he’ll be OK to get himself back.” He saw my frown. “He had no more information for us, Duo. He didn’t see the attacker in detail. I saw no reason to hold him any longer.”

“So did you talk to Quatre?” I was a little alarmed at all the things that had been going on while I’d been out of it.

He glared at me as if he could read my thoughts. “I tried, but no luck. Seems Quatre is in hiding now too, the same as we are. Or else he’s looking for Trowa.” He snapped suddenly. “The whole damned Department seems to have gone AWOL! No-one’s using the official security numbers; no-one’s left any messages as to where they are or what their orders are.”

Running scared, I thought. Not something Heero Yuy would have much tolerance for. We handled dangerous situations on a regular basis, but these direct – and potentially murderous – attacks on us were something else. But I was surprised that Relena wasn’t pulling things together. ”How was Cissy?”

“Disturbed. Evasive.” He looked carefully at me, but said no more. He stretched the muscles of his shoulders, and the shirt wrinkled carelessly across his torso. His hair looked less than neat.

I felt a shiver run through my body. “Something’s really odd here, Heero. Relena hiding away – Quatre on the run, too. Still no word from Trowa…”

“Wufei in the hospital.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Everyone’s been affected, yet there doesn’t seem to be any common factor. We’re just being isolated, one by one. It’s sort of clumsy, but whoever’s organised this, they’ve known just how to strike at us. They’ve infiltrated Relena’s own office – her own sanctum. Threatened her staff. That’s exactly what would really distress and disturb her. Then they’ve split Quatre and Trowa apart, breaking down any communications between them. Again – the worst thing for those two to cope with. They tried to hit you at home, as if they knew what a familiar base would mean to you, and the misery of losing it. And it’s been a blow to Wufei’s confidence, too – one of his greatest frustrations must be immobility.”

“And you?”

I shrugged. “Guess I’m pissed that they found me in the first place. I was rather hoping to treasure my own space just a little longer.”

Heero made the smallest of noises, like he’d stubbed a toe or something.

“I don’t think we should contact the Department again,” I said quite firmly, despite the sick churn of nausea that was resurrecting itself in my gut. “I want to wait for some of the Team to contact us, you know?” I’m not sure who to trust, I wanted to say, but I wasn’t sure I should.

“So you do think the threat is coming from an inside source,” said Heero. “Someone who knows us well.”

For a moment, all we did was stare at each other.

*

An hour later, we’d finished many more glasses of water, and eaten some soup and slices of buttered toast – Junk’s family had restocked my paltry larder with rather embarrassing riches - but the words and numbers on the reports were now swimming before my eyes.

“You should sleep again,” said Heero. He’d have made a useless nurse – his bedside manner sounded like military command, not concern. But I didn’t react; didn’t have the energy. It had been a long day.

“Not yet. Sleep when I die,” I said, not caring how that might sound, or how close I might actually have been to that. I could feel the edges of something tingling in my mind as I searched the mystery emails and the scribbled notes from Trowa. “This threat – it’d have to be someone senior – someone with access to everything.” When I registered a fresh silence in the room, I looked up with surprise. “What are you thinking?”

“You know whose name keeps cropping up here? In all this mess – in all these unusual events.”

“No,” I said. Wasn’t sure if I were entirely truthful. That shiver was back, plucking icy fingers down my spine.

“Quatre is pivotal to this,” he said. He’d dropped his eyes to some papers on his lap, but I knew it was just that he didn’t want to meet my gaze.

What the fuck?

“He knows everything about the Department,” Heero continued, like the words were being drawn out of him with a damned crochet hook. “How it works, what the missions are… he’s the closest to Relena, sharing much of the Departmental strategy with her. He always knows where we all are - he brought me here, for God’s sake.”

“Sure, but that’s not sinister. He’s just as upset. He has Trowa in the field, at risk.” I could feel a combination of fear and anger rising up in me. “How can you even think that one of us would do this?”

“I don’t want to.” He sounded wretched now, but dogged too. “Don’t you believe that? But then we see one of his guys creeping round the site – acting suspiciously when we try to probe him for identification of your attacker. Not sent officially, it seems. Then he’s called back, out of our hands, before we can find out any more. By an email from Quatre, with no further explanation.”

“So…?”

“Quatre’s the only one who hasn’t been targeted so far.” Heero was shaking his head, as if he were arguing with himself. “Trowa’s notes are full of discussions he had with Quatre about where the original attacks may have been planned, none of which seem to have been reported officially. Quatre could organise anything he wished; he’s the closest of us all to Relena; he has access to all the Department’s resources…”

“No!” I said again, more forcefully. Why did my head ache so much at the thought? Why was I even listening to such crap?

“He could do all of this,” said Heero. “He has the ability, the intelligence. His previous… career… was dubious. He’d still have that knowledge, too.”

“Shut the fuck up!” I gasped. “Why the hell would he behave like this? Put us all at risk?”

“I have no idea,” was Heero’s reply. He ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. “Just thinking aloud, I guess.” Some of the papers slid off his lap, but he didn’t bother to pick them back up. His whole body looked rigid with tension. I knew the look too well to mistake it. He was both angry and distressed.

“I can’t accept that, Heero. I trust him.”

“So do I.” He looked back up at me then, and his eyes were full of misery and frustration. “But what do we know of what’s going on in people’s minds?”

I stared back, almost challenging him not to take that thought any further. “Don’t talk about it again.”

“OK,” he said.

The room fell silent again, but now the air was charged with shock and confusion.

And more damned fear.

*

Day Two 22:20

I needed to rest. I had ideas and worries in my head, and quite a few other disturbing gremlins. Time was passing in a very disjointed way, and I guessed it’d soon be the end of the night altogether.

Heero came to take the glass from my hand. I hadn’t realised it was slipping in the first place. He stood above me for a moment, looking down on my tired body. “I’m OK,” I said, sharply. I was annoyed. Shattered. Defensive. Fuck knows what else.

“I know,” he said, surprising me with his calm tone. “He did a good job. Hans, the mysterious doctor. You’re OK, indeed.”

I smiled slightly. First time he’d really acknowledged the community around me. “They’re good people here. A little far from convention, OK, but they’ve all welcomed me. Junk’s a friend – a helpful guy -”

“He may well be,” Heero broke in, dryly. “But I’m talking about the guy that you are.”

“Huh?”

Heero shook his head, and smiled in return. “How do you do it, Duo?”

“Do what?”

“It never ceases to amaze me,” he said, quite gently. Perhaps he thought he should be lowering his voice in the presence of invalids. “The way you get on with people, the way you blend in wherever you are. I’ve seen you with politicians and diplomats, and they accept you easily and discuss the relevant mission points with you. Then you’re here, and just as much a part of this community as with the Department.”

I shifted awkwardly. Didn’t sound like the usual abuse. Didn’t sound like the Heero I’d invited into my home less than 48 hours ago. Didn’t sound like the guy I’d once spat in the face of. “People are more tolerant than they’re given credit for –“

“You have a gift,” he continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “I always envied it.”

I just stared. His eyes were fastened on my mouth, as if he waited to see what might spill out of it. I remembered that as a habit of his – especially when he wanted me. It had been too long since I’d seen that look of desire without it being mixed up and corrupted by a hell of a lot of other, less comfortable feelings. From the expression on his face when I glanced up at him, it seemed he wasn’t exactly putting out the welcome mat either. He looked confused … uncertain. A little shocked. Like he had when he’d arrived with the other guys, his home just having crumbled round his ears. But this time, I didn’t think he was thinking about his fixtures and fittings.

It was the first time for a long time that I’d stopped to consider how Heero Yuy might be feeling about me.

Then he seemed to realise than that he’d spoken rather uncharacteristically; a slight flush appeared high on his cheeks and his scowl crept back across his brow. “Whatever. I think I must be overtired too. The girl called here earlier – Sheri?” I nodded at his questioning look. “She called several times, actually. Brought more food in for us both, for supper, though I’m afraid your share is congealing in the kitchen.”

“She’s a friend, too,” I said, just for something to fill the quietness. There were strange reactions rippling in my chest cavity like butterflies trapped in a jar.

He smiled again, a little wistfully. “She likes you, Duo. A little more than a friend, I think.” He was staring down at the couch, his eyes flickering uncertainly over me. I was suddenly very conscious of a trickle of sweat just below my throat; I noticed I had a smattering of golden toast crumbs in the creases of my sweats. What were the flickers of emotion I could see in his eyes? What the hell was wrong with me, thinking Heero Yuy and wistfully in the same mental sentence?

He cleared his throat. “She went to help Greg off the park anyway, so she’s not been over since. I’ll go get your bed ready. I hope they’ll leave you in peace for a while – we must get you through this night as calmly as possible.”

He turned away, rather abruptly.

I wondered whether this ‘truce’ business was ever going to be one of my brighter ideas.

*

Day Two 23:07

It was even later in the night, and my bedroom was lit only by the lights from the other trailers, which broke haphazardly through my window. I’d made it to my own bed, laying myself carefully on top of the sheets, keeping my undershirt and sweats on. Heero was taking the couch. Or at least, he had been. I lay on the thin mattress, wide awake from the many thoughts and feelings that had fuck all to do with the knitting wound on my arm, and then his silhouette appeared at the doorway.

“I’m still OK,” I said a little tersely, in case he thought I needed some more of his special brand of nursing. Hell, I could get myself to the toilet now, couldn’t I? The painkillers were doing their work again, and even if my mind was working overtime, my limbs felt a pleasant lassitude.

I just couldn’t seem to sleep, though.

“I had to consider that, you know,” he said. His face was in full shadow but his teeth glinted quickly in the dimness. “About Quatre.”

“I know.” I didn’t say anything else. After all, we were in ‘truce’ mode, weren’t we? That was a good enough reason to bite back any sharp reply I might have discovered inside my restless brain. But I was also recognising something else seeping its way into the dealings we had with each other. This current crisis was like a mission in itself – and both of us had emphasised the importance of finding our way through it. The mission was taking precedence over any hostile feelings we had for each other. And wasn’t that how it should be?

“We’d better stay put,” I said quietly. I could hear a muffled laugh somewhere far over the other side of the park; I thought I could hear a sleepy snuffle from one of the dogs outside - probably Dylan still keeping watch. “We’ll wait for a call from Relena. We’re probably as safe as anywhere, with people watching out for us. Maybe the attacker will think we’ve run out – maybe it’ll be a bluff –“

“A double bluff, in case we actually do,” he said, and the teeth glinted again in a small smile.

“Yeah. Something like that.” I shifted on the bed and wondered why I felt vulnerable. I was fully clothed; I was in my own place. “There must be a motive to be found, Heero. We need to talk to the other guys – we need to do some more thinking.”

“Tomorrow,” came his murmur. He didn’t move away from the doorway, though.

I rolled away to face the wall, favouring my bad arm. Wished I had some more of those elephant tablets. I could feel his eyes on me; I could smell the soft cleanliness of soap on his skin. I knew how his thin shirt would feel against my fingertips if I moved to peel it off over his head. I knew how his dark hair would spring back on his head and then fall forward on to his brow again. I knew how his deep-hued eyes would flash against the white cotton.

I remembered too many words in the darkness.

“Get some sleep,” I said, a little hoarsely. Let me be.

*

Day Two 23:23

I rolled over on to my back and sighed. It beat holding my breath. Heero was at my doorway again, and had been for the last ten minutes.

“Can’t you sleep?”

“No,” he said, and this time he stepped into the room. His breath was soft, but seemed loud in the silence. “But then, neither can you.”

I didn’t turn my head to face him, but I smiled. He was right. Damned right. “Fucking wound’s hurting.”

“It might be leaking. I’ll dress it again.”

He sat carefully on the edge of my bed, so I had to roll over further for him to reach me properly. He already held the bandages, and his movements were smooth and efficient. I watched his hands work, long fingers wrapping the cloth around me, palms brushing against my bare skin. “Very little leakage,” he said. “It’s healing well.”

I didn’t reply; my tongue seemed to have swelled to twice its normal size. That, or someone had cauterised my vocal chords in the last two minutes.

“When you were hit,” he said, and then paused. “Shit.”

I grimaced in the dim light, trying to see his expression. “It was shock, obviously,” he said, as if he talked to himself. “I don’t know why else I felt so bad.”

Huh?

“Three months, Duo. I’ve not seen you for three months. Now I see you for a couple of days, under protest, for God’s sake, both of us uncomfortable with it all, both of us really pissed –“ He paused again.

“Yeah,” I said, my tongue having returned to life. “Ditto.”

“But I don’t feel like I thought I would.” He was looking away from me now, the unused roll of white bandage forgotten on his lap. His head fell back slightly – I saw the silhouette of his throat, swallowing. “I never thought being here with you would be this hard …”

I did, I thought. But then I’ve been shocked, in reality, by how hard it isn’t.

“Heero,” I asked. The words forced their way out of my lips. “Did you do that? When I went down. Did you cover me with your body?”

He was silent for a moment. The bed creaked gently as he unconsciously tightened his hand on his leg. “There could have been more than one shot. I didn’t know how badly you’d been hit. You were an open target there on the ground.”

Explanations. But not excuses.

“It was a fucking stupid thing to do,” I said. Then I bit at my lip, astounded that I’d said it aloud.

Astonishingly, I heard Heero laughing. “Yes, it was. It was the shock, like I said. I couldn’t believe how I felt when I saw you go down – when I saw your body fold against the bullet.” He looked at me then and even in the dark I could see his expression. His eyes spoke for him: I thought you were dead.

I shifted myself to sitting upright, liking the feeling of a clean, fresh binding and feeling some strength returning to my limbs. He stayed where he was, so that then we were almost face to face, a couple of feet apart. “Guess we’re quits then,” I said. His head tilted sideways, puzzled.

“That’s how I felt when you got stabbed,” I explained. I’ll never forgive myself for it. “I’d have sat up in the night, dressing your wounds, like you’ve done for me. I’d have done it, Heero.” Whatever the fuck it took. “Just so happened you wanted some other nurse’s attention.”

“But I didn’t.”

I shrugged as if to say ’why are we dragging this up again’?

He seemed to shudder slightly. “Then again, I didn’t know if I did. I didn’t know what I wanted. It was like everything changed then – everything distorted.”

“I thought you said you didn’t want the mission post-mortem again…” I said, weakly. He wasn’t listening to me.

“I wasn’t much support to you, was I? I lost sight of it all. You suffered because of me – as well as suffering yourself.” His eyes shone in the darkness with a vivid fierceness. “I never meant you to.”

I stared at him, seeing the faint glow of reflected light around the shape of his rigid body. What the fuck was he going on about?

“You were the one who was injured, Heero!”

He dismissed it, interrupting me sharply. “My body was. But you were in shock, too. I didn’t understand your distress – couldn’t see it.”

I leant slightly towards him, fascinated by him. “You’ve never talked like this before.”

“I should have done. Wufei told me, only recently –“

I bristled. My whole body tensed. He must have felt it, but he continued on regardless. There was a strange wildness to his tone, like he was running towards a cliff, and he knew damned well he was heading for the edge – but he didn’t slow down. “He told me there were other things I should have accounted for, not just the physical effects of the stabbing. He told me you would have been in shock too, from the attack, from the investigation. I just saw your behaviour – took you at face value. I never credited anything beyond that.”

I didn’t know anything about that. I’d been in shock? Well of course I had been – but it had been my problem, my trouble to cope with. Daresay it’d be some syndrome that the head shrinkers had in their text books – but I didn’t have time for that, did I? Think about it, Duo, I told myself. I had been a little mad then. Maybe more than a little. Are you the last to be honest with yourself?

I gazed at Heero like he was the only thread holding me to the planet. You’ve missed the point. My carelessness nearly got you killed.

He was oblivious to my bemusement, it seemed. “There was a hell of a lot I didn’t understand, Duo. I know that’s no excuse – but I don’t know how I was meant to keep up. You were always so difficult to capture, like quicksilver – so quick in your responses, in your reactions. I was always several steps behind. I felt like dross beside you.”

“No -!” the cry was dragged from me. “It wasn’t you, not really. I felt a fool set against you. Lightweight. You said as much yourself.”

“But I never meant it.” He sounded very weary. A little awed.

“I made you say it – I provoked you.” Of course, it had always been that way.

He nodded so slightly I hardly saw it. “We brought out the worst in each other.”

“Sometimes,” I added. His hand lay on the sheet now, a few inches from my own arm. I looked down at it, at the splayed fingers, at the tendons tight with tension across the back of his hand.

“Yes,” he said. “Sometimes.”

And the best…

“And the best,” he said, in uncanny echo of my thoughts. Astonishing that it should be Heero – Mr Silence-is-Golden – who now spoke so openly. “I just… wanted you, Duo. Desperately. Always. In any way possible. Never stopped to think things through sensibly. Never spent enough time getting to know you properly.”

I tried to breathe normally, but my chest felt as if it were in a vice. He was speaking my own thoughts; he was laying open my own regrets.

He turned towards me again, a strong muscular shadow in the dark, and his voice had softened. The pale flickers of light were on me, now. “You look better. Some colour in your face.”

“Soon back to normal,” I said too brightly. If some sniper doesn’t get me first.

“The fight,” he said. “I regret it. Bitterly.”

“Yeah.” So do I, my heart screamed at me, but the words were still in the mire of self-pity at the back of my throat. “But that’s all over now, isn’t it? We’re both agreed on that.” I stared again at the dapples of light running over the shadowed planes of his hand. I knew my own hand ached to reach out and touch him. What was happening here to me? To us? My head remembered misery and anger and hurtful shit, yet my body ached from the memory of him.

“It was just so painful, Duo. Such confusion.” His voice had an unfamiliar break in it. “To see you withdrawing from me – to see your awkwardness with me.”

“Better we parted,” I said, very quietly. I didn’t want to discuss this; I didn’t want to hear this. “Guess we could have chosen a slightly less public way to do it, though.”

“Yes,” he said. “Definitely would have been better without the audience.” He laughed, but with no real humour. He sighed. He shifted on the bed and the bandages fell to the floor with a soft thump, rolling over to the corner of the small room. His hand opened on top of the sheet beside me, then fisted up again.

“How did it get so bad, Heero?” I was surprised to hear my words aloud.

“I can’t tell you.”

“No of course you can’t –“ I started, ready to renew my hostility.

“No,” he interrupted. “Because you won’t let me. I can’t find the words like you can. Never could. I may have been too quick to judge you, but then you never gave me time to find out to the contrary. You’re so abrasive sometimes.”

I pursed my mouth. “You’re not exactly sweetness and light yourself.”

And then he laughed again, genuinely, startling me afresh. “I don’t think I ever was, was I? You’re right. God knows how we ever got together in the first place.”

But we did.

His eyes came to mine and held my gaze, demanding, perhaps, that I didn’t chicken out. There was a triangle of light in the centre of each of his dark pupils, like someone had drawn him as a wide-eyed cartoon in the night. “It’s still not easy, is it? There’s too much – or not enough – between us. I’m sorry that all this is happening to you maybe because of me. That I’m the target, not you. That you can’t continue on your search for your own space without my hindrance.”

The harsh edge in his voice hurt me. And yet his eyes were still hungry; they drank me in, as if he were heavily dehydrated. Things were shifting in my mind like a kaleidoscope; memories took on new voices; my vision of our relationship was being redecorated with new tones.

“Don’t be,” I said. “Don’t be sorry, that is. Whatever happens with this, I know I can trust you.”

“But you didn’t always before,” he whispered.

“No,” I replied. Couldn’t trust myself at the moment, to know what was right.

“I… didn’t see that I had to justify myself to you, Duo. About Wufei – about anything. You should have known me better…”

Yeah. Maybe I should. Self-disgust crushed at me; regret twisted its knife. “I was stupid. End of story.”

He shook his head very gently, and I felt the vibration in the air as we leaned in towards each other. I don’t know what happened next – or rather, I don’t know why we let it. It was as if something tugged at me, against my will - as if both of us were lassoed and drawn in for capture, like hapless, dumb animals. The mattress creaked beneath us and I felt a gentle crick in my neck as it stretched itself. Just a couple of feet between us, didn’t I say? Our breath bridged it, combining in the cool night air; our words were just whispered sound, our protests melted into raw emotion.

His hands never touched me, nor did I reach out those last few inches to hold him. The only things that touched were our mouths. Hesitantly, like bashful new lovers. Lips dry with caution, yet damp with need. Lips that knew each other’s intimately, yet had forgotten the pure pleasure of the touch. It was like the taste of the dark and fear and ecstasy, all combining together with a wash of heartache and lust. The skin of his cheek smoothed mine; the slight bristles of my neglected chin scraped across his jaw. I felt his eyelashes brush at my eyes as my lids closed beneath him.

My lips parted slightly, as his tongue nudged at them. The tip of it slid in alongside mine, his breath expelling into my mouth with a sigh of desire. We melded even closer, mouths together like a single caress, our shoulders now pressing against each other with perfect choreography, allowing the familiar twist of our bodies to draw the other in.

It was like coming home.