“Quatre.”
The voice was firm and even, the way I remembered it, despite the evident surprise in those blue eyes. The colour was a like the sky on a rainy day in a cooler climate than this. Steely grey with a tint of blue. I don’t care whatever bullshit someone else gave you about cobalt or sapphire, perhaps even azure if someone hard an especially hard crush. He was wearing a navy-blue hooded sweatshirt and regular blue jeans. Nothing spectacular, like back during the war. In fact, when caught like this in an ordinary apartment in an ordinary house, wearing ordinary clothes, he looked almost ordinary himself. What was it about him that was so special it made people fall head over heels in love with him right and left, anyway?
I peered at him from underneath my now too long bangs, a slightly worried twist to my mouth, edging a bit from one foot to another. I was holding a bag containing hastily assembled items needed for travel in one hand, grasping hesitantly at the straps.
“I’m sorry about the lack of notice. I don’t mean to intrude, it’s just...” I bit my lip, lowering my gaze. I knew I didn’t need to finish the sentence.
He hurriedly stepped aside. “Don’t worry about it. Come on in.”
I didn’t look at Heero as I walked past him, not wanting him to catch the truimphant gleam I knew was in my eyes for a moment. It was good to know that I hadn’t entirely lost my touch.
The hall was small, and sparsely furnished. The two inhabitants probably still didn’t own a lot of things between them. It was to be expected, not so long ago all five of us gundam pilots had had little to call ours except the clothes we wore. There was a tasteless orange fitted carpet, and an impersonal hat-rack in steel grid, just two jackets hanging from it. I could see into a kitchen, where the light was on. I could smell something spicy cooking. Not all of us had had any sort of family left to return to after the Mariemeia incident, or money to draw upon. I knew I was lucky in that sense. Still, seeing this rather shabby apartment, obviously inhabited by people with little interest in interior design, I felt a sting of bitter jealousy. It might not be much of a home, but at least it was a home. And I wanted it to be mine. The shame I felt at that emotion almost made me turn and leave right then.
“Wufei will be home for dinner any minute. Join us.”
And just like that, he invited me into his home and made it seem like it was the most natural thing in the world that I come unannounced at his doorstep, having come halfway across the world to Hong Kong and joined him and his boyfriend for dinner, after not having talked to him in more than half a year. As much as I had convinced myself I hated him, I found that I didn’t have it in me to refuse his kindness. With an effort of will, I locked my mixed emotions away into a corner of my mind, lifting my head to smile brightly at Heero.
“Thank you, I’m starving. They didn’t serve anything at the plane.” Nothing that could be considered remotely eatable, anyway. I seldom travelled first class any more. Too much attention. I dropped the bag next to the wall and sniffed the air. “What’s that you’re cooking?”
He walked before me back into the kitchen, letting me slowly follow, glancing around.
“Mincemeat with chili and garlic. Wufei thinks that all food that doesn’t make you breathe fire is for women and children.”
“Ah. Then what do you suppose he fed his gundam?” I responded blandly.
“Jalapeños,” Heero deadpanned.
“It would take a mobile suit made of gundanium to be able to stomach those things,” I agreed.
“To stomach them? Hardly.” Heero snorted, pouring the water off the rice in the sink so that a cloud of steam rose towards him. “But it kills the sex life for a day or two to come.”
I blinked once, staring dumbly at him before the point hit home. Oh. Oh... I coughed discreetly, one hand covering my mouth, hoping I wasn’t blushing. “I was hungry...”
“Don’t be such a pussy. Wufei will never let you hear the end of it.”
The sound of a key turning in the lock saved me from having to come up with an appropriate response to that. So the Boyfriend was home. One dinner of smiling and lying through my teeth upcoming, watching the two of them exchange fond, puppy-eyed looks whenever they thought I wasn’t watching. Didn’t that just sound like a marvelous way to spend an evening.
That night, lying on the couch and staring up at the ceiling, I listened to Heero and Wufei making love in the other room. It’s funny, how these two asocial outsiders had gotten to experience that when I hadn’t. How they had found love, but I had to settle for fucking. I had everything going for me, all the social skills, all the connections. Somehow I had gotten left behind. They had all moved on, and I was still banging my head against the same old wall.
And no wonder. Behind the pretty charade I put up for my two former comrades, I was rotten, decaying. Every single thing about Quatre Raberba Winner was a big fat lie. Whoever it was they had gotten to know during the war, I wasn’t him anymore. I didn’t like who I had become, but I despised who I had been; naïve, vain, vulnerable. But innocence is such a fragile thing, it can be shattered like glass into a thousand pieces so easily. It’s when it does that people are put to the test, because that is the moment of truth, when we find out what we are really made of.
I suppose they thought they were being discreet. There was just the occasional muffled moan, and the squeaking of the bed. They probably thought I was asleep by now too. They had no reason to know of my sleeping problems these days. I had put on such a good little show for their sake. I knew somewhere in the back of my head that there was no reason to blame them, that they weren’t trying to rub anything in my face. Still, I felt as detached from the world as I have ever felt. Abandoned, forgotten, scorned. Heero’s soft, barely audible moans where grating at my ears, the anger that had driven me here, almost repressed at Heero’s easy welcoming, surfaced again. Damn him for taking what I wanted and then going off to be happy with someone else! Damn him to hell for getting all the attention without even trying...
My chest was heaving with rage, my skin burning hot. As I was losing control over my own emotions, those of others started seeping in at me, until I was awash in an unhealthy mix of hatred and lust, feeling what was taking place on the other side of the wall as if it was happening to me. Wufei’s fierce, possessive passion as he pounded into his lover, Heero’s heady rush at abandoning himself completely to someone, body and soul. They could as well have screamed out loud for all the difference it would have made to me. I could already see it in my inner vision; Heero on his hands and knees, clutching hard at the sheets, arching that tight-muscled back of his, a flush on his cheeks looking almost crimsom in the darkness, that masculine, pretty ass everyone was talking about shoved up into the air, offered... I edited Wufei out of the picture, imagining it was me taking Heero.
My hand hastily found its way inside of the silk boxers I was wearing. I was already half-hard, it didn’t take many strokes for even the thin silk to feel very constricting. It was easy to imagine my hand as Heero’s firm ass encircling me with the emotions from the other room flowing into the mind all the time. I canted my hips upwards with a soft hiss, jerking down harder. My cock inside of Heero, not Wufei’s... I pleasured myself with long, frantic strokes, clenching my eyes shut against reality. Strong muscles gripping me, body pressed towards me in brazen want... Pressure was building in my groin faster than it ever had before when I was jacking off. Harder, harder, fuck him so hard he can barely breathe! I bit down hard on my tongue, a metallic taste filling my mouth as sticky fluid was filling my hand. It was the only way I could keep myself from crying out. I had never had such an intense orgasm in my life. I knew then that I had to have him. Take him, possess him, own him, make him mine. Take what Trowa wanted but couldn’t have. Perhaps I thought that it would make us even. Perhaps I was just devoured with lust for the forbidden. It’s funny that I didn’t see then, that while I was fantazising about owning him, he already owned me.
It was perfect. Two days after I arrived at Heero and Wufei’s place I was left alone in the apartment as they both were at work. I came out of the shower to find a message on the answering machine stating that Wufei, who had initially said that he’d be gone all night, would be home earlier than expected, though not in time for dinner. I made haste to delete the message before Heero got home to see it. I suppose I should have felt guilty for the deceit and the backhanded plan I was setting in motion, but I didn’t. The excitement was too iminent for me to think about anything else. I hadn’t felt excited about anything in a while.
By the time Heero got home, I had already ordered take-out dinner for the two of us and slipped into something ‘more comfortable’. I would have tried cooking something to try to impress him, but the truth was that I couldn’t cook to save my life. As a rich kid living in a house full of servants, housekeeping skills had just never come up and I’d had no reason to learn after the war, no one to cook for. My choice had fallen on Italian food. I figured you couldn’t go wrong with pasta - everyone liked that - yet it wasn’t too much, as to make him suspicious of my intent. The clothes I was wearing were loose linen pants and short-sleeved shirt to go with them. Nothing really revealing; that wasn’t my intent. I was far more cunning than that. Heero was by nature wary of human closeness, so there was all the more reason to put him at ease.
When I heard the door open, I stuck my head out from the kitchen, expression cheery.
“Hey! I bought us some dinner so you wouldn’t have to cook tonight. I hope you like pasta. I thought maybe we could watch a movie afterwards?”
About an hour later, we were both parked in the small, soft, beige sofa in front of the rather large screen on the multi-purpose stereo deck in the living room. The movie we had picked was about a family on the run in the European civil war during the previous century. I suppose it was rather good, but if you asked me today to recite the storyline, I doubt I would be able to give a coherent summary. I spent most of the time regarding Heero out of the corner of my eye, trying not be too obvious about it. He was watching the screen with the same kind of focus with which he applied himself to any task at hand, completely oblivious to being observed. He still wore the slacks and the shirt he’d had at work – a computer company of some sort, I’m not entirely sure of what sort of work he did for them – sleeves rolled up and the top button undone since he had gotten home. His hair had probably been combed at some point during the day, but by the looks of it now, it might as well never have encountered a comb during its entire existence. I was content to note that one of his arms was slung up across the top of the back support in an easy manner, as if he felt relaxed in my company. I don’t know what I had done in the past to acquire his hard-earned trust, but I was about to defile it now.
I was silent during the credits, making a point of avoiding his gaze and squirming appropriatly. Eventually, even someone as socially inept as Heero was bound to notice. I shall have to admit that I might have held him in lower regard than he deserved in that aspect. I found him giving me hasty, somewhat nervous looks every now and then, probably not sure what to do about it. After ten minutes or so, I impatiently decided to simply take the first step myself.
“Heero?” I turned towards him, gaze still timidly lowered. I could still tell that I had his full attention. “Do you ever feel... like you’re alone, even when you’re with people?” I blurted out.
He stiffened, I could feel it. When my eyelids fluttered up, it was he who averted his eyes. Score. He seemed to struggle for words, but could not find any.
“Sometimes... no, often, it’s like... people have this idea of who I am. Even those I count as friends. There are all these expectations, so many of them that I wonder if anyone ever sees me.” I shook my head, clutching my hands in my lap. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t burden you with this.”
There was another silence that dragged out for several seconds anyway, before he slowly responded. “I think... that I may understand.”
I had never heard Heero speak in such a quiet, uncertain voice. I was used to hearing him state his opinion with precision and confidence. Taking that vague comment as encouragement to go on I took a deep, somewhat shaky breath. Where to go next? I had some kind of idea what to aim for, but much of it was guesswork on my side. I was still fishing around, hoping to catch something big.
“People think they know me because the idea in their mind is so strong that when things happen to me, important things, they can’t see it. Lately, I tend to think that they don’t want to see, that maybe if they did, they wouldn’t like me any more. Like blinkers. If it doesn’t fit with the ideal, rationalize it away.”
Drawing my knees up to hug them close, I glanced at Heero. There was a strange expression on his face, he looked dismayed and yet just slightly hopeful. Like he wanted to reach out to me, but wondered how to. Like he hadn’t a clue that what I had described to him just now wasn’t what I was feeling, but what I thought he might feel.
I reached out and grabbed his hand, squeazing it firmly. “I can’t be everything people expect of me, Heero. I’m not that good. I’m selfish sometimes...”
He stared down at our hands and I could see a glimpse of fear even though he did no move to retract his hand. His fingers weren’t as callused as I remembered them and he held my hand in a tentative grip as if fearing that he might hurt me.
“All people are selfish at times. Soldiers can’t be selfish, but people are allowed to be.”
I shook my head again, smiling mirthlessly. “During the war, even before I knew you, I felt a bond to you. I could feel your pain. I want that again. To feel, really feel someone else like that again.” Lowering to my voice to a mere whisper, I continued. “I guess that’s why I came here. I shouldn’t have. You have someone in your life already. I have no right to just barge in...”
I wasn’t looking at Heero as I spoke, so I wasn’t prepared when he suddenly assulted me with a fierce, somewhat clumsy embrace. I made a startled sound, awash all of a sudden with impressions of the boy-soldier who was closer to me now than he ever had been before. His scent was deep and warm and natural without any addition of cologne, his torso hard and wiry, the two thin shirts not much of a hindrance to the feel of the outlines of muscles pressed up against me. I don’t know why I expected his hair to be silky, but it wasn’t. Course strands were tickling my cheek in a most interesting manner. I was intoxicated by these impressions, enough so that I felt my head swim. It took me a moment to remember to wrap my arms around him in return.
I hated, I wanted, I needed... So easy a vessel to direct all of my pent up emotions from the past years into. I didn’t matter that he had done nothing to deserve this. Neither had I, and that had never stopped Trowa. It didn’t stop me now. It is a well-known thesis within psychology that victims of abuse of any kind bring that legacy with them, spawning a whole new generation of victims by becoming the abusers, thereby closing the endless cycle of anger and grief. Whenever a sin was commited, someone had so suffer for it, though seldom the perpetrator himself. When did it all begin? Christianity would have it the original sin of Adam and Eve. I confess to a different belief. I believe that whatever foulness drives us to these deeds, it was always within us. I believe that is is our duty to lead a lifelong struggle against that darker aspect of our nature. Or at least I used to believe that. Faith is a fickle thing. It has a tendency to abandon us when we need it the most. Or is it our weakness, that we cannot uphold it when times grow dire, instead dropping everything that ever mattered to us as soon as we are faced with a trial? I don’t have the answers to that either. All I know is that I failed. When put to the test, I fell face down in the dirt. Any compassion that may have held me back was long since squashed by greed and impotent rage. And the misdirected revenge was sweet, oh so sweet.
I could feel his heart beating rapidly, like my own. Confused, no doubt. I didn’t hesitate to take advantage. My hands clutched at the fabric of his shirt over his back, my cheek rubbing against his. I was walking the line here for what was acceptable for friends. I intended to cross it soon.
The slight tenseness att Heero’s shoulders combined with how hard he held me, an iron grip I wasn’t sure if I could get out of if I wanted to, told me more surely than any words that he wanted to give into this, whatever it was. If just given a little push...
I slowly withdrew a little, just enough so that I could look Heero in the eye. I was intending for my expression to be serious and uncertain, but the desire may have shone through. There was too much emotional turmoil within me at that time for me to be as coldly distant and cunning as I had planned to be. My mouth was slightly ajar, as if I wanted to say something, but couldn’t manage to formulate the words. What bullshit. When had I ever been at a loss for words? He, however, looked like about to say something. I didn’t know what, but either way I felt it safest to intercept him. Lifting a finger I placed it lightly over his lips, shaking my head ever so faintly.
Staring at me, wide eyed, he looked so very innocent for someone whom I had always seen as self-assured, verging on cynical. I wondered idly if I had looked like that when Trowa had tossed me down on the bed underneath him and sharply pinned my wrists to the mattress. I wondered if it was what had turned Trowa into a predator, the way it did that to me now. The only difference was that where Trowa would use force, I chose subtlety. The end was the same. It was all about taking what you wanted, no matter what the cost to anyone else. None of the hookers I had hired had ever made me feel as powerful as I did now, no drug intoxication ever made me feel so high.
Deliberately slowly, I tilted my head sideways and closed the distance between out faces. My lips brushed against his, the merest touch at first. He trembled. It set my blood on fire. I nibbled at his lips with mine, grasped after them tentatively. He must have known how wrong it was. It was probably why he had been holding back. I’m not entirely sure what broke his defences in the end, but broke down they did. I can still remember the very moment he gave in, exactly what it felt like. The somewhat resisting body in my arms suddenly melted into mine, his lips parting with a soft moan. When he let me into his mouth like that, he also let me into his life. It was his mistake.
The hesitant, groping kiss was no less intense for it and accompanied by fumbling of hands, stroking and grasping at whatever they could reach. It wasn’t long until the insistent heat in my groin urged me to topple Heero over on his back, me scrambling into position on top of him. There was a disarray of limbs snaking around for contact; I settled in between his legs, urgently rubbing the hard bulge against Heero’s hip. His fingertips digged down into my back, his tongue thrusting needily into my mouth, saliva and breath mingling with mine. The proof that this arousal was by no means one-sided was swelling, caught in between our grinding bodies.
One of my hands found its way inside of the now wrinkled shirt, roaming over heated flesh. I found a smooth, hairless chest, taut muscles straining the skin. He shamelessly arched his back into the touch. Whereever his dedication to Wufei had gone, it was nowhere to be seen now. That superhuman willpower of his didn’t seem to apply when it came to personal matters.
Even the rather loose linen pants soon felt like a prison and Heero’s keen body underneath me pressing back against me made me ache with want. The fact that he too wanted this so badly just made my desire to possess him strengthen. How appropriate, for the boy who had time and again attempted to throw himself into the arms of death that he was now willingly embracing his doom.
I elevated myself, supported on my palms, only enough to start tearing at Heero’s clothes. I think I may have ripped off one of the buttons from his shirt, but I’m not sure. My vision was a bit blurred at the time. I was in too much of a hurry to get rid of anything that was a hindrance to me entering him. Heero was only too eager to comply, wiggling out of his own clothes, and trying to tear away at mine at the same time.
As soon as we were both in the nude, the tip of my hard-on leaving a wet trail across Heero’s belly, I reached out towards my bag standing beside the couch. It took a frustratingly long time before I managed to locate the plastic bottle containing lube. Of course I had come here prepared. I didn’t have time to consider what Heero might think of it at the moment. Luckily, it seemed, neither did he.
There was no need to ask him what he wanted, if he would let me take him. The answer was clear in his eyes. I could feel his anticipation mingling with my own. There was a recklessness written on his face and I knew instinctively that he liked it like this; liked to give up all control and let someone else have their way with him. It made sense to me now with what I knew of him from before, how he’d always had to be on top of every thing, so much responsibility for someone so young. What didn’t make sense was how come he hadn’t seemed to work out with Trowa. Had Trowa never fucked Heero like this?
With my hands on his hips, I urged Heero to shift over to lie on his stomach. It was not the way it had been in my fantasy, but it felt right now. I wanted him helpless and mostly immobile underneath me. There was some scrambling and an errant knee hitting me in the gut on the way, but I bit back the pain. It was nothing compared to the overwhelming lust. The sight of his lean back, streatched out before me, ass sticking up into the air, head slightly turned in my direction, one eye regarding me, fear and anticipation mingled... I knew that those powerful arms, now nestled underneath his chin, could bend steel. But now he was lying face down, ready to be my bitch. That did me in.
I was going to take it slow, make him beg for it, but there was an abrupt change of plans. I barely managed to take the time to sloppily coat myself with a generous layer of lube before I sank down on top of him, pressing down between his buttocks. When I met with resistance, I only pushed harder, until the tight muscle reluctantly allowed me entrance. My soft sigh of pleasure at the constricting warmth surrounding me was drowned by Heero’s low growl. It must have hurt, but he made no attempt to make me slow down. Perhaps he liked a little pain. Perhaps it made a retired soldier like him feel like he was alive again.
With short, shallow thrusts, I worked my way inside until I was sheathed to the hilt. I bit down lightly at the soft skin at the back of Heero’s neck, my whole body plastered over his. His legs squirmed faintly, his breathing sounding hitched. I leaned my head over a bit so I could whisper into one of Heero’s ears.
“I’ve wanted to do this for quite some time... Have you?”
His only response was the silent nodding, his eyes now clenched shut. I couldn’t for the life of me understand then why he would want me and I still can’t. Knowing that he did, and had done so even before I had come there, should have stopped me. The fact that it didn’t is just proof of how far gone I was. And with each steady thrust inside of Heero, I lost myself a little bit more, plunging deeper into the darkness.
I don’t know exactly how long we were at it. Not very long, I suspect. I was much too excited to last for very long, I think. I will always be haunted by how he would cant his hips upwards to meet my thrusts, even though I was by no means holding back and the faint gasps he made as I brought us both closer. I remember that he came before I did. With a soft cry he reached with one hand to his crotch, attempting to keep from making a big, wet stain on the couch. He only succeeded half-way, I think, with gathering up the stickyness in his hand. The last thing I saw in my inner vision before I went over the edge too was Trowa’s face, distorted by pleasure and pain as he emptied himself inside of me. I gasped in horror as I in a few more spasmatic motions rid myself of the evidence of my lust, as deep inside of Heero as I could.
I could not think at all. Images flashed in an incomprehensible blur inside my head, I felt dizzy. I collapsed on top of Heero, unable to move. I don’t know for how long I lay like that before I started coming to it again. Slowly, I became aware of how cooling sweat made our bodies slippery, the friction a bit uncomfortable, my now slack cock bit by bit sliding out of Heero. Shifting a bit resulted in me leaving a trail of luke-warm semen dripping down his thigh. With an effort of will, I worked myself up to sit back on my haunches. The post-coital drowsiness made it hard to formulate any conscious thought, to consider the ‘now what?’. All I could distinguish clearly at that time was a growing emptiness in the pit of my stomach.
I wasn’t left to ponder the question for too long. Wufei’s timing was flawless. The sound of the key turning in the lock was more sobering than a bucket of cold water ever could be. I had planned this, I had wanted for him to find us and yet at that moment, I was as terrified as I have ever been in my entire life.
Fumbling around on the floor after my clothes, I was too slow, of course. It wouldn’t have made a difference if I had somehow managed to get dressed in the time it took Wufei to unlock the door and remove his boots. The smell of sex was written all over the room, the accusing stain where Heero had lain was mute evidence as well. He had managed to actually get his pants on by the time Wufei was suddenly standing in the doorway to the living room, staring at us with disbelief.
Complete and utter desolation had twisted Heero’s face into something I hardly recognized. It dawned on me then that he really loved Wufei, despite what we had just done. If I had wanted to make Heero suffer for taking something that I had thought by right should have been mine, the mission was a striking success. Just seeing the two of them stare silently at each other made it clear to me that I had destroyed something good. Suddenly, I couldn’t remember why I had ever wanted to see Heero like this.
My stomach churned. I felt like throwing up. Hastily grabbing my clothes from the floor, I dashed past Wufei and into the bathroom, not having time to get dressed before I fell down onto my knees in front of the toilet, emptying my stomach of the pasta I had eaten earlier tonight. Even so, I remember wishing that there was some way I could puke up my intestines as well and leave me an empty husk, because I couldn’t bear all this disdain for myself charring at my already shattered heart.
After having dry-heaved for a few minutes, I finally picked up my clothes and got dressed. I don’t know what had happened outside while I had locked myself inside the bathroom, but I wasn’t about to stay to find out. Like the pitiful creature that I was, I opted to run and hide.
My gaze was steadily lowered to the floor when I entered the living room again. I could see Heero’s form huddled up by the far wall in the corner of my eye, Wufei’s looming figure in the middle of the room. Head bent, I hastily picked up my bag.
“I’ll leave now.” My voice sounded hollow even to my own ears.
“You’d better. Get the hell out of my sight before I change my mind.” Wufei spat.
One of the things I’ve always liked about Wufei is the way he doesn’t mince words. Some masochistic side of me wanted to bask in his contempt. It solidified the image I already had of myself. I don’t think I could’ve handled it if he had been understanding about it. I was almost disappointed he hadn’t at least punched me. Perhaps he wouldn’t because of his principles. I’ve heard him say that he doesn’t kill bleeding hearts and women.
I took a cab to the air port, where I just sat for the rest of the night on a bench. I didn’t know where to go. Because even as low as I was, my last remaining fear was that the world would find out. Having nothing left, I still wanted to keep up appearances.