Categories > Anime/Manga > Gundam Wing > Hold Your Light
Hold Your Light- Chapter 7
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You were always so far away
I know that pain so don't you run away
Like you used to do.
"Brother" - Alice in Chains
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Heero and I managed to calm Trowa down enough to fall back asleep. It really scares me how disoriented he is when he first comes out of a nightmare. It's almost like he's not fully awake at first and whatever happened in the dream still has a hold on him. The whole situation is incredibly exhausting both mentally and physically for all of us. I know I feel like shit and I'm beginning to see the toll fatigue has taken on Heero. There are shadows under his eyes and I wonder how he is coping with no one to comfort him when he wakes in terror in the middle of the night. If he even wakes in terror.
I am currently reclining on Trowa's bed with said auburn-haired boy's head on my chest idly running my fingers through his hair. Trowa's breathing is soft and steady indicating how deeply asleep he is. Heero has spooned up behind Trowa and has himself propped up on an elbow watching us intently. His eyes move back and forth between Trowa's peaceful face and my hand gently stroking his hair.
"I think the physical contact is a comfort for him," I say quietly to Heero. He doesn't answer me but nods his head in understanding. Heero has this peculiar look on his face. I'm not sure how to describe it. It looks as if he is carefully cataloging each movement and reaction. I swear I can hear the gears turning in his head. "You can touch him too, if you want," I tell him. Heero's eyes widen as though I just suggested he do something unthinkable.
"I....are you sure?" He asks. I nod my head once. Heero sits up a little and tentatively reaches out a hand and places it on Trowa's shoulder. He carefully begins to rub his hand over Trowa's bicep. His touch is light, fingertips ghosting over the flesh exposed by the short sleeved shirt. Trowa stirs slightly but does not wake. Heero immediately pulls his hand back as if he did something wrong and turns his questioning eyes to me.
"It's okay, he's still asleep," I tell him. Heero still looks confused. I roll my eyes. "Stop acting like you hurt him. I don't think he would be too happy with us if he felt we were treating him like he was made of glass."
"I don't want to hurt him," Heero says softly.
"You won't. Like I said, I think being in physical contact with someone helps keep him calm. We fell asleep before when you went in to HQ and he didn't have any nightmares. In fact he woke me up from one. If he's up to it maybe one of us should stay here in the room with him at night. We could alternate."
"You think he wouldn't mind me staying here with him?" Heero asks shyly. I swear it almost looks like he is acting like a little school girl with a crush. He'd probably eviscerate me if he ever heard me say anything out loud about that.
"He trusts you and that says a lot but we'll only know for sure when we ask him," I say. Heero nods and reaches out again to touch Trowa's arm. He slowly moves his hand up to Trowa's shoulder to his neck and then brushes over the sleeping man's cheek with the back of his knuckles. He lingers over Trowa's face lightly tracing its features. It's fascinating to watch this display in front of me and I become so distracted that my hand stops stroking Trowa's hair. I can see a wealth of emotions in Heero's eyes that I have never seen before. He looks awestruck.
"He's so beautiful," Heero whispers. I'm not sure if he's speaking to me of if he's talking to himself. Heck, I'm not sure he's aware that I'm still in the room. It dawns on me that Heero has probably never been in any type of sexual situation. I would be willing to bet money that he is still a virgin. If that is the case then he has probably never touched or been touched by anyone in a manner other than friendly. A sudden pained expression crosses Heero's face and he stops his caressing. He pulls back and sits up fully.
"During the war he followed me all over Europe while I made my peace with the Noventa family," Heero begins. His face is sullen and his eyes are downcast. "I think that may have been the first time I thought I might have feelings for him that were other than camaraderie." His eyes meet mine. "Um, do you think we can go outside and talk? I feel bad talking about him like he's not here." Okay, that one caught me off guard.
"Uh, yeah....sure Heero. Just let me get out from under nappy boy here," I say as I lift Trowa's head as gently as I can and wriggle awkwardly out from under him. To my own amazement Trowa doesn't wake. He instead latches sleepily onto the pillow that I had been leaning on and nuzzles his face into it. It's too cute for words and the corners of my mouth turn up in a grin.
I close the door to Trowa's room and follow Heero down the hall to his room. Once inside he closes the door behind us. Heero's room is much like Trowa's in the sense that there are no decorations or extraneous pieces of furniture. Everything in here had a purpose. From the plain wooden desk to the closet organizers, Heero's room screamed efficiency. It was also painfully neat. Not even Trowa could match Heero in cleanliness. I guess I was the black sheep. My room was a perpetual mess. My clothes never seemed to want to stay on hangers or folded in drawers.
Heero sits on the bed and motions for me to sit next to him. I sit down on the boring pale blue blanket, lean my back against the wall and curl my legs under me.
"Are you alright talking with me now? I mean I know I dumped some heavy stuff on you before and with Trowa's nightmares...." He trails off.
"Nightmares, day-mares, afternoon-mares," I say a little nastier than I intended. I see Heero's questioning eyebrow shoot up. "Sorry, but yeah it's cool." Heero nods his head and breathes deeply and picks at his nails before he begins to speak.
"Like I said, it was when he was following me around Europe that I started to feel something. You have to keep in mind that I've never really had much interaction with people on any kind of personal level. We spent a lot of days and nights together and we would talk occasionally. Nothing that we talked about ever really got too personal but he did tell me once that he admired me."
"Admired you or what you were doing?" I ask. Heero thinks about it for a minute.
"What I was doing I guess. I'm not good with putting my feelings into words but he didn't impose himself on me or tell me how I should do things. He was just always there," Heero stated simply. "Always in the background waiting until he was needed. Helping whenever I needed him to but wise enough to know when to stay back. I don't know, I guess I just appreciated him for that."
"Well, he did spend a month nursing you back to health. Do you think you may have developed feelings for him because of that? Sort of a Florence Nightingale Syndrome thing?" Heero smiled at that.
"No, though I do think that has something to do with it. I was in 'Mission Mode' big time back then. I could not afford to waste time contemplating thoughts that did not pertain to things inside my mission parameters. But occasionally these thoughts would break through and I would find myself watching Trowa in a different light." Heero stops speaking abruptly. His eyebrows are furrowed and he looks confused. "Damn, I wish I was better at expressing myself," he curses softly.
"Can you put your feelings in a different context? I mean, can you compare them to something else that is easier for you to explain?" I offer. Heero gets a pensive look on his face once again and is silent for a few minutes.
"Um, yeah I think I can. There was this one time-" He breaks off suddenly and looks away from me.
"Heero? What is it?" Heero slowly turns back to face me. He looks nervous and is blushing?
"I've never told anyone about this," He confesses. "I guess I'm a little embarrassed. I suppose I was eleven or twelve years old at the time. I was still under J's training 24/7. You know how at that age your body starts changing and things start happening?" I nod, not quite sure where this story is going. "Well, I had woken up one morning from a rather involved dream."
"You had a wet dream?" I interrupt. Heero glares at me. It's so tempting to make fun of him for this but he's wearing his heart on his sleeve right now and he'd probably kill me.
"Yeah. I was confused by my body's reaction so I went to J and asked him." This time I can't hold back and the laughter erupts from my body.
"You did what?" I ask through my hysterics. "Oh, I can just picture this; A young naïve Heero getting the "Birds and Bee's" speech from J." I'm laughing so hard tears are running down my face.
"Are you finished?" An angry Heero asks. I try and contain my laughter. I think I manage it on the third try. "As I was saying," Heero continues with an angry glare. "I went to him and yes he did explain how things worked and why my body reacted the way it did. So, I thought nothing of it until it happened again. That time I found out that I liked the way my body felt afterwards so I began to .....mess around when I had a chance to." I can see Heero's face getting redder by the second. This must be excruciatingly awkward for him.
"You started masturbating," I say simply. There is no way I'm making this easier for him. It's too much fun. Heero's eyes go wide at my candor but then he dolefully shakes his head in the affirmative.
"One night J caught me in the act. He was furious. He said I needed to learn better control over my body. I was not supposed to let myself be influenced by weak human urges so he punished me." I bolt upright.
"He punished you? How?" I ask. Heero looks down at his hands. There is a look of humiliation on his face.
"If you don't mind I'd rather not go into that," he asks softly.
"Uh, sure," I say. Interesting, I'll have to save that bit of information for another time. Heero begins picking at the blanket on his bed and we sit quietly for a good stretch of time. Then, finally Heero sighs and begins again.
"I guess what I'm trying to say is that when I was around Trowa sometimes I felt like I did before J found out what I had been doing-"
"You mean he made you horny," I interrupt. Not that I can blame Heero for that. Trowa is a fine piece of ass and I mean that in the nicest way possible. Heero blushes even more and continues to pull fuzzies off his blanket.
"Yeah, I guess so. I mean at the time I didn't know exactly what was going on I just knew that my body was reacting to him in a different way than my mind was."
"Are you a virgin?" I blurt out. I probably could have been a little more delicate in my delivery but we're being bluntly honest with each other. I obviously took Heero by surprise because his eyes practically leave their sockets.
"No," he says softly as he stares down at his hands. It's my turn to do the bug-eye thing. Good thing I never made that wager.
"Really? When did you....you know?" Heero takes in a shaky breath; obviously he is very uncomfortable talking about this.
"You really want to know?" He asks as he meets my gaze. I nod my head enthusiastically. Heero settles back against his pillows. "It was a couple of months ago. Not too long after I found out about you and Trowa, actually. I figured I had missed my chance with Trowa. Don't get me wrong I'm not mad at you for getting there first. I have no one to blame but myself. I didn't want to pine away for what I missed so I went out one night to a bar and picked up some random guy. Or did he pick me up? I can't really remember I was pretty drunk. I still can't believe how easy it is to get into bars, no one checks ID's anymore. Anyway, we went back to his place and had sex." I raised my eyebrows to encourage him to continue. He crosses his arms over his chest but does not continue.
"And?" I say.
"And what? That's it. I never saw the guy again."
"Well, was it at least good?"
"Not really. It hurt. I wasn't expecting it to be that bad," Heero says as he leans his head against the wall. I suddenly feel really bad for Heero. He lost his virginity to a drunken one night stand because he was too afraid to express his feelings to the one person he felt attracted to. What makes me feel even worse is the fact that Trowa and I just sort of stumbled into the sex and not an actual relationship. Trowa could have been with someone who really cared for him and maybe I kept him from that. Ugh, my brain hurts. When did things get to be so goddamned confusing?
"Duo?" I hear Heero ask through the static in my head.
"Yeah?" I answer. Heero sits up and away from the wall and leans towards me.
"There was another time when I felt an attraction to someone," He says gently.
"Yeah, when was that?" I say only half listening.
"It was when I was hiding out in a private school during the war."
"Who was the lucky guy...wait? What?" My brain finally catches up to the conversation.
"It was you, Duo," Heero says as his moves in and presses his lips to mine. He suddenly has both of his hands cupping my face and his mouth is insistent. And so help me god, I kissed him back.
TBC................
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You were always so far away
I know that pain so don't you run away
Like you used to do.
"Brother" - Alice in Chains
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Heero and I managed to calm Trowa down enough to fall back asleep. It really scares me how disoriented he is when he first comes out of a nightmare. It's almost like he's not fully awake at first and whatever happened in the dream still has a hold on him. The whole situation is incredibly exhausting both mentally and physically for all of us. I know I feel like shit and I'm beginning to see the toll fatigue has taken on Heero. There are shadows under his eyes and I wonder how he is coping with no one to comfort him when he wakes in terror in the middle of the night. If he even wakes in terror.
I am currently reclining on Trowa's bed with said auburn-haired boy's head on my chest idly running my fingers through his hair. Trowa's breathing is soft and steady indicating how deeply asleep he is. Heero has spooned up behind Trowa and has himself propped up on an elbow watching us intently. His eyes move back and forth between Trowa's peaceful face and my hand gently stroking his hair.
"I think the physical contact is a comfort for him," I say quietly to Heero. He doesn't answer me but nods his head in understanding. Heero has this peculiar look on his face. I'm not sure how to describe it. It looks as if he is carefully cataloging each movement and reaction. I swear I can hear the gears turning in his head. "You can touch him too, if you want," I tell him. Heero's eyes widen as though I just suggested he do something unthinkable.
"I....are you sure?" He asks. I nod my head once. Heero sits up a little and tentatively reaches out a hand and places it on Trowa's shoulder. He carefully begins to rub his hand over Trowa's bicep. His touch is light, fingertips ghosting over the flesh exposed by the short sleeved shirt. Trowa stirs slightly but does not wake. Heero immediately pulls his hand back as if he did something wrong and turns his questioning eyes to me.
"It's okay, he's still asleep," I tell him. Heero still looks confused. I roll my eyes. "Stop acting like you hurt him. I don't think he would be too happy with us if he felt we were treating him like he was made of glass."
"I don't want to hurt him," Heero says softly.
"You won't. Like I said, I think being in physical contact with someone helps keep him calm. We fell asleep before when you went in to HQ and he didn't have any nightmares. In fact he woke me up from one. If he's up to it maybe one of us should stay here in the room with him at night. We could alternate."
"You think he wouldn't mind me staying here with him?" Heero asks shyly. I swear it almost looks like he is acting like a little school girl with a crush. He'd probably eviscerate me if he ever heard me say anything out loud about that.
"He trusts you and that says a lot but we'll only know for sure when we ask him," I say. Heero nods and reaches out again to touch Trowa's arm. He slowly moves his hand up to Trowa's shoulder to his neck and then brushes over the sleeping man's cheek with the back of his knuckles. He lingers over Trowa's face lightly tracing its features. It's fascinating to watch this display in front of me and I become so distracted that my hand stops stroking Trowa's hair. I can see a wealth of emotions in Heero's eyes that I have never seen before. He looks awestruck.
"He's so beautiful," Heero whispers. I'm not sure if he's speaking to me of if he's talking to himself. Heck, I'm not sure he's aware that I'm still in the room. It dawns on me that Heero has probably never been in any type of sexual situation. I would be willing to bet money that he is still a virgin. If that is the case then he has probably never touched or been touched by anyone in a manner other than friendly. A sudden pained expression crosses Heero's face and he stops his caressing. He pulls back and sits up fully.
"During the war he followed me all over Europe while I made my peace with the Noventa family," Heero begins. His face is sullen and his eyes are downcast. "I think that may have been the first time I thought I might have feelings for him that were other than camaraderie." His eyes meet mine. "Um, do you think we can go outside and talk? I feel bad talking about him like he's not here." Okay, that one caught me off guard.
"Uh, yeah....sure Heero. Just let me get out from under nappy boy here," I say as I lift Trowa's head as gently as I can and wriggle awkwardly out from under him. To my own amazement Trowa doesn't wake. He instead latches sleepily onto the pillow that I had been leaning on and nuzzles his face into it. It's too cute for words and the corners of my mouth turn up in a grin.
I close the door to Trowa's room and follow Heero down the hall to his room. Once inside he closes the door behind us. Heero's room is much like Trowa's in the sense that there are no decorations or extraneous pieces of furniture. Everything in here had a purpose. From the plain wooden desk to the closet organizers, Heero's room screamed efficiency. It was also painfully neat. Not even Trowa could match Heero in cleanliness. I guess I was the black sheep. My room was a perpetual mess. My clothes never seemed to want to stay on hangers or folded in drawers.
Heero sits on the bed and motions for me to sit next to him. I sit down on the boring pale blue blanket, lean my back against the wall and curl my legs under me.
"Are you alright talking with me now? I mean I know I dumped some heavy stuff on you before and with Trowa's nightmares...." He trails off.
"Nightmares, day-mares, afternoon-mares," I say a little nastier than I intended. I see Heero's questioning eyebrow shoot up. "Sorry, but yeah it's cool." Heero nods his head and breathes deeply and picks at his nails before he begins to speak.
"Like I said, it was when he was following me around Europe that I started to feel something. You have to keep in mind that I've never really had much interaction with people on any kind of personal level. We spent a lot of days and nights together and we would talk occasionally. Nothing that we talked about ever really got too personal but he did tell me once that he admired me."
"Admired you or what you were doing?" I ask. Heero thinks about it for a minute.
"What I was doing I guess. I'm not good with putting my feelings into words but he didn't impose himself on me or tell me how I should do things. He was just always there," Heero stated simply. "Always in the background waiting until he was needed. Helping whenever I needed him to but wise enough to know when to stay back. I don't know, I guess I just appreciated him for that."
"Well, he did spend a month nursing you back to health. Do you think you may have developed feelings for him because of that? Sort of a Florence Nightingale Syndrome thing?" Heero smiled at that.
"No, though I do think that has something to do with it. I was in 'Mission Mode' big time back then. I could not afford to waste time contemplating thoughts that did not pertain to things inside my mission parameters. But occasionally these thoughts would break through and I would find myself watching Trowa in a different light." Heero stops speaking abruptly. His eyebrows are furrowed and he looks confused. "Damn, I wish I was better at expressing myself," he curses softly.
"Can you put your feelings in a different context? I mean, can you compare them to something else that is easier for you to explain?" I offer. Heero gets a pensive look on his face once again and is silent for a few minutes.
"Um, yeah I think I can. There was this one time-" He breaks off suddenly and looks away from me.
"Heero? What is it?" Heero slowly turns back to face me. He looks nervous and is blushing?
"I've never told anyone about this," He confesses. "I guess I'm a little embarrassed. I suppose I was eleven or twelve years old at the time. I was still under J's training 24/7. You know how at that age your body starts changing and things start happening?" I nod, not quite sure where this story is going. "Well, I had woken up one morning from a rather involved dream."
"You had a wet dream?" I interrupt. Heero glares at me. It's so tempting to make fun of him for this but he's wearing his heart on his sleeve right now and he'd probably kill me.
"Yeah. I was confused by my body's reaction so I went to J and asked him." This time I can't hold back and the laughter erupts from my body.
"You did what?" I ask through my hysterics. "Oh, I can just picture this; A young naïve Heero getting the "Birds and Bee's" speech from J." I'm laughing so hard tears are running down my face.
"Are you finished?" An angry Heero asks. I try and contain my laughter. I think I manage it on the third try. "As I was saying," Heero continues with an angry glare. "I went to him and yes he did explain how things worked and why my body reacted the way it did. So, I thought nothing of it until it happened again. That time I found out that I liked the way my body felt afterwards so I began to .....mess around when I had a chance to." I can see Heero's face getting redder by the second. This must be excruciatingly awkward for him.
"You started masturbating," I say simply. There is no way I'm making this easier for him. It's too much fun. Heero's eyes go wide at my candor but then he dolefully shakes his head in the affirmative.
"One night J caught me in the act. He was furious. He said I needed to learn better control over my body. I was not supposed to let myself be influenced by weak human urges so he punished me." I bolt upright.
"He punished you? How?" I ask. Heero looks down at his hands. There is a look of humiliation on his face.
"If you don't mind I'd rather not go into that," he asks softly.
"Uh, sure," I say. Interesting, I'll have to save that bit of information for another time. Heero begins picking at the blanket on his bed and we sit quietly for a good stretch of time. Then, finally Heero sighs and begins again.
"I guess what I'm trying to say is that when I was around Trowa sometimes I felt like I did before J found out what I had been doing-"
"You mean he made you horny," I interrupt. Not that I can blame Heero for that. Trowa is a fine piece of ass and I mean that in the nicest way possible. Heero blushes even more and continues to pull fuzzies off his blanket.
"Yeah, I guess so. I mean at the time I didn't know exactly what was going on I just knew that my body was reacting to him in a different way than my mind was."
"Are you a virgin?" I blurt out. I probably could have been a little more delicate in my delivery but we're being bluntly honest with each other. I obviously took Heero by surprise because his eyes practically leave their sockets.
"No," he says softly as he stares down at his hands. It's my turn to do the bug-eye thing. Good thing I never made that wager.
"Really? When did you....you know?" Heero takes in a shaky breath; obviously he is very uncomfortable talking about this.
"You really want to know?" He asks as he meets my gaze. I nod my head enthusiastically. Heero settles back against his pillows. "It was a couple of months ago. Not too long after I found out about you and Trowa, actually. I figured I had missed my chance with Trowa. Don't get me wrong I'm not mad at you for getting there first. I have no one to blame but myself. I didn't want to pine away for what I missed so I went out one night to a bar and picked up some random guy. Or did he pick me up? I can't really remember I was pretty drunk. I still can't believe how easy it is to get into bars, no one checks ID's anymore. Anyway, we went back to his place and had sex." I raised my eyebrows to encourage him to continue. He crosses his arms over his chest but does not continue.
"And?" I say.
"And what? That's it. I never saw the guy again."
"Well, was it at least good?"
"Not really. It hurt. I wasn't expecting it to be that bad," Heero says as he leans his head against the wall. I suddenly feel really bad for Heero. He lost his virginity to a drunken one night stand because he was too afraid to express his feelings to the one person he felt attracted to. What makes me feel even worse is the fact that Trowa and I just sort of stumbled into the sex and not an actual relationship. Trowa could have been with someone who really cared for him and maybe I kept him from that. Ugh, my brain hurts. When did things get to be so goddamned confusing?
"Duo?" I hear Heero ask through the static in my head.
"Yeah?" I answer. Heero sits up and away from the wall and leans towards me.
"There was another time when I felt an attraction to someone," He says gently.
"Yeah, when was that?" I say only half listening.
"It was when I was hiding out in a private school during the war."
"Who was the lucky guy...wait? What?" My brain finally catches up to the conversation.
"It was you, Duo," Heero says as his moves in and presses his lips to mine. He suddenly has both of his hands cupping my face and his mouth is insistent. And so help me god, I kissed him back.
TBC................
Sign up to rate and review this story