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The second time Heero caught Duo sneaking off campus, he decided to follow him. Not because it was unusual for Duo to roam around at night, but because of what Duo did before he left.
Like the first time he left campus, Duo got changed in the dark, moving with a near-silence that impressed even Heero as he lay on his own single bed pretending to be asleep. Heero’s eyes were closed, so he couldn’t see what clothes Duo was changing into, but he could hear the whisper of cloth, the soft, slow sound of zippers.
Duo moved so quietly that Heero wasn’t sure where he was in the room until he heard the shushed sound of the window sliding up, knowing at some point that Duo must have oiled or loosened it to prevent it from making noise and wondering when in the hell he’d managed to do it without Heero noticing.
The Deathscythe pilot crept out onto the roof of the school as quiet as a cat, closing the window behind him. Heero laid there with his eyes closed, giving the other pilot a head start before climbing out of the bed and moving to the window, looking out just in time to see Duo scaling the chainlink fence around the edge of the campus.
Scowling, Heero shimmied into a pair of jeans and the black tank top he’d been lounging in earlier as quickly as he could, throwing the window open to follow Duo.
Where in the hell is he going?
Heero followed from a significant distance, far enough that losing Duo—especially if Duo caught on that he was being followed—was a serious threat. But he knew that following any more closely the other pilot would be sure to notice. As much as he liked to berate the American for being stupid, he knew that Duo was as sharp as a cat in the dark. If anything, his night vision was even better than Heero’s.
And Heero had sensed how careful Duo was being, trying so hard not to alert him. Duo didn’t want him Heero know where he was going. Which only made Heero want to know where he was going even more.
Lots of different possibilities rattled through his mind as he ran. Drug deal—he knew Duo sometimes had marijuana or other things, and he disapproved of how reckless the American was. Neither one of them had time for dalliances, neither of them could afford to have their situational awareness affected.
Sexual intercourse—Heero supposed it was possible, blushing a little in the darkness between streetlights as he ran, keeping his eyes ahead so he wouldn’t lose sight of the shadowy figure running ahead of him. He had heard Duo pleasuring himself sometimes in the dorm room when he thought Heero was asleep, but Heero never mentioned it to him. None of his training had prepared him for that particular situation.
So...he knew Duo had needs in that area. He’d heard as much. But if Duo was meeting someone, he was jeopardizing the Mission. The idea of it made Heero’s eyes narrow as he hooked down a side street after the American.
He hung back as far as he dared, feeling his blood heat up as he ran after Duo. Duo was moving at a pace somewhere between a sprint and a jog that didn’t seem hard to keep up with until Heero tried to do it for more than ten minutes.
Heero slowed as Duo pulled up near a warehouse with a woman standing outside the door, reading something on her phone. He watched as they exchanged words and Duo handed the woman something before she opened the door for him. Duo slipped into the warehouse.
What…
Heero hesitated a moment, waiting until he was sure Duo had moved on, before he ran to the woman, breathing hard on the sidewalk as he came up.
Her shining purple hair was in sharp contrast to her pale green eyes as she looked up at him from under dark, smoky makeup. “20 euros.”
Fuck.
The girl laughed at him, shaking her head. “Hard up, huh?”
“Left my wallet at home.”
The girl rolled her eyes, giving him a slanted grin that was hard for him to read in the shadows. “Alright, handsome, I’m going to be way nicer than I should be and let you in anyway. You’ve already missed most of the set, and I don’t think one more good-looking guy in the place would hurt. On one condition.”
“Name it.”
She held at her hand. “Give me the tank top.”
He frowned at her. “You want my shirt? Why?”
“Because it’s funny. And you don’t have anything else to pay with,” she said, and Heero had to admit that she had a point. Shrugging, he pulled the black tank top over his head, hold it out to her. She took it from him with mock formality and tucked it under her arm, pushing the door open for him.
Heero walked through the door and straight into a wall of sound and people. The sound of bass was so loud it caused vibrations deep in his chest as he stalked forward, scanning the crowd. Green and red strobe lights ticked in rhythm with the beat of the music as the mob writhed around him.
Now it's time
We're breaking down the walls
Between wrong and right
Tonight we're writing our own laws
Now we’re here
we’ve waited for so long
Can you feel the atmosphere?
This is where we belong
Two DJs were bouncing behind the turntables. One was wearing a pair of light-up reindeer antlers and the other was wearing a Santa Claus cap.
In a world that we created
only freedom in this place
Tonight we’ll celebrate it
we’ll rave into space
Heero weaved his way into the crowd, feeling vulnerable and half-naked, feeling eyes crawling on his skin as he made his way. He realized with belated dismay that in his rush to follow Duo, he didn’t even grab his weapon. I’m never going to be able to find Duo in here.
Bobbing along to the music to try and mesh into the crowd as he moved, Heero tried to scan the people around him in the intermittent flashes of light. The lights reminded him of explosions and laser fire. The music swelled, growing louder and louder. Heero closed his eyes briefly against the pulsing music and took a deep breath.
“Hey man, you okay?”
Heero opened his eyes, surprised to see that a strange young man dressed in a fishnet vest was addressing him, shouting over the music, electronica with sleigh bells thrown in.
“Fine. I’m looking for my friend,” Heero shouted back. Even though he’d said it to be casual and avoid raising suspicion, Heero was surprised to find that he actually did consider the Deathscythe pilot his friend in some odd way.
The guy looked around at the hundreds of people around them in the pulsating darkness and laughed, shaking his head as he started dancing again. “Good luck!”
After looking through the crowd for another ten minutes, he saw something that caught his eye. A hoodie shot through with fluorescent green fiber-optics that raced across the surface of the cloth. A white cross blazed from the front of the hood where it fell over the person’s eyes. The figure wearing it was bouncing about thirty yards away, head weaving in perfect time with the rhythm of the synthesizers and the laser light show flashing around them.
When a particularly bright white burst of lights shot across the ceiling, trailing down like shooting stars, the glowing figure twisted around to face him, head lowered and hands raised to the ceiling, swaying with the beat.
Duo.
For a moment Heero went completely still in the mass of moving people, frozen at the sight of Duo dancing. This image of Duo writhing on the concrete dance floor, shoulder to shoulder with four hundred people, twisting sinuously under the lights held no resemblance to the foolhardy pilot that he knew.
As he watched, another young man danced up close to Duo and Heero stiffened as he saw Duo lean into the stranger, their bodies weaving together with the music in a give and take that made a hot rush of feeling surge through the Wing pilot.
Heero stalked through the crowd to where Duo was dancing and grabbed the other pilot by the arm, starting to drag him away.
“Hey!” Duo’s low voice rose up to him, indignant, but his violet eyes widened when he saw Heero shirtless and glaring at him. Duo planted his feet on the ground and wrenched his arm away. Heero was surprised to see in the next flash of strobe lights that Duo’s expression looked as shocked and angry as his own expression felt.
“What the fuck, Heero?” What the fuck are you doing here? that tone said.
“Come with me.”
“Hey, he doesn’t want to go with you, man,” the guy Duo had been dancing with said, raising his voice over the music.
“Forget it, it’s fine,” Duo said to the man, looking back at Heero from beneath his hoodie and nodding slightly. Heero turned and headed for the edge of the dance floor with Duo at his heels.
Once they reached a part of the floor that wasn’t quite as close to the music and the stage, Heero turned on Duo.
“Are you out of your mind? What the fuck are you doing here?”
“What does it look like I’m doing, Heero?” Duo asked, pushing the hoodie back from his head, and Heero saw that Duo’s bright eyes had been ringed with kohl, causing them to look even deeper than usual. He swallowed, trying not to get distracted. The lights on Duo’s hoodie pulsed in time with the music around them.
“Not being careful,” Heero said, knowing that he wouldn’t have to be more specific than that as he scowled at Duo.
Duo scowled back at him, then looked him up and down, his eyes lingering on Heero’s bare chest and stomach before coming back to Heero’s face. “Where the hell is your shirt?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“There’s no reason to be careful,” Duo said, leaning into Heero and putting his arm around the back of Heero’s neck so that he could speak without raising his voice too much, speaking into Heero’s ear. Heero put a hand around Duo’s waist as much out of instinct as anything else.
“Nobody fucking knows us here, Heero. Why did you follow me?” Heero was close enough that he could smell the sweet bubblegum on Duo’s breath.
“Wanted to see where you were going,” Heero said back into Duo’s ear, feeling his jaw brush Duo’s as he spoke. He had an intrusive thought to move his mouth from Duo’s ear to his mouth and pulled back, allowing some space between his body and Duo’s, shivering a little.
Duo waved a hand at the ceiling. Well? That gesture said.
Heero glanced around the room at the booming music and lights around them, then looked back into Duo’s eyes. Duo read his lips as much as he heard the question.
Why? Heero mouthed.
Duo looked at him a moment with an odd expression between confusion and amusement as he gave Heero a slanted grin. He leaned forward again, beginning to move with the music again, the lights dancing across him.
“Fun, Heero,” he said, dragging Heero close to him again. The lights from his hoodie reflected on the bare, scarred skin of Heero’s chest. “You ken fun?” he said, his grin deepening as he danced, his hips brushing lightly against Heero’s as he moved, each beat like a shock of electricity that danced across Heero’s skin. Heero found himself imitating Duo’s movements, joining in despite himself.
Duo pulled one of his arms back from around Heero’s neck to pull his hoodie back down, and the white light from the cross at his forehead blazed across Heero’s face.
“Ah, the boy does dance,” Duo said, laughing, his sweet breath puffing against Heero’s face in the strobing darkness.
They swayed for a few minutes to the rising backbeat, following the cues of the crowd around them, hips moving together, foreheads almost touching as they leaned into the music together.
“Having fun?” Duo asked, his fingers moving up the back of Heero’s neck to twirl in the hair on his back of his head. Under normal circumstances, Heero would find the American’s touch intrusive. He was always so forward when they were together—sneaking bites of Heero’s food, throwing his arm over Heero’s shoulders as they walked down the hallway at school, flicking his ear to get his attention.
But this felt different. All around them people moved together in one undulating wave of emotion and feeling, and none of it felt bad or threatening. Even though he was unarmed and shirtless, Heero felt safe in Duo’s arms as the other boy danced with him.
He smiled a little, the expression involuntary, and Duo caught him in the flashing lights, smiling back.
Heero was having fun.
The song changed into something lower, more savage, and the lights in the warehouse grew darker, throwing the crowd into shadows. All around them glow sticks danced in the darkness like multicolored fireflies. Duo’s hoodie glowed like a green star.
“Did you have to wear the most conspicuous outfit possible?” Heero asked, putting his hand tentatively on Duo’s hip as they moved together. Duo was sweating lightly under his hoodie, and it caused his face to shimmer under the spiraling lights.
“Says the only guy in here without a shirt,” Duo said, pressing closer in against Heero’s body until Heero could feel the Deathscythe pilot’s pounding heartbeat against his bare skin.
“The girl at the door took it,” Heero said in Duo’s ear, moving his hand from Duo’s hip to rest palm-down against Duo’s chest, watching the green fiber-optics glow through the tips of his fingers.
“She sounds as weird as you,” Duo said, but he was laughing. He leaned in close, a mischievous sparkle in his eyes as the lasers twinkled around them. “Can I ask you something?”
Heero looked into his eyes expectantly, and Duo was suddenly close enough for their noses to touch.
“Can I kiss you?”
Heero stilled for a moment, wrapped in Duo’s arms under the changing lights and the pulsing music. No one had ever asked him that. No one had ever done that to him before, either.
“Why?” he asked, but his voice was inaudible under the music as it started to swell in volume again.
Duo melded his body against the front of Heero’s, speaking an inch from Heero’s lips.
“’Cause I like ya.” Duo looked into his eyes. “’Cause it’s fun.”
Instead of answering, Heero closed the distance between them, feeling his lips press against Duo’s as he closed his eyes.
The sensation of Duo’s kiss seemed to blend in with the music, the lights still strobing behind his closed eyelids, the deep pounding thump of the bass in his chest as Duo’s fingers brushed restlessly against his chest, bumping over scar tissue before coming up to cradle Heero’s jaw.
In a world that we created
Only freedom in this place
Tonight, we celebrate it
We rave into space
We rave into space
Predict the ignition sequence will start at 8.9 seconds
We'll be looking for lift-off at zero
* * *
A few hours later, Heero and Duo slipped out into the pre-dawn stillness, walking as they made their way back to campus. Heero thought he could still feel the music pounding in his blood. The cool winter air made the sweat on his body cold, and he wished he had his shirt. But the woman who had been checking cover at the door was gone.
“Did you have a good time?” Duo asked as they walked along the road, their breath pluming on the cold night air. He had his hands shoved in his hoodie pockets, and he hadn’t turned the fiber-optics off, so they still glittered in the darkness. Heero shivered involuntarily as they went.
The Wing pilot turned to him as they walked.
“Why did you do that?” Both of them knew he wasn’t talking about sneaking out.
Duo stopped under a streetlight, shrugging out of the hoodie to reveal a sleeveless black shirt underneath that said EARTHLINGS AREN’T REAL in stark green letters. He handed the hoodie over to Heero, and Heero took it, putting it on. It smelled like the American pilot, still warm from his body.
“We’re probably gonna die, Heero,” Duo said, looking into the other pilot’s eyes without a trace of a smile on his face. “You know that, right? I know you do. I don’t want to die without saying I ever had any fun. Without ever caring about anything.”
“I won’t let you die, Duo.” As soon as Heero said it, he knew it was true. His own life was forfeit, unimportant. He’d known that for years, accepted it. But he’d known somehow from the moment he met the Deathscythe pilot that he couldn’t tolerate any harm coming to Duo. Before he initiated Operation Meteor, Mission was all that mattered to him.
But a lot of things had changed since he came to Earth.
“Yeah, well,” Duo replied, smiling but not sounding convinced. He closed his eyes, and Heero felt the urge to draw in close to him, to kiss him again. “Anyway...it reminds me of home.”
Heero thought about the rave, the surging tide of controlled violence, the perfect symbiosis between the musicians and the mob.
He’s homesick, Heero thought, the idea completely foreign to him.
Without being completely sure why, Heero held out his hand to Duo. Duo just looked at it a moment, as if expecting a trap, before reaching over and taking it, squeezing.
Heero started to walk without dropping Duo’s hand, and the two of them walked home under silent starlight, fingers intertwined in the shadows.