"Walking Barefoot" - 1x4/4x1
Hi. I just joined this community today. I don't often write Heero/Quatre, but I dabble in unusual pairings when they interest me. They also frequently end up reigning me in as a fan (much to my chagrin since fics with unorthodox pairings are difficult to find, depending on the characters being written about). I recently got back into the GW fandom, so I've been joining some LJ communities that still seem active.
This is my first 1x4/4x1 fic. I just watched the episode where Heero gives Quatre the ZERO System so that the Gundam pilots have a strategic edge against Libra, and I got to thinking about their relationship. I have also come to better appreciate the complexity of Quatre's character over the time I've been in the fandom, so I like writing him when the urge strikes me.
To anyone interested enough to read this fic: thank you, and I would love C&C.
WARNINGS: A bit explicit (okay, REALLY explicit), definitely an NC-17 behind the cut.
Quatre reflects on Heero's transition from being designed as a weapon to realizing his own humanity.
Walking Barefoot
The ZERO System was still ringing in his ears as he sat down at the cafeteria table. The entire room seemed unreal, as though it were a hologram that his body happened to be placed within, the weight of his own legs, shoulders, and head an anchor in a sea of insubstantial illusion. He knew he had conquered it finally, used it to their advantage; it still ripped his mind open and filled his ears with a furious roar. It was like seeing a tsunami coming at you, dumbly watching the wave of destruction without moving; you had to turn around, let it hit your back, and run in its direction to survive. Not get caught up and drown as it overtook you, sinking to the bottom with your ravaged, broken body still struggling for purchase somewhere in the mire.
Quatre felt that he was still at the head of the wave, rushing with it, and then it had finally ceased in its driving force. He had been deposited like a wasted wanderer from an accident on some high bank, and as the water subsided, the calm that followed was filled with the imaginary sound of birds calling overhead and a lazy warm sun that tingled where his body had stopped bleeding and stinging. In this small span of time, it felt safe to close his eyes and wander in and out of sleep, unaccountable for whatever drifted through his head.
But he knew it would happen again. So he tried to slowly pick himself up, clutch at the solid realness of the physical objects around him: the flat metal table, the circular stool he was sitting on, the cold, wet soda can his fingers were clutched around hard enough to leave indentations. He would relax them when he realized that the tension was mounting in his body all over again, and the aluminum would pop back into place after a moment. He needed to relax, to maintain control over the sensation. It wasn’t painful, but made him very dizzy, as if he had been spinning around staring up into a blank sky and then passing out because his brain didn’t know which way was up or down anymore.
The condensation from the can dripped over his index finger; he absentmindedly took a small sip and choked the sweet taste of orange down his throat. He thought sugar might do him some good, kickstart his body again.
“Sugar probably won’t do you much good,” Heero said from where he had been standing across from Quatre, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
“Can’t hurt to see what happens,” Quatre replied sheepishly, and then just lowered his gaze again to stare into the mouth of the open can again. It was still almost full. “Besides, I like orange soda.”
“Hn,” Heero said as if he were musing on the statement, “I don’t.” Then added, “How does it feel not to have it drive you...” he let his sentence trail off. He always was economical with words.
“Tiring.” Perhaps it wasn’t the most accurate description, but Quatre didn’t feel like attempting to verbalize the dizzy feeling on top of his efforts to escape the mental space he was currently trapped within. The imaginary seagulls cried woefully in his ears.
“This is almost over,” Heero replied in a resolute tone. He sounded as if he were wedded to the statement, not so much due to the fact that he hoped it would end, but more that he knew it would. No speculation needed. Quatre, who by the courtesy of his mental tidal wave had the opportunity to possess a slightly more comprehensive vision into the future, agreed with him.
He took another sip. It went down more easily than the last.
“How do you feel about dying?” he asked conversationally, and he could feel Heero’s eyes trained on him carefully as the words were uttered. Quatre’s disinterested voice caught his attention, the complete lack of regret or fear.
“Now that we have a strategy,” Heero replied in an unperturbed tone of voice, “I think that it’s more unlikely.”
Maybe he was right; maybe discussing death versus motivation to live versus the ambivalent meaning of being a Gundam pilot was a tired topic of conversation. But Heero tacked on a question.
“Is there something you know that we don’t?” he asked.
“Not really,” Quatre replied. “But I’m still a little afraid of dying...” he hesitated momentarily, and then finished, “And I think you are too.”
The words hung in the air precariously as the tension in the room, which hadn’t formerly been there, increased tenfold, as if a buzzing light bulb was on the verge of burning out, though Heero showed nothing of it in his outward appearance. Quatre shrugged.
“Or maybe not,” he said in a tired voice that sounded indifferent. He shifted in his seat as Heero uncrossed his arms slowly, dropped them to his sides, and moved forward to sit down across from Quatre. He settled on the stool and looked at him quizzically, interested in the unexpected comment.
“Why did you say that?” Heero asked. His voice was cautious, possibly even defensive, and laced with a dark note.
Quatre knew he was right about Heero. What did he have to lose by saying it? If they all died in the final battle, there was no point in holding back his thoughts in conversations with the more taciturn members of their group. He admitted, he was interested in the others, the more time they spent together, these other pilots that had been near-strangers until their occasional meetings with one another, usually following a highly tragic or dramatic event. He was interested in the smaller machinations of every day conversation; it made him feel normal. Even if Heero Yuy didn’t like small talk.
“Because I see it,” he replied simply. The statement held no judgment or conclusive opinions about Heero’s motives. The way he said it was an admission that he could have been completely wrong, but he didn’t seem too concerned. It was just what he saw. And he liked Heero. In fact, he liked all of them. Despite himself, he wanted to know them after the war; he felt a kinship with them, regardless of all of their vast differences.
He shot a sincere look Heero’s way, and was faced with a confused, searching gaze. Heero’s interest latched him into the conversation like a barbed fish hook that was then unable to disengage.
“How did you know I could handle it?” Quatre asked.
“I didn’t,” Heero immediately replied. “But we had no other choice, and you’re not weak.”
He had certainly acted confident that Quatre could handle it, though more important was why the Sandrock pilot had found that confidence reassuring and made him believe that it would work out. Some part of Heero’s faith in his ability to master the ZERO System was probably the result of a lot of training, the grooming of a skill to convince other people of things they may not believe themselves. But there was something else as well; Quatre didn’t respond to blind strategy from other people. He always recognized it, knew that their intentions weren’t sincere so much as a ploy to make things work out in their favor, or in a way that they believed to be best.
Heero had believed, on a very unreliable, human level, that he could depend on Quatre. And even though it was crystal clear that Heero was in it for the long haul to win for the colonies, for humanity, and to fulfill his role as soldier to the fullest extent, it led Quatre to realize that he also wanted to win for himself, and survive. Heero had found hope. There were people that mattered to him, and Quatre assumed that it hadn’t always been that way. He knew that something had changed.
Now the entire concept of Heero dying seemed very unfair - that his one shot at the experience of being human was for a very short time, on a war ship in the middle of space, with only the company of four others just like him whom had all had the opportunity to at least find someone they wanted to protect. Even Trowa, who had a similar history to the Wing pilot’s. But Heero’s transition had been late, even in his relationship with Relena whom he had still considered assassinating when she was a puppet as the “Queen of the World”.
Quatre thought that such a difficult change must have hurt in very a fundamental way. He would have assumed that something inside of the other pilot would have been irreparably damaged by then; but with or without his training, maybe Heero was inherently stronger than the forces that tried to bend and break him. Maybe in the long run, if he had never been trained to act solely as a weapon, it would have been a similar identity he discovered due to his own innate nature: that he was strong, and kind.
“Heero,” he said, emerging from his thoughts, “have you ever been with someone?”
The other pilot faced him with a surprised, guarded expression. It seemed like the last thing he had expected to be asked; part of Quatre wondered if Heero even knew what he meant.
“No,” was the firm response. He said it in a flat tone which provided no insight into his thoughts on the subject, and Quatre wondered if it was because he was ashamed, or if he simply didn’t care because it had never been a priority.
“Or with a guy?” Quatre added slowly. “Do you know what you like?”
Heero suddenly looked very lost, caught off guard by the impromptu conversation, and just raised his eyebrows for a minute. Quatre realized that he was probably the only person who had ever broached the topic with Heero; he could have been wrong, but he didn’t think so judging from Heero’s reaction. He didn’t seem to be hiding anything; instead, he looked thoughtful, as if waiting for the full magnitude of the conversation to strike him square in the face.
“No,” he repeated, and now he appeared more curious than cautious.
They looked at each other for a moment until Heero felt Quatre’s hand under the table catch his own. Their hands linked, and the blond pilot looked at him seriously.
“Tell me to stop if you don’t like it,” he said, and then slid under the table out of sight. Heero found him again very quickly as he felt silky hair brush against his knees. Then there was a strong, firm touch that ran over the backs of his calves, up his legs and stopped at his thighs. He shifted a little, unsure of how to react.
Quatre paused in his ministrations under the table for a moment, and then both of his hands were pushing Heero’s legs apart. The other man let him do it as something hot twisted in his stomach and then dropped lower into his body as Quatre pushed his palm against where Heero’s cock was.
Heero let out a sharp hiss of air and then a burst of sound that seemed lodged in the back of his throat, unable to fully emerge. He had never felt anything like this, had never been touched by another person for any other reason than cleaning wounds or mending bones. He felt hot breath between his legs and something that sounded like a trapped whine come out of his mouth. He heard the crunch of metal as he curled a fist around the half-full soda can, his hands seeking out the nearest thing they could find to grip as hard as he could.
Quatre heard the crunch and constrained whimper too; he didn’t know whether it was a good or bad sign, but since Heero hadn’t said anything, he didn’t stop.
Instead he leaned forward again, this time lightly biting the inside of Heero’s thigh, very close to that one crucial point which had brought about the death of a soda can. The texture of the spandex in his mouth made him feel as if he were biting into some strange fruit that possessed an unbreakable skin; the fabric was warm from Heero’s body. He bit at it again, this time a little harder, and then hooked his hands around the backs of Heero’s knees.
Another sound, and then the shifting of legs and feet which were rooted firmly to the floor like a stubborn tree afraid of tumbling over in a strong wind. Quatre caught view of Heero’s beat up shoes in his peripheral vision, and they seemed to tell Heero’s tale more effectively than any explanation ever could. It was a long, sad story; it was a meaningful, and had a lot of significant points to it, and realizations, and people. But they still said: We’ve come a long way. And he wondered if there would ever be a time when Heero could untie those worn laces, tuck the threadbare sneakers away, and stop running. He hoped so.
He slipped his fingers under the edge of Heero’s shorts and ran them up his leg until they were bunched enough that he couldn’t go any farther, and he brought his face very close to the same place and breathed hotly again. It was time to figure out exactly where this was going; it was Heero’s choice.
He drew away, but Heero’s legs stayed where they were, even when the heat had disappeared, and the smooth, cool texture of Quatre’s hair had retreated back to the other side of the table, and Heero met his eyes as he re-appeared. They faced each other for a long time.
Quatre half-smiled at him, raised his eyebrows in a look that was a cross between coy and earnest, maybe even hesitant, belying the audacity of his actions. It wasn’t a sad, long-suffering smile, but seemed easy and genuine. Heero was not put at ease however; something inside of him was resisting, and he recognized the uncomfortable sensation of vulnerability. This was something he had learned to avoid long ago.
He tried to reason it out, but failed. It just couldn’t be that simple. His body was saying yes, yes, yes, his thoughts and emotions were swirling wildly inside his head, and he felt like a violent tornado without any intended path, slowly growing larger and larger. It all happened right in the center of his chest, a storm no one could see, as if the only way to alleviate the pressure was to simply explode into very small pieces. In fact, he knew the feeling all too well; he had already been blown up a few times, literally as well as metaphorically.
“It’s not that complicated.”
He was wrenched out of his conflicted thoughts. “What?”
Quatre shrugged a little. “I said it’s not that complicated,” he repeated. But it was complicated, at least in the emotional terrain, but for the purposes of the then and there, it was relatively simple.
“Do you like it, or not?”
It seemed like such a straightforward question, and it was. Deceptively simple - yes or no? Pain/pleasure, joy/fear, desire/repulsion, friend/foe. It all seemed simple, but it never was. To be a weapon which was incidentally constructed of biological parts would have worked perfectly in a world programmed with 1=true, 2=false. But the world was complex, and agonizingly imperfect. The fact that he was made up of human parts was not incidental, and it was not something he could ignore; inside, he wasn’t a set of cogs, and springs, and artificial intelligence. He wasn’t something designed to respond to a light source simply because the program informing his actions told him to. Once a machine ceased to function on “yes” and “no” answers and moved on to “maybe” or “I don’t know”, things got a little hazy. But Heero liked hazy, because he wasn’t a machine, and no amount of re-training could ever change that.
Maybe the answer to Quatre’s question wasn’t a simple yes, but he knew it certainly wasn’t no. He realized right then that he felt an ache between his legs, still spread open under the table as if anticipating something that had never arrived. He also felt a flutter somewhere else, somewhere deeper.
So he said, “I think so.”
Quatre broke their gaze and stood up. The sound of his footsteps were soft and unobtrusive as he came to stand next to Heero, and put a hand on the back of the other pilot’s neck. His fingers were calloused, but his palm was very soft, and Heero felt something gentle for the first time. It made him feel empty, and something in his throat tightened.
“Come with me,” Quatre said in a tone as gentle as his touch. It lacked condescension or pity. In fact, his voice was very careful, and kind, but also infused with lust.
He went with him. They ended up in Quatre’s quarters, identical to Heero’s, four metal walls, a ceiling, and floor wrapped around a small bed and shelf. Just the two of them. Heero found it difficult to breathe under the weight of Quatre’s intent look as they stood there after the door had been closed. They hadn’t passed anyone on their way in, and for some reason, Heero was relieved. He didn’t want anyone to know what was happening, didn’t even want to know himself on some level; it would force him to process the repercussions all at once, so instead he just stood there, staring.
They were almost the same height, give or take an inch, but Quatre seemed much taller than he actually was as he moved closer to Heero. His eyes were very clear and blue, and reflected fragments of different emotions: worry, desire, and resolve. His eyebrows rose and he offered Heero a questioning look. It asked what he wanted.
“I...” Heero heard himself stutter. He didn’t know if he had ever stuttered before. He had certainly felt indecision, but this was different. Before he could figure out how to fix it, Quatre closed the distance between them effortlessly with two steps and a strong hand which pulled Heero’s body against his own.
“Like I said before,” he repeated as two of his fingers stroked a short line along Heero’s spine and seemed to make an indiscernible promise, “if you don’t like something, tell me.”
“Okay.” Heero’s mouth went dry.
Quatre kissed him; it felt odd. Heero immediately made a strange noise and the other pilot drew away to look at him in surprise. Then he laughed a little when he saw Heero’s expression, and the tension which had built up in his body completely dissipated. He looked at him warmly, and something pleasant curled in Heero’s chest. For a moment he actually felt comfortable.
“Maybe kissing should always be last,” he said. “Maybe just as a general rule for everyone.”
“You’ve...” Heero searched for the words, “done this a lot?”
Quatre shrugged a little. “I wouldn’t say a lot.”
But it remained a fact that he certainly had done it at some point, though with whom or what gender was a mystery. Not that Heero felt any particular need to know; the importance of his own sexual orientation hadn’t even occurred to him until about half an hour ago. At least not in the form of a full-fledged question that took center stage in his thought process.
Quatre leaned forward again before Heero could finish his thought and kissed him a little differently, a little more urgently, and Heero didn’t have time to try and see whether it felt odd. It just felt wet, and hot, and his mouth was opening and he felt his fingers stiffen, but fought the urge to curl them into fists.
Even when Quatre’s hands, still in the form of a light, careful touch, found their way to his back and down to his ass, he just tried to relax. It did feel good when he stopped thinking about it so much. He found that he actually wanted Quatre to touch him, and something began to build inside of him in a very pleasing, desperate, wanton way. Not even piloting a Gundam had held quite the same experience of feeling like his body was making its own decisions, that his mind was somewhere far behind, trying to keep up with what was going on.
Quatre was behind him now, his own hips pushed up against Heero’s ass, and his hands were splayed across the Wing pilot’s chest. He bit his shoulder hard, but when Heero opened his mouth nothing came out. There was another bite, and another, in different places, and he felt like his skin had burst into flame, and that every part of him wanted to burn very brightly.
His voice found air and he moaned. Then breathlessly said, “Do it again.”
Quatre did it again, and then his fingers pinched one of Heero’s nipples tightly enough to hurt. The pain wasn’t the same kind of pain that Heero was used to, and in a way it was more alarming. Quatre’s hands were warm where they had come to rub against his skin under the fabric of his shirt and attack his chest, and he found the warmth strangely soothing. Another person was touching him because they wanted to. It still didn’t seem to compute.
“You know... you’re very attractive, Heero,” Quatre’s voice said quietly into his ear. It was one of those statements that was designed to inform, as if the Sandrock pilot knew that no one had ever told him.
“Hn,” he replied syllabically, but the sound was meditative. He had never stopped to consider the aesthetic qualities of the world around him, neither of people nor places. He thought about Quatre, what they were doing, and put the ideas together than people did this kind of thing with other people that they found attractive. But maybe there was more to it than that, like wanting to live while being ready to die. These things that existed in the ambivalent world Heero had come to know, and begun to participate in.
There would be more time to think later, after Quatre was no longer there to pinch and bite him, and take away any semblance of order in his mind. His shirt had come off and he felt Quatre licking and nipping at the small of his back where the other pilot had bent down behind him, slowly making his way back up toward Heero’s neck, and then grabbed at his hips tightly and jerked them in small movements back against his own body. Heero could feel Quatre’s cock behind him, hard and real, very much there. The world was centered on that point of contact for a moment until the blond pilot stepped away to face him.
He was flushed, and his light hair was falling into his eyes which were normally an equally light shade of blue, but now they had darkened slightly. He bit his lip a little, and took one of Heero’s hands in his own, wrapped it around his body, and stepped in close.
Heero didn’t know exactly what to do with his hand which was now pressed against Quatre’s back, the cool fabric of his shirt touching the inside of Heero’s arm. He knew what bones felt like, and they took on a new meaning as the palm of his hand drifted over Quatre’s spine, up to his shoulder blades, and then down again to the edges of his hips. It felt familiar, and he found himself waiting to smell blood or hear snapping, but chased the expectation away by focusing on Quatre’s whispery, short breaths against his cheek where the other man had leaned into him. His body was very, very still save for the measured breathing, as if any sudden movements would result in some kind of calamity.
Heero tested his own mouth on Quatre’s shoulder. There was fabric. His fingers remedied that problem before he even knew what he was doing, and then stopped half-way through the process of unbuttoning the shirt, looking for all the world as if he had been sleepwalking as he stared into Quatre’s face which was now made up of half-lidded eyes and a lower lip swollen from being bitten. Heero’s hands disappeared as he took a hurried step backward and almost tripped. His sneakers skidded against the floor.
Quatre didn’t try to persuade him to come closer again, or tell him it was okay or assuage his unease. Instead, he finished unbuttoning his own shirt in a slow, efficient action that lacked hesitation, and dropped it to the floor. He looked at Heero calmly, and Heero looked back at him with a panicked gaze. Quatre had gone into this without any expectations, so if Heero chose to leave, he might feel a little bad about it and even disappointed; it came back to the same basic fact that being there with him was solely Heero’s decision. But he had certainly been enjoying himself.
He could feel Heero’s gaze focused on him in rapt concentration, and it hit on something he had always personally enjoyed. Something that had gotten him in trouble in the past, though not as much trouble as the fact that he liked guys, but none of that had ever quite deterred him. So he slipped his own hand between his legs and squeezed, and closed his eyes. He knew Heero was still watching at him; it just made him bite his lip again, and this time he almost tasted blood. But he stopped before the acrid, metallic taste could consume his senses.
You discovered a lot of things about people when they were taking off their clothes, Heero found himself musing. He couldn’t remember seeing the expression plastered across Quatre’s features that was there now, his eyes closed and looking for all the world as if he was expecting to ascend into heaven at any given moment. But he also found something more tense there, the first sign that Quatre was hesitating. He didn’t know why, and he knew that he shouldn’t ask. But interpersonal decorum was never something he had felt the need to follow.
“You like being watched,” he said, his voice holding none of the panic that his face had a few minutes before.
Quatre’s eyes opened and he stopped what he was doing. He looked for the judgment in Heero’s voice.
“I like being watched by men,” he corrected. Then added, almost unnecessarily, “I like guys.” There was an edge of shame, perhaps not for his own preference since he had so willingly gone into this, and perhaps not an apology for himself, but for some other reason. A protective, self-preserving reason.
Heero just shrugged. “Does it make a difference?”
Quatre looked at him with a hardened expression for a moment, a look Heero had only ever seen him make when he was trying very hard to overcome something powerful or was losing his mind. Then it melted back into his regular features, and he looked a little tired. His eyes flashed with emotion.
“To some people it does,” he replied.
Heero didn’t seem to completely grasp the complexity of what was being laid out before him. He was capable of getting it, of pondering over the reasons that Quatre was protecting himself and edging away from him, but he chose not to.
“Well,” he shrugged a little, “maybe I do too.” He had liked being with Quatre thus far, who was male, regardless of everything else.
This actually elicited an unexpected, slight grin from the other pilot. Quatre considered his own vulnerability for the first time, hadn’t even realized its presence until that moment. Heero’s backward tripping away from him, the sharp breath; he suddenly identified with it. His bold, forward action hadn’t been quite as confident or controlled as he had first thought.
So he put his trust in Heero’s straightforward thinking for the time being, and unzipped his pants. They too were deposited on the floor in a pile of twisted clothing, until the only thing left between them was Heero’s scruffy shoes and that same, inaccessible spandex protecting his modesty. Quatre knew that modesty wasn’t the thing keeping Heero at a distance, however.
He stroked himself and kept his eyes open, looking at Heero; it was intense, and unexpectedly emotional. Heero was certainly not hard on the eyes, and his dark blue gaze was very nice to look at. He stopped for a moment to turn around and retrieve a container from nearby the bed, and then got on his hands and knees after squeezing some of its contents onto his fingers. Heero watched curiously.
Watching was very easy. It didn’t involve the awkward skimming of bones and skin with hesitant hands, the threat of falling headfirst into a deep, dangerous gulch of embarrassment. He was a witness to Quatre’s prone form on the ground, pushing into his own ass and fucking himself with his fingers, and the loud noises he made as he pushed in and out of himself. They were long and drawn out, and unexpectedly Heero caught his own name in the barrage of sound. Maybe watching wasn’t as easy as he thought; he was still trapped in the experience, but it was with looser bindings than the demands of touching. He found that he didn’t mind quite as much as before, and when Quatre climbed onto the bed, he followed.
He laid behind him, Quatre’s back pressed to his chest, his body arched slightly against Heero’s. Then he did let his hands wander over Quatre’s exposed skin and trace across his ribs that felt more like a delicate relief drawing than bones, the hips that seemed much more likely to flex and jerk than break, with pliable, strong joints. He felt Quatre’s hair and skin, both sweaty and damp. There was a sense of exhausted conversation and possibilities, and it was a very agreeable sensation to stop thinking so hard and just feel.
Heero squeezed some of the lube onto his own fingers and stroked himself behind Quatre; that was something he knew how to do. They rocked together and Heero managed a moan that wasn’t caught by the trap of his throat, and didn’t come out as a small desperate cry. It was a languid, drawn out sigh, loud enough to elicit a sound in counterpoint from the person lying against him. He finally felt like he was in the same room, on the same bed, engaged in the same act as Quatre for the first time.
“Do you want me to do what you did before?” he asked quietly, though it was a frank question. Quatre’s hips stopped rocking against him for a moment, and he shivered a little.
“Only if you want to,” he replied.
A slight, “Okay,” was accompanied by Heero’s hand sliding downward between them, and then his fingers hesitantly seeking out their goal.
Quatre moved, and for a moment Heero was frozen with the possibility he may have done something wrong, but the other pilot just readjusted himself so he was on his hands and knees again.
“It’s easier,” he said simply. “And I like doing it this way,” he added, and his voice was as quiet as Heero’s had been.
When Heero first pushed his fingers into him, Quatre let out a harsh sound and pushed his hips back. They fell into a jerky rhythm, and Heero watched Quatre’s head fall forward between his arms, eyes closed. His face was upside down from where Heero could see it from his vantage point behind the other’s body, and it held a distinct tension that was very similar to crying, but it wasn’t the same. In the calm reserved part of his brain, Heero was fascinated.
Quatre came with a slump and a cry that turned quickly into a ragged sigh, and Heero retreated. He stayed on his hands and knees for a moment, then fell to his side with his back to Heero, breathing heavily. For a moment, Heero didn’t know what to do as Quatre laid there without moving, trying to catch his breath. He sat up and hung his legs over the side of the bed, and the chilly, re-circulated air in the room made his naked skin feel cold.
“Come here,” Quatre said in a raspy voice after a few minutes. He could feel his face flush at the gentle note it held in it, and the distinct throbbing he was very much aware of in his own cock.
Heero pulled his legs back up onto the mattress and moved to sit near Quatre, studying the blond hair that was matted in places and wildly sticking up in others, the sheen of sweat on his back. He finally turned over to face Heero, as if he had been gathering his composure.
He pushed him onto his back without asking, sidled up next to him and lightly touched his chest again. The action seemed to promise much more than it had before with the initial tentative exploratory touch. Heero could feel the way his shorts restricted him uncomfortably, but didn’t want to look down for some reason.
“Can I take these off?” Quatre asked.
There was a small silence. “Yes,” came Heero’s voice, usually so resolute, decisive, knowing, now reduced to a soft sound. He felt them slip down his body, even let Quatre untie his shoes and drop them on the ground with a decisive thump.
Then he wasn’t wearing anything, his legs bent up and back. Everything was visible, exposed, and Quatre looked, and Heero shut his eyes. Unlike Quatre, he didn’t like being watched, but he also didn’t want to do anything else except what he was doing right then.
Quatre’s gentle fingers, slick, rubbed a little at his entrance but didn’t push in. Instead, he bent down and took Heero’s cock into his mouth. As if possessing a mind of their own, Heero’s hips moved forward and his short breath and cries echoed off of the walls in the small room. He couldn’t ever remember crying; he thought it must feel like this. Uninhibited. Free.
Then he did tear into a million little pieces as he came, but it wasn’t like self-destructing, or a tornado, or a strong wind trying to knock him over. It was being ripped apart and completed at the same time; two things that didn’t go together at all. It fit perfectly into the imperfect, indecisive, painful, repulsive world that he had grown to hope for.
Then he laid still with Quatre for a long time. The hand on his hip was tender, and it was no longer a surprising, foreign sensation.
“You can stay here tonight if you want,” he said.
Heero nodded. He didn’t feel like putting his shoes back on yet.
This is my first 1x4/4x1 fic. I just watched the episode where Heero gives Quatre the ZERO System so that the Gundam pilots have a strategic edge against Libra, and I got to thinking about their relationship. I have also come to better appreciate the complexity of Quatre's character over the time I've been in the fandom, so I like writing him when the urge strikes me.
To anyone interested enough to read this fic: thank you, and I would love C&C.
WARNINGS: A bit explicit (okay, REALLY explicit), definitely an NC-17 behind the cut.
Quatre reflects on Heero's transition from being designed as a weapon to realizing his own humanity.
Walking Barefoot
The ZERO System was still ringing in his ears as he sat down at the cafeteria table. The entire room seemed unreal, as though it were a hologram that his body happened to be placed within, the weight of his own legs, shoulders, and head an anchor in a sea of insubstantial illusion. He knew he had conquered it finally, used it to their advantage; it still ripped his mind open and filled his ears with a furious roar. It was like seeing a tsunami coming at you, dumbly watching the wave of destruction without moving; you had to turn around, let it hit your back, and run in its direction to survive. Not get caught up and drown as it overtook you, sinking to the bottom with your ravaged, broken body still struggling for purchase somewhere in the mire.
Quatre felt that he was still at the head of the wave, rushing with it, and then it had finally ceased in its driving force. He had been deposited like a wasted wanderer from an accident on some high bank, and as the water subsided, the calm that followed was filled with the imaginary sound of birds calling overhead and a lazy warm sun that tingled where his body had stopped bleeding and stinging. In this small span of time, it felt safe to close his eyes and wander in and out of sleep, unaccountable for whatever drifted through his head.
But he knew it would happen again. So he tried to slowly pick himself up, clutch at the solid realness of the physical objects around him: the flat metal table, the circular stool he was sitting on, the cold, wet soda can his fingers were clutched around hard enough to leave indentations. He would relax them when he realized that the tension was mounting in his body all over again, and the aluminum would pop back into place after a moment. He needed to relax, to maintain control over the sensation. It wasn’t painful, but made him very dizzy, as if he had been spinning around staring up into a blank sky and then passing out because his brain didn’t know which way was up or down anymore.
The condensation from the can dripped over his index finger; he absentmindedly took a small sip and choked the sweet taste of orange down his throat. He thought sugar might do him some good, kickstart his body again.
“Sugar probably won’t do you much good,” Heero said from where he had been standing across from Quatre, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
“Can’t hurt to see what happens,” Quatre replied sheepishly, and then just lowered his gaze again to stare into the mouth of the open can again. It was still almost full. “Besides, I like orange soda.”
“Hn,” Heero said as if he were musing on the statement, “I don’t.” Then added, “How does it feel not to have it drive you...” he let his sentence trail off. He always was economical with words.
“Tiring.” Perhaps it wasn’t the most accurate description, but Quatre didn’t feel like attempting to verbalize the dizzy feeling on top of his efforts to escape the mental space he was currently trapped within. The imaginary seagulls cried woefully in his ears.
“This is almost over,” Heero replied in a resolute tone. He sounded as if he were wedded to the statement, not so much due to the fact that he hoped it would end, but more that he knew it would. No speculation needed. Quatre, who by the courtesy of his mental tidal wave had the opportunity to possess a slightly more comprehensive vision into the future, agreed with him.
He took another sip. It went down more easily than the last.
“How do you feel about dying?” he asked conversationally, and he could feel Heero’s eyes trained on him carefully as the words were uttered. Quatre’s disinterested voice caught his attention, the complete lack of regret or fear.
“Now that we have a strategy,” Heero replied in an unperturbed tone of voice, “I think that it’s more unlikely.”
Maybe he was right; maybe discussing death versus motivation to live versus the ambivalent meaning of being a Gundam pilot was a tired topic of conversation. But Heero tacked on a question.
“Is there something you know that we don’t?” he asked.
“Not really,” Quatre replied. “But I’m still a little afraid of dying...” he hesitated momentarily, and then finished, “And I think you are too.”
The words hung in the air precariously as the tension in the room, which hadn’t formerly been there, increased tenfold, as if a buzzing light bulb was on the verge of burning out, though Heero showed nothing of it in his outward appearance. Quatre shrugged.
“Or maybe not,” he said in a tired voice that sounded indifferent. He shifted in his seat as Heero uncrossed his arms slowly, dropped them to his sides, and moved forward to sit down across from Quatre. He settled on the stool and looked at him quizzically, interested in the unexpected comment.
“Why did you say that?” Heero asked. His voice was cautious, possibly even defensive, and laced with a dark note.
Quatre knew he was right about Heero. What did he have to lose by saying it? If they all died in the final battle, there was no point in holding back his thoughts in conversations with the more taciturn members of their group. He admitted, he was interested in the others, the more time they spent together, these other pilots that had been near-strangers until their occasional meetings with one another, usually following a highly tragic or dramatic event. He was interested in the smaller machinations of every day conversation; it made him feel normal. Even if Heero Yuy didn’t like small talk.
“Because I see it,” he replied simply. The statement held no judgment or conclusive opinions about Heero’s motives. The way he said it was an admission that he could have been completely wrong, but he didn’t seem too concerned. It was just what he saw. And he liked Heero. In fact, he liked all of them. Despite himself, he wanted to know them after the war; he felt a kinship with them, regardless of all of their vast differences.
He shot a sincere look Heero’s way, and was faced with a confused, searching gaze. Heero’s interest latched him into the conversation like a barbed fish hook that was then unable to disengage.
“How did you know I could handle it?” Quatre asked.
“I didn’t,” Heero immediately replied. “But we had no other choice, and you’re not weak.”
He had certainly acted confident that Quatre could handle it, though more important was why the Sandrock pilot had found that confidence reassuring and made him believe that it would work out. Some part of Heero’s faith in his ability to master the ZERO System was probably the result of a lot of training, the grooming of a skill to convince other people of things they may not believe themselves. But there was something else as well; Quatre didn’t respond to blind strategy from other people. He always recognized it, knew that their intentions weren’t sincere so much as a ploy to make things work out in their favor, or in a way that they believed to be best.
Heero had believed, on a very unreliable, human level, that he could depend on Quatre. And even though it was crystal clear that Heero was in it for the long haul to win for the colonies, for humanity, and to fulfill his role as soldier to the fullest extent, it led Quatre to realize that he also wanted to win for himself, and survive. Heero had found hope. There were people that mattered to him, and Quatre assumed that it hadn’t always been that way. He knew that something had changed.
Now the entire concept of Heero dying seemed very unfair - that his one shot at the experience of being human was for a very short time, on a war ship in the middle of space, with only the company of four others just like him whom had all had the opportunity to at least find someone they wanted to protect. Even Trowa, who had a similar history to the Wing pilot’s. But Heero’s transition had been late, even in his relationship with Relena whom he had still considered assassinating when she was a puppet as the “Queen of the World”.
Quatre thought that such a difficult change must have hurt in very a fundamental way. He would have assumed that something inside of the other pilot would have been irreparably damaged by then; but with or without his training, maybe Heero was inherently stronger than the forces that tried to bend and break him. Maybe in the long run, if he had never been trained to act solely as a weapon, it would have been a similar identity he discovered due to his own innate nature: that he was strong, and kind.
“Heero,” he said, emerging from his thoughts, “have you ever been with someone?”
The other pilot faced him with a surprised, guarded expression. It seemed like the last thing he had expected to be asked; part of Quatre wondered if Heero even knew what he meant.
“No,” was the firm response. He said it in a flat tone which provided no insight into his thoughts on the subject, and Quatre wondered if it was because he was ashamed, or if he simply didn’t care because it had never been a priority.
“Or with a guy?” Quatre added slowly. “Do you know what you like?”
Heero suddenly looked very lost, caught off guard by the impromptu conversation, and just raised his eyebrows for a minute. Quatre realized that he was probably the only person who had ever broached the topic with Heero; he could have been wrong, but he didn’t think so judging from Heero’s reaction. He didn’t seem to be hiding anything; instead, he looked thoughtful, as if waiting for the full magnitude of the conversation to strike him square in the face.
“No,” he repeated, and now he appeared more curious than cautious.
They looked at each other for a moment until Heero felt Quatre’s hand under the table catch his own. Their hands linked, and the blond pilot looked at him seriously.
“Tell me to stop if you don’t like it,” he said, and then slid under the table out of sight. Heero found him again very quickly as he felt silky hair brush against his knees. Then there was a strong, firm touch that ran over the backs of his calves, up his legs and stopped at his thighs. He shifted a little, unsure of how to react.
Quatre paused in his ministrations under the table for a moment, and then both of his hands were pushing Heero’s legs apart. The other man let him do it as something hot twisted in his stomach and then dropped lower into his body as Quatre pushed his palm against where Heero’s cock was.
Heero let out a sharp hiss of air and then a burst of sound that seemed lodged in the back of his throat, unable to fully emerge. He had never felt anything like this, had never been touched by another person for any other reason than cleaning wounds or mending bones. He felt hot breath between his legs and something that sounded like a trapped whine come out of his mouth. He heard the crunch of metal as he curled a fist around the half-full soda can, his hands seeking out the nearest thing they could find to grip as hard as he could.
Quatre heard the crunch and constrained whimper too; he didn’t know whether it was a good or bad sign, but since Heero hadn’t said anything, he didn’t stop.
Instead he leaned forward again, this time lightly biting the inside of Heero’s thigh, very close to that one crucial point which had brought about the death of a soda can. The texture of the spandex in his mouth made him feel as if he were biting into some strange fruit that possessed an unbreakable skin; the fabric was warm from Heero’s body. He bit at it again, this time a little harder, and then hooked his hands around the backs of Heero’s knees.
Another sound, and then the shifting of legs and feet which were rooted firmly to the floor like a stubborn tree afraid of tumbling over in a strong wind. Quatre caught view of Heero’s beat up shoes in his peripheral vision, and they seemed to tell Heero’s tale more effectively than any explanation ever could. It was a long, sad story; it was a meaningful, and had a lot of significant points to it, and realizations, and people. But they still said: We’ve come a long way. And he wondered if there would ever be a time when Heero could untie those worn laces, tuck the threadbare sneakers away, and stop running. He hoped so.
He slipped his fingers under the edge of Heero’s shorts and ran them up his leg until they were bunched enough that he couldn’t go any farther, and he brought his face very close to the same place and breathed hotly again. It was time to figure out exactly where this was going; it was Heero’s choice.
He drew away, but Heero’s legs stayed where they were, even when the heat had disappeared, and the smooth, cool texture of Quatre’s hair had retreated back to the other side of the table, and Heero met his eyes as he re-appeared. They faced each other for a long time.
Quatre half-smiled at him, raised his eyebrows in a look that was a cross between coy and earnest, maybe even hesitant, belying the audacity of his actions. It wasn’t a sad, long-suffering smile, but seemed easy and genuine. Heero was not put at ease however; something inside of him was resisting, and he recognized the uncomfortable sensation of vulnerability. This was something he had learned to avoid long ago.
He tried to reason it out, but failed. It just couldn’t be that simple. His body was saying yes, yes, yes, his thoughts and emotions were swirling wildly inside his head, and he felt like a violent tornado without any intended path, slowly growing larger and larger. It all happened right in the center of his chest, a storm no one could see, as if the only way to alleviate the pressure was to simply explode into very small pieces. In fact, he knew the feeling all too well; he had already been blown up a few times, literally as well as metaphorically.
“It’s not that complicated.”
He was wrenched out of his conflicted thoughts. “What?”
Quatre shrugged a little. “I said it’s not that complicated,” he repeated. But it was complicated, at least in the emotional terrain, but for the purposes of the then and there, it was relatively simple.
“Do you like it, or not?”
It seemed like such a straightforward question, and it was. Deceptively simple - yes or no? Pain/pleasure, joy/fear, desire/repulsion, friend/foe. It all seemed simple, but it never was. To be a weapon which was incidentally constructed of biological parts would have worked perfectly in a world programmed with 1=true, 2=false. But the world was complex, and agonizingly imperfect. The fact that he was made up of human parts was not incidental, and it was not something he could ignore; inside, he wasn’t a set of cogs, and springs, and artificial intelligence. He wasn’t something designed to respond to a light source simply because the program informing his actions told him to. Once a machine ceased to function on “yes” and “no” answers and moved on to “maybe” or “I don’t know”, things got a little hazy. But Heero liked hazy, because he wasn’t a machine, and no amount of re-training could ever change that.
Maybe the answer to Quatre’s question wasn’t a simple yes, but he knew it certainly wasn’t no. He realized right then that he felt an ache between his legs, still spread open under the table as if anticipating something that had never arrived. He also felt a flutter somewhere else, somewhere deeper.
So he said, “I think so.”
Quatre broke their gaze and stood up. The sound of his footsteps were soft and unobtrusive as he came to stand next to Heero, and put a hand on the back of the other pilot’s neck. His fingers were calloused, but his palm was very soft, and Heero felt something gentle for the first time. It made him feel empty, and something in his throat tightened.
“Come with me,” Quatre said in a tone as gentle as his touch. It lacked condescension or pity. In fact, his voice was very careful, and kind, but also infused with lust.
He went with him. They ended up in Quatre’s quarters, identical to Heero’s, four metal walls, a ceiling, and floor wrapped around a small bed and shelf. Just the two of them. Heero found it difficult to breathe under the weight of Quatre’s intent look as they stood there after the door had been closed. They hadn’t passed anyone on their way in, and for some reason, Heero was relieved. He didn’t want anyone to know what was happening, didn’t even want to know himself on some level; it would force him to process the repercussions all at once, so instead he just stood there, staring.
They were almost the same height, give or take an inch, but Quatre seemed much taller than he actually was as he moved closer to Heero. His eyes were very clear and blue, and reflected fragments of different emotions: worry, desire, and resolve. His eyebrows rose and he offered Heero a questioning look. It asked what he wanted.
“I...” Heero heard himself stutter. He didn’t know if he had ever stuttered before. He had certainly felt indecision, but this was different. Before he could figure out how to fix it, Quatre closed the distance between them effortlessly with two steps and a strong hand which pulled Heero’s body against his own.
“Like I said before,” he repeated as two of his fingers stroked a short line along Heero’s spine and seemed to make an indiscernible promise, “if you don’t like something, tell me.”
“Okay.” Heero’s mouth went dry.
Quatre kissed him; it felt odd. Heero immediately made a strange noise and the other pilot drew away to look at him in surprise. Then he laughed a little when he saw Heero’s expression, and the tension which had built up in his body completely dissipated. He looked at him warmly, and something pleasant curled in Heero’s chest. For a moment he actually felt comfortable.
“Maybe kissing should always be last,” he said. “Maybe just as a general rule for everyone.”
“You’ve...” Heero searched for the words, “done this a lot?”
Quatre shrugged a little. “I wouldn’t say a lot.”
But it remained a fact that he certainly had done it at some point, though with whom or what gender was a mystery. Not that Heero felt any particular need to know; the importance of his own sexual orientation hadn’t even occurred to him until about half an hour ago. At least not in the form of a full-fledged question that took center stage in his thought process.
Quatre leaned forward again before Heero could finish his thought and kissed him a little differently, a little more urgently, and Heero didn’t have time to try and see whether it felt odd. It just felt wet, and hot, and his mouth was opening and he felt his fingers stiffen, but fought the urge to curl them into fists.
Even when Quatre’s hands, still in the form of a light, careful touch, found their way to his back and down to his ass, he just tried to relax. It did feel good when he stopped thinking about it so much. He found that he actually wanted Quatre to touch him, and something began to build inside of him in a very pleasing, desperate, wanton way. Not even piloting a Gundam had held quite the same experience of feeling like his body was making its own decisions, that his mind was somewhere far behind, trying to keep up with what was going on.
Quatre was behind him now, his own hips pushed up against Heero’s ass, and his hands were splayed across the Wing pilot’s chest. He bit his shoulder hard, but when Heero opened his mouth nothing came out. There was another bite, and another, in different places, and he felt like his skin had burst into flame, and that every part of him wanted to burn very brightly.
His voice found air and he moaned. Then breathlessly said, “Do it again.”
Quatre did it again, and then his fingers pinched one of Heero’s nipples tightly enough to hurt. The pain wasn’t the same kind of pain that Heero was used to, and in a way it was more alarming. Quatre’s hands were warm where they had come to rub against his skin under the fabric of his shirt and attack his chest, and he found the warmth strangely soothing. Another person was touching him because they wanted to. It still didn’t seem to compute.
“You know... you’re very attractive, Heero,” Quatre’s voice said quietly into his ear. It was one of those statements that was designed to inform, as if the Sandrock pilot knew that no one had ever told him.
“Hn,” he replied syllabically, but the sound was meditative. He had never stopped to consider the aesthetic qualities of the world around him, neither of people nor places. He thought about Quatre, what they were doing, and put the ideas together than people did this kind of thing with other people that they found attractive. But maybe there was more to it than that, like wanting to live while being ready to die. These things that existed in the ambivalent world Heero had come to know, and begun to participate in.
There would be more time to think later, after Quatre was no longer there to pinch and bite him, and take away any semblance of order in his mind. His shirt had come off and he felt Quatre licking and nipping at the small of his back where the other pilot had bent down behind him, slowly making his way back up toward Heero’s neck, and then grabbed at his hips tightly and jerked them in small movements back against his own body. Heero could feel Quatre’s cock behind him, hard and real, very much there. The world was centered on that point of contact for a moment until the blond pilot stepped away to face him.
He was flushed, and his light hair was falling into his eyes which were normally an equally light shade of blue, but now they had darkened slightly. He bit his lip a little, and took one of Heero’s hands in his own, wrapped it around his body, and stepped in close.
Heero didn’t know exactly what to do with his hand which was now pressed against Quatre’s back, the cool fabric of his shirt touching the inside of Heero’s arm. He knew what bones felt like, and they took on a new meaning as the palm of his hand drifted over Quatre’s spine, up to his shoulder blades, and then down again to the edges of his hips. It felt familiar, and he found himself waiting to smell blood or hear snapping, but chased the expectation away by focusing on Quatre’s whispery, short breaths against his cheek where the other man had leaned into him. His body was very, very still save for the measured breathing, as if any sudden movements would result in some kind of calamity.
Heero tested his own mouth on Quatre’s shoulder. There was fabric. His fingers remedied that problem before he even knew what he was doing, and then stopped half-way through the process of unbuttoning the shirt, looking for all the world as if he had been sleepwalking as he stared into Quatre’s face which was now made up of half-lidded eyes and a lower lip swollen from being bitten. Heero’s hands disappeared as he took a hurried step backward and almost tripped. His sneakers skidded against the floor.
Quatre didn’t try to persuade him to come closer again, or tell him it was okay or assuage his unease. Instead, he finished unbuttoning his own shirt in a slow, efficient action that lacked hesitation, and dropped it to the floor. He looked at Heero calmly, and Heero looked back at him with a panicked gaze. Quatre had gone into this without any expectations, so if Heero chose to leave, he might feel a little bad about it and even disappointed; it came back to the same basic fact that being there with him was solely Heero’s decision. But he had certainly been enjoying himself.
He could feel Heero’s gaze focused on him in rapt concentration, and it hit on something he had always personally enjoyed. Something that had gotten him in trouble in the past, though not as much trouble as the fact that he liked guys, but none of that had ever quite deterred him. So he slipped his own hand between his legs and squeezed, and closed his eyes. He knew Heero was still watching at him; it just made him bite his lip again, and this time he almost tasted blood. But he stopped before the acrid, metallic taste could consume his senses.
You discovered a lot of things about people when they were taking off their clothes, Heero found himself musing. He couldn’t remember seeing the expression plastered across Quatre’s features that was there now, his eyes closed and looking for all the world as if he was expecting to ascend into heaven at any given moment. But he also found something more tense there, the first sign that Quatre was hesitating. He didn’t know why, and he knew that he shouldn’t ask. But interpersonal decorum was never something he had felt the need to follow.
“You like being watched,” he said, his voice holding none of the panic that his face had a few minutes before.
Quatre’s eyes opened and he stopped what he was doing. He looked for the judgment in Heero’s voice.
“I like being watched by men,” he corrected. Then added, almost unnecessarily, “I like guys.” There was an edge of shame, perhaps not for his own preference since he had so willingly gone into this, and perhaps not an apology for himself, but for some other reason. A protective, self-preserving reason.
Heero just shrugged. “Does it make a difference?”
Quatre looked at him with a hardened expression for a moment, a look Heero had only ever seen him make when he was trying very hard to overcome something powerful or was losing his mind. Then it melted back into his regular features, and he looked a little tired. His eyes flashed with emotion.
“To some people it does,” he replied.
Heero didn’t seem to completely grasp the complexity of what was being laid out before him. He was capable of getting it, of pondering over the reasons that Quatre was protecting himself and edging away from him, but he chose not to.
“Well,” he shrugged a little, “maybe I do too.” He had liked being with Quatre thus far, who was male, regardless of everything else.
This actually elicited an unexpected, slight grin from the other pilot. Quatre considered his own vulnerability for the first time, hadn’t even realized its presence until that moment. Heero’s backward tripping away from him, the sharp breath; he suddenly identified with it. His bold, forward action hadn’t been quite as confident or controlled as he had first thought.
So he put his trust in Heero’s straightforward thinking for the time being, and unzipped his pants. They too were deposited on the floor in a pile of twisted clothing, until the only thing left between them was Heero’s scruffy shoes and that same, inaccessible spandex protecting his modesty. Quatre knew that modesty wasn’t the thing keeping Heero at a distance, however.
He stroked himself and kept his eyes open, looking at Heero; it was intense, and unexpectedly emotional. Heero was certainly not hard on the eyes, and his dark blue gaze was very nice to look at. He stopped for a moment to turn around and retrieve a container from nearby the bed, and then got on his hands and knees after squeezing some of its contents onto his fingers. Heero watched curiously.
Watching was very easy. It didn’t involve the awkward skimming of bones and skin with hesitant hands, the threat of falling headfirst into a deep, dangerous gulch of embarrassment. He was a witness to Quatre’s prone form on the ground, pushing into his own ass and fucking himself with his fingers, and the loud noises he made as he pushed in and out of himself. They were long and drawn out, and unexpectedly Heero caught his own name in the barrage of sound. Maybe watching wasn’t as easy as he thought; he was still trapped in the experience, but it was with looser bindings than the demands of touching. He found that he didn’t mind quite as much as before, and when Quatre climbed onto the bed, he followed.
He laid behind him, Quatre’s back pressed to his chest, his body arched slightly against Heero’s. Then he did let his hands wander over Quatre’s exposed skin and trace across his ribs that felt more like a delicate relief drawing than bones, the hips that seemed much more likely to flex and jerk than break, with pliable, strong joints. He felt Quatre’s hair and skin, both sweaty and damp. There was a sense of exhausted conversation and possibilities, and it was a very agreeable sensation to stop thinking so hard and just feel.
Heero squeezed some of the lube onto his own fingers and stroked himself behind Quatre; that was something he knew how to do. They rocked together and Heero managed a moan that wasn’t caught by the trap of his throat, and didn’t come out as a small desperate cry. It was a languid, drawn out sigh, loud enough to elicit a sound in counterpoint from the person lying against him. He finally felt like he was in the same room, on the same bed, engaged in the same act as Quatre for the first time.
“Do you want me to do what you did before?” he asked quietly, though it was a frank question. Quatre’s hips stopped rocking against him for a moment, and he shivered a little.
“Only if you want to,” he replied.
A slight, “Okay,” was accompanied by Heero’s hand sliding downward between them, and then his fingers hesitantly seeking out their goal.
Quatre moved, and for a moment Heero was frozen with the possibility he may have done something wrong, but the other pilot just readjusted himself so he was on his hands and knees again.
“It’s easier,” he said simply. “And I like doing it this way,” he added, and his voice was as quiet as Heero’s had been.
When Heero first pushed his fingers into him, Quatre let out a harsh sound and pushed his hips back. They fell into a jerky rhythm, and Heero watched Quatre’s head fall forward between his arms, eyes closed. His face was upside down from where Heero could see it from his vantage point behind the other’s body, and it held a distinct tension that was very similar to crying, but it wasn’t the same. In the calm reserved part of his brain, Heero was fascinated.
Quatre came with a slump and a cry that turned quickly into a ragged sigh, and Heero retreated. He stayed on his hands and knees for a moment, then fell to his side with his back to Heero, breathing heavily. For a moment, Heero didn’t know what to do as Quatre laid there without moving, trying to catch his breath. He sat up and hung his legs over the side of the bed, and the chilly, re-circulated air in the room made his naked skin feel cold.
“Come here,” Quatre said in a raspy voice after a few minutes. He could feel his face flush at the gentle note it held in it, and the distinct throbbing he was very much aware of in his own cock.
Heero pulled his legs back up onto the mattress and moved to sit near Quatre, studying the blond hair that was matted in places and wildly sticking up in others, the sheen of sweat on his back. He finally turned over to face Heero, as if he had been gathering his composure.
He pushed him onto his back without asking, sidled up next to him and lightly touched his chest again. The action seemed to promise much more than it had before with the initial tentative exploratory touch. Heero could feel the way his shorts restricted him uncomfortably, but didn’t want to look down for some reason.
“Can I take these off?” Quatre asked.
There was a small silence. “Yes,” came Heero’s voice, usually so resolute, decisive, knowing, now reduced to a soft sound. He felt them slip down his body, even let Quatre untie his shoes and drop them on the ground with a decisive thump.
Then he wasn’t wearing anything, his legs bent up and back. Everything was visible, exposed, and Quatre looked, and Heero shut his eyes. Unlike Quatre, he didn’t like being watched, but he also didn’t want to do anything else except what he was doing right then.
Quatre’s gentle fingers, slick, rubbed a little at his entrance but didn’t push in. Instead, he bent down and took Heero’s cock into his mouth. As if possessing a mind of their own, Heero’s hips moved forward and his short breath and cries echoed off of the walls in the small room. He couldn’t ever remember crying; he thought it must feel like this. Uninhibited. Free.
Then he did tear into a million little pieces as he came, but it wasn’t like self-destructing, or a tornado, or a strong wind trying to knock him over. It was being ripped apart and completed at the same time; two things that didn’t go together at all. It fit perfectly into the imperfect, indecisive, painful, repulsive world that he had grown to hope for.
Then he laid still with Quatre for a long time. The hand on his hip was tender, and it was no longer a surprising, foreign sensation.
“You can stay here tonight if you want,” he said.
Heero nodded. He didn’t feel like putting his shoes back on yet.