[fic] The Come Down
Happy new year! I have a few fics to edit/finish/post in the next few weeks. This is the 3rd installment of my 1x2 AU college drug arc thing. I write one of these every ~4 years it seems. I have one more installment in this series, outlined out, and then I think maybe it's done? I'm calling it the 'Love is the Drug' arc because I am not creative :D
Here are the first two installments:
Transcendental Meditation and Strange Medicine
And the third!
Title: The Come Down
Author: sistercacao
Pairing: 1x2
Rating: R
Warnings: AU, drugs, language, vague sex lol
Knock. Knock knock knock.
Knockknockknockknockknock.
“What the hell?” I sputtered, jolted out of sleep by some maniac knocking on my door at four in the morning. Rolling to face the door, I peered at it with blurry eyes, willing the person on the other side to go away and leave me in peace.
Knock knock knock.
Who the hell had this kind of tenacity to barge into my room and disturb my sleep in particular?
“Heero? I know you're in there,” came a muffled, slightly slurred call. Well, that answered that.
“Duo,” I grumbled, shuffling out of bed despite myself. “I'm going to strangle you with my bare hands.” I wandered blearily towards the door, shifting my t-shirt that had gotten tangled in sleep. “I'm going to stuff you in the toilet head first.” Gripping the doorknob in a loose fist, I considered for the last time whether to open it. “I'm going to stick your hair in a paper shredder. I'm gonna--!?”
No sooner was the door open than Duo threw himself on me, wrapping strong arms around my neck and pressing his mouth to mine.
I was shocked for a moment or two. Then, I remembered: Oh yes, we were doing this now. “Duo,” I said, managing to pry him off a little. “It's four in the morning. Please just go to bed.”
“What do you think I'm trying to do, man?” was the response. “Besides, Quatre is busy.”
“Busy? Now?” I was incredulous. “With what?”
Duo smirked. “With your roommate, I'm guessing.”
“Oh.” Well, that solved the mystery of where Trowa was tonight. I hadn't been aware this situation was quite so common on our floor. “Fine,” I conceded. “Come in.”
“Naturally,” Duo replied, trying to kiss me again in the damn hallway of all places. I pulled him through the door quickly and shut it behind us.
“We're going to sleep though,” I warned.
Duo gave me a look of total innocence, even as he hurried to peel off his clothes.
“Of course, Heero! You need your beauty sleep on a Saturday night. You have a long day of playing World of Warcraft tomorrow.”
“Shut up,” I said automatically. Duo laughed, pulling his shirt over his head.
“I don't even play online games,” I added.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, unheeding, broad hands shoving me toward the bed.
“Duo, I am too tired for... this.”
He pushed me onto the bed before crawling in himself, wrapping his legs immediately around mine. His hands and feet were cold, I noticed. He'd been out up until now, apparently. I wondered for a moment where he'd been, before cutting that line of thought off. It wasn't any of my business, really. For all I knew, he'd just crawled out of someone else's bed.
“What?” Duo peered at me in the dark room. “Why are you frowning?”
“Huh?” I mumbled. Frowning? “Nothing.”
“Good. Now come here.”
He pulled me down over him in the darkness, searching out my mouth with his own. Duo's brand of kiss was unique-- he had a way of nibbling along the edge of my bottom lip before swiping across and inside with his tongue. He liked to follow a deep kiss with a series of small shallow pecks, as if goading me into deepening them again. Now, he was pulling my head down with a strong hand at the base of my neck, one hand slipping up the back of my shirt.
I was tired and maybe more than half-asleep, but Duo had a strong effect on me. I responded to his teasing kisses with a deep, wet plunge of my tongue into his mouth. Duo gave an appreciative moan. He twisted beneath me for more full body contact, his chest warm beneath mine.
Did he know that I had never done anything like this with someone before? These sensations-- his tongue against mine, the feeling of skin to skin-- were all completely new to me. I found myself completely out of my league every time Duo wound up in my bed these last few weeks, constantly surprised and confused by the tricks he pulled on me.
Like now, when he pulled back, breathless from a kiss to moan in my ear, “I took something tonight.”
Okay, maybe Duo being on something shouldn't have surprised me. “What? What did you take?”
“Ecstasy. A couple of hours ago.” He curled his tongue around my earlobe.
“Oh... kay,” I mumbled. I had no idea what that was.
“I feel fine,” he assured me, “It just... makes this feel really good. Really good.” He leaned back into my pillow and grinned. “So don't stop.”
There was a sudden dark flash in the back of my mind again: Where did he take it? Who was he with? I found myself overcome with the desire to know. That was new.
I opened my mouth, maybe to ask, but Duo occupied it before I had the chance, and then I couldn't remember what I was worried about. Instead, I dug my fingers deep into his thick brown hair and pushed him hard into the mattress.
“I am also...” Duo continued, matter-of-factly, “... a little drunk.”
I peered down at him in the dark. “Anything else you'd like me to know?”
Duo appeared to actually be thinking it through.
“Nah, that's it,” he said finally. “Let's fuck now.”
What had happened to going to sleep? I wondered, as Duo reached into my pajama bottoms to grope my ass. I was thinking more about myself. Why did I let Duo into my room when I knew what was going to happen? Why didn't I have any control over myself when he was around?
“Mmm, Heero,” Duo moaned in my ear, and I couldn’t think anymore. I was reaching for the bedside drawer even as I tried to take my pants off with one hand. Duo was sucking the skin at my collarbone and undoubtedly it would be obvious to everyone tomorrow. Looked like it was going to be another turtleneck day. It was a testament to Duo’s power over me that I didn’t care at all.
I think I must have been terrible the first time we did this, but now we had a bit of an understanding of how the other responded, what they liked, and we found an easy rhythm after a few minutes of scrambled preparation. Duo rocked beneath me, talkative as ever, even in my bed. Beyond the pure overwhelming physical sensation, I could feel a strange tightening in my chest when Duo said my name. I watched him writhe on my pillow, against my sheets. I couldn’t look away. His wide eyes opened and held my gaze, and I felt something reveal itself to me before I could push it away: I didn’t want to do this with anyone else but him.
And Duo? What the hell was going on in that inscrutable head? Was this just something recreational, another fun excursion under the influence? Did it matter whether it was me, or someone else? Where had he been all night and with whom? Why hadn’t he... been with me instead?
Duo screamed my name so loudly when he came that I was sure I’d be getting looks from my neighbors tomorrow. He reared powerfully against me, a hand tangling in my hair and another fiercely gripping my back, and I was gone, too.
“That was incredible,” he murmured into my ear. I held him close, trying to ease the burning in my chest, but all I could think was: where was he tonight?
What did it matter, anyway? Why did I care? I was a boring virgin who studied too much and I damn well liked it that way. My life had been comfortably predictable before Duo had barged in and tilted everything off its axis. To him, this was fun, the way drugs were fun and staying out all night was fun. Why did I have to make it into something it wasn’t?
Duo’s eyes slid open and he looked up at me, his smile twisting a little.
“Damn, guess not for all of us,” he said, still panting. “Sorry.”
“What?”
“You look pissed. Did I suck?”
“No, Duo. No, you were… great.”
Now Duo pushed me off of him and sat up. Feeling uncomfortably vulnerable on my back, I sat up too, and we stared at each other.
“Okay…” he said. “What’s the deal?”
I couldn’t tell him I was afraid I was in love with him. That was crazy.
“Why do you never come over sober?” I said instead.
Duo’s gaze was disarmingly intense for a moment, like he was searching for what I was thinking instead of the stupid words coming out of my mouth. Then, he looked at his hands, folded above the crumpled sheets on my bed.
“It’s easy this way.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means, you have low expectations. I don’t mind that if it lets me do this.”
He slid up close to me again, his body warm from sex, and began kissing my jaw, the corners of my mouth, turning my head with one hand to allow him to press his lips fully against mine.
My chest felt so tight it hurt. What did he mean by ‘low expectations’? What were his expectations of me?
I wanted to ask that, but instead I said another stupid thing, to add to my collection this evening.
“You’re going to fail out of school at this rate.”
Duo pulled back from the kiss, his brows drawing together.
“You think because I show up at your door high, it means I’m high all the time? You think I’m stupid?” He shook his head. “I know you do, but hell, I hate when you make it so obvious.”
He pushed me gently down onto the bed and straddled me, pressing his mouth against mine. I suddenly had the feeling he was trying to distract me. That maybe he had been using this to distract me for a while.
“I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“Bullshit,” he muttered, laughing.
“I don’t.”
He stared down at me in the dark.
“You know I’m an engineering major? Same as you? Shit, we’re probably in the same classes.”
“I’ve never seen you there.”
“Yeah, well, that’s cuz I’m never in class.” He laughed again. “Not really helping my case here, I guess.”
A hand snaked down into my lap and started coaxing me back to arousal. It was too easy for him to get a rise out of me. I was incredibly weak against him, and I hadn’t noticed until it was too late.
“I pass all the stupid tests and turn in all the stupid homework they make me do, same as you. There, now you know. Will you get off my case?”
“So why?”
Duo dipped his head to swipe his tongue along my collarbone. “Why what?”
“Why do you only come here when you’re high?”
“I told you.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Duo threaded his fingers through mine, pushing my arms up over my head, pressing down close against me. He looked at me with that sudden, intense gaze again, not a bit of him seeming to be under the influence.
“Why are you asking me all this, huh, Heero? Does it matter to you? Do you ever come see me? Knock on my door?”
No, I hadn’t. Not once. I just waited in my room, knowing Duo would come eventually.
“I…”
“Since I’m the one with all the initiative and you’re the one with all the mixed signals, why don’t you let me come fuck you the way I want to, okay? If… if you want to see me, why don’t you get off your ass next time. You know where I am.”
He abruptly got off the bed and went to pull on his clothes. I watched him from the bed, suddenly afraid to reach for him. I didn’t have any right to.
“Quatre’s going to be pissed,” he muttered, “I told him he’d have the room to himself tonight.”
Then, he was out the door, without even goodbye.
I reached for my pajama pants and t-shirt. The bed was suddenly cold and uninviting, so I elected to sit at my computer and stare at the blaring screen, no longer tired.
I was an asshole. Duo was right. All I had to offer him were mixed signals. If I knew what I wanted, why didn’t I act like it?
Trowa came back to the room after a while, looking a little annoyed, and plopped down into his bed, rolling away from the computer light to sleep. I stared absently at my open assignment, willing myself to go to sleep, or at least figure out what the hell I wanted to do.
I was still there when the light began to pour in through the crooked window slats. The little clock on my computer said six. Jesus.
I slid out of my chair and loped over to my dresser, pulling out some clothes in the dark and throwing them on. I found my shoes and slipped into them, grabbing my key on my way out the door.
The hallway light was uncomfortably bright and I rubbed my eyes for a minute, orienting myself. Where was I going?
Duo.
I paused outside his door. I had no idea what I was going to say. But if I waited to talk to him until I knew what the hell to say, we’d both be waiting a long time.
Knock knock knock.
I heard muffled noises behind the door, someone shifting in their sleep. Jesus, these walls really were thin. This whole hall must have been listening to Duo and I for weeks.
Knockknockknockknock.
Someone said, “Trowa?”
I swallowed, steeled my resolve. “Is Duo in there?”
Someone else, someone whose deep, distracting voice I recognized, said, “shit.”
I heard creaking as someone approached the door. It swung open and there was Duo, his hair surprisingly loose around his shoulders, wearing a pair of boxers and looking pissed that I’d woken him up.
I realized he’d probably seen this look on my face earlier, and wondered how I’d ever gotten lucky enough that he’d ignored all my stupid annoyance in the first place.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, asshole.”
“Are you still drunk?”
He snorted. “No.”
“High?”
His eyes narrowed.
“No. That’s what you woke me up for?”
“Good. You wanna go somewhere?”
“What?”
“Grab some clothes, come on.”
“Where are we going? Heero, what the hell? It’s five in the morning!”
“Six,” I corrected. “So there’s gotta be somewhere open for breakfast. We might be walking a while though.”
He seemed to notice I was dressed for the cold outside then, looking me up and down.
“I…” he trailed off, for once having nothing to say. Then, “uh, give me a minute,” and closed the door in my face, leaving me in the hallway.
There was a yawn inside, and I could hear someone-- Quatre, probably-- asking him where he was going.
“He wants to take me to breakfast.”
“I thought you were mad at him.”
“Go to sleep, Quat.”
“But you were just--”
“I know. I know. Guess I’m stupid after all.”
Then the door swung open and Duo was dressed for the outside as well, in a knit hat and a hoodie, his feet jammed into boots.
“All right, Yuy,” he said, joining me in the hallway. “Where to?”
I laughed. “Hell if I know.”
“Sounds good to me,” he replied, and grabbed for my hand as we left the building together.
The End
Here are the first two installments:
Transcendental Meditation and Strange Medicine
And the third!
Title: The Come Down
Author: sistercacao
Pairing: 1x2
Rating: R
Warnings: AU, drugs, language, vague sex lol
Knock. Knock knock knock.
Knockknockknockknockknock.
“What the hell?” I sputtered, jolted out of sleep by some maniac knocking on my door at four in the morning. Rolling to face the door, I peered at it with blurry eyes, willing the person on the other side to go away and leave me in peace.
Knock knock knock.
Who the hell had this kind of tenacity to barge into my room and disturb my sleep in particular?
“Heero? I know you're in there,” came a muffled, slightly slurred call. Well, that answered that.
“Duo,” I grumbled, shuffling out of bed despite myself. “I'm going to strangle you with my bare hands.” I wandered blearily towards the door, shifting my t-shirt that had gotten tangled in sleep. “I'm going to stuff you in the toilet head first.” Gripping the doorknob in a loose fist, I considered for the last time whether to open it. “I'm going to stick your hair in a paper shredder. I'm gonna--!?”
No sooner was the door open than Duo threw himself on me, wrapping strong arms around my neck and pressing his mouth to mine.
I was shocked for a moment or two. Then, I remembered: Oh yes, we were doing this now. “Duo,” I said, managing to pry him off a little. “It's four in the morning. Please just go to bed.”
“What do you think I'm trying to do, man?” was the response. “Besides, Quatre is busy.”
“Busy? Now?” I was incredulous. “With what?”
Duo smirked. “With your roommate, I'm guessing.”
“Oh.” Well, that solved the mystery of where Trowa was tonight. I hadn't been aware this situation was quite so common on our floor. “Fine,” I conceded. “Come in.”
“Naturally,” Duo replied, trying to kiss me again in the damn hallway of all places. I pulled him through the door quickly and shut it behind us.
“We're going to sleep though,” I warned.
Duo gave me a look of total innocence, even as he hurried to peel off his clothes.
“Of course, Heero! You need your beauty sleep on a Saturday night. You have a long day of playing World of Warcraft tomorrow.”
“Shut up,” I said automatically. Duo laughed, pulling his shirt over his head.
“I don't even play online games,” I added.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, unheeding, broad hands shoving me toward the bed.
“Duo, I am too tired for... this.”
He pushed me onto the bed before crawling in himself, wrapping his legs immediately around mine. His hands and feet were cold, I noticed. He'd been out up until now, apparently. I wondered for a moment where he'd been, before cutting that line of thought off. It wasn't any of my business, really. For all I knew, he'd just crawled out of someone else's bed.
“What?” Duo peered at me in the dark room. “Why are you frowning?”
“Huh?” I mumbled. Frowning? “Nothing.”
“Good. Now come here.”
He pulled me down over him in the darkness, searching out my mouth with his own. Duo's brand of kiss was unique-- he had a way of nibbling along the edge of my bottom lip before swiping across and inside with his tongue. He liked to follow a deep kiss with a series of small shallow pecks, as if goading me into deepening them again. Now, he was pulling my head down with a strong hand at the base of my neck, one hand slipping up the back of my shirt.
I was tired and maybe more than half-asleep, but Duo had a strong effect on me. I responded to his teasing kisses with a deep, wet plunge of my tongue into his mouth. Duo gave an appreciative moan. He twisted beneath me for more full body contact, his chest warm beneath mine.
Did he know that I had never done anything like this with someone before? These sensations-- his tongue against mine, the feeling of skin to skin-- were all completely new to me. I found myself completely out of my league every time Duo wound up in my bed these last few weeks, constantly surprised and confused by the tricks he pulled on me.
Like now, when he pulled back, breathless from a kiss to moan in my ear, “I took something tonight.”
Okay, maybe Duo being on something shouldn't have surprised me. “What? What did you take?”
“Ecstasy. A couple of hours ago.” He curled his tongue around my earlobe.
“Oh... kay,” I mumbled. I had no idea what that was.
“I feel fine,” he assured me, “It just... makes this feel really good. Really good.” He leaned back into my pillow and grinned. “So don't stop.”
There was a sudden dark flash in the back of my mind again: Where did he take it? Who was he with? I found myself overcome with the desire to know. That was new.
I opened my mouth, maybe to ask, but Duo occupied it before I had the chance, and then I couldn't remember what I was worried about. Instead, I dug my fingers deep into his thick brown hair and pushed him hard into the mattress.
“I am also...” Duo continued, matter-of-factly, “... a little drunk.”
I peered down at him in the dark. “Anything else you'd like me to know?”
Duo appeared to actually be thinking it through.
“Nah, that's it,” he said finally. “Let's fuck now.”
What had happened to going to sleep? I wondered, as Duo reached into my pajama bottoms to grope my ass. I was thinking more about myself. Why did I let Duo into my room when I knew what was going to happen? Why didn't I have any control over myself when he was around?
“Mmm, Heero,” Duo moaned in my ear, and I couldn’t think anymore. I was reaching for the bedside drawer even as I tried to take my pants off with one hand. Duo was sucking the skin at my collarbone and undoubtedly it would be obvious to everyone tomorrow. Looked like it was going to be another turtleneck day. It was a testament to Duo’s power over me that I didn’t care at all.
I think I must have been terrible the first time we did this, but now we had a bit of an understanding of how the other responded, what they liked, and we found an easy rhythm after a few minutes of scrambled preparation. Duo rocked beneath me, talkative as ever, even in my bed. Beyond the pure overwhelming physical sensation, I could feel a strange tightening in my chest when Duo said my name. I watched him writhe on my pillow, against my sheets. I couldn’t look away. His wide eyes opened and held my gaze, and I felt something reveal itself to me before I could push it away: I didn’t want to do this with anyone else but him.
And Duo? What the hell was going on in that inscrutable head? Was this just something recreational, another fun excursion under the influence? Did it matter whether it was me, or someone else? Where had he been all night and with whom? Why hadn’t he... been with me instead?
Duo screamed my name so loudly when he came that I was sure I’d be getting looks from my neighbors tomorrow. He reared powerfully against me, a hand tangling in my hair and another fiercely gripping my back, and I was gone, too.
“That was incredible,” he murmured into my ear. I held him close, trying to ease the burning in my chest, but all I could think was: where was he tonight?
What did it matter, anyway? Why did I care? I was a boring virgin who studied too much and I damn well liked it that way. My life had been comfortably predictable before Duo had barged in and tilted everything off its axis. To him, this was fun, the way drugs were fun and staying out all night was fun. Why did I have to make it into something it wasn’t?
Duo’s eyes slid open and he looked up at me, his smile twisting a little.
“Damn, guess not for all of us,” he said, still panting. “Sorry.”
“What?”
“You look pissed. Did I suck?”
“No, Duo. No, you were… great.”
Now Duo pushed me off of him and sat up. Feeling uncomfortably vulnerable on my back, I sat up too, and we stared at each other.
“Okay…” he said. “What’s the deal?”
I couldn’t tell him I was afraid I was in love with him. That was crazy.
“Why do you never come over sober?” I said instead.
Duo’s gaze was disarmingly intense for a moment, like he was searching for what I was thinking instead of the stupid words coming out of my mouth. Then, he looked at his hands, folded above the crumpled sheets on my bed.
“It’s easy this way.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means, you have low expectations. I don’t mind that if it lets me do this.”
He slid up close to me again, his body warm from sex, and began kissing my jaw, the corners of my mouth, turning my head with one hand to allow him to press his lips fully against mine.
My chest felt so tight it hurt. What did he mean by ‘low expectations’? What were his expectations of me?
I wanted to ask that, but instead I said another stupid thing, to add to my collection this evening.
“You’re going to fail out of school at this rate.”
Duo pulled back from the kiss, his brows drawing together.
“You think because I show up at your door high, it means I’m high all the time? You think I’m stupid?” He shook his head. “I know you do, but hell, I hate when you make it so obvious.”
He pushed me gently down onto the bed and straddled me, pressing his mouth against mine. I suddenly had the feeling he was trying to distract me. That maybe he had been using this to distract me for a while.
“I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“Bullshit,” he muttered, laughing.
“I don’t.”
He stared down at me in the dark.
“You know I’m an engineering major? Same as you? Shit, we’re probably in the same classes.”
“I’ve never seen you there.”
“Yeah, well, that’s cuz I’m never in class.” He laughed again. “Not really helping my case here, I guess.”
A hand snaked down into my lap and started coaxing me back to arousal. It was too easy for him to get a rise out of me. I was incredibly weak against him, and I hadn’t noticed until it was too late.
“I pass all the stupid tests and turn in all the stupid homework they make me do, same as you. There, now you know. Will you get off my case?”
“So why?”
Duo dipped his head to swipe his tongue along my collarbone. “Why what?”
“Why do you only come here when you’re high?”
“I told you.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Duo threaded his fingers through mine, pushing my arms up over my head, pressing down close against me. He looked at me with that sudden, intense gaze again, not a bit of him seeming to be under the influence.
“Why are you asking me all this, huh, Heero? Does it matter to you? Do you ever come see me? Knock on my door?”
No, I hadn’t. Not once. I just waited in my room, knowing Duo would come eventually.
“I…”
“Since I’m the one with all the initiative and you’re the one with all the mixed signals, why don’t you let me come fuck you the way I want to, okay? If… if you want to see me, why don’t you get off your ass next time. You know where I am.”
He abruptly got off the bed and went to pull on his clothes. I watched him from the bed, suddenly afraid to reach for him. I didn’t have any right to.
“Quatre’s going to be pissed,” he muttered, “I told him he’d have the room to himself tonight.”
Then, he was out the door, without even goodbye.
I reached for my pajama pants and t-shirt. The bed was suddenly cold and uninviting, so I elected to sit at my computer and stare at the blaring screen, no longer tired.
I was an asshole. Duo was right. All I had to offer him were mixed signals. If I knew what I wanted, why didn’t I act like it?
Trowa came back to the room after a while, looking a little annoyed, and plopped down into his bed, rolling away from the computer light to sleep. I stared absently at my open assignment, willing myself to go to sleep, or at least figure out what the hell I wanted to do.
I was still there when the light began to pour in through the crooked window slats. The little clock on my computer said six. Jesus.
I slid out of my chair and loped over to my dresser, pulling out some clothes in the dark and throwing them on. I found my shoes and slipped into them, grabbing my key on my way out the door.
The hallway light was uncomfortably bright and I rubbed my eyes for a minute, orienting myself. Where was I going?
Duo.
I paused outside his door. I had no idea what I was going to say. But if I waited to talk to him until I knew what the hell to say, we’d both be waiting a long time.
Knock knock knock.
I heard muffled noises behind the door, someone shifting in their sleep. Jesus, these walls really were thin. This whole hall must have been listening to Duo and I for weeks.
Knockknockknockknock.
Someone said, “Trowa?”
I swallowed, steeled my resolve. “Is Duo in there?”
Someone else, someone whose deep, distracting voice I recognized, said, “shit.”
I heard creaking as someone approached the door. It swung open and there was Duo, his hair surprisingly loose around his shoulders, wearing a pair of boxers and looking pissed that I’d woken him up.
I realized he’d probably seen this look on my face earlier, and wondered how I’d ever gotten lucky enough that he’d ignored all my stupid annoyance in the first place.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, asshole.”
“Are you still drunk?”
He snorted. “No.”
“High?”
His eyes narrowed.
“No. That’s what you woke me up for?”
“Good. You wanna go somewhere?”
“What?”
“Grab some clothes, come on.”
“Where are we going? Heero, what the hell? It’s five in the morning!”
“Six,” I corrected. “So there’s gotta be somewhere open for breakfast. We might be walking a while though.”
He seemed to notice I was dressed for the cold outside then, looking me up and down.
“I…” he trailed off, for once having nothing to say. Then, “uh, give me a minute,” and closed the door in my face, leaving me in the hallway.
There was a yawn inside, and I could hear someone-- Quatre, probably-- asking him where he was going.
“He wants to take me to breakfast.”
“I thought you were mad at him.”
“Go to sleep, Quat.”
“But you were just--”
“I know. I know. Guess I’m stupid after all.”
Then the door swung open and Duo was dressed for the outside as well, in a knit hat and a hoodie, his feet jammed into boots.
“All right, Yuy,” he said, joining me in the hallway. “Where to?”
I laughed. “Hell if I know.”
“Sounds good to me,” he replied, and grabbed for my hand as we left the building together.
The End