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"The First Five Times"Written By: Clara Barton Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing. The following
is an intellectual exercise with no intention of profit. That said,
these characterizations, words, and situations are mine. Please ask
before reprinting. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: angst, language, sexy times Pairings: 3x2/2x3, 1x5, past 2x5 Summary: After five months in a 'friends with benefits' relationship with Duo, Trowa is asked to pretend to be his boyfriend for Duo's ex's wedding. A/N: For Crafty Companion, who requested a few
text posts using 3x2. I decided to combine all of them into one fic,
which you maybe intended anyway? ( (text): .a bottle of vodka. My
place. now,(text) pants optional,(text) wanna be my plus one for my
ex's wedding? And pretend to be in love with me?).
"The First Five Times" Chapter Four I drank too much, which was entirely Duo's fault. He insisted on ordering a bottle of wine, insisted on making a pretentious show of tasting it and smacking his lips together until I rolled my eyes and he smirked and pronounced it suitable, and then he had one glass and kept refilling mine. Celebrate, he said, his eyes dancing with amusement and happiness, with something that might have been pride. So I did. And after dinner, we walked on the beach, Duo lacing our fingers together and me bumping into him partly on purpose, partly because that had been a lot of wine. It felt like a date, felt like more of a date than almost any date I had ever been on, and I couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to date Duo - what it would be like to hold his hand in public, to lean over and steal a kiss while grabbing coffee or lunch, to have him introduce me to his friends as his boyfriend. His lover. The thought brought heat to my face. I was being ridiculous. I was drunk and stupid. We had been playing this game for five months - this not dating but fucking game - and if Duo had wanted more from me, he would have asked by now. I was his friend, and maybe, tomorrow, he needed me to be more than that - but that was it. He would never introduce me as his lover, and I would certainly never introduce Duo to my friends as anything - not with all of the shit Cathy gave me about Duo, the way she teased me about him, the way she made pointed comments about honesty and relationships. Alex and Ralph - the two strippers I worked with on outside gigs and the only two I considered friends - would either embarrass the hell out of Duo, or me. Probably both. And, of course, any of those fantasy disasters required Duo knowing what I did - knowing I was a stripper, at least. I couldn't begin to imagine what his reaction to that would be, much less to the knowledge that I was also a prostitute. I felt my good mood spiralling downward, felt the alcohol nudging it along into a dark place, and I wished, not for the first time, that I wasn't such a maudlin drunk. It was one of the reasons I didn't like to drink this much. A few beers, or a few shots, and I was fine - I was fun. But almost an entire bottle of wine left me entirely too introspective, and more self-critical than I usually was. "You want dessert? You want to go skinny dipping in the ocean? What next?" Duo asked suddenly, interrupting my dark thoughts and pulling me to a stop beside him in the shallow water we had been wading through. Considering our proximity to the restaurants and parking lot - and the amount of beach activity on a clear Friday evening - I thought skinny dipping was probably a bad idea. I also wasn't sure he was entirely serious about it. Then again, knowing Duo, he probably was. "Home," I decided. I was still full, and the thought of dessert was unappealing. Going home, though, curling up around him and maybe playing with his hair or laying back while he lazily sucked me off - that was appealing. "Yours or mine?" he asked with a smirk. I had been thinking of his, and it startled me to realize I had called his apartment home. "Doesn't matter," I muttered, trying to cover my embarrassment. "Well, your car is at mine... and my bed is more comfortable. Unless you just want me to drop you, so you can sleep off-" "No. I like your bed better, too." He grinned at me and leaned up to press a quick, gentle kiss to my lips. "Good. I like my bed better with you in it." He held my hand on the walk back to the car, not so much pulling me after him as guiding me through the surf, making sure I didn't lose my balance entirely, but letting me take my time. When we got back to his place he led me to his bedroom, holding my hand again, and undressed me slowly, carefully - with none of the frantic lust from earlier - and when we were both naked, we crawled into bed and he spooned against my back, the steady thrum of his heart reminding me of the ocean. "I, uh, I should warn you, about tomorrow," he said, just as I felt my eyelids start to grow heavy and began to contemplate sleep. "My duties as your fake boyfriend?" "Yeah. That. I... I should have told you this a long time ago, but... well. I'm an asshole, and it was nice meeting someone who didn't know and..." He trailed off, and he was quiet for so long I wondered if he had fallen asleep. I pulled away from his arms and rolled over to look at him. He was definitely awake, his dark eyes staring intently into mine, and in the dim light of the bedroom I could make out a grimace on his face. I waited for him to continue. "I think I mentioned, before, that I had a brother?" "Solo." Duo had mentioned him twice - once, in the hospital when we first met, to tell me he was dead. A second time had been two months ago, when Solo's birthday had passed and Duo had mentioned it and begged me not to let him think about it. "Yeah. He and I... We were fucking stupid, as kids. We did all kinds of bad shit and... Well, the short of it is that we were pretty heavily into drugs, mostly heroin, but some of the club shit too. When I was twenty-five, he overdosed - died in my fucking arms, and I... Well, I guess I realized we weren't immortal and I went into rehab, got myself sober, and I met Fei. He was my sponsor." That was a lot to process, and I struggled with it for several minutes. Duo as a drug addict... made complete sense to me. I remembered how he had refused to fill the prescription on his pain medication - his opioid pain medication - after he had been shot. And there had been that one time, before we had started fucking, when Alex had given me some Ecstasy and I had brought it home, had taken one pill and offered Duo the other and Duo had stared at me like I was crazy, had forced water down my throat and sat with me for hours until I came down from it, and then he had gone home without saying a word. It also explained the drinking - or his usual lack of. I wondered how it had affected his work. He had been a nurse for five years now - so before Solo's death, before going into rehab. I wasn't about to ask, but I had to wonder. I also wondered how much of his failure to get into med school was related to that... The sidetrack my thoughts were taking was abruptly derailed as I thought about the last thing Duo had said. "You dated your sponsor?" "Not... at first. For six months, we just... Hell, I thought he fucking hated me, thought he looked at me and saw the scum of the earth and I... I was always a fucking disappointment to him. It took me so fucking long to get my shit together, and I kept... I kept fucking up. Having bad moments that turned into bad nights that turned into bad weeks and..." "How long have you been clean?" I asked. "Five-hundred and forty-five days," he answered with a faint, crooked grin. "I drink still, sometimes, but that... that was never my problem. Easy to walk away from a bottle. Not so much everything else." I could understand that. I could definitely appreciate the difference. What I couldn't understand or appreciate was the fact that Fei had dumped Duo and moved in with his best friend - two people who should have cared more, should have- "Hey," he reached out and ran his thumb over the crease between my eyes. "Don't go thinking bad shit about whatever or whoever. I just wanted you to know, in case someone mentions something. It's not... it's not who I am anymore, but, well, I guess it's always who I'm gonna be. And I really should have told you, before. I just..." "I understand," I interrupted his apology. I did understand, completely. He didn't want me to think of him like that, to look at him take a drink and wonder if he wanted to get high. Just like I didn't want him to watch me go down on him and wonder if I sucked his dick the same way I did my clients. It was nice not knowing, not being afraid. It was nice to be this part of me and not all of me. "You're incredible," I told him. Duo snorted derisively. "No, I'm fucking not. I'm just barely hanging on, Tro. Every damn day is a fucking struggle, and I- There's so much shit I regret. Solo. Solo- and... I did some really stupid, fucking fucked up stuff, Tro. I put myself in situations... I let..." He trailed off and shook his head. "I'm not incredible. I'm scraping by, and I'm lucky as hell to still be alive." "Me too," I had to agree, and he gave me a sharp look. He knew, in the vaguest sense, that I hadn't had an easy childhood, that I had never finished high school and that I had spent years roaming the country before settling in LA, before finding my steady employment as a "bartender." Duo never pressed for details, but he always seemed interested, willing to listen, on the very rare occasions I did talk about myself. "Tro- you're incredible. Going back to school - putting your life together and, hell, letting drunk people grope you at work. You're a fucking saint." I was glad for the darkness, for his inability to see my flush of shame. "We're both lucky," I decided, and leaned forward to press a kiss to his lips, lingering until he opened his mouth and let me swipe my tongue against his. He sighed, relaxing against me and wrapping a hand around the back of my head to pull me close. When we pulled apart, I pressed my forehead against his and closed my eyes, breathing him in and trying to push away my guilt, my cowardice. Eventually, I fell asleep. -o- ~ * ~ |
