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"Lasting Impressions"Written By: Dragonmistress_7 Disclaimer: I don't own the Gundam Wing Boys.
Lasting Impressions Chapter 8 Heero shouldn't have been surprised when everyone had
birthday gifts for Taro the following morning, but he was. They weren't
big or In Taro's opinion, it only got better from there. He and Heero took the others on tour of the grounds and nearby shrine. Everyone went out of his or her way to entertain the boy. They couldn't help themselves. His laughter was infectious and each of them secretly mused that, perhaps, this was the child that Heero could have been, had circumstances been different. Heero's smile for his brother, though rare, was genuine now. He'd put aside his fears for the moment. If his brother was dying, all he could do at the moment was be happy that he was still alive right then. And, if he fell asleep halfway through their ramble, and Heero had to carry him, at least he had this time to be close to Taro. The others, wisely, did not comment on the boy's sudden loss of energy. As they walked back toward the house, Heero looked down at his sleeping brother. "Some people think we should have him in a hospital so the doctors can poke at him and pretend they can do something," he heard himself saying. "But we decided that we'll let him have his freedom for as long as we can. He's happy here. He makes good memories, for himself and those around him." Abruptly, Heero clamped his mouth shut, amazed that he had shared that much of a private family matter. Heero took Taro into the house without waiting for approval he didn't need. He put his brother to bed, and watched him draw uneven breaths. Tomorrow, he'd call about that navigation system, threaten them with taking his business elsewhere. He loved his brother, he really did. That was what made being around him so hard. Despite anything Heero could say, it was two days later before Heero was loading his bag back into the jeep. Taro had shadowed him for the entire morning. "Do you really have to go right now?" the boy asked, clearly distressed. Heero scooped him up. "I really do, right now, little brother. I'm already running late." Taro smiled a little in spite of himself. "You hate to be late. Papa says it gives you the fidgets." "I do not fidget," Heero said with finality. "I told Papa that," Taro agreed, "but he said you used to fidget, and that you still want to sometimes, like when you're late." Heero know from experience that to continue the conversation would be pointless. The child had a gift for getting him to talk, and an even greater one for having an answer for everything. Instead, he hugged his brother and placed him on the ground. "I've got two-and-a-half weeks on this run, maybe another two weeks to tie up loose ends with the business, and then I'll be home to spend every waking moment with you, okay?" Such a long wait was most certainly not, but what could he say? "Okay." Heero was still thinking of that forlorn word well after Duo had gotten the shuttle into space while he himself had sat looking blankly out a window. Duo gently touched his shoulder, careful not to make skin-to-skin contact. "You have to let it go for now. There will be time for worry later," he advised quietly. Heero nodded. "Yeah." He got up and left the cockpit. Duo sighed and settled back into the copilot's chair, pulling a battered book from his bag. This was the personal journal of an Allateleion who had lived some four or five hundred years before. He wasn't really sure how he'd gotten it. He'd found it in a stack of books checked out of the library for him, but the library had no knowledge of the book. He had kept it, but had never had a chance to read it. The first few entries were parallels to his own life. They described the young woman's training and betrothal. The fifth was written the day after her marriage. "I was a bit afraid that my Lord husband would be disappointed with me, as I did not think I could bond with him based on what my senses were telling me. All through the wedding I feared, but, of course, my wise husband knew better than I. After the ceremony, he took me to the marriage bed. What happened next nearly defies description, but I will try. It was…a scrambling of the senses. They ebbed and flowed like the tide. I saw colors, but I tasted them, too. I scented sounds, and heard textures, and somewhere in the jumble, the perfect ones, the ones I will remember and treasure for all my lifetime, pulled themselves from the flood tide and were planted in my spirit. That is a pale, inadequate description of Impression." Duo pondered this for a while. Impression, then, was fooling the sense that sought a bondmate into accepting a sexual partner. The fears that had worked on him, deep down, since the beginning of this journey, were groundless. He closed the book with a snap and shoved it back into his bag. Checking the new navigation system, more from habit than necessity, he got up and made his way to his bunk. Heero wasn't in the room, and he hadn't passed him in the hall. He dug out his monitor and turned it on, scrolling through the cameras he'd placed in various parts of the shuttle. Heero was in the shower. The possibility of taboo forgotten, Duo took a few moments to cast a critical eye over Heero's naked body. From the back, there was definitely nothing to be embarrassed about. He cut a fine figure of a man. Strong shoulders, muscular back, tight behind, powerful legs, it was enough to give somebody palpitations. Then Heero turned around to rinse off and Duo unconsciously brought the monitor closer to his face. Nothing wrong with the front, either! A defined chest, hard abs, trim waist, and- Duo suddenly realized that his mouth had gone completely dry. He swallowed, hard. What the hell was wrong with him all of a sudden? Something was out of place, different, somehow. A moment of deep breathing to clear his thoughts, and he'd figured it out. He was…aroused. From watching Heero? It must be the influence of the others, since everyone else aboard was attracted to men. The real question was: Now what was he supposed to do? Something like this had happened in the first book Heero had let him borrow, but such a solution for Duo raised all sorts of questions that nobody had the answers to. Maybe an experiment, then? What would the risks be? Duo pondered, and finally decided that they would be minimal as long as he didn't focus on any particular person. This decided, he turned off the monitor and thought about what he had just seen, but with the face obscured in his mind's eye. No, not obscured, disguised, by a mask. Yes, that would work just as well. He wondered briefly what it meant that he had chosen Heero as a template for his experiment, but was lost in his fantasy before he could ponder it. He used his imagination to bring his mystery lover to him. Strong hands helped him remove his shirt and hastily pulled his pants off of his hips. He tried not to think of them as Heero's hands, but it was hard. They traced the planes of his stomach and chest, softly teasing. Slowly, they wandered down to his thighs, just to torture him into wanting more, wanting anything he could get, so that when they finally touched him, it was as sweet and hot as the fudge on an ice cream sundae. He could taste it, taste the feeling. Then, it didn't matter whose hands they were, as long as they touched him. Slowly at first, then with growing impatience, the hands stroked him. Color swirled behind his closed eyelids, blue rubbing on his skin, green ringing in his ears, his heartbeat thick on his tongue, while the sound of his breathing was so bright that it hurt his eyes. There was too much, too quick, too diverse; and far too late. The color of the tastes, the sound of the touch, and it was a tiny little dragonfly in a great big rocking chair, you know how it is, greedy harpy? Just roll the dice and ride away. Eighteen, I win. The wave crashed into him so suddenly, he forgot to breathe, which was probably his saving grace. White-hot lightning raced through his skull, and as soon as it had stopped, he was fighting his instinct to gulp in air. He couldn't let any scent hit his nose or he would be lost, and he didn't know to whom. He slowly exhaled the air that was already in his lungs, waiting for the colors to subside. When they did, seeming like an eternity later, he cautiously took a breath. He smelled nothing but the scent of sex riding the air. That got him moving, albeit slowly. His sense of smell was better than Heero's, but he imagined a human nose would do the job nicely if his bunkmate were to walk in right about then. Come to think of it, Quatre would probably smell it if he just walked by the door. Tiredly, Duo found and used the most obnoxious smelling cleaner the ship had to offer and put his clothes on to wash with twice the normal amount of soap. That done, he fell, exhausted, into his bunk. He shifted until he was on his side with his back to the door, breathing slowly and deeply. His head was still trying to screw itself on straight. For a time there, maybe long, maybe short, he'd been stark raving mad. It wasn't a pleasant experience, and he didn't mean to repeat it anytime soon, no matter how good the white lightning had felt. Besides, it had been far too close there for a minute. He heard the door open and faintly, the sound of Heero's footsteps. His bunkmate paused, obviously taking in the sight of him stretched out on his bunk in a pair of stolen sweatpants. "Put on a shirt. If the others see that light show on your back, they'll know you aren't human." Duo cast a lazy eye over his shoulder to see that his iridescent back was gleaming in the light of the cabin. He blindly fumbled in the first drawer he came to, Heero's drawer, and pulled out a shirt. "Thanks for letting me borrow your clothes," he mumbled as he pulled it on. "Thanks for asking to borrow them first," Heero said dryly. "Get some sleep. You look worn out." "Thanks. I'm not feeling very well. I was crazy about half an hour ago." "Oh? Why's that?" The tone of Heero's voice said he wasn't sure he completely believed him. "It's… an Allatelion thing. I don't think it will happen again. I wouldn't have even said anything, but I'm still not completely right yet and it slipped out." Heero didn't reply to this. He just went to his bunk and lay down. Duo assumed he fell asleep, and followed suit. Instead of sleeping, Heero had lain in his bed and prayed in a general upward direction that things would go smoothly from there on out and that he could complete this run without any more incidents. Two days later, he knew beyond a doubt that someone was listening…and laughing at him, very, very hard. tbc...
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