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"Son Of A Preacher Man "Written By: Jo Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing. Have nothing.
I write for the fun of it. Rating: PG (for now) Warnings: AU, shounen-ai, slight OOC(?) Pairings: 1+2 (for now), developing to 1x2 at
the end. Summary: The boys are a little older but still
not old enough to..*cough*..yeah. I am reserving that for the "college
year". Still fixated on Heero's personality so I'm trying to
explain the why's and the how's. This is also the first time I worked
with betas. Thanks so very much to Andie, DMx04 and Ryouga for being
such wonderful betas. I never realized incorporating all the revisions
could be such a challenge! If I missed something..gomen ne! Next time
though I'll do better! I thought of a system now.yeah now. Big cyber
hugs!
Son Of A Preacher Man Chapter 5 Duo and I never spoke of it, the incident in my room, as if it had never happened. We skirted around the naked figure standing soundless between us, red-faced, hands cupping his genitals in a rush to hide, and began doing this odd little two-step of stealing glances at each other while the other was not looking. Conversations more than once died in mid sentences, leaving open ends to words unspoken. And in the mornings, we fell into a new routine. He would come over as he usually did, through the chain link gate into the backyard and through the kitchen door into the house, using the secret key. Except he resorted to leaving a trail of rattling noises in his wake while making coffee, treading on every loose, squeaky floorboards as he moved through the house, and yelling at me to get up from the bottom of the stairs. The first morning he did that was nerve wrecking, the second was disheartening, and the third was just plain depressing. I jumped and scrambled out of bed every time as if I was getting caught all over again. Deflated and dejected, I decided to just meet him half way and salvage whatever that’s left of us, even though I wasn’t sure what “us” was anymore. The fourth morning found me perched on a kitchen stool, sulking but fully dressed for work, waiting for Duo to come over. The fuzzy light underneath the oven hood flooded the room with an unearthly yellow, stretching and distorting my shadow on the wall. I sat motionless, trapped in a pitiful moment, reliving the scandalous details of that morning over and over again, but not without good reason. My thoughts fluttered around the boy who gave me chicken pox, set fire to my favorite white shirt when I was still in it, and wrecked the battered, old ten-speed I bought with money I made from my paper route. The boy who cried more tears than I did when I broke my wrist falling off the monkey bar, who came to every single one of my swim meet and cheered until he was hoarse. But most of all, I thought about the boy whose lap I used to rest my head upon on B movies night as I stretched lazily on the couch. The popcorn in my hair never bothered me much, I was comfortable, and I would have stayed forever. The fluorescent display on the microwave piously counting away seconds and minutes of a new day, my thoughts turned to that of my mother. I wondered what she would say or do when, not if, she learns of my predicament. I wondered if I had turned out a disappointment, how ironic that the boy who spent all of his young life playing it safe and playing it by the book turned out to be a rule breaker after all. Alas, my summer of ironies marched on. Completely undermining my ability to roll out of bed on my own free will, Duo was taken aback when he found me brooding in the kitchen. I let loose a smug grin and nonchalantly offered to help with breakfast as if that was my plan all along, hiding the nervous pangs in the pit of my stomach. Duo didn’t answer me immediately, in fact, he didn’t answer me at all. He stood by the door, half submerged in shadows clutching a pack of sausages wrapped in white wax paper, his eyes darted uncertainly between me and the kitchen floor, his lips pressed together tightly into a thin hard line. My heart sank. Naked Heero peered out from behind Duo’s left shoulder, mouthing, “nice try, ace!” and flipped me off before he left the room. I started muttering dolefully a lame excuse to flee the kitchen when Duo thrust the package in my hands and crooked a finger for me to follow him. His eyes revealed a flash of brightness and his lips curled deliciously. I couldn’t help the full fledge smirk I was wearing, shamelessly showing my glee as I followed him around the kitchen. The pockets of my jeans suddenly heavy with hope. We worked in amiable silence, not quite catching each other’s gaze, not quite carrying out a conversation, him minding the skillet and me handing him the spoon, throwing out the eggshells when he asked me to. We worked together like a well-oiled piece of machinery. And between the splattering oil, the bubbling eggs and the plump, browning sausages, the awkwardness between us fizzled into nothingness leaving only an old familiar feeling of coming home. We settled down at the kitchen table when we were done, next to each other but at a corner, and buried ourselves in food. To say Duo enjoys his breakfast is an understatement; his obsessive-compulsive approach to breakfast often takes the most important meal of the day far beyond toast and jelly. Most mornings we have enough left over to brown-bag our lunches. The morning paper was erected upright between us, Duo scanning the sports page on one side, me reveling in the moment on the other side when an arm unexpectedly reached over and shoved me hard on my shoulder throwing me off balance. My chair rocked, my fork slipped and eggs flew over the edge of my plate. A muffled snicker rang out from behind the flimsy barrier. A bosomy lingerie model with pouty lips and very little coverage winked and smiled seductively at me on a full page spread, beckoning me. Returning my eyes to my well-stacked plate, I answered her call, extended my arm and shoved him back without looking, stifling a rapidly growing lopsided grin. I heard the sinister chuckle before I saw the white and yellow cluster of eggs plastered on my shirt. The newspaper lowered, Duo was holding a spoon with an amused eyebrow raised, his lips curled upwards mischievously, his eyes searching and waiting. I did what was expected of me. I retaliated. Within minutes, my mother’s otherwise spotless kitchen floor looked like a war zone, littered with carelessly discarded scraps of food. After having chased each other around the table with eggs in one hand, sausages in another, and sending toast rockets shooting through the air, Duo and I stood breathless, leaning by the sink, out of ammunition and chuckling like children. He had eggs in his hair and bits of a dead animal in his ears but he didn’t seem to care. It was the first time I heard him laugh since the incident. We decided to call it truce when we realized it was getting dangerously late for us to get to work on time. Duo playfully squirted water and soapsuds at me while he was washing up at the sink, still smiling to himself. The morning sun crawled slantingly into the kitchen slowly yet unwavering. It lit up, first, Duo’s eyes, then his smile, and finally the room behind him. He simply glowed. I was almost all wet when I realized what he was doing. I caught one of his wrists instinctively; he chuckled sheepishly, looking like a kid in trouble. I couldn’t help myself and pulled him closer to me with a forceful tug. He stumbled forward a little and when he regained his balance, he was so close I could smell the faint delicious scent that is uniquely Duo’s. It almost felt like time had stopped. What was hilarious a minute ago suddenly wasn’t that funny anymore. The only sound I heard was the running water, splashing in the sink, and the pounding of my heart. I felt the urge to lean closer to him, press my body to his and feel the brightness and hopefulness of a new day channeling through him. Instead I brought my other hand up and brushed away gently the crumbs caught in the web of his bangs. He was flushed and his breath raspy, the warmth of his skin burning the palm of my hand. Duo almost looked nervous, his eyes widened, his expression unreadable but he held my gaze and didn’t shy away from me. I couldn’t and wouldn’t give in to my urges, I bit my lower lip and backed away, following the flight of naked Heero, hiding from the sun, and ran off to a dark deserted corner. I was determined to not derail this train back to normalcy. Duo and I met in the kitchen every morning since the Battle of Eggs and Sausages but we had refrained from playing with our food. As much fun as it was, the two-hour clean up was somewhat of a drag, an anti-climax. I came across one of Duo’s studded earrings cleaning the kitchen floor that day, one he lost when he was busy shoving sausages down the front of my shirt. He shrugged it off when he found it missing, it wasn’t anything spectacular but I secretly pocketed it, the simple silver stud, and saved it for the day I missed him most after we had gone our separate ways. TBC
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