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"Cockpit Pickup"Written By: Kaeru Shisho Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Gundam Wing
or its characters, nor do I make any monetary profit off this story. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: AU, shounen-ai, rated for language and
suggestiveness Pairings: 1x2 Summary: A misunderstanding keeps Heero and Duo apart until fate steps in to help . "Cockpit Pickup" The music thrummed to my heartbeat, a little too much. I had to get outta the place, away from the noise, and go home while I could still remember why I'd come. At least I'd had the forethought to walk from work to the bar and not check out a car from the Preventers garage, even though I was just going out for one drink, one smashing, good drink. I'm really the occasional-beer, never-alone, just-for-the-fun-of-it type guy. I hadn't intended to drink so much. 'Course, I knew the agency had a number I could call for a ride home, so who knows what my id was thinking when it dragged my ego out to a notorious gay bar, but my moralizing superego was hiding in fear and not wanting to get involved. So much for the self-correcting nature of my "psychic apparatus," to quote Chang Wugmund Freud. Commander Une, who was the head of the still embryonic Preventers program, didn't want her agents embarrassing her by roving about intoxicated and stacking up "drunk and disorderlies," which happened because eventually the pressures of the job could really get to some folks. So, she created the pickup program and made us all memorize the number "just in case." Preventers: Protecting the World; it was some job description. It was mine and, funny, I could handle the stress of that, but life in general? Or just LIFE. I guess I'd discovered my limits. This would be my first use of the service. "'Lo, yeah, agent 'oh-two' and I need a ride home." I waited for the call to get transferred. Next I spoke to a perky phone jockey wanting my location and, once again, my identification. "I'm at the Cockpit. Huh? Ah, 'Oh-Two'." More chatter. "No, it's not a pilot hangout." I guess 'Cockpit' did have an aeronautical ring to it, especially to the straight community. "Listen, is there someone you can send in this century? Yeah, thanks. Sorry, it's just... just been a long day. Yeah, work, sure. I'll be waiting outside. Safe? Who, me or the poor sucker who might try and mug me? Heh, heh... yeah. Okay, thanks, darlin'." I put away my nearly dead cell phone and headed for the john to take a leak. (o) As I signed out for the night, I overheard the phone operator take a call. I don't usually eavesdrop on calls, but the agent on the other end identified himself as "Oh-Two". That was Duo Maxwell. What in hell was he doing out drinking? It would affect his job quality the next day, something he took seriously enough not to drink to excess. I traced my name for the sixth time, buying some time, before the call taker repeated his location aloud. The Cockpit? We'd cleaned out a porno videotaping operation working out of the back room of that place when it was called the Rimshot. Now that had been a dive. So far, this reincarnation only served up drinks and loud music for dancing. Duo being there cemented what Quatre had been telling me for months-Duo was gay. Winner had been trying to convince me of other things as well, which led to an unfortunate incident, which, without much optimism, I hoped had not triggered this bout of drinking. "I'll take that," I said, reaching for the work order to pick up Duo. "Oh, Agent Yuy, you don't have to do that. We have plenty of new recruits on pickup call this evening." "I will take the job." I tugged at the paper and it came free in my hand. I didn't listen to her babble; I signed the bottom and handed it back to her along with the sign-out sheet. "Well, 'Oh-Two' said that he would be waiting outside. Good-night then, Sir," she said, uncertain if I was going to snap at her or not. "Thank you." I didn't have a reputation for being warm, but I had feelings, deep ones. I didn't waste my emotions on foolish confrontations. Anyone who really knew me knew how my decision making was driven by my emotions. During the war, it upset me to kill, even when it was intentional; I mourned the losses of those I killed by accident, and I avoided killing many people I'd later come to care about. I'd been raised by an assassin at a young age to "follow my heart" and that is what I did. I just didn't show it. She, I had no time for. Duo, on the other hand, I didn't want to keep waiting. (o) I know it hadn't been even ten minutes, but I was tired of waiting. I considered walking home, in the abstract, because I had no intension of doing so as the pretty mist, sparkling in the street light like "Some Enchanted Evening", warped into a steady, drab rainfall flooding the gutters. A really depressing, suicidal, "Gloomy Sunday" kind of song came to mind, but I couldn't hum that one so I was stuck with "Some enchanted evening... I will see my true love..." Me, gay? No way! Heh, heh... I was being sarcastic. I knew I was gay, but I wasn't usually flashy like my bud, Quatre. I considered calling a taxi, but I was low on cash, and none of the desperate men hanging around outside the bar looked like the type I'd want learning where I lived. So, I leaned back against the wall, arms folded, a single knee bent, and chin tucked into my chest to avoid a chance hit with anyone's eyes. I wanted to signal "not interested" to everyone who might have a notion to chat me up. So I waited and hummed my tune. A car pulled up with a screech and splash of tires. Five seconds later the passenger side window lowered and I heard a voice call, "Pickup for 'Oh-Two'. Get in." I looked over then, because I recognized the voice and couldn't believe it. Heero. "Ah, shi-it!" How humiliating! He knew who I was. It was too late to run or pretend I wasn't "that 'Oh-Two'". I was the only one, the one and only "Oh-Two." No, that was Heero-his name actually translated to "the one and only." I was Duo, the two-in-one, heh, heh. I thought that was funny. "I'm in a no parking zone," shouted my one and only. If only... Well, I decided that I might as well crush what was left of my ego and take the ride home. To do otherwise would have sent the other man all kinds of subliminal messages I didn't want to contemplate now or ever, so before he had to ask me again, I dashed out from under the cover of the roofline, opened the door, and hopped inside. Before I had my seatbelt latched, the car lurched away from the curb and into the traffic stream. "Uh, thanks. Go right at the next light, then-" "I know the way." "Uh, right. Sure." Why would that be? He'd never been to my place. I guessed he'd had a reason to look it up. Even though I'd never been to his studio apartment, I knew where he lived, because he'd mentioned where it was once- one single time. I hadn't been to Wufei's. Or Trowa's, if he still had his own place, having moved in with Quatre a year ago. Finally. Our social meetings outside of work had always been at Quatre's expansive, luxury downtown penthouse suite, for the obvious reasons-he always stocked plenty of food and beer. The way to a man's heart and all. I felt rather than saw his eyes rake me over. When I looked up, his eyes shifted to the road, and the world swam around me. I shouldn't have had that last highball. "Those aren't your work clothes," he said in a droll manner. "Nope." I ran my hands over my leather-clad thighs and slapped my knees. "These are for clubbin'." I sure wish my tongue was working right. I know I was slurring like a drunk and hated having Heero see me that way. "Club-bing," I articulated. "Hn. I never could wear leather. Too hot... against my skin. How long does it take for you to buckle into those?" "These?" I flipped one of the ten buckles attached to the outside of my pants from hip to ankle. "Naw, juss decoration. I git in at the zipper." I may have flashed him a peek at that, but I was getting blurrier as the drive continued. Not too blurry to notice that we were not going to my place. "Where are ya going to? Wrong way to...my place." "I want to talk. If I take you home, then you can slam the door in my face. If I take you to my apartment, then I have you captive (he might have said "captivated"). May I take you to my place?" That all made sense, but I didn't want to talk. "Why not?" he asked, which meant I'd said aloud what I'd thought I'd kept in my head, which implied my mouth was an open conduit to my brain, which meant my defenses were shot and judgment trashed. I decided that I might as well lay down my arms and capitulate without a fight. Instead, I lay down my head, in his lap probably, and fell instantly asleep, forfeiting any rights to argue I might have had. (o) I jumped when his head hit my leg. My heart was hammering a tattoo in my chest just from the sight of him. Contact sent a shockwave sizzling all through me. "Duo? You okay?" Having passed out, of course he didn't have an answer to that beyond a snort which became soft snoring. I divided my attention between the slumbering man and the road. Since I knew the path to my apartment like the back of my hand, and Duo, apparently, hardly at all anymore, I spent more time looking him over. The leather pants revealed every muscle, curve, and bulge of his slim, sexy body. He wore them extremely low on his hips. I couldn't tell what he had on under his leather jacket. More black leather. I noticed he'd even woven a strip of leather into his braid. He wore his cross on a gold chain, something he hid under his uniform at work and eliminated when he was undercover, so I could examine it now. I know it meant a great deal to him. A relic from his past at the Maxwell Church. But it was his expressive face that I studied the most. At most, he looked eighteen, although he celebrated his twenty-first birthday several months ago. So did Trowa and I. None of us actually knew our birthdates so Preventers assigned us one. The same one. The first year we were all working at Preventers, Sally brought in a cake and people I didn't even know gathered about us and sang a silly tune. They even ate our cake. I thought it was for us to divide and take home. I made a mess of that day, trying to fend off the cake eaters, but no one had warned me about how the tradition went. I distressed our co-workers so much with my behavior, I was told, that the next year Sally had three cakes delivered. The peons on the floor ate it all up anyway, after Trowa and Duo tied me to a chair so I couldn't, as they put it, "defend the cake's honor" (it was a joke and I understood that and laughed.) In any case, I thought she'd made a thoughtful gesture, but what I'd really cherished was the feel of Duo's fingers on my arm. He might have been tying my wrists to office furniture, but it had felt like a caress. Then he'd called me his "bondage victim" and I'd felt poorly used. Another one of his jokes because I was a gay man-- and surely I'd "get" it. The touch had burned. His touch this time nearly electrocuted me. My nerves were shot. But it was poles apart this time because I knew he was gay, too. Winner had convinced me of it and changed my perspective so that I looked at the man in my lap differently now. I don't think he'd aged a day since the war ended. I had sprouted a grey hair or two, Barton had crinkles in the corners of his eyes, Chang's frown crease was permanent, Winner's hair had thinned very slightly, but Duo looked just the same-beautiful, for a man. I may not have known what was going on inside Duo Maxwell, but I could have recognized him anywhere. I didn't care so much for the groggy, stultified "Oh-Two" I had to half carry from the car, through the garage, to the elevator, and eventually into my apartment to drop with very little remaining compassion onto my couch. I removed his shoes and set them by the door with my own. Should I stop at that, I wondered? I decided that the leather jacket could go, so I unzipped to reveal a not-a-shirt but a mesh vest in the color black. I didn't want his sweat on my couch and when he awoke he'd be sick and I didn't want him rummaging for water and aspirins in my bathroom. So I took precautions. I took a pair of sheets and a blanket from the hall closest, moved him to the floor, where he looked just as comfortable, so much so that I nearly left him there-but didn't. I draped my couch in a sheet and heaved him onto that. I stripped off the jacket and hung it over a chair, but stopped at the pants when I saw my fingers tremble over the zipper. I had my limits. I covered the tempting man in a sheet and blanket, hoping that out-of-sight was indeed out-of-mind, and determined that, yes, I was out of my mind for sure. If it were me, I'd want a painkiller and water the moment I woke up, so I pulled a bottled water from the pantry and set it near his head on the coffee table. In the bathroom, I flipped on the light and collected a bottle of pain relievers, removed two, and left the two pills on a clean napkin alongside the water. Just in case he was suspicious, I left the bottle of pills on the table for identification purposes. All throughout this, Duo never woke up. He grunted and sniffed, but remained dead to the world-- me. I called the watch commander at the Preventers agency where Duo and I worked. He gave me Duo's schedule for the next day, and since it was largely deskwork I called him in sick, and on a whim included myself. If Duo's powers of recovery transcended all reasonable possibilities, then he could go in and surprise them all. I was ready to bet a year's wages that Duo wouldn't make it into work and would thank me for my forethought in the morning. If he was sick, he'd need towels to clean up. On my way to my own bedroom, I laid out a couple towels in the bathroom for his use and partially closed the bathroom door to minimize the light but make it easy to locate in the dark. Just in case. The bedside clock said it was after midnight. I could read a few pages from my operations manual, editing as I went along, and still have seven hours of rest. My bed often served as a relaxed place to study, but not tonight. Two paragraphs into the paper and I couldn't remember what I'd just read. Apparently, the vigor I'd had as a teenager was wearing thin and an evening of overtime topped off with a night of babysitting left me feeling too drained to be of use. My concentration faded and my thoughts drifted to the man lying on my couch. I wasn't suffering from advanced age, it was him. Duo's presence distracted me. Just knowing he was in the other room, wearing skin-tight leather pants with buckles down the sides and a not-a-shirt was more exciting than my WIP manual. The smile on my face proved I was normal. What more might he need? I couldn't think of anything else to do for him. Had I thought of everything? I thought so. Pillow? Extra blanket? Aromatherapy candles? No, I'd thought of everything, I reassured myself again, and again. I set aside my work and went to sleep with Duo on my mind. Five minutes later I checked to make sure I had enough shampoo left in the shower, thinking his hair probably would take half a bottle. I don't know what I would have done it I hadn't found a spare under the sink. (o) I was retching my guts up at about 2 AM. I knew where I was; only Quat would have seen to my comforts like this--. Okay, it was not Quatre's luxurious penthouse suite atop the tallest building in all of Sanc. I did not know where I was. I did notice I stank like a pig that had rolled in stale cigarette butts, beer, sweat and puke. Towels and shampoo were set out, inviting me to partake, but where was I? I know I wouldn't have gone home with a stranger. Even on a bender, I couldn't possibly be that stupid. I rinsed out my mouth again and decided to inspect my surrounds. Tip-toeing down the short hall took me to door which was open just a crack. I peeked in and there was Heero Yuy looking back at me just as surprised as I was, just as tousled, but much, much more at home. "Er, sorry." Sincere apology worked for Quatre and I learned the niceties and art from him during the war. He embraced it to the max, lavishing the listener with earnest "so's" and heartfelt references to himself: "Sorry! I am SO sorry. I am, really. Really I am so, so sorry," and then some. For me, the single word spoken in a meaningful way usually conveyed my meaning to get pardoned for my offense. "It's okay. You all right?" he asked. "Ah, not so much." "You must have drunk too much then." "I don't even like drinking, but the place advertized highballs with catchy names like Freddie Fudgepacker and Cremedsicle and Cherry Hooker-I had those. Now, I wish I hadn't." "I left you water and aspirin by the couch." "Thanks. I'll get to that. I was thinking 'shower'?" "Go ahead." "Thanks, ah, go back to sleep. I'll be fine." "I will. Oh, the hot and cold are reversed... on the faucet." I had to think of where I expected the hot and the cold water to be, realized I wasn't mentally incapacitated, just exhausted. "I can fix that. Easy." "Don't worry about it." "Sure. Well, ah-" "Good night, Maxwell." I took that as my cue to leave him be. The shower was a blessed relief, that and clean towels, and the pills for my headache, which was threatening to split my head open and set up camp on another continent. Yeah, it was that bad. I couldn't get over how nice Heero was being, bearing in mind how not nice he'd been at our last encounter. Thinking made the throbbing worse so I stopped obsessing. I downed all the water and felt full again and human-- and grateful to him once again because he'd made up a nice bed for me with sheets to wrap up in. This was fortunate seeing as after cleaning up I had nothing to wear. I'd worry about that and everything else when it mattered, in the morning. (o) We are strong and then something comes along and reveals our fragility. I lay in bed watching the sun come up and pondered that. I thought about Duo until I had to get up and go to the bathroom. There I found a dead black animal that morphed back into leather pants and the not-a-top and something else I held up to examine closely. It turned out to be the tiniest leather thong on the planet-a not-a-real-underwear, which I flung to the floor faster than I drew a gun. Dear God! I took the collection to the kitchen, passing the slumbering, naked man with hair fanned out over the back of the couch, over the sheets, even over the front of the couch to the floor, and dumped the clothes into a grocery bag. I carried the bag back into the living room and set it by the door with his shoes. I knew he was naked because I had his clothes, not because there was anything to see but hair. Wrapped in my sheets and blanket, he was a burrito with hair. The clock in the kitchen said it was 9 o'clock. Late for work, had we been going to work. I started coffee. Duo drank coffee at work so it was safe to assume it was a preference of his. He could have chosen tea. What was I thinking? What was I going to do with him? Talk? I wasn't particularly good at talk, but I'd told him last night I wanted him here so we could talk. I owed him talk. 9:15. I took out the cookbook Sally gave me as a housewarming present and looked up "coffee cake." I had all the ingredients for a simple one, the instructions were simple, and I knew he liked both coffee and cake. 9:45. He was moving around at the tail end of his sleeping period, and I was frying bacon. "Heero?" "In the kitchen." "Um--." I heard thumping and then he appeared wrapped in just a sheet toga style and shiny brown hair past his ass. "Hi." "Good morning. In my room, my dresser, you'll find underwear, t-shirts; pants hang in the closet. Choose whatever fits. Breakfast is almost ready." "Smells awesome. Uh, thanks." He bare-footed thumped out and was gone a long time. When he reappeared, he'd braided his hair and he wore my oldest blue jeans and a ratty brown t-shirt I thought I'd thrown into the rag basket. "You look terrific," I said. He looked fucking fantastic in those clothes, my clothes, my clothes clinging to his body. "Oh, yeah?" He grinned and drew a deep breath. "I hope you are hungry." "I am. Coffee? That's cool; I'll start with that." I showed him where the mugs were and he helped himself while I cut the coffee cake into perfect rectangles. I stacked the crisp bacon on one plate, set in on the pass-through which served as a bar-like table. I refilled my mug and carried it and the tray of rectangles to the bar. Duo had already planted himself on one stool, so I took the other and we sat side by side and ate breakfast. For a minute or two neither of us said anything, satisfied to just eat and drink. He was the first to start the conversation. "While I appreciate the hospitality and everything-" "The ride, the accommodations, clothes, and food?" "Yeah, all that. It's been great and all, but-" "The catch?" "Is there one?" "I don't think so," I told him. "I overheard your code number at the desk when I was checking out and-" "You were working? You work too hard." "I- I know. I use late nights at the office to avoid thinking about what I'm missing." He dropped the piece of bacon he was inhaling and looked me directly in the eyes. Now that I had his attention, we could talk. Everything before was just passing air. "You picked me up on purpose." "Yes," I admitted at once. "You said you wanted to talk. Funny, the other night you acted more like you wanted to beat me up; now, you want to talk?" "Yes. I was... wrong. I was unprepared and my impulse was to eliminate the problem." "And I was 'the problem'? Gee, thanks, bud, for putting me in my place. Say, I gotta go. It's been strange." I rose partway with him and held his arm. "Don't go. Please. I was wrong. Everything I said and did was wrong. Give me a chance to explain-as a friend." "Hey, if you want to redeem yourself, well, consider yourself off the hook." "I haven't explained!" I pounded on the pass through shelf, and he winced. "It-it started with Winner." Duo sat back in his chair. "Okay, you got me there. Tell on. By the way, this cake thingee is great." "Coffee cake. Thank you." I knew he'd like it; at least, I'd hoped I knew he'd like it. "You left off blaming things on Quatre." "I was complaining to him about how you'd been pestering me-Eh! Let me say this, please, then you get your turn." He nodded and sipped at his coffee. "I wasn't pestering you." "That's what he said the other night at the Preventer's anniversary party." That travesty. "He told me all that stuff you were doing was just to get my attention and that you were flirting with me." Duo snorted and smiled. "Well, duh." I shook my head. "I told him straight men didn't flirt with gay men, girls did. I was aware when girls did all kinds of things to get me to notice them; my being gay was like ambrosia or something. You never did any of those things." He smiled and shook his head. "And you called me the idiot." "So Winner said to me, 'Idiot!'," and laughter rippled over through Duo. We both chuckled a minute then I went on. "He said, 'Duo's gay and just as unskilled as you. Now, watch this.' (o) I wasn't sure I wasn't just dreaming all this, until the headache pulsed and reminded me "This is your life, asshole." I was sitting at his table, such as it was, wearing his fucking clothes-his boxers! He made me breakfast and hadn't combed his hair. I combed mine! And the way he kept looking at me! Dear, God Almighty! He knew I had the hots for him, because I told him, ugh. And I knew he didn't feel the same for me, because he in no uncertain terms told me. I couldn't but wonder why were we here like this? Wasn't it because he kidnapped me so he could explain in person why he wasn't actually gay, attracted to me, or interested in joining the human race club I belonged to? "So Winner said to me 'watch this.'" Heero got up and stood at my side. Curiouser and curiouser-- "I did and he walked over to Trowa, who was listening in on a conversation with a group of other agents, and did this." Heero ran his fingers through his hair, adding spiky cool to messy. My... "Trowa acknowledged him, barely. So he leaned over and whispered in his ear." Heero did the same to me, his breath warm, tickly, his closeness cruel, if he didn't mean to turn me on. I could barely hear him say the rest. "I don't know exactly what Winner said, but when he pulled away, he had all Trowa's attention." Heero straightened and locked eyes with me. "He stared into Trowa's eyes then down to his lips and back. Trowa licked his lips and had him by the elbow, hustling out the door so fast I almost missed Quatre's wave as he whisked past." I caught myself licking my lips. Jesus Christ! "He flirted right there in public and Trowa ate it up like...like-" Oh, I filled in the blanks with no problem. "But that was them," Heero went on to say. "You, I'd known you for eight years and you hadn't looked at me that way or anything." Huh? The hell--? "I fucking told you I wanted to try us out, take our friendship to the next level, starting with me taking you to dinner." "Dinner? Duo, you propositioned me! Suggesting stress relief, mutual release, hand-to-hand -" "No! Well, yes, I did, but not really. We'd been on case after case, and not even together, and I felt this special... thing... for you for the longest time and I didn't want to lose you. You were zoning out, working too hard, and I missed hanging out with you-for mutual stress relief." Okay, so I am an idiot, exposing all my inner workings to Heero, AGAIN. I deserved to be shot down, AGAIN. For real this time. Shot in the heart where it counts the most. There he was looking at me with these serious blue eyes, piercing through and down to my heart. Direct hit! Aaaah! No, he was looking over my mouth. Now my eyes. No, mouth. Eyes! He was doing that flirt-thing Quatre had demo'd for him. If I was right--? I licked my lips, and Heero smiled. Now, we were communicating. "I thought you were looking for sex-" Heero said. "Not something I thought I had to look for--." I grinned and felt my face burn up when he smiled back. "Just sex," he emphasized. I shook my head and said, "I wanted more than that." "I thought you figured since I was gay I was good for a blowjob, release... Just a hook up and I didn't even know you were gay, too, until you flew off the handle at me and dashed out the door and Winner, that flaming homo, flat out told me you were gay and were just flirting with me--!" "Breathe!" I shouted at him before he keeled over. "Ah, 'Ro... You thought I was insulting you, and I was just trying to ask you out? How lame was that?" "Pretty," he sucked in the air, held it for a count of four, and let it out slowly, "lame. Winner would have hysterics." "Quat didn't even stick around long enough to find out what had happened after he left. I mean, he could have acted as a go-between for the two of us, like an umpire." "Arbitration? We needed that?" Heero asked. Now he wore a little amused smile I wanted to kiss, after cleaning Quat's clock. "Just at the beginning. He knew how incompetent we were. I gotta strangle him. When I'm done with the jerk he won't be able to hide in Peru with a llama herd." "Peru? Is that where he and Trowa shacked up?" Heero asked amid his chuckles. I waved an arm. "Maybe it was Bolivia." Heero was laughing. I sighed. I was no longer capable of holding a grudge. I noticed the time. "We're late for work! Une will have our hides stretched for target shooting!" "No, she won't. I called us in sick today." Talk about mind spinning possibilities! "That's so chill." (o) Duo wasn't mad that I'd taken the initiative and he was excited to spend the free time with me. I had several ideas for what we could do. "Wanna go rock climbing?" And... that wasn't one of them. "Is that what they're calling it these days?" "They-who?" "Winner and his...friends." "He doesn't climb." "He gets his rocks off!" Oh, mistake. I could tell from the look on Duo's face that I'd misinterpreted his suggestion. It was me. "I'm sorry." It was my turn to say it. At that point, I wasn't sure if he was going to stay or leave, but I wouldn't have bet a penny on his staying. He started laughing, and I felt so much better. We had a hope in hell of getting through a day together without drawing guns. When he stopped he said, "You have one hell of a dirty mind." "Not really. It's just around you I-" "I get you hot?" "Yeah," I said. "You drive me crazy, and I'd love to fool around-I'd just about love nothing more, you know? But, I don't want to lose my friend for a quick fuck. I meant what I said; I want to start out slow. Date." "Me, too!" What a relief! "Rock climbing sounds fine, for a start." "Good." "Then dinner afterwards. My treat?" I hoped he'd like that idea or I'd have to cancel the reservations I'd made yesterday afternoon before "opportunity" jumped in and took over for me. "Okay, then a movie at my place?" "Sure. How many dates does that make?" I asked. "Why?" he asked and I was afraid I would have to spell it out for him how much I wanted him now that I could. But then he smiled and his eyes twinkled. "Not enough." I blinked. "We hardly know each other," he said. I guess he was right. I couldn't wait to make his acquaintance.
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