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"Shadow Man"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: Yaoi, AU, angst, sap, romance, drama Pairings: 1x3, 2x4, 5xC Summary: Hardly more than a shadow himself, Trowa glimpses the shade cast across the concrete of another young man, who is about to make a fatal mistake. A/N: This story takes place in a universe more
like ours today, where the colonies exist, but not in space, and where
the world is on the cusp of change " Shadow Man" Chapter 9 Quatre and Duo returned to the hospital the next day, calling me first to meet them at the entrance gate. Quatre pointed out that I would be losing Heero-time to performances and that they had no problem covering for me, since rebuilding their friendship with Heero was a priority. What could I say to that? He was right and it would be good for Heero. "If Heero's okay with it, then... yeah," I said. Not that I wanted him to have to bear all the weight of the decision, but if he seemed not to like the plan, I'd back him up. When we posed the idea to him, Heero seemed agreeable, which was really important. He, in fact, jumped at the proposal. "I'd like that. Sure." And, whether I liked to admit it or not, the doctors had been right about something, too; the more visitors, the more sociable he became. He talked more and attempted more. The fact that I wasn't seeing as much of him may have had something to do with how I viewed his progress. I didn't think it was due to lack of contact with me that was helping him. We still had our care sessions, the intimate caretaker lessons, moments of closeness I treasured and he accepted philosophically, I assumed. The next week, Duo and Quatre no longer called me before they visited Heero, but I could always tell when they'd come. Duo plastered more of his skilled drawings of mobile suits on the casts, not real ones, but highly imaginary ones with enormous wings, energy weapons that looked like swords and whips, ones that could fly into space and dive under water. He included star clusters and jellyfish in his embellishments. Maybe those were aliens not jellyfish? Wufei and I tried to cross paths with the other two whenever our schedules allowed. It didn't happen often, but one time, he and I arrived soon after Duo and Quatre. They were already seated in chairs brought in from the cafeteria and deep in discussion with Heero. "I see you found your passwords?" Quatre asked, directing the conversation to a safe topic. "Yes, thank you for the help." Quatre beamed with joy. "Anything I can do for you...I'd be thrilled! Just call!" "Which reminds me," Duo said. He paused from his elaborate cast drawing, which from what I could see looked terrific. "That night when Tro' an' I ransacked your room, heh, heh... I musta stuffed a couple of your memory sticks inna pocket, 'cause I found these and they aren't mine." As it turned out, they hadn't been Heero's either, but with Wufei's help (a skill I hadn't known he had and made me wonder about his past), they cracked the security on the files and got a look inside what was, "Odin Lowe's," Duo announced in a controlled, low-key voice. Quatre gasped. "Those look like names, dates, credit transactions-" His jaw firmed up and he stared directly at Duo, who looked comparatively relaxed. "Perhaps we should do this another time?" "Naw, these are good guys. I told you. Tro's one to trust and he wouldn't have a bud that he wouldn't trust." I felt a warmth spread from the inside. It was nice that he had so much faith in me. I just didn't know what I'd done to deserve it. Winner nodded. "I-I was thinking of Heero." "This dude? He's tough as nails, er, well... concrete, heh, heh..." Duo knocked on one of the casts and laughed. "Aren'tcha?" "If you say so," Heero replied, smiling. Duo made him smile a lot. Was I was more glad that Heero was amused by Duo or envious of Duo's upbeat personality? I focused on feeling grateful and left it at that. Duo had already moved on. "How about this one?" Duo asked as he traded out one stick for another. "'Ron... er... 'Ro-geez, I gotta work on that name, don't I? Anyway, Hee-ro, you used to read Japanese-" "I still can, miraculously. This refers to a map, which is in another file. "Point 405 to Brev. 60 km. see .maproutes." Wufei materialized behind Heero's head to read the data scrolling across the screen. "Those look like troop movements," Wufei said. I noticed Duo eyeing him warily. "Yeah, they do. Funny you'd be familiar with information like that." "Duo, let him be. Don't pressure Trowa's friend." Quatre smiled politely. "Maybe we should talk about something else? I'm not comfortable with sharing sensitive material like this." "No?" Duo took this seriously from his expression. "What do you feel, though, coming from everyone else?" I wondered what Duo meant by that. Quatre certainly wasn't a mind reader or he would have been more afraid of me, with all my dark thoughts. Could he "read" our feelings? That wasn't possible, was it? I caught him staring at me and I tried my best to ignore him. I focused on Heero's feelings. "Do you want to look into this stuff? You okay with us all being here seeing it?" He was quick to say, "Yeah, this is interesting." His eyes roved over the group hovering about him. "I don't know if it's important or not, or if it's even real data and not part of a novel. Who better than my best friends to help make sense of it? It's okay," he assured me. Something we said must have clicked with the blond, because apparently he made up his mind to "be comfortable" with us and returned to looking over Heero's shoulder. Being referred to by Heero as a best friend again probably had something to do with it. "What about this file?" he asked. "Okay," Heero clicked a few times then read, "This file contains lists of passenger numbers, cargo volumes, and vessel id's. Here's one called 'passenger '." Heero clicked on a new file and opened it. "...the shuttle called "Greek" departed S-," Heero frowned with concentration before giving up. "Some encoded name, which was probably a location, on Saturday the 11th of November and... the year is further encoded... with 30 officers, 1 Warrant Officer and 1,084 men of the 1st Battalion Essex Regiment. It arrived at T-someplace- at 10pm on Thursday the 16th of November ... same year... and left at 6am the following day after taking on fuel, fresh water and provisions. The "Greek" arrived at CT- on Sunday the 3rd of December ... same date again." "Oh, sick." Duo whistled appreciatively. "Lookit this one, marked 'LOG'." The files included meticulously recorded information on OZ emplacements, strength, troop movements, and morale, details made more valuable in that every informant was named and identified as to regiment and location. In many cases, sketch maps were provided. At the end of the journal, perhaps in idle moments, he sketched out caricatures of a soldier, a civilian (?), and the OZ insignia. "Odin is a spy," Heero concluded. Wufei corrected him, "An intelligence officer. To use the term 'spy' is somewhat misleading, if you go back to the beginning. Here. There's an explanation. What we see are files containing information culled largely from debriefings of deserters, prisoners of war, civilians, and refugees, rather than from the sorts of covert operations typically associated with spies. But it is clear that the man who kept the log was charged with obtaining, recording, and analyzing the immense volume of randomly scattered facts." He stopped speaking and frowned at the others reading the files. "I don't feel comfortable sharing this data with just anyone, in case it's timely." "Where did you find these?" Heero directed his question in Duo's relative direction. "In your desk-I swear!" Duo said. "That means I must have stolen them from him." "Or he hid them among your memory sticks," Wufei suggested. He strode from the window to the door and back. "But I might have overwritten one by mistake," Heero countered. "Let's say you took them. Maybe you were going to pass the information along to someone else?" Winner asked. "Was that something I'd have done?" Winner and Duo exchanged knowing looks. "Yes," Winner replied. "I knew he'd done something to you to make you very angry. You wanted to get even." Wufei stopped his pacing and directed what he had to say next to Duo and Quatre. "If you are part of the war effort, you should say so now." I wondered at the change in Wufei's manner, what all he'd done in his homeland, and why he kept studying Duo. "We're not, um... currently," Duo was first to say. "But I'd sure as hell like to be out their blowing up enemy camps and OZ think tanks!" "We know a lot about the war," Winner gently interrupted his boyfriend's enthusiastic response. "In fact, my father employs his own mercenary corps for protection of his company's sites." "But they could easily become an attack force, if he needed one," Duo tagged on, looking directly at Wufei this time. "We can't let OZ take over the Sanc Kingdom." "And Heero wanted to help the cause," Winner said at last. "And you? What is your stand?" "I'm on the run. OZ destroyed my homeland and I came to the circus to hide. I am on your side," Wufei said. Duo opened his mouth to say something, but Quatre jabbed him in the ribs, stopping him. They may have said something, but my mind was elsewhere. The real world, the outside world, and my fantasy world were colliding. What had been peripheral events taking place mostly in news articles, was taking form right in this room, my Heero-realm of tranquility and healing. It was as if everyone I knew had been participating in the chaos of the conflict but me, and now, here I was in the thick of it. They all looked at me. What did I know? Not a thing. I just said what honestly came into my head. "I'm taking care of Heero." Duo grinned at me. "That's good to hear. He's needed a trustworthy boyfriend for a long time." I hadn't said boyfriend! I dreaded Heero's reaction, his denial, his - "My luck has turned," Heero said. And he smiled at me. "No shit!" Duo laughed. "He's an acrobat. You know like flexible? And hot- What?" "You are embarrassing them," Quatre said, angling his elbow away from Duo's side. "How? Am I the only one that notices how this room is practically seething with absolutely stunning examples of manhood?" "Duo!" Quatre shouted. "I'll be leaving now," Wufei said in a dash to the door. He was smiling though, so all was well. (o) I really looked forward to the time I had with Heero. It seemed especially precious now that it was in shorter supply. To be honest, with the two shows each day and countless other duties I had with the circus, I hardly gave him a thought more than a couple times an hour. The moment I was free, though, I took off for the hospital to see him. The talk of war and rising military action was insidious, cropping up around the circus and the hospital more than ever, either that or I was noticing it more. I avoided discussions about the war like I dodged most confrontations. I wasn't a debater and conflicts just depressed me. I had no trouble justifying my interest in being a pilot, though. Heero wanted that too and with Duo's unbridled enthusiasm for mobile suits, we were looking at going into one of those training programs. We all were, including Quatre. I wished Heero could have ducked the rebels versus the entrenched governments versus the armed forces versus the media's warped representation, too, but he was glued to the internet reading all he could to keep up with the latest stories. Sometimes, he'd recite a highlights-reel of information the moment I stepped in. I reckoned he needed to bounce his ideas off someone new. I made a good listener, having nothing of my own on the subject to contribute. In one ear and out the other was how I dealt with it. I was wholly infatuated with him, though, considering him to be mine despite the fact that he wasn't. He hadn't referenced the "boyfriend" implication/inference that Duo had made, and I certainly wouldn't, which left us in a murky relationship status. I was busy soaking up his personality, and missed- no, that wasn't quite right- I shirked some of my responsibility and didn't pay close attention to what all he was doing with his free time. He was pretty smart, a more disciplined thinker than I'd assumed for a jock-type guy. He drew reasonable conclusions; at least, so I thought. Heero Yuy, I discovered, could also be a dangerous man, even when he lay immobilized with serious injuries. "Hi," I greeted him and he glanced at me from his keyboard. "Hn." "Busy?" I asked. "Graduating us." "Really?" I laughed a little, imagining him Photoshopping our faces onto figures with cap and gowns, and moved the chair closer so I could look over his shoulder. What I saw was a page of rows and columns with class numbers and grades, good grades. He scrolled up so I could read his name at the top and down so I could see the totals. He'd completed his class work while in the hospital? He had final grades. "Nice GPA," I told him. "When did you do that?" I asked, then reinforced what I meant by adding, "I mean, taken your finals." "Today. You're done, too." "Ah-" That wasn't possible, and yet there was my transcript rolling past on the screen. "How is it you got that on your computer?" Before he answered, the final numbers flashed by. "What the fuck, Heero? I didn't finish and no way did I getting fucking good grades like those. I couldn't have done that good!" "I noticed you had a pattern of poor grades and incompletes at the end of every year. " All true, but- "What the fucking FUCK have you done?" He'd gotten me panting breathless with panic. "Fixed things. I wanted to be done with high school, so I began with me. After changing my records, I fixed yours." "I didn't ask you to do that." "I know. I did more. I didn't want to draw attention to the two of us by just altering ours, so I touched up a few of the more promising circus kids' grades." I was stunned. "Jesus fucking Christ, Heero." "I felt justified. I checked and found most of the circus kids had the same problem. Obviously, the school system makes no attempt to accommodate the circus' schedule. No wonder you all have rotten grade averages and can't get into colleges, those that want to. It won't hurt your chances getting into a pilot training program, either." Got me there. "You're going to be in a lotta trouble." "Not possible. I can't be traced and I have no track record of having computer skills. At worst, it could have been a random glitch, but the changes I've made are permanent, unless they want to go through all the archived records for all the students." He smiled at that. "But since they altered their database midway through this year, the archived record formats don't match the new record formats, which means they can't just reload the past ones automatically. It all would have to be done manually. It would take years to do a transcript by transcript comparison." "Oh." I decided that his brain seemed to be recovering well, in so far as his internet hacking skills went. "Do we get diplomas?" "Yes. Delivered to our home addresses when everyone else gets theirs." What address? I didn't ask, but he guessed what I was thinking. "Your sister wrote down your trailer address. I used that for you." But not for him? How would he get that from Lowe's place, I wondered? "Oh. You've been busy." I was already forgiving and moving on to the forgetting phase of acceptance. I hadn't much capacity for feelings, and I didn't want bad ones to push out the good ones I had for him, so I was already letting it go. My heart was still pounding. His face was close to mine. "This has kept me entertained lately. I could eliminate our debt to the circus for my hospital stay." "No, it wouldn't be a good idea." "I wasn't seriously considering it," he said. "As tempting as it is, there are too many people aware of my being here, piling up expenses. And, if I missed some detail, I might not be able to cover the money trail leading back to us." "And somehow lead back to the school record touch ups, too, which would be bad for you," I pointed out. "I said I won't, and I'm not going to." Our eyes met a second. Could he see my pulse racing? I stepped back so I couldn't feel the warmth of his body. The other way he had been passing the time, those interminable, intervening hours between visitors and hospital staff and sleeping, was to test himself, pushing his limits, and exercising. I knew he'd be proud of that. "So, what can you do? Show me what's new," I said. I knew this would please him, showing off a little when he could. "I can pull off the bed." And he proceeded to pull against the weights until he leveraged his entire body up, hovering a few inches off the mattress. "I'm suspended now?" "Yeah, you are. I'm impressed." "Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two-" I took up the counting so he could save his breath for the awful strain he was putting on his body's core. "-Twenty-three, twenty-four-" He quit at thirty-five seconds. "That... was... four seconds longer ... than earlier," he said, slightly out of breath. "That's great, really. You'll be ready for the rings in no time." "Rings?" "For acrobatic acts." "That's right. You do that. It's given you a great body." Okay. I really fail at accepting compliments, and that one made me blush when he combined it with a heated stare, so I didn't know how to react. My hands had nowhere constructive to go. I had to concentrate to keep from wringing them. He had to have sensed my embarrassment, but it didn't stop him from saying more. "I told you I'd never forget." Then he chuckled. Ah, fuck, my strip tease! "This coming from a guy who can't defend himself," I muttered and turned away. "I'm getting close to being able to," he said. "So I bet you do all sorts of things on those... rings. I've always been curious. What can you show me? How do you limber up?" That, I could do. It was the only way I ever did make an impression, so I demonstrated a few moves, floor exercises really, and then handstands and rolls. I couldn't show off without the rings and bars I used, but it felt good to have his attention concentrated wholly on me. It also pushed away all thoughts of the trouble he and I could get into someday. (o) Once again, only few days later, Winner, Duo, and I overlapped our visits; totally unintentional on my part. I heard them laughing in Heero's room from halfway down the hall. When I stepped in, everyone looked at me. I felt grouchy because I felt that they were horning in on my time with Heero. "Tro's here now, so lemme tell the story, 'kay?" Duo asked. Winner kissed him lightly on an ear. "In just a minute." That was the first time I'd seen them contact one another. It made me uncomfortable. It made me think about kissing Heero, which wasn't likely to happen anytime soon, and that made me feel even grumpier. "Can I say hello first?" I asked. "Hi," Heero said this with a smile, which made me feel better. "They brought my telescope." There it was pointing out the window. Not the one I remembered from that one club meeting. This one was all gleaming gunmetal and sinister looking. Winner moved to push the scope closer to the bed. "It can be positioned so Heero can look through it, although there's no star gazing from here." "There will be from my place," I said to Heero. "We got lots of dark near the lake. You'll get to try it out." I had Heero's full attention now. "You heard something. I'm leaving here soon?" "Yeah. It's weird, too, after saying it would be weeks more of traction, there on the clipboard it shows that they scheduled you for x-rays to check how the breaks have healed." Silence. Heero was staring at the blond, who had suddenly found a fascination for shirt buttons. "You should tell him what you told me," Heero said. Yes, Winner, do tell. "I offered to pay for the x-rays if they came back negative, so there was no risk to the hospital to just do them." Uh, huh. "But why?" I asked. "He once broke his wrist and it healed in no time!" Duo said. "Pretty amazing, really." The blond looked me in the eye. "He's always healed faster than normal. Never been sick. Bruises, sprains, no injury he had ever took the normal time to heal. If you don't believe me, there are records at the hospital in Sanc for the wrist break, I'm sure." I wondered why Heero's body could be so different, and Duo must have guessed what I was thinking. "We don't know for sure, but we think this man... Dr. J... was in cahoots with Lowe and using experimental drugs on Heero here." "But you don't know," I emphasized the lack of proof here. "We'll see what the doctors here say," Winner said. "If his bones have mended, they will be beside themselves trying to figure out the mystery behind Heero's remarkable constitution." "And if he's not healed?" I wanted to point out how disappointed he'd be and how that might send him into a depression, being the expert with that condition. "We won't be wrong, I'm sure. But if the doc's here don't believe what they see... Hey, we aren't making up the experimental drug thing!" Duo insisted. "I didn't say you were! If you're wrong, Heero'll have to stay here longer to get better!" I was angry that they couldn't see how disappointing that would be for him. "I can handle it!" Heero declared. He shut down our shouting. "I'm so sorry!" Winner cried out. "There really is no reason to rush things except I promised you I'd do everything I could to help." "I appreciate it, Quatre." Heero said that in a meaningful way. "If you can get out of traction," Duo pointed out, "then 'Tro can take you home." He grinned at me. "Wouldn't that be great?" "IF-" I stared to warn him against setting too high expectations. "-I'm not so sure," Winner cut in. "Even though I said I'd help, I'm not certain what I'm doing is right. He has expert care on call here and if there is an emergency, instant medical help. You can't offer him that, can you?" Well, fuck. "No, I can't, but he won't need that much. He's off the monitors, as you can see and off most the meds." "Chill, Quat. The doctors here won't let 'Ro go if they don't think it's a good idea. He's a fast healer. He'll be up and running in no time." Thank you, Dr. Upbeat Duo. "He hasn't moved in months! He's not going to be able to walk at first. Maybe ever!" Winner's face shed all its color. I could see the regret in his eyes. "Oh, Heero! I'm sorry! I didn't mean that! You will walk! You will! But it may not be right away!" Heero's eyes closed to block us all out. He'd open them when he was ready to converse again, which would be soon after Winner shut the fuck up. Duo pulled his boyfriend to the side, giving Heero some space. Heero even breathed a sigh of relief, my interpretation, before saying, "I realize how much I'll have to re-learn. I've had to teach myself to eat. I'll be fine, probably learn faster without all the staff waiting on me all the time. I have to... I need to get back to where I was before, at least, physically." "Of course! And you will. We'll all help whenever we can!" "Whenever you want us to," Duo clarified. Yeah, he understood Heero pretty well and how to temper his boyfriend's emotional outbursts. "Now that that's settled, can I tell the story?" "I want to hear it," Heero said, settling the question. I consented with a restrained shrug. "Cool. Okay, well, I wasn't too keen on breaking into Lowe's place and I forgot to ask Tro' here for the key so we-" "Took a different tactic," Winner filled in. "We had already established that Mr. Lowe was in his house." I bet. What did they have, surveillance equipment? Duo read my mind- he could not have decoded anything from my expression- and waved my question away with, "How? Not an important detail. Think of it as magic." A cunning smile spread across Winner's face. "Actually, I rang the doorbell, and when Mr. Lowe answered I entertained him, while Duo broke into the back window." "Not literally." He aimed his eye roll at Heero this time. "I jimmied it open. And I used this chill device of Quat's to re-route the security." "Nothing much," Winner said, waving Duo to silence. "I bought Duo time trying to reason with Mr. Lowe, arguing that Heron had a few of my things and I wanted them back. I offered to get them myself, but he wouldn't let me." "You musta argued good, 'cause I had enough time to get in and find the telescope." "I was the leader of the debate team," Quatre put in. "Gonna be a hotshot lawyer," Duo said with a wink. "Anyway, I'd scoped out the scope before... in his closet, but it hadn't registered at the time as something to take." I excused him. "We had enough stuff to carry without it." "Yeah. Oh, and I got your binoculars, too," Duo said to Heero with a loving pat to his backpack. "Don't let me forget to give them to you." "Hold onto them for me," Heero said. I knew from the warmth in his voice that he meant for Duo to keep them as a token of thanks. "Really? Sure thing. Just lemme know when you want them back, 'kay?" "Show him the other thing," Winner said. "It was in the mailbox, so we brought it along." "My diploma." Heero seemed pleased. "Thanks. Your timing was excellent." That's how I knew he and his old friends had been in communication. He'd let them know about his "graduation plans" and they'd timed their "visit" to Heero's house to coincide with the delivery of the certificate. Again, I fought with a serious case of jealousy over that. I didn't like sharing him with his friends and it was only going to get harder as he relied on me less and less for entertainment. "We all graduated!" Winner said, back to shining with joy. "We should have a little celebration." "I'm not feeling it." Duo shook his head. "This place has the worst atmosphere." I shouldn't have looked at Heero and noticed how let down that made him. The desire to make him happy made me impulsive. I felt compelled to make things right. "We can come... after hours. I'll bring the beer." Winner opened his mouth to object, for Heero's sake, I'm sure, but Duo spoke up first. "Sick! Tonight? How late's your last show?" he aimed at me. "You'll be feeling okay after that?" "I'll be fine. We'll meet in the parking lot over there, by the garbage bins at midnight," I told them. I sounded confident, even to me. "A private graduation party?" Heero seemed excited in a low key way, which buoyed my confidence in the plan. "Yeah." I nodded and smiled, fractionally. That's how they left us, Duo dragging his boyfriend out. I could hear him admonishing the blond to give me some alone time with my boyfriend. My boyfriend. If only. I caught Heero staring at me, probably weighing the same statement. Duo seemed to assume we were a couple. It was likely he and the others had talked about it when I wasn't about. Only Heero and I had avoided the gorilla in the clown suit stinking up the room. "It's okay with you?" "What?" I asked stupidly, because, well, at times I am just that stupid and tongue-tied. Heero huffed. "You're going to make me say it, aren't you?" I stopped with the dumb act. "No, it's not like that." "It's not?" he chuckled a little. My discomfort amused him, I guessed. So much for my earlier act of beer-supplying bravado. I wasn't at all sure of myself. Heero seemed open and honest and friendly enough, and he apparently had no objections to spending time alone with me, when he could just tell me to leave if he wanted. I wasn't at all sure that meant he was attracted to me. Because Heero had gradually assumed more and more importance to me, I wanted to make no rash moves that might drive him off. Like kissing him. I hadn't yet kissed him. I'd been thinking about it, more or less constantly, ever since, well, a long, long time, and especially hard the last few minutes, days, weeks- fuck, always. As yet I hadn't even begun a move in that direction. A gay Lothario I was not. I argued with myself about it, telling myself that after all he had started this discussion, and, after all, the guy had to expect me to kiss him, didn't he? But I didn't know what went on in anyone's mind; he might not be expecting to be kissed at all. He might be thinking of the two of us more restrained physically. Yeah, I thought that, stupidly. On the other hand, I wisely wondered: what if I didn't try to kiss him, and all along Heero was waiting for me to make the first move? Wouldn't that be just as bad if Heero did want to be kissed, and I didn't kiss him, wouldn't that drive him away just as surely as if he didn't want it and I did try? It was a problem. When all was said and done, I cared. I cared about him and what he thought of me. I'd known Heero for a few months now and I knew how I felt about him. It's easy, I guessed, to be a make-out artist when you didn't give a damn about the other person- just go ahead and try. If he goes along with the action, great, you're in. If he punches your lights out and stalks off in a huff, small loss. That was the difference. Losing Heero would be a big loss. I thought about it as I walked all around the hospital room, which, despite the slowness of my progress, didn't take long. In my passage, I loosened the window to make it easier to open from the outside, kind of making it look like my walk had a purpose. The room was small, and before I knew it I was back where I'd started, at his bedside. "That's enough for me," Heero said, and reached for my hand. "Stay put." "Fine." I sat down next to him, and all of a sudden there was nothing to say. I'd done fine with the small talk up till now, a lot better than with anything else, but all of a sudden there weren't any more words. Maybe because on the trek around the perimeter of the room I'd come to see the outcome of what I did was a small loss versus a large loss. Whatever the reason, right now I had nothing left to say. Out of desperation, more than anything else; the silence had been getting uncomfortable. For lack of anything better to do, I leaned over and kissed him. Just like that. I kissed him. It was a short kiss, and not exactly a ball of fire. I sat back a ways to look at his reaction, listening to the sound thudding in my chest, ready to counter an upper cut from his free arm. He smiled. "I thought you'd never do it." I wanted to do it again and do a better job, but the night nurse came in and pushed me out the door. "Let the patient get his rest!" I didn't remember the walk to the truck, the drive to the trailer, getting ready for the show, or performing. None of it. But that kiss, his warm lips, firm under mine, and his smile- I couldn't get either memory out of my head, and I didn't try. I had a chance at getting another kiss during out midnight tryst. TBC
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