By Keelywolfe
Rating: NC-17/ LEMON
Series: Being Duo Maxwell
Feedback: Yes, please!
Summary: Set at the very end of Episode 10, after Heero, well, you know, and into Episode 11 where Duo and Quatre are hanging out.
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing, it's characters, settings, Gundams, etc, do not belong to me, we all know that. I also do not own the song, Clare de Lune, by Debussy, which can be played solo on a piano but in my humble opinion, sounds much better with a full orchestra.
WARNINGS: For language, mostly. In my mind, Duo is a foul-mouthed little brat and I'm afraid it's reflected here. Also, this one is a LEMON, so if that isn't you're thing, you might be happier elsewhere.

Clair de Lune

I'd like you to know I saw the whole thing.

From the moment he stepped out of Wing's cockpit, it was like I was stuck in an old fashion picture reel, where I could watch but couldn't do anything.

I watched his Gundam explode into light. I watched him sacrifice his own life in one instant of shrieking metal before his Gundam collapsed to the ground like so much junk.

I watched him die. And for all my usual knack for speech, I could only think of one word to immortalize the occasion.

No.

+

A few days later, I was lodged up with another Gundam pilot, sprawled out on a bed in another borrowed room. For all that this was supposed to be a solo operation, I sure was ending up with a hell of a lot of people.

And lucky me, I'd found an old, crumpled pack of cigarettes in my bag...OK, don't start. I know how bad they are for you and that they turn your lungs into a gooey tar pit and on and on, but let me tell you something. When you've lived on the streets and you've been cold, and hungry and tired for what feels like a fucking eternity and you know that tomorrow is going to be the same, and the next and the next...well, sometimes you'll do just about anything not to feel that way anymore. There are worse things than smoking a few ciggies so be glad that my bad habits only go so far.

Anyhow, I was smoking one of the less mutilated ones and staring up at the ceiling fan. How quaint. A hideout with a ceiling fan, and even a goddamned piano somewhere. I could hear someone playing right now. My money is on the Winner kid. Those other guys looked about as likely to play the piano as they did to moonlight in drag on off weekends.

He was playing some song that I vaguely recognized, moonbeams or something. He was a little like me, I guess, music soothes the savage beast and all that various bullshit. Suits my mood anyway.

This day was my day to mourn, I'd decided. At any given time, I usually allow myself one whole day to think about a person that I've lost, mostly because if I give myself more than that I'd either wind up pushing a battered grocery cart full of plastic bags down the street and talking to myself or I'd spend the rest of my life on my fucking knees, praying.

I know a lot of dead people.

Anyway, this was Heero Yuy's day, even if I hadn't really known him all that well, he'd been my bunkmate for a few weeks and...I'd liked him, in some way. I mean, it's not like he was all that important to me, but we'd started a game together and now we were never going to finish it. That's my fault, I don't mind telling you. In my little fog of horniness and curiosity about him, I'd forgotten one of the most fundamental truths of the world.

Martyrs were made to die.

Do you know what I remember most clearly about him? If you guessed his eyes please deduct 200 points from your final score, although I admit, it'll be a hell of a long time before I stop thinking about them.

Nope, it was his tennis shoes. Those butt-ugly, mustard yellow sneakers, and, hell, I don't even know where you can find shoes that ugly. Spandex-R-Us probably, where he bought the rest of his clothes.

I especially remember how those shoes looked with a pair of spandex shorts puddled over them. The first time he'd hopped into bed with me he'd still been wearing the damn things.

The last time he'd been wearing a school uniform. I'd dropped by his room for a minute, just long enough to tell him I was going and to work out a couple of details on our next mission. When I'd turned to walk away, he'd stopped me cold with exactly the last thing I'd ever expected to hear him say.

"Do you think we could have sex one last time?"

I'd just stared at him, as if monkeys had started to fly out of his nostrils. He had such a way with words, didn't he? To think, all that time I'd been fucking the reincarnation of Don Juan and I hadn't even known it.

Now, you've got to understand how totally bizarre that was. Heero hadn't liked to -ask- me for anything, and he'd never come right out and asked for a quickie. That's why I, in all my infinite wisdom, blurted out the first thing that came to my mind.

"But it's not 11:30."

He'd blinked and his expression had been so utterly crestfallen that I'd started laughing. Somehow between that and him grabbing me, we'd ended up on his way-too-small-for-a-decent-fuck bed, the door just barely closed and our pants around our ankles because we'd been too eager to actually remove clothing. Just pushed a few things out of the way and let the important parts out to play.

I wonder if he'd had any idea how kinky that would have looked if someone had walked in the room. Not just because I was a boy fucking another boy up the ass but because of the way we were both dressed, we probably looked like a priest getting it on with an altar boy.

By then we'd been fucking each other long enough that we'd gone through every traditional position I could think of and a few that anyone over the age of thirty shouldn't attempt outside the presence of a licensed physician.

This time was still different, somehow. Almost desperate and I wonder now, if he'd known something that I hadn't.

Great, he'd already been a superhero, now he had been a fucking psychic too?

I'd barely noticed it at the time. Afterward, he'd been his normal, talkative self, forsaking the school uniform for his I'm-so-fucking- confident-I-tuck-my-shirt-into-these-shorts clothes. I'd actually risked my life to snap the waistband of said shorts, but it would have been worth dying just to see the expression on his face. He's so cute when he...

I mean, he -was- so cute. He was cute. He...was...

I didn't even realize the music had stopped until I heard a soft voice say, "You shouldn't smoke."

Quatre. I made a face at him. Like I was going to have time for it to kill me? Anyway, this was my day of mourning. If I wanted to enjoy one cancer stick then I damn well could.

I didn't say anything though. If he wanted to rant about the evils of The Nicotine, and how half a jillion people croaked each year from catching a whiff of second hand smoke, who was I to stop him?

Instead, I blew a perfect smoke ring at his nose and he sneezed, swiping a hand over his face and laughed, almost a giggle. Jesus, he -giggled-, like he's a fucking girl or something. Can't I ever meet normal people, just once?

I've met people like this guy before. Somehow, nothing touches them, the ugliest, darkest things just roll off them like beads of water and you would not be surprised if Bambi and Thumper pranced up to them at any given time.

That's what you'd think anyway, but I can tell you that those people are the most dangerous of us all, because eventually, we all have a breaking point and when these guys hit it they either end up banging their heads on a wall in a padded room somewhere, or they get a machine gun, climb a billboard and start taking people out.

It's a generalization, I know, but I've seen it happen a couple of times so trust me, if Quatre ever looks to me like he is balanced on toothpicks, I'll be clearing my ass out of the way.

At this moment though, Quatre Raberba Winner has nothing but clear blue innocence in his eyes, something that I'd never seen in my own, not once in my whole fucked up life. Quatre Winner was a little rich boy, he's never seen the dark pit that the world can be.

Once, not all that long ago, I might have hated him for that. When he'd walked down the street in his neat, clean clothes while the rest of us had watched from the alleys, dirty and stinking of garbage, of whatever we'd been rooting through that day looking for a half-eaten burger, maybe some greasy fries in a crumpled white wrapper.

Can't hate him now, though. I was like him. I'd gotten out, washed away the filth and now I was Gundam pilot, above the crawling wretches and did I really have the nerve to pity myself because I'd lost my flavor of the month? At least I'm still alive which is more than I can damn well say for a lot of people I've known.

I shouldn't want for anything, not with what I have. I shouldn't, and I fucking well don't. I don't want Heero Yuy, I don't want anything...and I sure as fuck don't want...I don't want...I want someone to...

Touch me. He's touching me. I don't know how he knew, but he was running gentle hands down my thighs and wasn't it a hell of a shock that those hands weren't as innocent as they seemed? They knew where to touch and how to touch and I...I just...I let him do something that I haven't allowed in a long, long time.

I let him fuck me.

I just lay there under warm hands and soft skin, and let him do whatever he wanted to me, and if you think that isn't a big deal then I suggest you try it sometime. He stripped my nakeder than I'd ever been, pushed my knees up and before I knew it, he was inside me, still almost absurdly gentle, and fuck, it felt good, to have someone, anyone, touching me.

He wasn't Heero, too short, too slender, but he was soft in all the right places, and hard in all the better ones. And he just gave and gave to me, far more than he should, and if I'd been a kinder soul I would have warned him about people like me. We'll drain you dry, take every drop of warmth and compassion you can offer and still beg for more. Crack your bones and suck out the marrow.

Leeches, that's what we are. Don't let us take hold of you or we'll do the same to you as we have to others...just kill us on sight.

Kill us. Kill...us...

I sobbed, dryly, tears haven't had a place in my life for years but this little blond was coaxing them out of me. Should have known, desert-dwellers are great at finding an oasis. A neat trick, that, pulling saltwater from a leach...no, that's not right. Not a leech, I'm not even as innocent as that. I know what I am.

I'm Death.

I never meant to be, at first, but I'd carried it with me since the moment I was born. Everything I touch withers and dies in my grasp and I fucking well live on. I'd fought it, I swear to God that I had but when the war began, when I saw what was happening, that they'd...that -someone- actually needed me, I'd embraced the title grateful and unknowingly condemned myself to be alone for the rest of my miserable fucking life.

Because they die, they always die, from the moment I touch them. So I don't touch Quatre, I just let him do his thing, because maybe it won't count that way. Maybe, just once, I can have this from someone without ruining their lives. Maybe.

I should know better, I know I should know better, and Jesus, will you just shut the fuck up? I know, all right? I know who I am, I always have. I know. I know.

Death.

But he was touching me. I wasn't touching him, but he touched me and I gave into that, let it swallow me whole and for the first time in a very, very long time, I didn't feel quite so alone.

+

The next morning found me alone again, tucked under a blanket in my borrowed bed. I blinked away the sleep in my eyes and stretched, wincing as a certain familiar pain made itself known. Quatre had been gentle, but not that gentle, and the fact that he isn't here right now gives me a pretty clear message. One-time deal, cash only, no refunds, no returns.

I could deal with that.

It was mid-morning, the sun was out, painfully bright and I could tell just by looking that today was going to be hot as hell, especially for a guy who dresses in all black. A new day, mourning-time over and done with.

I bounced out of bed, ignoring the various bodily protests. Today was business as usual and I was going to start up with that business very quickly.

OZ beware, Shinigami is back.

And I've got a new score to settle.

-finis-

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