The Point - T he Eleventh and Last Chapter of The Lost Soldiers Series
BY: Kracken
PAIRINGS: 6x2
WARNING: Guys absolutely having sex with guys...a lot... graphically, violently, romantically. Language. Violence. Happily ever after, SAAAAAPPPY ending definitely.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own them and I don't make any money off of this.
SUMMARY: Duo makes a decision.

The Lost Soldiers Series #11
The Point

Duo sat limply in the passenger seat as Gibson drove the small cart back towards the bungalow.

"Didn't go very well, sir," Gibson said.

"Duh!" Duo snapped back and hunched in on himself, hating the grinding pain in his ribs and his heart. One he could understand. The other, he didn't. Why should his heart hurt? Was Zechs' friendship, his opinion of him, so important? Zechs had only said what Duo knew already. The man thought he was a low life. The kiss had probably been leading up to a full-blown rape on the library floor. Zechs had probably thought, 'An L2 rat, why not use him?'

Duo saw in his memory Zechs' shocked, blue eyes when he, Duo, had pulled away from the kiss. Duo recalled his own words to Zechs, the harshness, the condemnation, and the rejection. Zechs' expression had not been one a man would have worn who had been contemplating rape and degradation. His expression had been one of a jilted suitor. The very thought made Duo shiver and recoil. The very idea that Zechs could be in love with him, could want to romance him, and could suffer a broken heart because of his, Duo's, rejection seemed out of the realm of possibility.

Duo bit his lip hard, remembering the warm taste of Zechs' lips on his. He had panicked, he thought bitterly, pure and simple, and what had made him panic had been his own body's reaction to Zechs. Duo remembered the heat between his legs, the electric charge of 'want' that had gone through him, something he had never felt with any woman. 'But I'm not gay!' Duo thought to himself, feeling the panic rising again. He tried to reason with himself. Of course he had reacted to Zechs. He was still a damned virgin when most young men scored with their first girl at fifteen and sixteen! That had to be all it was, frustrated hormones needing an outlet of any kind. That still didn't explain why his heart hurt so much, though, and why he felt a gnawing sense of loss in the pit of his stomach.

Both mind and body screamed at him to go back to Zechs and make up. It frightened him how empty and alone he felt, thrust out into the cold when he had just discovered... what? What had he discovered? Did he really want to admit what it was to himself? If he went back to Zechs now, Duo knew he would have to start facing up to reality. He wouldn't be able to escape the truth any longer. Duo found that he couldn't bear that. He didn't have the strength or the courage for truth. He always ran when things became tough. Now wasn't going to be an exception.

"Stop!" Duo said suddenly.

Gibson braked the cart and Duo slid out of the passenger seat. One of the servant girls, pert and blonde, was walking along a lighted path to the servant quarters, yawning and looking exhausted. She brightened when she saw Duo come out of the darkness. Duo remembered her name.

"Karen? Want some company?"

"Mr. Maxwell!" Karen beamed and looked very coquettish. It was a thin veil over a lustful pose and a gleaming set of brown eyes that gave Duo a practiced, appreciative once over. When her eyes lingered on his crotch, Duo nervously took that as a signal that Karen was easy and that she wanted to be easy with him.

"Why don't we go for a little walk?" Duo suggested, hooking an arm in hers and smelling her cloying perfume.

Duo hid a grimace as Karen pressed her soft body up against his. He had a shadowy view of her cleavage as she replied sensuously. "That would be very nice, Mr. Maxwell."

Duo forced a grin. "You can call me, Duo."

"Duo," she repeated and giggled.

Duo threw back over his shoulder at Gibson, not really caring what the damned snobbish servant did, "Go on ahead to the bungalow, Gibson. I'll be back later."

"Sir," Gibson replied in disgust, not even hiding it now.

Duo ignored it as he led Karen off of the path and took a small dirt path into a garden illuminated by only small, knee high lanterns on hooks. Alone now, Karen dropped all pretense of innocence. She grinned and slid her hand down the back of Duo's pants saying, "Let's find a nice, soft spot, okay?"

+

"You are wasting time," Heero grated as he knocked back a shot of whiskey and eyed Wu Fei's sparse, impersonal room as if it might be hiding security men.

Wu Fei smiled as he refilled Heero's glass, filled his own shot glass, and then sat down on the couch. Putting the bottle of whiskey aside on the side table, he half-turned to face Heero. Heero was sipping at his second shot, wanting a clear head for anything that might happen. "Wasting time?" Wu Fei repeated. "Whose time, Heero? Not mine. My shuttle doesn't leave for the Sanq Kingdom until tomorrow afternoon. Wasting your time? It seems that you are the one who's wasting your own time. Instead of working with the Preventers, perfecting your self, and furthering your position, you're chasing after a braided fool and considering revenge on an old enemy. You've lost focus, Heero. That's why, mentally, I have the upper hand. I don't have base emotions making me weak, making me forget my priorities."

Heero suddenly knocked back the second glass, brows coming down in a frown.

"Look at you!" Wu Fei sneered. "Do you want to stick it to Duo so bad you can't control yourself?!"

Heero threw the glass at Wu Fei's head. Wu Fei ducked easily. Heero's nostrils flared as he stood up as stiff as a tin soldier, face angry and... confused. "I don't understand! Explain this behavior to me. Why am I reacting this way? Why is my training not working?!" "How long have you gone without sexual release?" Wu Fei demanded coolly. When Heero rattled off the days, the weeks, Wu Fei raised a knowing eyebrow. He reached out and grabbed Heero by the front of his clothes. He pulled the man close, hard. "Get rid of the sexual tension first, and then we can discuss this matter further."

Heero grabbed Wu Fei in return, his fingers like vises. They stood like that, facing each other, eyes boring into eyes, and then Heero growled, "Unacceptable. Discovery could come at any time. This is too dangerous."

Wu Fei smirked. "Get your head out of the war, Heero. Unless you murdered a few security men getting onto the estate grounds, I doubt anyone cares whether you're here or not. Besides, I have perimeter alarms set up on this room. There're enough ex-Oz soldiers with a grudge who want me dead. That's why I remain a careful man."

"And if you're the one who is my enemy?" Heero demanded. Wu Fei smiled as he loosed a hand and stripped the tie holding his black hair at the nape of his neck. His hair tumbled down onto his shoulders, straight and shinning. "You don't have to undress, Heero, and you can keep your gun in you hand. I'll relieve both of our needs."

Without waiting for Heero to agree, Wu Fei was already opening Heero's pants. He took Heero into his warm hands and then sank down onto his knees. He would be quick, Wu Fei thought, and efficient, but he would make Heero remember his skill and make him forget about an inexperienced, unwilling Duo Maxwell.

+

Zechs threw himself down into the chair that Duo had been sleeping in. It still smelled like the ex-pilot, faintly of some herbal shampoo and a scent uniquely Duo's, fresh breezes and a hint of something indescribable. That unique scent prickled through Zechs' brain, speaking to him, taunting him, making mind and body ache and want Duo Maxwell like Zechs had never wanted anything else before in his life. It wasn't even about sex anymore and, he realized, the kiss that had turned so disastrous hadn't been about sex either.

His hand was bleeding, skin ripped and bruised. Zechs ignored it as he punched the button of his pager. A nervous servant appeared and Zechs had him fetch a strong drink. The man asked timidly if Zechs wanted bandages or a physician.

"No," Zechs replied. He didn't deserve either, he felt.

The drink came almost at once. Zechs dismissed the servant with chilly politeness. As soon as the door shut behind the man, Zechs opened the bottle with his good hand and then drank it straight, without a glass. Drown yourself, the darkness within him mocked, maybe it will kill you this time.

Duo's sick, shocked expression played over and over in Zechs' memory. He hid his eyes behind his injured hand, as if he could shut it out that way, but it was futile. His pride had been injured, but Zechs knew that hadn't been the reason that he had exploded at Duo. It was his heart that had taken an unexpected stab, an unfurling love that had been crushed under the heel of Duo's rejection. Zechs wanted to hate Duo, to justify to himself that everything he had shouted at the young man had been true and right to say, but that memory of Duo's expression wouldn't allow Zechs to fool himself that way. That expression had told Zechs what Duo had been unable to say, to admit to. Duo was in love with him too. Zechs was sure of it.

Duo's only crime had been to be afraid, to be unsure, and to be what he was, a young man trying to understand himself, to understand what it was he wanted from Zechs and the world. His pushing Zechs away with angry words had only been an awkward plea to be given more time to understand what was happening between them.

"I have been patient with so many things in my life," Zechs grated. "How many years did I wait for the Sanq Kingdom? How many years did I wait until Relena grew old enough to lead the pacifist movement? How many years did I play lackey to Treize and plan the day of peace for everyone? Why, then, is it so hard to back off and be patient with Duo? Why can't I wait for him to come to me, to want me, and to understand himself enough to accept me?"

Zechs knew the answer. The darkness cruelly whispered it to him. None of the other things in his life had involved his heart. Nothing had ever touched his soul the way Duo had. Zechs couldn't help from wanting Duo in every way and, inundated with aristocratic whores and willing sycophants all of his life, Zechs was ill prepared to control a desire for instant gratification. Romance was a skill he had never needed to learn.

Zechs looked hard at the bottle of drink in his hand. Deliberately, he set it down on a side table. It wasn't the time to drink, he thought, he had a battle to win: a battle for Duo's heart. A battle against the dragging darkness that bade him, 'Do nothing. You are not worthy'. That darkness wanted to make him believe that he was defeated already, that he didn't have a chance to win Duo back to him.

The Lightning Count refused to admit defeat. He refused to lose the battle, to be brought down by his imagined failings and foolish mistakes. He knew infinite patience in battle. He could and would employ that patience now. Duo was his battle. He couldn't think of it any other way and hope to succeed.

"Byron!" Zechs called sharply, knowing the man was waiting outside the door for just such a call.

The door opened and the servant looked in with a lifted eyebrow. "I'm going out. Have a cart ready at the front door. I don't want a driver."

"Sir," the servant replied without question.

Zechs rose from his chair in one fluid motion. Grabbing up his coat, he slipped into it as he walked towards the front door of the house. Cultured, reasonable arguments formed in Zechs' head as he walked, his words his weapons, tried and true. He had cut his teeth on diplomacy and Duo was an uncultured boy from L2. He didn't have any hope of standing up against Zechs...

Zechs stopped dead in his tracks. He was facing a large, round table dominating the foyer of the house. On it was a blue vase filled with purple hyacinths the exact color of Duo's eyes.

"Stupid!" Zechs' growled at himself. "Duo won't fall for your tricks. He's not naive!"

Zechs snatched the hyacinths out of the vase and made a bundle of them in his arms. Duo wanted the truth, not pretty, trick phrases from a glib politician's mouth. Zechs knew that Duo wouldn't listen to anything else at that point but the truth.

A servant was watching Zechs in trepidation. When he saw that Zechs noticed him, he went pale, stammering, "The cart is here, sir."

"Thank you," Zechs replied offhandedly as he swept past the man and out of the front door, not caring what the man thought of him. Sliding into the driver's seat of the car, Zechs put the flowers on the seat beside him and then just sat, deep in thought. Something was wrong and it didn't take Zechs more than a few moments to know what that was.

Zechs whispered to himself, "There needs to be a goal, a prize, a reason for every battle. I need to state what that is or I will not win this."

Zechs gathered himself and his resolve and admitted out loud what he knew in his heart, admitted what he was willing to fight and change his life for. Distinctly and loudly he said, "I love Duo Maxwell."

+

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