by Shoori

Marking it Down to Learning + Chapter 8
Mending Ways

 Heero stared grimly ahead, watching the words and numbers flow down the dully glowing screen of his laptop.

The program whirred away, cross-referencing the data he'd fed into the computer, trying to match it with possible leads.

It had taken him several days to perfect the program, but now it was running perfectly.

He only hoped that the time it had taken hadn't been too long. If it had, the target could have eluded pursuit.

He continued to stare grimly at the screen as the information compiled. He didn't really have to watch it - it would run through without him sitting and staring at it. He could go do something else...

But what was there to do? His shift at work was over, and he'd been allowed to go home.

Home.

This place really... really was home to him. More than any other place he'd ever been in his life.

Nowhere he'd stayed before - barracks, training facilities, residences - had ever been anything more than living quarters. As a matter of course he'd memorized the layout of every location he'd ever slept in, but he'd never been familiar with the individual character of the rooms before.

He was here.

He could picture more than the layout - he knew each room.

The kitchen. He knew that one cabinet was hung slightly wrong, so it tended to stick and refused to open without a sharp tug.

The marble in the large bathroom at the end of the west corridor had pale pink flecks in it, except for one corner, behind the toilet, where the builders had cheated and the flecks were gray.

Of the seven rooms that the five of them... had... shared on a nightly basis, he liked the third on the left best. It was the smallest, but it had a funny little alcove area that balanced out the large closet of the room beside it. Quatre had set a daybed in it, and it was a great place to sit and be out of the way, but still be able to see, to observe... to be part of whatever was going on in the room.

Then there was the east corridor, and the five rooms that belonged to the five of them.

He even had a room - a room of his own. It was the first space he'd ever had in his entire life that was his. Noone else would come in and poke around in it, he could keep whatever he wanted in the closet, he could keep it neat or not as he desired. He still kept it painfully neat - some habits were hard to break - but keeping it clean wasn't a big deal at all since he knew that it could be a total disaster if he wanted it to be, and noone would care.

This had been his home, for three years. He had always been welcome here, everyone was pleased to see him here... there was both a room for him and room for him here.

At least, there had been until five days ago.

Now... it felt different.

It was quiet. It seemed that noone else was ever here when he was. He and Quatre and Wufei and... and Trowa were all working staggered shifts at the Preventers, and frequently they worked past their shifts.

And Duo... was gone.

He scowled at the screen. Wasn't it done yet?

But the columns of information still streamed down the screen, too fast for even him to follow.

Had it really only been five days? It felt like five months... five years... five lifetimes. The home that had once seemed to welcome him now seemed to resent his intrusion. It was always very quiet, and still and dead.

He'd finally realized that it felt that way because it wasn't the building that had made this place a home - it was the people in it.

Of course, he'd made that discovery a little too late. Too bad he figured everything out only after he'd destroyed it.

He looked around the dark room. He hadn't bothered to turn the lights on, and was working with only the light from the screen to see by. He didn't need anymore - it had been plenty of light for him to enter the data by, and he hardly need to see just to watch the information compile.

He didn't really want to be able to see the room clearly, anyway. He was working in the dining room, which had always been his least favorite room. They hardly ever used it, because it was just too big and formal for them.

And Duo had left his note here. It made Heero uncomfortable to realize that this was the room that Duo had left from.

He felt closer to Duo here, now, than anywhere else, though. This is where Duo had come. He'd been... unhappy, here.

Unhappy because of him.

Heero scowled at the screen. The program he'd written matched information entered against ticket information from all the shuttles and airlines within two thousand miles. He'd entered all their known aliases, Duo's description, and possible days of departure. It should tell him, after it scanned all the airlines, of possible matches.

He was going to find Duo.

But it was taking forever.

It was definitely taking far less time than the method they'd been using in the meantime - calling up the airports in person and trying to find someone to talk to who wasn't a brain-dead idiot, a complete asshole, or some combination thereof. They'd been trying that for days, but hadn't gotten very far.

Trowa was still trying that way, because he wasn't putting any faith in the program.

Or in him.

He'd destroyed that too.

Heero sighed and pushed himself out of his chair, moving across the room to turn on the light switch and banish some of the darkness.

Six days ago from this very minute, he and Trowa had been in bed together. Trowa had let him touch him, kiss him... do things to him that at one time in his life Heero wouldn't have even been able to conceive of anyone doing to anyone else. And Trowa had eagerly joined in, participated, encouraged him...

Six days ago from this minute, when Trowa looked at him, there had been amusement and... well, friendship in the green eyes.

Six days ago from this minute, Trowa had liked him.

Things were different now.

Heero had learned in the war how very quickly the world could change, how instantly things could go from wonderful to horrible. People's very lives could end in the blink of an eye.

But... he'd forgotten that, over the years. Or if not forgotten it, at least become... .separated from it? Sheltered from that memory?

Well, he remembered now.

And it sucked.

He'd hardly seen Trowa - or Quatre, or Wufei - in the last five days. All four of them were uncomfortably stretched, worried about Duo, subdued by the sudden stress in their formerly undemanding relationship... and trying to nail a major underground prostitution ring in the meantime.

Quatre was the center of attention in that arena - the plan to use him - with his own identity intact! - to infiltrate the Order was still going strong, and he was being heavily trained and briefed for that role. They had him memorizing tables of information about his own "underground" existence, rehearsing dozens of possible scenarios, and meeting with many and varied support personnel to sort out everyone's role on the mission.

Wufei was in charge of supervising the back-up teams. He was conducting all kinds of field training exercises, practicing raids, entries, rescue operations... Heero almost felt sorry for the agents training under him. To say that Wufei was thorough was a hysterically outrageous understatement. The man bordered on psychotic in terms of preparedness. Heero was willing to bet that the Preventers who were working with Wufei had never even dreamed of being trained so hard in their lives.

Heero himself was planting information. Quatre was almost laughably ethical. As such, all his business and personal records were so clean that you could see your reflection in them. He was carefully going through and planting carefully camouflaged shady transactions in the records. It was completely the opposite of what he usually did, which was to ferret out similar shady transactions. It was a very time-consuming process, not in the least because he insisted that Une write out detailed, signed, witnessed orders for every one of the secret transactions. Heero wasn't quite as naïve as he'd once been. Une would love to have something on any of them, and she wouldn't be above using false records that she'd ordered planted herself as "evidence" if it suited her purpose. Not even to catch the Order was Heero going to turn Quatre over to Une's tender mercies.

And Trowa... Trowa was the information liaison on the mission. Every scrap of intelligence that came in from anyone, anywhere, Trowa was collecting, assimilating, cross-referencing... He was the spider in the middle of this huge web, greedily amassing all the information he could, and trying to find the way to put it together to yield the most penetrating reports possible for all of them.

They'd bring the bastards down. Heero was sure of it. They had to.

He only hoped Quatre didn't get killed in the process.

He scowled and stomped into the kitchen to pour himself a drink of juice. This was the part of the mission that he disliked most.

He didn't like making Quatre a target, he didn't like sending him in there alone, and he didn't even want to think about the details of what Quatre was going to have to do once he was in there!

There weren't supposed to be missions like this in the Preventers! He'd always thought of himself as one of the good guys, even when pretty much the rest of the world had thought of him as some lunatic fringe, radical, vigilante terrorist. They stopped thinking of him that way when he won - winners tended to get the best press. There had however been many who had - and probably still did - strongly disapproved of his methods.

But he hadn't. He'd been certain that what he was doing was right, and had, with a few notable exceptions, been willing to concede that there would be a certain number of casualties for the cause.

But more and more frequently, his position with the Preventers was leading him into situations where he wasn't really sure that the course of action that he was being required to follow was the best possible choice.

They needed to catch the Order. And he knew that.

But part of him just couldn't believe that sending Quatre in to act like some rich, spoiled, horny bastard was the best way to do it.

It was the easiest way, certainly. The most efficient way, definitely.

But the best way?

The good guys weren't supposed to... be evil.

Killing people in battle was one thing. Bad, certainly. But... sometimes necessary, always precedented, and somehow imbued with a strange sort of formulaic honor.

Torturing and violating innocents coldly, rationally and with full knowledge of what you were doing was another thing entirely.

Heero swallowed half the glass of juice in one gulp, and refilled the cup before replacing the container in the refrigerator and wandering back toward the dining room.

He just didn't like it.

But that hardly mattered, he supposed, as noone was asking him. They were all too busy preparing for the mission, and... engaging in their other mission, which, to them at least, was even more important.

Finding Duo.

They'd all been multi-tasking for days. When he wasn't planting spurious crimes in Quatre's history, or when he was waiting for his changes to go through, he'd been working on this program to find out where Duo had gone.

Most of Quatre's good undercover people were working on getting him contacts within the Order, but he'd taken Rashid and Akeem both - his best men - and sent them to try to find Duo instead.

Wufei had, through his clan, an amazing amount of government and cultural contacts around the planet. He'd called in several of the favors owed to the Changs to get people in various parts of the world to activate their own networks to look for Duo.

And Trowa... well, Heero wasn't sure exactly what Trowa was doing, because the green-eyed man wasn't speaking to Heero. He wasn't talking to anyone else, either, but that wasn't much consolation to the Japanese man.

He'd hardly seen him since that night five days ago, when Trowa had punched him and told him that he was an immature, insensitive asshole who'd single-handedly destroyed everything that they'd all had together.

He'd been absolutely right. But it had... hurt to hear it stated so bluntly.

And then he'd told him...

It had almost been too much. To be confronted, in a single day, with the discovery of how much misery lie in both Trowa's and Duo's pasts...

Heero really, truly didn't know what to do. Trowa had been scornful of that, had thought him weak and childish... and he probably was right. But it didn't change the fact that Heero just didn't know what to do.

He shouldn't have run away from Duo.

He shouldn't have let Trowa leave without reassuring him that the past didn't matter.

Because it didn't, not in the way Trowa believed that he thought it mattered.

He didn't care at all that the others had had other lovers before him. He didn't care who, he didn't care in what number... he was glad for them. And it didn't matter, because they were with him now.

But to find that they'd been hurt... used, exploited, abused... that was very different.

He was intimately aware of all the caring and gentle compassion and tenderness Duo and Trowa both had to lavish on their partners. The thought of someone twisting that... spurning it and demeaning it... was horrific.

It made him sick... and it made him angry.

He was furious... and there was noone to vent his rage on. Everyone who'd hurt Duo and Trowa was gone... they were, for the most part, nameless, faceless entities that he would never know, never be able to seek vengeance from. Heero was tortured by the knowledge that many of them were likely still alive - just moving around, perfectly fine, hurting more people - and he'd never know who they were or bring them the punishment they deserved.

But even beyond the shock and the rage was something that Heero wanted to face even less.

Guilt.

Quatre had unerringly identified that on that awful night five days ago. The Arab had been working since then, slowly putting himself back in touch with his own strange power, utilizing it purposefully in ways that he'd probably never consciously attempted to utilize it before. Heero wasn't sure if he was doing that in the interest of the mission, or of finding Duo, or of both, or for some other reason entirely. He didn't ask, because frankly the whole thing made him nervous.

But Quatre had hit the nail right on the head.

He was so guilty.

Not only had he handled everything in absolutely the worst way possible... he'd never known. He'd never bothered to try to know. He'd never asked, he'd never sought to find out what had happened in the others' pasts... he'd never even given a moment's thought to the matter.

As Trowa had so scornfully pointed out, if he had thought about it he could probably have realized that something like that lay in his two lovers' pasts. But he hadn't wanted to think about it.

And part of him still didn't. Part of him wanted to go back to the easy, happy relationship that he'd been part of six days ago, where noone bothered anyone else with anything ugly, where they just enjoyed today and the companionship they brought each other.

The days of that relationship were likely gone for good.

At this rate, the days of any relationship might well be finished.

Heero groaned as he wandered aimlessly around the dining room, finishing his drink, putting his cup down on the table, picking it up, setting it down again, peering out the window, pacing across the room, scowling at the scuff marks his feet made in the thick carpet...

He didn't want the relationship to be over.

He didn't... he didn't even really want it to be exactly as it had been before. He didn't want Duo and Trowa bearing the burden of their secrets alone.

But he didn't know... if any of the others even wanted anything... anything at all, or more specifically anything more than what they had had before.

The more he thought of it, though, the more Heero did want more. He wanted to... well, he wanted there to be more... caring?... between them than had been vocalized before.

There had been caring... more even than anything sexual...

At least, he thought there had been.

Maybe he was reading too much into their arrangement because he wanted there to be more in it.

He did. He wanted more.

But at this point, it didn't seem that the others wanted... anything.

Trowa practically lived at the office. He'd slept there, eaten there... The only times he'd come home were when he was able to confirm that the other three were at the beginning or early middle of their own shifts, and wouldn't be able to leave for awhile. Then, he'd disappear, and by the time Heero had gotten back to their rooms, he was gone.

Quatre and Wufei hadn't been avoiding him - he didn't think - they'd just been busy. Their roles in the mission were so much more active than his that they needed to be more involved in it.

And they'd all spent every spare minute looking for Duo.

It hadn't left much time to talk... even if Heero had been able to think of anything to say to any of them.

Finally, the computer beeped loudly and Heero hurried back to the table. It had certainly taken long enough, but it seemed that the program had finally compiled.

He sat down and stared triumphantly at the little box informing him of the number of data matches the program had found.

He blinked. He rubbed hard at his eyes and peered at the screen again.

Thirty-six thousand, four hundred eleven.

Heero groaned. He thought he'd finally narrowed the search criteria enough that it would give him a reasonable scope for search.

He guessed not.

Heero growled, his fists clenching as he stared at the screen. He started to murmur under his breath, dire curses aimed at the computer, the program, the airline services that kept unsafely vague files... His voice got louder as he grew more frustrated, and he switched to Japanese to give himself a wider range of vocabulary to swear in.

Thirty-six thousand, four hundred eleven! What kind of useless fucking bullshit was that? He was going to have to revamp the entire code, try to find some way to refine his search to match all the possible methods of entry utilized by the different airlines...

"Program not working?"

Heero jumped, startled, and looked up to see Quatre and Wufei both standing across the table from him.

"Oh, it's working all right," he replied, disgusted. "It's working all too fucking well. I have plenty of leads - thirty-six fucking thousand leads, give or take four or five hundred... "

"I have searches going on in seven cities," Wufei told him quietly. "And I think a few of the people I called are calling on some people in other cities as well... "

"Rashid and Abdul are going to report to me tomorrow, and let me know if they found anything," Quatre added.

"I have to refine this code... I'm not sure what's not matching up," Heero said distractedly, pulling up the window with the code in it and scrolling down, making rapid adjustments as the lines of code flew by.

Suddenly, the lid of the laptop lowered, imprisoning and stilling his fingers against the keys.

He looked up, startled, and met Quatre's turquoise eyes. "You need to get some rest," the blond told him firmly. "You can work on the code tomorrow."

Heero shook his head stubbornly. "I need to figure it out," he insisted. "It's not working. I need to fix it, so that... "

"You need some sleep," Wufei inserted. "When was the last time you rested?"

The Japanese man shrugged irritably, pulling his fingers out from between the keyboard and the screen of the laptop, and trying to push Quatre's hands away. The blond glowered at him and tightened his grip on the machine, refusing to let it go.

"Heero! Knock it off or I'll break it," Quatre warned.

Heero tensed, forced to cease by the terrible-ness of the threat.

"You need to come get some rest," Quatre told him again, more confidently now that he was assured of Heero's entire attention. "You won't get it right if you keep working on it while you're overtired."

"I'll go in in a little while," Heero promised. "I just want to review one section."

And he didn't want to go to bed. He didn't want to crawl into one of the large beds by himself, and lay there, alone, the entire night. He wasn't used to sleeping alone, and being by himself only reminded him of how badly he'd messed everything up. The beds were so... big.

He could have gone to sleep in the smaller bed, in his room... but he liked that room. He didn't want to associate it with this period in his life.

He might be required to leave this place sometime in the near future. He wanted his memories of the different rooms in it to be as pleasant as possible.

"No," Quatre refused firmly. "Come now."

Heero sighed. Quatre was easy-going, but could be implacable when he'd made up his mind.

The Arab allowed him to lift the cover of the laptop to save everything and close the machine down, but he kept careful watch that that was all he did, and he and Wufei both followed him closely as he finally exited the dining room and headed down the west corridor.

His steps faltered a bit as he moved along the hallway, trying to decide which room to use.

He decided randomly on the second on the right. It was slightly smaller than most of the others. He sighed, opening the doorknob and pushing the door open. He paused in the doorway to turn around and say goodnight to the others.

To his surprise, he was pushed forward as Quatre, obviously not expecting him to stop, bumped heavily into him.

"What are you doing?" the blond demanded, frowning.

Heero frowned back, surprised. "I was... saying goodnight. I didn't know... "

"You don't want us to come in?" Quatre asked slowly.

"No!" Heero corrected quickly. "I do!" He felt himself flush at the eagerness of the admission. "I just... I thought you didn't... "

Quatre sighed, and he suddenly looked very weary. "We all really need to talk," he murmured.

"But not right now," Wufei spoke up unexpectedly. The other two looked at him in surprise, and he frowned quellingly at them. "Are we going into the room tonight?" he asked pointedly. "Or are we spending the evening in the hall?"

Quatre chuckled at the Chinese man's acerbic tone, but obediently shoved Heero into the room, following close behind him.

Heero stopped by the bed and stared at the black silk comforter, unsure as to what he was supposed to do. He heard some rustling sounds, and looked up. He felt himself flush even more, and, to his own horror, felt himself start to harden as he saw that Quatre and Wufei had almost entirely undressed already.

It had been five days. Five very long, stressful, difficult days. He couldn't help it.

But he was sure it was inappropriate. He wasn't at all sure why Wufei and Quatre seemed intent on sharing the room with him tonight, but they couldn't want... well, they couldn't want him. Not after everything he'd done...

Wufei glanced at him and raised one finely shaped brow when he saw that Heero was still fully dressed. Quatre noticed at about the same time, and snorted loudly. "If you think I'm sharing a bed with you when you have your uniform pants on, Yuy, you're nuts," he said bluntly.

Heero blinked, but obediently began unfastening the buttons on his shirt. He quickly stripped down to his shorts, carefully turning away and adjusting the covers, trying to hide the obvious signs of his own arousal. Somehow, it seemed that Quatre and Wufei weren't angry with him - he didn't want to change that by misinterpreting their motives in sharing the room with him.

He didn't want to have to be alone tonight after all.

He started to climb into the bed, but was stopped by Quatre's voice.

"You're still a bit over-dressed," the Arab noted wryly.

Heero glanced over his shoulder, and felt his eyes widen. Not only were Quatre and Wufei fully naked, they were as... awake as he was.

"What's the problem, Yuy?" Wufei asked calmly. "You don't like the view all of a sudden?"

"No... that's not it at all," Heero stammered, turning around so that they could see the bulge stretching the tight-fitting material of his underwear. "I just thought that you... that you wouldn't want to... "

Quatre sighed, closing his eyes and rubbing his hand across them like they hurt. "We aren't angry at you, Heero. At least, I'm not," he amended, opening his eyes to look at Wufei.

The Chinese man shook his head. "I'm not angry at you either," he announced. "At least, not anymore."

Heero winced, tacitly acknowledging the unspoken part of that sentence. Wufei had been mad at him - maybe, despite his claims to the contrary, he still was.

"You didn't handle the situation very well," Quatre told him bluntly. "But, to be honest, neither did we."

Heero opened his eyes, frowning. What could Quatre and Wufei have done?

Quatre answered his unspoken question. "We should have looked for you both earlier. And... we should have handled what Trowa told us better."

"We can't fault you for not talking to Duo when we still haven't talked to Trowa," Wufei admitted.

"And... you didn't handle it well, but it was Duo's choice to leave," Quatre determined painfully.

"And he left... because he didn't trust any of us. And that's our fault," Wufei concluded with a sigh.

Heero looked slowly back and forth between them, still not quite sure what he was supposed to understand from this.

"It isn't all your fault," Wufei summarized concisely, obviously understanding his dilemma. "It's our fault too."

"And even if it were entirely your fault... we wouldn't hate you," Quatre added softly.

"You... wouldn't?" Heero asked hopefully, not even caring that his own pathetic neediness was apparent in his tone.

Quatre and Wufei both shook their heads.

"You should know that, Heero," Quatre sighed. "The fact that you don't... just proves that we've all been doing something wrong."

Wufei sighed, drawing Heero's attention back to him. "Like Quatre said before... we all need to discuss some things," the Chinese man informed him seriously. "We all... need to know where we stand with each other."

"Where do we stand?" Heero asked directly.

He watched as black eyes met turquoise ones. "We... aren't sure," Quatre admitted carefully. "Wufei and I have talked... so we know what we want. But we aren't sure what you want... "

"And Trowa's not really in any mood to talk to any of us right now... " Wufei inserted.

"And we have to find Duo," Quatre finished. He sighed. "But right now, basically, Wufei and I have established that we want to be together. We want all of us to be together," he clarified.

"Me... me too," Heero managed, very, very aware of the fact that they were all standing there naked. He'd been naked in front of Quatre and Wufei lots of times, but he'd never felt this exposed before.

Quatre nodded slowly. "But there's... more to 'together' than we've all had in the past few years," he pointed out. "We... we need to talk about that."

"But not now," Wufei established again.

Heero looked questioningly at him.

"Right now we're all tired, and still kind of angry, and upset," Wufei clarified, slowly moving closer to him. "Words aren't going to help much right now."

"But actions," Quatre mused, also closing in on Heero. "They might be a little more helpful."

Heero felt the back of his thighs run into the edge of the bed. Before he could move any more, Wufei had reached him, and Heero shuddered as he felt the shorter man's chest pressed against his, felt Wufei's strong arms move around him as his soft lips pressed to his. The Chinese man pushed a little, and Heero found himself sitting on the bed. A moment later, he was lying against the pillows, with Wufei's body spread full-length against his.

Heero groaned, throwing his head back and breaking the kiss as he felt Wufei's hardness pressing against his own. It had been a very long time...

Suddenly his mouth was claimed again, but this time it was Quatre kissing him, the blond's tongue moving aggressively but gently into his mouth, swirling around, brushing against his own tongue, tasting him...

Heero reached out blindly, one hand running down the length of Wufei's smooth back as the other brushed against Quatre's hard chest, fingers finding and instinctively teasing one hard nipple.

Quatre groaned into his mouth, increasing the intensity of the kiss slightly, as Wufei started moving his lips down Heero's neck, gently kissing and sucking on the sensitive skin, pressing his lips gently against Heero's collarbones.

Quatre's lips moved away from Heero's, tracing a path toward his ear. His tongue flicked against Heero's earlobe, just as Wufei began to slowly lick the Japanese man's already excited nipples.

Heero moaned, his entire body tingling from the stimulation of the gentle touches. Usually their joinings were faster, harder, rougher. He wasn't used to this much slow attention.

But the other two men didn't change their pace; they continued to touch him slowly, gently, tasting and touching every inch of his body, taking an eternity just to reach his belly button, tracing and retracing the same paths over and over again.

Finally, Heero felt Wufei firmly parting his legs, and he spread his thighs even wider, almost sobbing with need.

Wufei stubbornly refused to be rushed, and ignored Heero's straining erection, instead slowly caressing the skin of Heero's inner thighs. Quatre took one of Heero hands and brought it to his own quivering hardness. He moved Heero's fingers into place and directed his movements, setting a slow, almost languid pace. Heero obeyed, moving his fingers slowly, delicately, up the length of Quatre's shaft, twirling them carefully over the enlarged head, deliberately dragging the liquid he found there down again. He felt every inch of Quatre, felt the veins beneath his fingers, felt each excited pulse of need move through the other man's arousal. It was hard to keep from firmly pumping the hardened flesh, to bring Quatre to the brink, to make the blond scream and beg for more... but at the same time, Quatre's small moans and sounds of pleasure, the sharp, involuntary movements the blond made, the incredible awareness of the other man were intensely arousing.

Heero shouted as Wufei's mouth suddenly slid over the tip of his need, and he felt the Chinese man's tongue deliberately caress him. He heard his own voice, hoarse with desire, pleading incoherently for more. He couldn't stop the agitated movements of his hips, couldn't control himself as he tightened his hand on Quatre's erection...

The blond groaned, and moved away, sliding down Heero's body until he was lying beside him, at a level with Wufei. A moment later Heero started as he felt a slickened finger slowly slide inside him.

At the same instant, Wufei moaned, and Heero gasped as the vibrations of the sound resounded around his erection, still buried in the Chinese man's mouth. He opened his eyes and looked down the length of his own body, moaning at the sight before him.

Wufei knelt between his legs, still slowly working on Heero's hardness. Quatre was kneeling too, sliding his fingers inside of Heero, preparing him. But at the same time, he was preparing Wufei, and the Chinese man was wriggling back against the long fingers that impaled him.

Heero moaned, closing his eyes, unable to bear any more of the erotic sight.

He'd been involved in three-way sex before. But he'd never been the very bottom one of the pile.

It appeared that that was about to change.

Quatre pushed a third finger inside him, and Heero groaned loudly as he felt Quatre's fingers brush against the little bundle of nerves that gave him so much incredible pleasure. Apparently, he stimulated Wufei the same way at the same time, for the Chinese man's body jerked, and he pulled his mouth away from Heero, crying out loudly.

Quatre's fingers slid out of Heero, but before the Japanese man could protest, he felt Wufei move atop him, and felt something hard and hot press against his own opening. He moaned in encouragement, opening his legs wide, lifting them to rest against Wufei's shoulders.

The dark-haired man grunted in approval, firmly gripping Heero's ankles as he pressed hard inside him.

He didn't move for a moment, then suddenly pressed harder, moving even further inside of the Japanese man. He moaned, and Heero surmised that Quatre had just penetrated him, and Wufei was adjusting to the sensation of being completely filled while being at the same time buried deeply inside of someone else.

It was an incredibly unique sensation. There was nothing else quite like it.

And that was a good thing, too. A person could only take so much.

They were still for a moment, then Heero felt Wufei start to move... slowly at first, then faster and more desperately. The Japanese man opened his eyes, staring at Wufei's face. The other man's eyes were tightly closed, his features contorted in a grimace of pleasure. Heero craned his head to the side, and saw Quatre, his face equally set, saw the blond as he pounded into Wufei, the Chinese man in turn slamming inside of him...

Heero forced himself to keep his eyes open, to watch Wufei's face and Quatre's face as they both took him.

They were together, the three of them... and Quatre and Wufei wanted to be together... like they had been and more. Heero wasn't sure what the "more" entailed, but it didn't matter. He would do whatever he had to, whatever any of them wanted, to prove to them how much he wanted them, how much he needed them, how much he... how much he... he...

Then the sensation was too much, and he couldn't hold on anymore, and he couldn't watch, and his eyes closed and his mind surrendered to his body and all he could do was feel as they continued to push him closer and closer to the inevitable explosion.

And then it came - he was the first to lose control, and he roared out his pleasure as he felt his hot desire explode between his body and Wufei's. Then Wufei came, filling Heero with his essence, and finally Quatre too surrendered, shouting both their names as he poured his release into Wufei.

Quatre collapsed heavily against Wufei, pressing the Chinese man even more heavily onto Heero.

But Heero didn't care - he relished the weight pushing him down so firmly into the mattress beneath him. They were there - real and solid and warm and there with him - and he didn't care at all that they were heavy. He wanted them all to stay where they were, forever.

But they didn't. After a few moments, Quatre rolled off to one side of him, and Wufei moved to the other. Heero only had a moment to mourn the loss of the comforting pressure, though. Quatre wrapped his arms tightly around him and pulled him against his chest, and Wufei pressed against his back, resting one solid arm over them both and pulling a sheet up over all their bodies. The Chinese man reached up and flicked the switch over the bed that controlled the light, and the room was plunged into darkness.

Heero pressed his face into Quatre's neck, breathing in deeply, smelling Wufei's scent mixed with Quatre's on the blond's skin. None of them had spoken, but somehow they didn't need to. Heero felt Wufei's cheek against his back, and felt Quatre's chin resting on the top of his head, and slowly drifted off into the first comfortable sleep he'd had in days.

This was so much... better... than sleeping alone. Alone, all his worries and fears and failures rose up to torment and torture and worry him.

Here, now, it was different. Somehow, he had the feeling, that whatever was going to challenge them, would be easier, because at least they could all fight it... together.

[part 7] [part 9] [back to Shoori's fic]