by: Shoori

I Know Who I Want... + Part 4

I lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, my heels aimlessly kicking the edge of the mattress as I wait for Trowa to get out of the shower.

He's taking forever.

He doesn't usually take that long. I take a long time - the hair, you know - and, surprisingly, Heero takes forever. But for Trowa, showering is one of life's essential tasks which takes up valuable time that he could be using to do something else. So usually he's in and out.

He's been in there over a half-hour. Heero waited a while with me, then, when it became apparent that Trowa wasn't coming out any time soon, he wandered away to use the apartment's other shower.

This is quite an apartment Quatre got us. I hope we can manage to afford it.

Anyway. Trowa's still hiding in the bathroom, Heero's off wondering if we're all going to go crazy again now that we're back in Sanc, and I'm formulating strategy.

Quatre doesn't have the corner on that market, you know.

We've spent over a year doing things slow and easy. Gentle. No pressure.

And that was good, of course. We had to have time to acclimate to each other, to find our places within this crazy little love triangle.

But we're off the island now. We're back in the real world. That, I guess, means new rules.

And I'm just the guy to make them.

Trowa's story a little while ago kind of threw me for a loop. Just when you think you've plumbed the depths of Trowa, figured out every different type of misery he's experienced, you scratch off another layer, and find you've only been swimming in the shallows after all.

This revelation, though, is a big one, I think. I mean, he's been very vague about specifics, but we know a lot of the basics of the abuses Trowa has suffered. He hasn't talked much about names or times or details, but after the whole Barton fiasco, we kind of know the sort of shit he had to deal with his whole life.

But we had no idea about what had happened with that mercenary group. I never knew that Trowa was carrying around the belief that he had betrayed and killed a group of people who were, essentially, his comrades.

It explains a lot. To an extent, we all have that ‘I'm a bad boy; I need to be punished' mindset. I thought Trowa's came from the same place ours did, though - things we did during the war. You can't be a terrorist without doing some pretty awful things.

But Trowa's guilt goes even further back. For God's sake, he was ten years old. He killed everyone he knew to try to protect the only person in the world that he had ever respected. Then, he had to watch that person die, and hear him say before he died that he, Trowa, was an inhuman monster. And after all that, he finds out that the first present he'd ever gotten in his life, from his only friend, was a listening device, and in wearing it he'd essentially led his enemy to his unit and caused the death of the captain he had committed murder to avenge.

Yikes.

It sounds like a soap opera. Shit like that shouldn't happen in real life.

But it did happen, happened to someone who was just too young to deal with the concept of irony, and too inexperienced to realize that luck just isn't a lady and that fate isn't a fickle bitch, but a randy bastard who likes to give it up the ass.

So for over half his life, Trowa's believed that he deserved to be punished. And life has oh-so-obligingly played right into this belief, sending him shitty situation after shitty situation to try to deal with.

For a few minutes, I was overwhelmed. Somehow, it just all seemed too much - how on earth could I ever possibly hope to counter that lifetime of accumulated misery, to pound my way through that impenetrable wall of self-disgust?

Then I remembered. I'm Shinigami. The God of Death doesn't roll over and play dead himself. He adapts to new situations and keeps on truckin'.

Yeah, it was important to go easy on Tro for awhile. We all needed a bit of a time-out.

But Trowa is never, ever going to get to a point, through gentle, non-demanding encouragement, where he tells us what he needs or wants. He's not going to slowly learn to vocalize his pain, and all that other crap people are supposed to gradually develop the ability to do.

For all that he's improved over the years, he's still immensely introverted. He grew up learning that the less focus there was on himself, the better his chances of survival. To top it all off, he's a brooder and a bit of a pessimist by nature.

Put it together and what have you got? A guy who's not going to vocalize his needs in order to feed his inner child, or whatever.

It's time to start telling him a few things, instead of waiting for him to intuit them on his own. Trowa's always been the kind of guy you have to beat on the head to get to believe anything - I don't know why I suddenly thought that that would change. We're all trying to change, but some things are just integral parts of the personality, and don't ever alter dramatically.

Trowa is just not emotionally assertive. He may never be.

I am, though.

And it's time I start acting that way.

For starters, this hiding in the bathroom shit is not gonna fly.

I pile all the pillows up in a heap and lean back on them, considering the best way to approach this situation.

If I had my way, I'd just grab him when he came out of the bathroom, throw him down on the bed, and screw him silly until he was convinced I'm not going anywhere.

I feel a little tingle of arousal at the idea.

Well, why the hell not?

I grin. Perhaps a few minor modifications to that plan, just so not to confuse the boy too much… Sex as therapy works for me - why not for Tro too?

I glance at the clock on the bedside table. Forty-five minutes. He's going to be all pruny.

Finally, the door to the bathroom opens, and Trowa emerges, along with a cloud of steam.

He looks yummy - his hair is wet and plastered back, revealing his entire face, for a change. He is…well, he's the most handsome of all of us. Heero's got that delicate bone structure, finely formed features, deep blue eyes - he's more pretty than anything else. Not that he likes hearing that. As for me - well, I'm cute. Twinkling eyes, snub nose, generous mouth. And I'm short. Cute. But Trowa's got the most masculine good looks out of the group. When he was younger and scrawny everything about him was a little too sharp - his features, his figure. But as he got older and ate more, he built up a bit of bulk and a load of muscle mass. When he finally stopped growing, at several inches above six feet, everything filled out - and quite nicely, I may add. He's…well, he's a hottie. And right now, with him standing there with his hair back, water still trickling down his bare chest, and a rather brief towel wrapped around his hips, I'm in a position to appreciate his hotness.

"I was starting to think you went to sleep in there or something."

He looks over at me, startled, as though he hadn't expected me to be there or something. He looks away, quickly, a faint flush rising in his cheeks.

That's so cute. He and Heero both do it - get that little flash of embarrassment when they see me lounging around naked. I do it a lot more than I used to. I'm trying to teach them not to be body shy.

Ok. So that's bullshit. I just kind of get off on it.

"Sorry," he mumbles, holding the edges of his towel securely closed. "It's free now." He turns and heads for the suitcases, and begins pulling clothes out of one of them.

"I don't need the bathroom," I tell him loudly.

He turns his head and frowns at me. "Aren't you showering?" he asks. "We're supposed to meet Quatre and Wufei for lunch at the mansion."

Trowa hates the Winner mansion. I've wondered sometimes if that's the reason he ended his thing with Quatre, barely a year after the Eve Wars. The mansion and all the glittery stuff in it paralyzes him - I bet he couldn't get it up there for fear of the butler bursting in or something.

The thought makes me laugh out loud and Trowa frowns more deeply at me, unsure of whether or not I'm laughing at him.

I push myself up and sit on the edge of the bed, my legs dangling over the side. "C'mere," I order.

He shakes his head. "I have to get dressed," he insists. "You have to shower. We'll be late to lunch and…"

‘We will not," I interrupt. "It's only ten o'clock."

"You need to shower and…"

"I need you to come here," I correct.

He scowls at me. Ok. He won't come here, there's only one thing to do.

I hop off the bed and move toward him. He straightens, his hand still clutching the towel, the other holding his wardrobe selection in front of him.

"Duo, what are you doing?" he demands nervously as I stop directly in front of him.

"First, this," I reply, standing on tiptoe as I wrap one arm around his neck and pull his head down to mine. It's times like this when I realize that he is a lot taller than me. He tries to resist - but not too much, and all resistance melts away when I firmly press my lips to his and kiss him deeply. He still doesn't let go of the clothes or the towel, though.

I pull away abruptly, and reach down and grab a handful of the towel and yank on it.

"What the hell - what are you doing?" he sputters, still holding the ends in place around his waist.

I don't answer him, but begin to walk toward the bed. He's forced to follow to maintain his grasp on his towel.

I grin as I lead him around by his little loincloth. This is kind of fun.

"Duo, we don't have time for this," he insists, but the edge of irritation is off his voice. Maybe we all need a little more of games and silliness in our lives.

I stop at the edge of the mattress and grin at him. "We always have time for this," I correct archly, and tug sharply on the towel, finally pulling it out of his grasp. As he curses and grabs for it, I shove him sharply on the chest, pushing him down on the bed. Before he can right himself, I straddle his legs, and push him onto his back, his head on the stack of pillows I'd created a little while ago.

I eye him carefully. I've been avoiding this kind of thing, worried that it upset him, made him feel attacked or trapped. I sit carefully back, over his thighs, trying to give him enough space as I search his eyes for any danger signs. All I see is some surprised, amused irritation, and…yes! Excitement.

I guess we are ready for phase two.

"Duo, get off me," he grumbles. "I just showered, and you have to shower. We can't be late; we haven't seen them for a year."

"Well, you'll just have to shower again," I tell him airily, wiggling my way up his body as I run my palms over his chest. "We'll shower together. You can wash my hair."

He lets out his breath in a sound that tries to be exasperated, and almost succeeds.

"We need to talk, sir," I inform him, settling my hips in place over his.

"Talk?" he gasps, his lower body bucking up against mine as I rub my arousal against his own growing hardness.

"Yes," I insist firmly, leaning down over him to run my lips over his cheekbone to his ear. "No more of this hiding in the bathroom crap."

He stiffens under me. "Duo," he says, the playfullness suddenly out of his voice. "I don't want to…"

"Shhh…" I breathe into his ear before gently biting the lobe. "I'll talk, you just tell me if I'm right or not."

He groans as my tongue traces down the side of his neck. "Now, the story you just told us - you were ten, right?"

"Duo…" he begins warningly.

I prop myself up and glare at him. "You were ten, right?" I repeat sternly.

"Yeah," he grunts.

"Good." I lean down and gently bite the skin in the hollow of his collarbone. He groans again.

"You were going to fight in that battle with the rest of the unit, right?"

"Yes," he replies slowly.

"Good," I breathe again, running my tongue over the small red mark I just created.

"You could have been killed at any time in it, right?"

"Yeah," he gasps, bending his head backwards.

"Right." I move my mouth slowly along the base of his throat, stopping occasionally here and there to very lightly suck on the skin beneath my lips. I kiss the place where his pulse beats, and feel it quicken. That's such a turn-on for me that I do it again, and it quickens more.

"You didn't know the cross had a transmitter in it, did you?" I murmur against his neck.

"It doesn't matter," he insists, stiffening again. I pull back and frown down at him, forcing myself to keep the disapproving expression on my face even as I glimpse the pain in his eyes.

"Yes or no, Tro-chan," I insist. "Did you know it had a transmitter in it?"

"No," he mutters, closing his eyes in defeat.

[cont]