Title: Crashed 5/7?
Author: girl_starfish
Pairing: 1x2, 3+4, 5+2
Category: romance, drama, au, adventure, sci-fi.
Rating: nc17
Warnings: Yaoi, violence, creepy evil scientist types.
Disclaimer: Do not own gw, do not make a profit from writing about it.

Crashed + Part 5

Wufei groaned and buried his head in his pillow. He should have known better than to drink so much last night. He should have known better than to drink at all -- But Duo --

Duo had been gone for five days. And worse, Heero was with him. Wufei was beginning to think he'd been mistaken in assuming their relationship was temporary. Distressingly, Trowa seemed certain it wasn't, telling the blond who'd appeared rather inexplicably as Trowa's second shadow, at great length why he thought Heero and Duo were a couple. Wufei had drunk a bit more than usual, switching drinks with Trowa, in order to try to reassure himself, a tactic which had rather notably failed. He now had not only no guarantee that Duo was even interested in him, and a ringing head --

Wait a minute, that wasn't his head. It was the wall phone.

Wufei stumbled out of bed and managed to thump the wall panel. "Chang, here."

"Have you heard from Howard?"

Wufei winced. Trust Trowa to go on a drinking expedition and still wake up early the next morning in time to make horribly loud calls to people. "No. Why?" Faint hope clutched at him, even through his hung- over state. "Has there been news?"

"Not the kind we've been hoping for. Something's wrong. I passed a man in a Sweeper's uniform this morning and I swear I've never seen him before."

"So? Maybe you made a mistake."

"I didn't. He walked right in front of me, and I was expecting him to say something to me -- you know all the Sweeper's do -- so when he didn't, I noticed. And that's not all."

"You're kidding."

Wufei's sarcasm went unnoticed.

"Quatre recognised him -- as one of the men who was chasing him."

"Why was Quatre being chased?" Wufei asked.

"That's not important now. Only, Howard and the others aren't letting anyone inside the fort, and aren't answering their calls."

"Maybe they went out last night and want to sleep in," Wufei suggested, rubbing his head.

"Quatre and I are going to come over," Trowa said. "I think we should investigate this."

"Great," Wufei said as Trowa, taking silence for approval, hung up. He mulled the situation over and decided the best course of action would be to go back to bed, and face the situation when his head no longer felt like it was housing an Ozzy Osbourne concert.

+

Heero.

/ My eyes dilate, my lips go green
My hands are greasy
She's a mean, mean machine
Start it up /

I blinked, wincing at the light in front of me, blindingly bright. Where was I?

My head felt strangely light, my thoughts somehow weightless -- I would have thought I dreamed still if not for the harsh glare of the light. The pain was only too real. I shielded my eyes with a hand -- for some reason that brought back a faint memory.

For some reason not so long ago I'd been restricted -- what had changed? I tried out the rest of my limbs -- none of them seemed to be tied back. Apart from a stiffness in my limbs and a slight dizziness when I sat up, I seemed to be fine. Sitting up I made two further discoveries. One, I had been draped in a sheet -- my sitting up had dislodged it. The other -- an addition of some importance had been made to my hardware.

"Duo," I said immediately, as memories came rushing back. We'd gone to get help from a man who was disturbingly like J, and then --

Looking around I recognised I was in the room I remembered as G's workroom. I was alone, if you didn't count the humming camera bots crawling over the walls and through the corridors outside. Duo had explained them by saying that G was so paranoid he spied on himself, for which the scientist had pulled on his braid. That had been shortly before I'd been placed on the operating table --

I decided to locate Duo and discover from what had transpired while I was unconscious.

I kicked the sheet out of the way and startled several camera bots out of their set routes as I set off down the dimly lit corridor. I could smell a faintly burnt odour emanating from an open doorway and followed it, finding myself in a combined kitchen/ living space. While G scraped some sort of blackened substance from the bottom of a saucepan, Duo held up a small object up to the light.

"You sure this isn't anything important?"

"I'm sure," G said irritably. "Look, if it bothers you so much, why don't you take it apart it see what it-hello -- "

"Heero!" Duo squeaked as he caught sight of me. "You're up! I mean -- oh god -- "

G cackled. "Not quite!" he leered.

I looked from one to the other puzzled. What was so amusing and why had Duo gone red? "Is something wrong?"

"I think it's time to introduce the concept of modesty," Duo said, grabbing my hand and pulling me hastily out of the room. "Where's your sheet?"

"The workroom." I was rather bemused as Duo proceeded to wrap said sheet around my waist.

"Is something wrong with my parts?"

"No -- far as I can tell they're fine." Duo was still far from his usual hue.

"Then what is the purpose of the sheet?"

"You -- well, you know. You can't just walk around naked, Heero."

"Why not? I have no need for heat and apart from aesthetic purposes, I see no reason -- "

"Don't you feel a bit weird? You know -- naked maybe?" Duo sighed. "I guess without parts you didn't have a reason for modesty."

"So this is related to my parts?" I guessed.

"Mostly. Genitalia isn't something most people want to display." I felt offended. "My parts do not appeal to you?"

"No, no they do! That's the problem!"

If Duo got any redder I would have to fetch him a glass of water. "How is that a problem? I thought they were designed to attract you into having sex with me."

"You don't mince your words, do you?" Duo sighed. "Attract me, yes. Other people -- no."

This was starting to make sense. Duo had said that relationships where partners shared their bodies with each other were usually exclusive and I had definitely not wanted to share him with Wufei -- so perhaps seeing my parts was something that should be reserved only for Duo? That conclusion worried me -- had I accidentally broken some sort of relationship rule? Would Duo be disgusted with me?

"I'm sorry," I said. "I did not know."

"Course you didn't," Duo sighed, stroking my cheek. "I forget sometimes what a lot you never got taught."

"You're not mad at me?" I said hopefully.

Duo wrapped me in a kiss so tight it was all I could think about. When he broke apart I was panting. "Does that feel like I'm mad at you? Man, Heero, I've missed you so much!"

I smiled at him shyly. "I think my parts are working."

Duo stared at me, then looked down my sheet. "Oh, yeah -- they're working all right." He looked up at my face again, also somewhat nervous. "Ya wanna do something about that?"

I blushed. "Thorough testing should form a part of any new developments," I said to cover my embarrassment.

"I think I can arrange that," Duo took my hand again. "Follow me."

/Start me up
Give it all you got
You got to never, never, never stop
Start it up /

I sat on the mattress on the floor of what Duo termed 'G's "guest" room' -- I did not want to know what kind of guests G expected -- watching as Duo methodically chased the roving spy-cams out the door. There were a few of them and they seemed reluctant to go. Judging by the names Duo was calling their creator, he did not think this was accidental.

"Do you think you got all of them?" I asked as Duo came to sit next to me on the mattress and began digging through his bag.

"Nah, but my jammer should take care of anything else G's got stashed in here -- it blocks all kinds of recording devices. So take that!" Duo flicked a switch triumphantly and set his invention aside.

"I'm sorry," I said, as Duo began setting candles up on the spaces surrounding the mattress.

"What for?" Duo asked absently.

"For causing this," I waved towards the closed door and the spiders behind it. "G is interested because he saw my parts, isn't he?"

"Now there is an unwelcome mental image -- thanks a lot, Heero!" Duo grimaced. "Ewww!"

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Lighting candles."

"Why? We have an adequate light source."

"It's not about lighting, it's about atmosphere. Romance." Duo finishbed with the candles.

"I do not see the point," I admitted. "This is a pre-copulation ritual?"

Duo threw the matches across the room. "No! This is not about sex! Well it is, but its not just about sex, dammit! I want this to be special, not just sex because we can -- and look at this place! A mattress on a floor in a store-room, for Pete's sake!"

I was touched. "You're talking about love and not sex then?" I asked, pulling Duo towards me and kissing his forehead.

"Yes," he replied. "Couples often do things to show each other how much they appreciate each other. Flowers, chocolates, candle-lit dinners, dancing, the works." He sighed, looking up at me with a wry expression. "I managed the candle-lit part."

I kissed him soundly. "I like them. They are a nice touch."

"You haven't seen them yet." Duo pulled away from me to turn off the light at the door.

Myriad tiny flames jumped in the dark, pools of light dancing across the room. I was delighted.

"Duo -- "

"Ya like?"

"Very much." I stood, admiring the light way he stepped among the candles as he made his way back to the mattress. "Can I get rid of the sheet now?"

Duo smiled, alluring in the half light. "Be my guest."

/ (Start it up)
Never, never
You make a grown man cry
You make a grown man cry
You make a grown man cry /

My body was fairly humming, both from the sensations rushing through it, and from the effort of cataloguing them all. I didn't want to forget a bit of this -- sure, there'd been moments of awkwardness when Duo had had to explain what you did with certain parts, but they were of no importance next to the reality of being with Duo.

I was pressing Duo into the mattress, wrapped in his arms as he tried to bring the two of us even closer together. He'd surrendered the dominant position to me, saying that he thought I should have control over how fast and far we went, given that I was the one whose parts we were testing, and so that I would not be overwhelmed by the whole experience. I found the suggestion more endearing than useful -- I did not see what difference being in charge made. We'd been equals in the relationship so far, I wanted that to continue. Who was in charge of our sex-life didn't matter much to me, so long as there was more of it.

Duo seemed to think so too, gathering from the rather incoherent responses he made as we proceeded. I don't think anything could have made this experience better, than sharing it with Duo -- the fact that he'd chosen to wait to be able to share this with me made my heart fill with warmth --

I was Duo's equal, we were finally together, and I did not have to ask myself if I was worthy of him. This was the best moment of my life --

A beep sounded and a warning message flashed across on my internal sensors.

[Attention!]

[Heart beat has exceeded appropriate levels indicative of rising stress. Suggest all activity is terminated and dormant mode activated to allow heart beat to return to normal.]

I did a quick scan of my internal components. Nothing seemed amiss.

[Ignore] I commanded.

Duo thrust up against me, sending another wave of fire through me. I bent a desperate kiss to Duo's lips before resuming operations as they were before the interruption.

If anything, the feeling was growing. More and more intense until I felt that if it continued any longer, I would die -- and strangely, not in a bad way. Duo's movements against me were just as frantic, and I was forced to abandon all effort to catalogue this --

[Attention!]

[Heart beat has continue to exceed recommended levels. System control has been instated, all activity will cease until heart beat returns to approved level.]

Shit, was all I had time to think before everything went black.

/ Ride like the wind at double speed
I'll take you places that you've never, never seen /

[cont]