Warnings and disclaimers in first section.
I was around the back of the house when I heard a truck come to a stop in front. Shoving the rest of the trash into a bag I had brought with me, I strained my ears for any noise. I probably shouldn’t have started laughing, but the stunned exclamation of “What the hell?” struck me as funny.
After getting control of myself, I walked around the house and leaned on the corner of it, bone tired. I had underestimated the amount of work it was going to take to get Trowa’s yard looking nice and the effort I had put into it, but I had gotten everything done. All the work was worth it as I took in Trowa’s reaction.
He was standing at the edge of the yard, staring at the colorful flowers like there might be a bomb hidden inside them, concealed by the blooms. “Hope you don’t mind me doing some yard work for you. It was painful to see all of those weeds.”
He turned around slowly, staring at me like I was the one concealing a bomb. It felt like an hour before he blinked, “Duo?”
“You know anyone else that would crazy enough to spend hours in someone else’s yard without knowing if they would be welcome or not?” That sounded a bit pleading. What the hell, I was prepared to beg if necessary.
“When did you see my yard?”
“A few days ago when I took a walk around the neighborhood.”
“It was you I felt watching me.”
“Guilty.”
“Why didn’t you talk to me?”
“I wasn’t sure…I didn’t know if you would want to see me again, let alone talk to me.”
“Yet you spent hours working in my yard, wondering the same thing.”
His eyes weren’t telling me anything, damn it. He didn’t sound like he wanted to kill me, so that was something. “I’m a mass of contradictions. You should know that by now.” He was staring at me, those eyes digging under the surface to what I wasn’t saying. With nothing to lose, I held out my hands, gesturing to the plants, “What do you think? Does it look okay?”
The sound of something hitting the ground had me jerking and looking at him, expecting a gun. The truth was that he had dropped his briefcase and was stepping toward me with hesitant steps. I didn’t move as he stopped in front of me, reaching out with one hand to touch my face with his fingertips. “Is it really you?”
“It’s really me.” He visibly swallowed and stepped back, letting his hand fall. I missed that touch immediately.
“What are you doing here?”
“I told you, fixing your yard.”
“Not in my yard, Duo. Why are you on Earth at all? You said you never came here.”
“I brought one of the new trainees from the Shoe. I thought it might be nice to stay for a while.”
“I see. When are you leaving? I assume you already have a few jobs lined up.”
If only he knew the plans I’d been making…he thought I planned to leave as soon as I could. “Actually, I don’t have anything going on at the moment. I guess I need to talk to a real estate agent or something. I have to be out of the hotel I’m staying at by the end of the week, so maybe I need to look into a motel until I can find something else.”
He was looking away from me, staring at the plants. “The yard looks great, Duo. I’ve been meaning to do some work, but I couldn’t make myself bother.”
“Heero told me you’ve been putting in a lot of extra hours.”
“You talked to Heero about me?” His voice was surprised.
“And Quatre; I didn’t think you would mind.” What was he thinking? He was keeping what he felt to himself and for once, I didn’t want him to do that.
“You aren’t planning to leave? You want to talk to a real estate agent?”
“I’ll still have to go out sometimes, but I don’t need to leave anytime soon. I’ve needed a break and this seemed like a good place to take it.”
“You don’t need to leave? Is there something that made you decide to take your break here instead of on Kol or Sodom? Those are the two places you spend most of your free time if you aren’t on the Hellion.”
“Do you really need to ask me that?” It was the first time I had let myself admit out loud that he was the reason I was here instead of leaving as soon as I had delivered Mark into the hands of the Preventers. “The people I care about are here, so it makes sense for me to be here, too.”
His gaze found me so fast I jumped in surprise, “The people you care about? That’s what brought you to Earth?”
Leave it to Trowa to find the heart of the matter and pull the answer from me, “You. I needed to see you again.”
That son of a bitch walked away from me. Did he just want to hear me say something like that? Was it necessary to humiliate me and leave me there looking like a total idiot? I should have known better than to go there expecting him to want me around. I don’t know what the hell I was…
“Duo, are you coming or not?”
“What?” He was looking at me with a smile, already holding his briefcase. “You don’t want me to leave?”
“Come inside. We should talk.”
“I should go to the hotel and take a shower. I’m covered in dirt, sweat, and grass,” I held up my hands to prove my point.
He was shaking his head as he stepped toward me, taking one of my hands in his free one, “You’ve hurt yourself. I have a shower that works better than the one at a hotel and a first aid kit that I keep fully stocked at all times.”
“I don’t have any clothes.”
“I’ll find something for you to wear. You’re slightly smaller than Quatre; his clothes should fit you just fine.”
In the process of joining him on the porch, not like I had a choice since he was still gripping my hand, I stopped and pulled my hand away, narrowing my eyes, “Why does Quatre have clothes here?”
“They’re from a long time ago, before he and Heero were together.”
I’ve never been the jealous type, not really, at least I wasn’t unless it involved Trowa, apparently. “That’s nice. Why does he have clothes here?”
“Duo, before he opened a branch of Winner here, he had to have somewhere to stay when he was visiting.”
“He could have stayed in a hotel,” I grumbled. Yeah, I was being ridiculous, but I didn’t give a damn.
“Nothing ever happened between me and Quatre. He’s a good friend and that’s all he’s ever been.” Trowa, the smug prick, was actually smirking as he unlocked the door and pulled me inside. “I’ve never wanted anything from Quatre other than friendship.” Setting his briefcase beside the door, he dropped his keys on a small table before turning to me, eyes serious. “Why did you come here, Duo? If it’s to apologize…”
“Yeah, about that…I’ve given this a lot of thought and…I’m not sorry about sedating you.” He blinked, obviously surprised by my reply. What the hell, I’d gone this far, might as well keep talking and say what I needed to just in case he decided to toss me out on my ear. “I needed to know you were safe and out of danger. If I was able to go back and do it again, I’d do the same thing. I’m sorry for deceiving you, but not for making sure you were safe. If you have to have an apology, I’m sorry for not telling you, but that would have destroyed the purpose of me putting the tranq in your drink in the first place.”
“You aren’t sorry about sedating me? Not at all?”
“Umm, no; I couldn’t let you be hurt, Trowa. I’ve dealt with a lot of bad shit in my life, but that was something I had no intention of allowing. You’d already been wounded because you were with me.” I couldn’t stop myself from moving forward, running my hand over his forearm, where the sleeve of his Preventers uniform covered his skin. “Did it leave a scar?”
“A small one.” His eyes were honed in on where my hand rested on him, so I removed the touch, immediately missing his warmth. He’s always so damn hot it’s a miracle he doesn’t explode. I missed that heat during the long nights I spent alone in bed at Chester’s apartment.
“A small one is more than I wanted you to have. Why didn’t you spend time in a regen unit when you got on Chester’s ship? I know he has one; I made sure of it just in case something happened and you or Quatre needed it.”
Trowa had reached for my arm, his hand stilling in mid-air just shy of my skin. His eyes bored into me with an intensity that was almost frightening, making me think of the first few times he asked me questions that demanded answers. “You knew there was a regen unit on the Last Stand?”
“Well, yeah. I knew he was bound to have at least one; Chester’s life is more dangerous than mine’s ever been. He’s needed a regen unit more than once, for him or for Justin.”
“You sent the only ship you knew of that had a regen unit away when you knew you were going into a dangerous and possibly lethal situation?”
Oh, crap. He wasn’t happy. “It was important to make sure you were both okay. There’s no telling what could have happened during the trip from there to here, Trowa.”
“You sent the ship with a regen unit away and had to deal with a life-threatening injury without one. What in the hell is wrong with you?”
“You were safe and taken care of. That’s what mattered.” I didn’t think we’d be arguing less than an hour after seeing each other again, but what the hell. When have things between me and Trowa been easy? Exciting, yes. Intriguing, absolutely. Simple at a level that borders on primal, definitely. But they’ve never been easy, probably because we’re both stubborn.
“You could have died. Am I supposed to thank you for taking such a risk at with your own life? You sent the best chance of recovery away when there was no reason. I understood you wanting me out of the way, Duo; I would have done the same damn thing. I don’t understand you taking such a chance; damn it, you could have died! How would I have felt then?”
“I don’t know,” my voice was soft, but he heard me, I could tell by the way he jerked. “How would you have felt?”
All the fight seemed to just…melt out of him. His shoulders slumped and he shook his head, gaze moving to the floor, “I wouldn’t have been able to keep going. Knowing you were out there, that I might have a chance to see you some day is what’s been making it possible for me to get out of bed every damn morning when what I wanted to do was pull the blankets over my head and pretend you were here somewhere. Without that hope, I would have given up months ago.”
Well, talk about taking the wind out of my sails. I couldn’t get my hopes up, really, but it seems that he didn’t hate me. “Then you should understand why I had to make sure you had a way to heal if you had been hurt during the trip. If pirates had boarded you, which was a possibility considering you were on Chester’s ship, you or Quatre might have needed the regen unit more than me. There are accomplished doctors on the Shoe, Trowa, something you didn’t have access to; all you had was the one doctor and that might not have been enough.”
“You were determined to protect us from a possible fight, even at the expense of your life?”
“No. I was determined to protect you. I know you, Trowa. If you had thought Quatre was in danger, you would have put yourself in the line of fire to save him. I needed that reassurance that you would make it home, safe and sound. My safety was inconsequential.”
Before I realized he’d moved I was pressed against the door, the knob digging into my back. My discomfort only lasted for an instant before I focused on more important matters, like his mouth on mine. All the time since I had seen him last was gone, the feelings were the same as they were months ago, threatening to take away all that I had and pull it into him.
As much as I enjoyed feeling him against me, and I really did enjoy it, I forced myself to push him back, just enough to look up at him. He was surprised by the move, his eyes wary. “We need to talk, Trowa, actually talk. There are a lot of things I need to tell you before we end up in bed…again. It would be too easy to forget everything else and just concentrate on physical needs.”
“You…want to talk instead of have sex?”
Oh yeah, I shocked the hell out of him with that one. “Surprisingly, yes, sort of.” He frowned and backed away, obviously confused and prompting an explanation. “Do I want to go to bed with you? Without a doubt, but that doesn’t mean either one of us are really ready for that.” Did that really come out of my mouth?
“Did you really say that? You want to wait to have sex?”
I was as shocked as he was, but that didn’t change how I feel. Now that he was there, in front of me again, I wanted to tell him all the things I wanted to tell him over the last nine months…and all the things I should have told him before that. “Do I want to wait before feeling you against me again? Not at all, but I do think it’s the best idea. Do you think I can take that shower first? I can smell myself.”
He nodded slowly, looking at me like I’d sprouted three extra heads and they were all as confusing as the main one. “I’ll show you where the bathroom is.”
Following him through the house, I wasn’t surprised that it was neat and almost sparsely decorated. He had photos on the wall and furniture that matched, but little else. Obviously, he hadn’t spent a lot of time making it a comfortable place to live, probably because he didn’t spend much time there. I could imagine he considered decorating a waste of time since he was likely gone a lot.
“You should paint in here. All these browns aren’t like you.”
“What does that mean?”
“They’re boring, Trowa. You aren’t boring.”
“Most people would disagree with you.”
“I’m not most people. I must know you a little better than they do.”
He stopped in a hallway, looking back at me for a moment before nodding, “I suppose you do. This is the bathroom. I’ll get you some clothes from the guest room.”
“You have a guest room?”
“Where did you think Quatre slept when he stayed here?”
“I was hoping on the couch, but a guest room works for me.”
In the doorway of the bathroom, he paused and gave me a smile, “You sound like you’re jealous that Quatre has stayed with me before.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t be? Why should he get to stay the night with you in your house when I can’t?”
Trowa’s smile was more predatory now, eyes darkening slightly, “Who said you couldn’t?”
“We need to talk.”
“I’m aware of that, Duo. We’ll talk, eat dinner, and then you’ll stay here tonight, with me. You will not be staying in the guest room.”
“You don’t know what I have to say. You might change your mind,” I warned him quietly.
“I don’t know what you have to say, but it won’t change my mind. You came here, Duo. For me, that’s proof enough.”
“Proof of what?” Why did he have to be so confusing?
“Proof of how you feel.” His smile was triumphant and he had a right to feel that way. I guess by coming here, by making an effort to see him again when I had insisted it was a bad idea, proved that he meant more to me than I had admitted. “Get in the shower and I’ll bring you some clothes.”
“Trowa…thanks for not kicking me out of your yard after you got home.”
“Why would I do that after you put so much work into it?”
He was smiling as he left the room, leaving me to snort and roll my eyes. The man was a complete and total mystery to me, and I loved him that much more for it.