Author's Note: Hi guys... does anybody actually still remember this story? I forgot about it for a while, but was digging through my old writing files and found enough interesting drafted material to make up like three new chapters! :O ! so to apologize for my loooong absence, I've put a flashback into this chapter that sequentially probably could have been better somewhere else, but has, gasp, GRAPHIC SEX and wiener licking to boot. HYEAH fangirls, this is for you.

anyway, story-wise, don't worry for any of you who actually give a dick; plot is imminently arriving.

-onions

Forgive and Forget

chapter IX; The Request

"I wasn't told."

"Heero, it's not as if he's died."

"you didn't tell me."

Quatre's desk glowed red beneath the Arab's pale hands in the gaze of the winter sun. The blonde sat in silence for the most part, looking down at the surface of the desk and allowing his company to speak first. Trowa Barton sat folded into the crimson armchair by the window, looking sharp and dangerous for all his mild-manneredness. Together, the boys looked like a matching set; both wore clothes of the same make. Quatre was resplendent as usual in a crisp, fresh collared shirt. Today it was leaf green to Trowa's brown, but they both buttoned up the front with little delicate white dots. Pearline buttons. Buttons that shone in the afternoon light.

Bringing a hand up to muffle a soft cough, Trowa continued. "He hasn't been killed. He just isn't someone we know anymore."

"Nobody... nobody told me." Heero sat away from them, drawn back from the window by quite a few feet. Settled in the darkest corner of the room, the soldier's normally pale skin had become something chalkier against the tendrils of black the shadows made of his hair. He wore the same inky blue jacket he'd been seen in for every encounter since the end of the war, and coupled with a pair of dark denim jeans, Heero had become very much a living part of the shade of the room. It was an anomaly that he'd found the darkest patch of floor, considering the light of the rest of the room; The sun was shining brightly through the east window of Quatre's office, just behind Trowa's shoulder. Snow made the glare a little brighter than usual, and it cast shadows of horses across the pale ceiling from the iron figurines sitting on the middle ledge of the wood frame. Outside, a tinkling chime sung in time with icy leaves as a low wind whispered across the perfect white landscape. The interior of the office dropped elegant black shadows against the brightness of the day, and made the top of Trowa's head into a delicate silhouette across the glass panes.

"You're overreacting." Trowa said again with a vague sense of irritation. He laid his ankle across his thigh, and let out a short, quiet sigh into the tense air. "This isn't Quatre's fault, so stop staring at him like it is."

"Why wasn't I told?" Another stoic re-phrasal. From the corner, Heero's eyes grew icier.

The Arab coughed, and finished off the last of the tea in his cup, settling it painfully slowly back in the saucer. "I was helping Hilde find Duo yesterday, for the record. He wasn't supposed to be with you, because... well... nobody could find you!" Ever since his accidental encounter with Heero Yuy the day previously, he'd been feeling markedly guilty. It showed in the way he handled his tea, tenuous and shaking. "I suppose that's the primary reason this is catching you so off-guard... nobody knew where you were."

Watching the other quiet figure nod, agreeing with Quatre's words, Heero settled back a little, and decided to listen. Though Trowa's face showed the faint wrinkles of displeasure, he was generally someone of little nonsense. He could be trusted to be honest, that much was agreed between them all, despite the nature of his sporadic comings and goings. Though the circus generally kept him busy, Heero hadn't been all that surprised to have found the quiet youth here earlier in the day, when they'd first come in. When it came to the subject of Quatre, Heero had always secretly suspected the latin boy of a greater personal involvement. This was also considering that to lie would have been a great moral affront to someone like Quatre Winner anyway. They were too good together. It was a little sickening.

Quatre hesitantly attempted an explanation of greater detail. Always willing to work as a moderator, the blonde's voice was honeyed with a desire for understanding. "We weren't purposefully leaving you out, if that is what you've concluded... You were involved just the same as the rest of us."

The Asian let loose a derivative snort.

"Duo's procedure wasn't a decision made out of the blue." Quatre continued, standing up behind his desk to shuffle through a stack of papers. "We've discovered that he'd been keeping a private account for quite some time, in order to pay for the procedure. It was quite expensive. Illegal even, by the hands of many doctors, except to high authority officials already from within the system. Money from the junk shop went into it where it could be spared, but he also had been skimming off of the tops of local businesses for the last month and a half in order to connect his loose ends. His plan had been solid quite some time before his actual appointment. Going over his records, it can be deduced that it may even have started as early as my sixteenth birthday."

Quiet from within his corner of shadow, Heero's jaw twitched the slightest bit.

"So it isn't as if we all knew something that you didn't. All of this is relatively new to us as well. The thing is...just... ah..." Trowa and Quatre exchanged significant glances, and the Arab princeling poked at the empty cup of tea by his hand. "Well, Duo asked us not to discuss it with you."

"How could he do that, if he was keeping all of this a secret from the beginning?" The Japanese youth demanded, his voice chilly with danger. The teacup clattered nervously.

"Well, The doctors gave them to us... he, Duo I mean... he told us in, ah..." Quatre stammered over his words, obviously trying to soften whatever blow was about to come, and failing. "In... in our letters."

For the space of a few moments, a vibrating silence rung between all three boys, and Heero became the focal point of a strange triangle of staring eyes.

Slowly, and with a bite of resign, the Asian leaned slightly forward in his seat and curled his fingers around the edge of the desk. Quatre collapsed heavily back into his own slightly more ornate chair, and set to shifting uncomfortably when Heero locked eyes with him. His friend's churning cobalt stare pinioned him down, and when Heero spoke some long moments later, his whisper of a voice rung clear in the deafening quiet.

"What letters?"

--

The evening was coming on when they first walked across the living room floor together, shadows gouging black across the burning orange of the sinking sun. The empty house showed a lot of promise, they'd agreed. Hilde had come earlier that day to scout the premises and had offered a positive report. Though the structure of the house itself was a little shakier than they could have preferred, the roomy lot was big enough to accept the trade scrap they'd already accumulated, and had space for much more. There was even a sturdy looking wooden fence which circled the yard, promising security and stability for the weighted debris which would inevitably come to pile there. It was a good location, near the city but still clinging to the outskirts of one of the poorer neighborhoods they'd originally looked into because of price. Most of all, it was affordable. It was empty now, but one day, it would be a home.

"I figured the couch could go there." Duo gestured at a flat of wall beneath a narrow window. The wood floors were burning orange from the light of the dying day.

Heero shrugged complacently. "If you really want to keep that couch."

"What's wrong with it? I love that couch! I broke it in myself!" The American protested, swinging a fist out to pop Heero in the arm. "Damn leather nearly took the backs of my legs off last summer when it was sitting in direct sun, but a house just isn't no home without a little broke-down comfort, they always say."

"who always says?"

"'They' do! They! Them."

Drawing back in resignation, Heero shook his head. "Fine. Keep your couch, I don't care."

"I will, damn it! I'll keep it."

Floor boards creaking noisily, Heero turned away from Duo and stuck his hands in his battered navy blue jacket, becoming a broad flat of black and a wild tuft of hair against the mandarin living room walls. They walked together for a while, tracing the perimeter of the room with their feet and eyes, and Duo watched the sliver of his lover's turned face as the evening glow slid across him.

Heero walked through hues of shifting gold, and dark blue shadows fell beneath his bangs, and beneath his feet in deep pools, matching the serious expression his face had lapsed into. More than anything today, the Japanese youth radiated a sense of anxious anticipation. Despite however slight Heero's moods ever really appeared, for someone who encompassed 'Heero watching' into a list of favored pastimes, the change was a strange and noticeable one.

"Hey." Duo's hand shot out to grab a bit of sleeve off the other boy, as they neared the kitchen. "what's with the blues?"

Heero stopped, turning his head slightly to peer over his shoulder at the place where Duo's fingers annoyingly clung to his jacket. For a moment he didn't say anything at all.

"Why so moody, Heechan?" Duo prodded again, jerking at his friend's sleeve. "You gonna puke or somethin'? Well, you better not be getting sick, 'cause I'm not goin' to Quatre's birthday party all alone with Hilde. She drinks like a fish, and that crazy bitch is heavy! You gotta help me carry her home."

"Home." Heero mimicked.

"Yeah, home. What, were you expecting us to run a business from opposite sides of the continent?"

That made Heero look up all the way. For a few lingering moments, he traced Duo's face with unreadable eyes.

Duo stared back, bits of his hair coming loose and shining gold as the glow of the sunset illuminated him from behind.

"Your mouth is too smart for your own good." Heero said simply, and kissed the other boy.

It was easy at first to reciprocate. Duo leaned his face up the minute angle required to bring their mouths to the same level, and sweetly allowed his lips to be nibbled on. But when Heero's strong hands came up to push at his arms, the American felt the first tremors of something more serious. They hit the living room wall together with a soft thud, idle feet pushing sluggishly backwards until there was nowhere else left to go. And then Heero was in his mouth, caressing the insides of his cheeks and wracking their tongues together like he'd done so often when different businesses had pulled them apart from time to time.

Feeling fingers beginning to rove, Duo pushed up against his lover playfully, writhing a little as Heero's grip tangled into the buttons of the American's jacket. It was still winter, but even in the chilly, vacant house, Duo was beginning to feel the overheated sensation of summer as it gathered in a slight dew across his skin, pocketed close to his flesh by too many layers of cloth.

"What's wrong with you?" Duo questioned when Heero's mouth moved to his ear, attempting to stifle a smile. "Whad I do?"

Heero answered by sliding his tongue along the perfect outer shell of the ear between his teeth, and moving to suckle hotly on the lobe. Duo groaned, stooping a little as a coil began to wind tightly at the base of his groin. Erogenous zones were free territory between them, but it was always considered a jab when they were so mercilessly exploited in public. Though in truth, the braided boy had made that rule up when he'd realized how susceptible he truly was.

Panting a little, Duo pawed weakly at Heero's shoulder. "Hey.. .no fair."

"Undo your belt." Heero commanded, low and earthy in Duo's ear. Wiry fingers pushed open his thick jacket, and Duo trembled when they slid down to pull his shirt out of his waistband.

"huh?"

"Do it."

"What, right here?"

Pinning Duo with a heavy, lidded look, Heero ran unhesitating fingers down across the tenting bulge in the American's' pants. Gasping slightly, the sweating youth swore and wriggled back against the wall. When his vision cleared again, Heero was still staring with that strange, sultry insistence, and Duo found he needed little more to convince him.

"Alright already!" he batted with shaking fingers at Heero's hand. "Just, gimmie a second..."

But when Duo's hands kept missing their mark, and slipping past the right notch, Heero pushed them away and sunk to his knees to do the job himself. The belt buckle came open quickly and efficiently, and for a moment Heero knelt there, fingers prone on the band of Duo's pants, and turned his eyes up to look at his lover. Duo watched back with a sense of vague wonder, lidded beneath his mounting heat, leaning heavily against the wall. A hand went out to touch the kneeling boy's cheek, and for the space of a few shaky breaths, the American gently traced the lines of Heero's face.

"What is it that's-"

Duo was cut off before he'd finished his sentence when Heero yanked his pants down in a single rough motion. Gasping, he reeled against the wall as the Japanese boy fell hungrily on him in a single wave of throbbing warmth. The braided teen immediately tangled his fingers in the wild, auburn hair he found, and he clung tightly as Heero's warm lips inched farther and farther back along the aching length of his pulsing member. It was strange, in the vague outer recognition of Duo's conscious, that Heero was so willing. Or, more specifically, so quick to smother the resistance he met. But as Duo leaned his head against the empty wall and gasped what little air would come to him, the strangeness of the situation became irrelevant. Everything that mattered was Heero's mouth on him, teasing, sucking, and stroking in only the way a lover already well acquainted with another lover's body could fully understand.

The tongue on his cock was running underneath the gentle v of the head, and then with a pop, the mouth was gone. Duo groaned audibly, a low moan that resonated a deep displeasure. But when he looked down again, Heero had fixed him with the same sultry look as before. It was as if his lover were willing him to acknowledge the moment by the lust in his eyes, and with slow, specific gestures, he stuck two fingers in his mouth. A rippling sense of anticipation tore through Duo and he steeled himself involuntarily, even as his length twitched and hardened at the sight of it.

When it came, it was fast. Duo barely managed to smother a groan as Heero's fingers pushed inside of him and warm lips sucked him hard, the simultaneous actions making the American's head spin. It was the scissoring fingers which were the worst, pulling and stretching tight muscle that had no desire to shift. But as Heero's reaching tongue massaged along the underside of his member, the invasive fingers pushed deeper and deeper inside, and they grew closer to the secret sweet spot both knew was to be found somewhere within.

"Hee- uhhhn!" Duo moaned, jerking as Heero finally found the pebble of his prostate. But instead of waiting for the adjustment, the kneeling boy began to mercilessly rub against it, and the American let out another astonished cry and bowed a little to cling more tightly to the head of hair at his waist. It was only a few more moments of this before he was pushed hard back against the wall, and with a final unforgiving thrust from Heero, Duo yelled out in a strangled voice and came hard into his lover's waiting mouth.

The American panted thickly in the aftermath, sagging on bending knees, still heavy against the wall. "Je-... Jesus... Christ..." the words came slow and lazy, and a little bit incredulous as he finally turned his eyes on Heero again. Still on his knees, the other boy was spitting the cum into his right hand. His left came up to wipe his mouth clean when he noticed Duo watching, and he shot back a calculative look.

"Wha... what's with... you today?" Duo panted thickly, eyebrows arching up in wonder. "You're... acting strange."

"You thought that was bad?"

"No! No... God, no..." The braided boy replied. "it's just... you... you just..."

But as what seemed was Heero's style for the day, he cared little for waiting for Duo to finish talking. Shooting out his free hand, he took hold of Duo's wrist and pulled him down onto the floor. In his jellied state, it was an easy maneuver, and the American immediately tottered over... half in the living room, and half on the cold checkered tile of the kitchen, Duo rolled over, in a daze, just in time to witness Heero expertly removing the rest of his pants. They felt soft as the slid away, despite the fact that his socks remained, even after the purge. He bid a fond farewell to them as his lover tossed them into the corner, and began unbuckling his own jeans. Heero was weird like that... if it wasn't spandex, it was denim. Jeans or nothing, and as he lay sprawled and waiting, Duo lamented that fact. Jeans were too scratchy for his taste, sometimes. Especially in situations like this.

"Do you have a..?" the prone boy questioned, wriggling out of his oversized jacket just enough so that it was almost like a blanket to lie on.

Heero nodded, and reached into his back pocket. "Ah." the condom wrapper was gold, and it glinted in the evening light when the boy stuck it between his teeth for momentary storage. A few quick yanks of his own, and he was free of the uncomfortable constrictive tent of his jeans. Duo watched quietly, both admiring and wondering at Heero's full state of arousal. Was he really so badly in the thrall of his own desire? He hadn't so much as been touched once today. Not yet, anyway.

The motions were so familiar by now that Duo knew them by heart. Accepting Heero into his space, he loosely wrapped his legs around his lover and waited as Heero tore the condom wrapper viciously open with his teeth. The war had been a hard time, for both of them, and they'd both agreed to taking precautionary measures, from the very beginning.

"Do you need a hand?" The American questioned, half a smile playing across his mouth.

Heero paused a moment to glance up, but quickly resumed his task again. "No, I got it." He assured, lips still plump and raw from his previous pleasurable task.

The jacket did little to cushion them from the hard ground. But it wasn't as cold as the tile of the kitchen, and so for that Duo was thankful. When Heero finally came down over him to lean on his forearms, it was the warmth of his body that finally threw thoughts of the rest of the world away again. The living room was still lit with gold behind them, and Heero's figure was a shadow surrounded by that glowing halo.

His right hand came down quickly and efficiently as he leaned on his side, and Duo gasped as a wet hand encompassed his flaccid length again, pumping it back to life with skillful caresses. When it was big enough, he pushed their erections together and coated them both in the thick, white semen still in his hand. Slowly, Heero pumped them together, until Duo was writhing again, arching up into the touch, hunger crazed and frantic. The Japanese boy even had the decency to smile just slightly, when Duo's wriggling turned to moaning.

"Ah! Ah, Heero... Come on..."

"Don't seem so desperate."

"Please!" Duo supplied immediately, tossing his head as Heero slid them together. "Jesus Christ! Please, please! What the fuck do you want me to say?"

"You know what I want you to say."

"Put it in now?"

"No."

"Oh, come on!" it was getting harder and harder to form an argument through his haze, and Duo could tell that Heero knew it. "Alright! alright already... fuck! I'll do it! Just..."

The boy found himself wiggling again, unable to keep still, until Heero's strong hands slid up his arms, and pinned his wrists above his head. His expression was smoldering, shadowed with an intensity that booked for no deterrents. Duo felt hotter than he had in ages. It was strange, and dangerous, and sexy too, all rolled together to be there as they were just then... on the verge of everything on the floor in a house they didn't even own. But it was Heero's mood that really made it... Because it was something more now than simply 'serious', or maybe 'a little bit distracted'. It was the untouchable attention of a mission; the focused pain of great concentration that Heero only wore out in the field. That was why it had taken so long to identify... it was an organized desperation.

"What's wrong with you?" The question was like a revelation.

"Say it."

Duo flushed a little, and looked away. "...I ...want you." he finally muttered.

Heero's hands dug a little harder against his wrists. "What?"

"I want you!" The American said it louder this time, almost mad. "Shit, what do you think I am, Heero, a teenage girl?"

Heero's response wasn't vocal, but immediately effective as he ground down into Duo's waiting erection with his own, dragging sweating flesh against sweating flesh with an excruciating slowness. Duo's head rolled back, and he was lost in his own breath.

"I know what you are." The words were simple, quiet. Finally, Duo's wrists were released, and Heero's hands slid up the side of the American's leg, pulling it up over a shoulder. "Say it again."

Why did this feel somehow like a mission specific? Putting out a tentative hand, Duo brushed the tips of his callused fingers lightly across Heero's brow. His hair tickled the American's knuckles, and he thought briefly on what his partner would look like with a shorter haircut. Gentle fingers. Softness. But silence.

Heero shifted back and pushed forward, replying once again with motion as the tip of his erection sunk slowly into the boy on the floor. Duo's hand had dropped at that, as well as his eyelids, until they both were reduced to bristling, trembling flesh, incapable of speech.

Time distorted after that. Words and thoughts were lost in a haze of physical gratification, no more complex than an animalistic groan now and again. Or the rough, ragged sounds that Duo occasionally managed to drag out of Heero when he would squeeze a certain way. They both clawed at one another with nails and teeth, taking no account for gentleness or caution. But Duo never could entirely forget Heero's strangeness that night. That odd, smothered pain that hid behind what only could have been desperation. They were all desperate. But Heero had always just been the best about not showing it. At least, never like that. Never desperate for another person.

The sun had sunk entirely by the time they were finished, lying spent and sticky in a puddle on Duo's jacket. Heero laid with his head cradled on the inside of the American's arm, Duo spread on his side. For the moment it seemed as if the more stoic of the two had gone to sleep; Heero's eyes were closed, and his breathing had evened out into something peaceful. He seemed calmer, now. More relaxed... but this peace was also a little like the exhausted rest of a child who has spent the afternoon in furious tears. This now was the quiet aftermath a completed mission.

Duo ran his fingers along the lines of Heero's face, examining all of his already too-familiar crevices.

"I want you." he whispered, quiet, and mostly to himself. "...I want you."

The sound of crickets from outside the window surrounded them, and for a while, they slept like that.

--

The last light of the dying day stretched out across the floor of Heero's living room. Having not bothered to turn on the overhead lights as of yet, the boy himself stood by the window, and watched cars trundle slowly through the icy mush on the streets below. The snow still cast bright reflections up across the faces of the building, but as the sun crept closer to the horizon, the dark rose up from the ground in sharp, angular crevices, and snuck black bars of night over the civilians still out and about. Soon everything would be black, and Heero would have to fumble his way back down the hall, and turn on his light.

The envelope in his hands felt too dry.

Licking his lips, Heero turned away from the window and paced into the middle of his living room. The letter went round and round in his fingers as he traversed the blocks of light and shadow his window frame painted across the floor. Back and forth, his shadow followed him everywhere, dark and silent and foreboding.

Callused fingers ran along the top of the letter, feeling the dull fold of the paper, and the resistance where it had been sealed across the back. It was dirty, for one thing. Heero had known immediately that it had come from Duo, because of that. Finger prints still shone oily on the corners where the American had pressed down the sticky side and closed the envelope, and for a minute, it had felt a little like handling a bit of the old, living Duo again. Looking at the paper, the casual carelessness of the mess spoke something of Duo's carefree nature that had hurt to see. It was a reminder of a past that no longer existed. And if what Quatre and Trowa had told him was right, this letter really was the last remaining artifact of the life and times of Duo Maxwell. Though it hadn't been the only letter, it was the last one to be opened.

Heero let out a low, shallow breath, and brought the envelope up to his face. His hands had been making this a difficult task. This was the fourth time the paper had risen to be read, and the soldier had to mentally battle down his desire to drop the letter on the table again. Once the seal was broken, he would have to read whatever was inside. And then the Duo Maxwell that had existed during the war would at last be finished. His reality would dissolve into the archives of memory, and Heero would have no other choice but to yield to that fact. The gentle visions of Duo that he'd stored in a secret place far beneath the surface of his own reality would forever be overshadowed by the cruel words of their last meeting, and the soldier would have to give in at last to his own mental accusations. Like adversaries met on the battlefield, Heero had efficiently slaughtered Duo Maxwell.

The paper ripped loudly as Heero stuck a thumb underneath the seal, and pulled it up. Perhaps it would be the same as Quatre's letter, or Trowa's... Heero had been allowed to read them too, despite the blonde's initial hesitancy. They had been well-collected, well phrased letters. They had been kind, and just a little bit witty... enough to take the edge off of what had actually been very serious. They had spoken of friendship and regret, but also about a desire for a better life, and the hope that he would be aided in this final mission as a soldier, in order to tie up all of his loose ends and be done. But, just as Quatre had mentioned, they had also requested that Heero himself be quietly left out of the plan. The reason had not been mentioned, though Heero was confident that he knew the exact moment in time in which Duo could have decided such a thing. That night... That night, Duo had looked so lost... his blue suit askew across his shoulders and blood on his knuckles, sitting by the fire, doing nothing at all.

Sending a finger across the underside of the seal, the paper tore fully open.

The headlights of a car sent a shifting patch of light sliding across the opposite wall as Heero pulled the sheet of notebook paper out of the filthy envelope, and smoothed it open. Duo's messy chicken scratch gouged inky black lines across the paper, and the light off the snow made it faintly blue in Heero's fingers as he read;

'Dear Heero,

fuck off, you fucking piece of shit.

Love you, and hoping to never see you again,

Duo'

--

TBC

author's note: ooooohhhhh! duo's ultra burn through time and space. what a douche.

anyway, the more I write heero, the more he becomes this really gentle, soft guy who has just been pushed way too hard. he's fucked up because he was killing people before he even hit puberty. but secretly, underneath all that un repairable human refuse, there's the good heart of a nice fella. :D which works out considering my duo in this endless epic tale of lost love is equally broken. hooray damaged goods! hooray for the human heart!

come back soon, readers. I miss you.