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"High Dive"Written By: Clara Barton Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing. The following
is an intellectual exercise with no intention of profit. That said,
these characterizations, words, and situations are mine. Please ask
before reprinting. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: angst, language, sex Pairings: 2x5 Summary: While out walking his ex's dog, Duo discovers something quite unexpected about his attractive and aloof neighbor. A/N: For the Accidental Sex Prompts, this request
was from Luvsanime02 (my Ro), for "I didn't know you were a sub
and when I called you a good boy you almost cried" sex with 2x5
(although I was VERY tempted to go for the Mx5. Maybe another fic
lol). "High Dive"
Chapter Two Duo stepped into the elevator with a sigh. He was tired, he was frustrated, and he wanted nothing more than to go up to his apartment, polish off the gin he had been savoring for the last two weeks, and do nothing. "Hold the elevator!" With another sigh, Duo reached out and put his hand over the door so that it wouldn't close. A moment later, Wufei, a little breathless and cheeks flushed from the cold, stopped in front of the open door. "Duo." "Wufei." The other man squeezed past him, and Duo let go of the door. He had already pressed the button for their floor, so he simply propped himself against the back wall. Wufei did the same, and despite the fact that the elevator was empty, he stood close enough to Duo that their shoulders brushed. Duo forced himself not to read anything into it. In the two weeks since… since the Incident, as Duo thought about it both fondly and regretfully, Wufei had avoided the hell out of him. Before, they usually saw each other in the mornings, but since, Wufei had clearly changed his schedule and left later or earlier than Duo did. Duo had finally stopped walking Trowa's dog three days ago, after the bar found a replacement for the afternoon shift and Trowa went back to his late-night shifts instead of doubles, but even before then, Wufei had been scarce. Duo had seen him twice while out walking Hermes - and both times, Wufei's cheeks had flared bright red and he had turned and walked the other way. "Are you okay?" The question startled Duo, and he looked over to see Wufei regarding him with concern and a slight frown. "I…" Duo's mind stumbled over what to say. The expression on Wufei's face was endearing, the furrow between his brows begging Duo to smooth it away. "I'm fine," he managed to say after looking away. "You?" He forced levity into his voice. He could see Wufei's scowl out of the corner of his eye, could feel his body grow tense. Wufei didn't respond to the question. It felt like a lifetime before the elevator finally opened on their floor. They both hesitated, but then Duo made a gesture that Wufei should proceed him. He watched the other man's rigid shoulders and stiff back as he walked out of the elevator and down the hall. Duo wanted to roll his eyes at the way Wufei was sulking. But then, he had been the flippant one. He turned away from Wufei to open his door, thinking again of that gin, which would probably have the aftertaste of self-recrimination now. "Duo." Turning, he saw that Wufei was blushing, faint pink dancing over his cheeks, and he swallowed hard to keep himself from saying something he would regret. Or doing something he would regret. It was absurd just how beautiful Wufei looked when he was flushed. "Wufei," he let himself say. The other man rolled his eyes and then gave an exasperated sigh. He squared his shoulders, lifted his chin, and met Duo's gaze. "Do you want to come over for a drink?" "I thought you didn't drink," Duo said. "I don't drink gin." "You wouldn't drink water, either." "I wasn't thirsty. I- Do you want to come over for a drink or not?" Duo couldn't tell if Wufei was irritated with Duo for drawing out his response, or irritated with himself for asking in the first place. It was probably a combination of both. It was completely adorable. Still, Duo hesitated. Whatever they had done last time could probably be written off as just a one-time thing between neighbors that hadn't been quite a mistake, not quite the start of something more. Doing it again was definitely going to push it into one of those two categories. And Wufei had already said he didn't do relationships. "Just a drink?" Duo tried to clarify. "No, sir." Hearing that last word sent a jolt of lust straight to Duo's groin. The heat in Wufei's eyes was even more arousing. Duo hesitated, thinking about the reasons why this was a bad idea, thinking about the day he had had - hell, the week he had had. He and Wufei wanted different things, and while they did have a very satisfying overlap of interests, Duo wasn't sure he could ultimately give Wufei what he wanted. Wufei licked his lips self-consciously, and Duo's decision was made. Duo had made mistakes before. No reason not to make them again. He relocked his door. "I'd still like a drink," he said. "I have wine." Not Duo's first choice, but he was fairly certain Wufei would make that up to him. "Out here in the hall?" he asked with a slight, teasing smirk. Wufei flushed again, and turned away to finish opening the door to his apartment. Duo followed him inside, waiting while Wufei sat down his briefcase and locked the door behind them. Wufei toed off his shoes, and Duo followed his example, positioning his against the wall beside Wufei's. "Red or white?" Wufei asked. "Red." "I have a decent Malbec, a Syrah, and I think I have an unopened bottle of Pinot Noir somewhere." "Why don't you choose for me," Duo suggested, and Wufei brightened at the suggestion, lips curving into a small smile. "Yes, sir," he said, and there was that word again. Duo watched him walk into the kitchen, and then turned his attention on the rest of the apartment. The layout was almost the exact same as Duo's, reversed, and it looked like he had a slightly bigger living room. Then again, that might be an illusion. Wufei's apartment looked like some minimalist had raided IKEA - all clean, dark lines and square shapes. The couch was nearly black, and looked - and felt - like leather, as did the two matching arm chairs across from it. The coffee table between them was a dark, gleaming rectangle of wood and glass. Waist-high bookshelves decorated the perimeter of the room, grounding the space, and yet somehow making it appear larger and brighter. There were a few photographs on the walls, all black and white, all of nature - mountains, rivers, space. The apartment was simultaneously cold and welcoming, all strong lines and- Dominating, Duo realized. This apartment was what Wufei wanted, what he needed. He came home every day and sat on the firm leather couch, surrounded by darkness and strength. Alone. There was nothing warm, nothing welcoming about this apartment. Just cold strength and isolation. Duo sighed, thinking again that he was not what Wufei wanted. The other man walked out to the living room carrying two curved tumblers and a bottle of wine. Wufei set them down on the coffee table and knelt down beside it. Duo swallowed against his immediate urge to tell Wufei just how fucking tempting he looked - kneeling there, waiting to serve. Then again, screw it. Wufei had invited him in, and Duo wasn't the kind of Dom who treated his sub with indifference. Relationship or not. But then Wufei spoke before Duo could. "Please join me?" he asked, dark eyes asking for much more than Duo to share a glass of wine. Duo moved around to the front of the couch, letting his fingers skim over Wufei's hair and cheek as he passed by. Wufei arched his head up into the touch, fitting his cheek to Duo's palm. Duo stopped and looked down at him, momentarily lost in Wufei's dark eyes, in the need he saw there. The man was certainly a conundrum - he wanted pain, wanted to be dominated, and the idea of a relationship clearly terrified him. And yet, it was this kind of touch - soft, not even sensual, but definitely intimate - that seemed to completely expose him. Duo let his hand fall away as he sat down on the couch. Wufei poured both of them glasses of wine and handed one to Duo. Duo wasn't much of a wine drinker, but whatever Wufei had selected - Syrah - felt dark, slightly bitter, and very decadent on his tongue. They sat there in silence, slowly sipping the wine, and Duo almost felt relaxed. He hadn't anticipated that half a glass of wine and sitting in a stranger's apartment in total silence - hadn't thought anything but getting completely shit-faced - would help him forget about the day he had barely survived. By the time he finished the glass, he felt very nearly human again. Wufei eyed the empty glass. "Do you want more?" Duo shook his head and set the glass down on the coffee table, sliding one of the thin, wooden coasters stacked neatly in the middle of the table over to rest the glass on. "Not yet." He watched Wufei finish his own glass, admiring the dark stain on the man's lips, and he wondered what the wine would taste like on Wufei's tongue. Still, he hesitated. Wufei had invited him over, had made it very clear what kind of interaction he wanted by calling Duo sir right away. He waited until Wufei had set down his own glass, until Wufei's dark eyes were once again fully focused on him. "Tell me what you want, Wufei." He had found, over the years, that having a sub tell Duo what they wanted was one of the best ways to ensure they were on the same page. It was also hot as hell, having someone tell Duo what they wanted done to them - what they wanted him to do to them. Wufei licked his lips, the same gesture that had undone Duo just moments ago. "I want to know what's bothering you." It was not at all the request Duo was expecting. Wufei's gaze caught his and held it, lips and jaw firm - very demanding for someone sitting on their knees. Duo sighed. "It's not- It's work. It's nothing." "It's clearly not nothing," Wufei responded. "It's- not- It's nothing to do with this," Duo gestured between them. "And it's not- Look, Wufei, you lost your shit when I kissed your forehead. You really think me telling you how my day went is any different than that?" Wufei's eyes narrowed, but then he stood up. Well. Fucked that up really fast. Good going, Maxwell. Just as he was congratulating himself on being an idiot, Wufei sat down on the couch beside him. Duo looked over at him with an arched eyebrow. "Tell me about your day," he said, tone the same as it had been when he was kneeling at Duo's feet, but his posture far different. It was an interesting transformation - Wufei wasn't quite commanding, but he was insistent. Duo sighed. "It's paperwork, Wufei. Just fucking paperwork. I work at the morgue, as a forensic morgue tech." Wufei's face remained neutral. In Duo's experience, that meant he had no idea what any of that meant. "I help with autopsies, take care of the bodies-" "Take care of the paperwork," Wufei filled in. He didn't look disgusted or revolted. Duo had dated a guy, once, who had taken one whiff of Duo after a full day in the lab, the lingering odors of death and disinfectants clinging to him no matter how many times he scrubbed down after work, and ended things. Considering that Duo didn't like to smell himself after a long shift, he couldn't really blame him. Still, Wufei didn't seem all that perturbed to learn about Duo's line of work. Then again, today had not been a full day of cutting open bodies, weighing organs, disposing of them, stitching cold, waxy skin back together. It had been a day that Duo had primarily spent in the office, on the phone, digging his fingers into his own thigh so he didn't start shouting. "Yeah," Duo agreed. "Death certificates, autopsy records, that sort of thing." Wufei nodded and sat, silent and patient, waiting for Duo to continue. "There was a kid. We have a policy - if a body is unclaimed after thirty days, the District pays for it to be cremated and buried." Duo sighed and wished like hell he had just tried to kiss Wufei earlier, wished like hell they were both naked now and he had Wufei moaning and whimpering, begging for his touch, wished like hell he didn't have to think about this again. "I knew the kid - when he was alive. I'd seen him at the bodega near Georgia Ave? Little shit tried to steal my wallet once." "How did he die?" Wufei asked, voice low. "If you can say." Duo shrugged one shoulder. "He was a street kid - so he was already malnourished, already on his way out, you know?" Duo added with a bitter twist of his lips, thinking about the frail body, the jutting ribs. "He was hit by a car. Internal bleeding - he wasn't found until the next day, at least. Already dead." That had been a shitty day at work, too. Duo forced himself to continue. "Anyway. The kid - no ID, no records, no one put out a missing person's report - no one claimed him. So, policy is, we send him to the funeral home that the city has a contract with, they cremate him, and he gets thrown in a mass grave near Baltimore." Wufei looked a little green at that information. Which, in Duo's mind, was only fair. He got a little red-eyed himself, every time an unclaimed body was picked up by the funeral home that Duo was positive were overcharging for their services, and definitely not following the letter of the law regarding final placement of the ashes. "That sounds awful," Wufei said. "Yeah. It is. It's- it's fucked up," Duo said. "And today was the day for him to get picked up?" Duo snorted and scrubbed at his face. "Yeah, it was. And I've been trying to get ahold of someone over at the courthouse for days who would give me permission to get the body released to some other funeral home." Wufei arched an eyebrow. "You cared a lot for him." "I- No. I didn't even know him. But I knew his name. Mohammad." Wufei's eyebrows drew together. He was clearly trying to figure out the connection, but unable to. "He was Muslim, or probably, at any rate. You don't cremate bodies in Islam, Wufei. You gotta bury them." "Oh. I see." Duo sighed and nodded again. "I even found a mosque that was willing to take care of it - to pay the expenses and put him in their plot, and I had the whole fucking thing worked out but then my supervisor kept putting off signing the paperwork, and then today I was on the phone all fucking day trying to get someone to sign the damn papers to release his body, and everyone kept bumping me off and telling me it wasn't going to happen." "And?" "And it didn't happen. They finally put me through to someone in the mayor's office because the OCME was dragging their heels - and they told me no." Duo felt the echo of his anger and frustration wash over him, felt his gut start to churn, and it was so stupid. It was a problem he had found a solution to, and he had been told no, just because the other way was easier, because it was what had always been done before. "It sounds like you did everything you could." Duo snorted. "Yeah, and it got me fucking nowhere." He had scrawled his signature on the funeral home's paperwork when they came to get the kid, had nearly ripped through the paper with the force he used, and then walked out while they took him away. "What do you need?" Wufei asked, drawing Duo out of the memory, out of the spiralling darkness. Duo gave him a look. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?" Wufei met his gaze, and arched an eyebrow back at him. "Because you don't have any needs? I'm the only one who does?" "This isn't- You said no relationships," Duo sighed. He was reminding Wufei, but more, he was reminding himself. Because it had felt damn good to spill all of that, to let the venom seep from his body, to have Wufei sitting there, silent and attentive, listening to him. Duo didn't want to delude himself into thinking that Wufei cared, though, that Wufei wanted more than just someone to give him what he needed and then walk away. Every inch of Wufei's apartment just reinforced that. Something flickered across Wufei's face, a fleeting emotion that looked something like regret, but was gone too quickly for Duo to decide. Wufei nodded and sighed. He got up from the couch, and Duo started to assume that was his cue to leave. He started to rise, but Wufei held out a hand. "Please stay." Duo eased back onto the couch. He probably should leave. He couldn't see this going anywhere that was going to be good for either of them. But he really didn't want to. It was too damn nice to be around another person, living and breathing and looking at him with the complicated emotions he could see in Wufei's eyes. It was too damn nice to be around Wufei. He didn't want to go back to his own apartment, empty and echoing and decidedly lacking Wufei. Wufei crossed to one of the short bookshelves and pulled out a black hardback. He walked back to the couch and held it out to Duo. "I want you to read to me." Duo accepted the book with a raised eyebrow. It was Berkowtiz's Sex and Punishment. "You want me to read to you," he repeated, running his fingers along the spine and remembering how it had felt to hit Wufei's ass with the book. The pink on Wufei's cheeks made it clear he was remembering that too. "Yes, sir. Please." Duo shifted over across the couch. "Take off your jacket," he told Wufei, and the other man immediately complied, removing it and laying it over the back of an armchair. Duo gestured for Wufei to join him on the couch, and the other man did, leaning into the curve of Duo's body, letting Duo drape one arm over his shoulders. It felt intimate. It felt nearly domestic. Duo opened the book, flipping through to the introduction. "In 1956, in a village in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), a desperate woman sought help from a local tribunal made up of tribal elders in putting her marriage back on track." Duo stroked Wufei's hair as he read, the solid weight of Wufei's body against his - the steady rise and fall of Wufei's chest, the gentle thrum of his heartbeat - more comforting, more grounding than Duo would have thought possible. -o- TBC Yeah, there's gonna be more... Chapter 3 |
