----------------------
Proof by Contradiction
 ~ A Moment of Haven ~
----------------------
	He couldn't say what was different this time.  He just happened 
to be walking down the hall at the right moment, and there it was, in 
all its newly meaningful glory.

	He was no stranger to the sight.  It was not unusual for Heero 
to open the bathroom door after his shower to let the warm, moist air 
out.  Nor was it unusual for him to stand in front of the sink, toweling 
off his hair after a washing.  Nor was it unusual for him to do so after 
putting his shorts on, but before putting his shirt on.  He did so 
disapprove of dripping on his shirt.

	And yet the familiar sight drew Duo forward, through the open 
door and into that hot and humid room, to let his fingers hover 
wonderingly over back and shoulder muscles that moved with delicious, 
well-tuned precision.

	The movement of towel over hair slowed as Heero glanced at Duo 
in the mirror, and after a moment of no response, he lowered his arms, 
letting the terrycloth hang bunched up around his neck.

	"'s funny, isn't it?" Duo mused idly, fingers moving south to 
trace over the mess of scars left in memory of an explosion at ground 
zero.  "A few months ago, this didn't mean a thing to me.  Well, I mean, 
it did, since it's attached to you and all, and obviously, it was a big, 
disturbing thing... but, you know.  Different.  Never wanted to touch it 
before.  Never wanted to..."  He trailed off for a moment, distracted by 
the paths of memory etched unfadingly upon Heero's skin.  A catalog 
sprang into being in his mind.  That one there on the side was a bullet 
graze.  Must have been a ragged piece of shrapnel that dragged its way 
just right of the line of Heero's spine.  Looked like flames nipped his 
flesh on the lower left side.  Only first degree burns, if Duo didn't 
miss his mark.  A slight discoloration marked Heero's right 
shoulderblade.  A scrape?  From a fall, or maybe a tight squeeze?

	Duo blinked his attention back to his incomplete sentence.  
"...Never wanted to *know* it all before.  Not like I just 'get it' all 
of a sudden.  Not like I never knew what it all means.  I know that just 
fine.  Personal experience and more.  But now... heh, it's like it's 
mine to know."

	"It *is* yours to know."

	He looked up at the quietly firm words to meet Heero's eyes in 
the mirror.  A few seconds of weighty consideration later, Duo smiled 
with just a small tilt in the corner of his mouth and a faint wrinkling 
around the eyes.  He moved to take up the ends of Heero's towel and 
finish the drying job.  "It's good, yeah?  That I like it 'cuz it's 
mine.  Well, yours, actually.  Yours and then mine.  Or whatever.  Point 
being, it wouldn't be just anybody's.  I think... it'd be kinda weird if 
I wanted to know just anybody's."  Since his hands were busy, he leaned 
forward to sample Heero's shoulder with a deep inhalation.  Its usual 
warmth was multiplied by the heat lingering from the shower, and it 
smelled faintly of the body soap with added moisturizer that Duo 
manfully refrained from poking fun at.  It was only in his 
self-interest, of course.  It softened skin that would soon be rubbing 
against his own.  A friendly tingle ran through his body at the thought.

	Or maybe it was just the hormones.

	Heero's eyes had fallen shut not long after Duo had taken up his 
task.  One hand held him braced against the edge of the sink as he 
basked in their closeness.  "Do you think such deep thoughts when you 
dry your own hair?"

	"If I did, I'd have long since run out of deep thoughts."  
Heero's hair took much less time than his own.  Duo arranged the towel 
over Heero's shoulders before reaching forward to take up the small comb 
on the counter.  He had to admit to a brief surge of jealousy when it 
swept through Heero's hair with nary a snag.  "What do you think when 
you play with my hair?"

	"Mmm, I think of simple pleasures."

	"Oh?  Am I a simple pleasure?"

	Heero answered with a non-self-incriminating smile.  Duo was a 
pleasure, and perhaps that pleasure was simple, but Duo himself was far 
from simple.  Which, perhaps, yielded more pleasure.  Upon further 
contemplation, perhaps it was not so simple after all.  Complex in its 
simplicity?

	Duo excused the non-answer in favor of playing with Heero's 
hair.  As soon as it was all smoothed in the proper directions, he took 
up the towel once more for some more careful drying, coupled with a 
desire to fluff.  It was an injustice for hair such as Heero's to lie 
flattened and tamed.  He put it back into some semblance of order with a 
few light passes with the comb, then returned for a little hand fluffing 
before the arrangement finally met his satisfaction.

	Heero watched as Duo put so much effort into such a small thing, 
but made no move to put an early end to it.  Here, too, was simple 
pleasure, not to be questioned or interrupted.

	A few strands were plucked from the towel and deposited in the 
trash before the towel was set to dry on the bar behind them.  When that 
task was completed, Duo felt no inclination towards leaving the 
bathroom.  Leaning against the wall beside the towel rack, he watched as 
Heero wet his toothbrush, applied the toothpaste, and started brushing.  
Duo didn't find the brushing fascinating so much as the look of Heero's 
back as his arm moved with swift, efficient motions.  When the scrubbing 
was over, Heero leaned over the sink to rinse, and Duo caught the 
fleeting image on the inside of his eyelids as he blinked, the one that 
showed him bending Heero over the sink and doing unspeakable things to 
that freely offered body.

	Whoa.  That was new.

	He bit down on an amused smile as he continued his observation 
of Heero's nightly ablution and tried with some success not to think of 
what he had just thought.  He'd been fuzzy on the details anyway, 
despite the readiness of the impulse.  The hormones were getting ahead 
of him.  Lord knew what would happen if he let them have their way.  
Their relationship hadn't gotten as far as it had by rushing things 
through.

	They hadn't gotten this far by holding back, either.  After 
Heero dried his face, he took a final glance at the mirror to survey the 
relative hairlessness of his unshaven chin, and before he could leave, 
Duo sidled up right behind him and draped arms over his shoulders.

	He shifted his embrace lower and encircled Heero around his 
elbows to gain better access to the back of Heero's ear.  The sweet 
smell of the jasmine-scented shampoo Heero continued to use made him 
smile against the warm skin.  His teeth lightly grazed the outer edge of 
Heero's ear and down to the lobe before his lips moved in a lazily 
kiss-like fashion down the column of neck, stopping short of moving 
across the shoulder to rest instead at the base.  The convenient niche 
seemed all too inviting to pass up.

	As his mouth made its journey, his hands reflected a similar 
direction, starting with a dance across strong collarbones, and moving 
downwards indiscriminately over pecs and nipples with a pressure more 
confident than one might have expected for the previously unexplored 
territory.  His hands had wandered over abs, shoulders, lower and upper 
back, but never quite skin to skin with the upper front side.  It almost 
made him wish his t-shirt wasn't in the way of feeling Heero's back 
directly against his chest, but his hands alone were quite sufficient 
for the current task.  Perhaps the both of them being in an equal state 
of undress would put them on more equal footing, but Heero didn't seem 
to be complaining, if the drooping of his eyelids or the way his head 
was tilted indulgently to the side for more exposure was any indication 
of such things.

	Duo's hands did not conduct a thorough investigation of their 
new playground.  Time enough for such things later, now that the barrier 
had been breached.  He let his hands continue their descent to the firm 
planes and bumps of Heero's midriff.  Looking up to catch Heero's hazy 
expression, he smiled.  The faint motion caught Heero's eye in the 
mirror, and he twitched his lips in response.

	With good posture, Duo stretched a few extra centimeters out of 
his frame, enough to allow his mouth to wander down to get a solid hold 
on a clavicle.  He followed the line of it out to the curve of Heero's 
shoulder, retracting his hands just far enough to slip back and 
underneath the arms he held trapped.  Once those goals had been 
accomplished, he shifted his left hand first out to Heero's hip, and 
then slowly but surely along the line of where his leg met his body.

	Setting his chin down upon recently tasted flesh, he made sure 
that Heero's gaze was intent upon him in the mirror, that there was 
awareness if not sharp alertness in those eyes, acknowledgment and even 
encouragement and maybe the tiniest bit of a dare, before he 
deliberately slid his hand over Heero's groin.

	Once there, he wasn't quite as certain of his next move.  He 
rubbed it with an absently soothing air as he contemplated the warm 
bulge beneath his hand, then squeezed lightly.  Interpreting the careful 
breath he could feel Heero taking as a positive sign, he squeezed again, 
putting a little more movement into the action, and was pleased when 
Heero's attention seemed to focus inward.

	It was a strange thing to move his hand thusly and not feel it 
upon his own body.  His hand spasmed a little with the unsettling mental 
flash of Heero playing with himself, and by the reflexive twitch of the 
body against his, he knew it had not gone unnoticed.  Biting his lip 
discreetly, he pretended he had intended to do that all along.  A little 
more companionable rubbing left Heero relaxing against him contentedly.  
Satisfied, he retreated with one last friendly application of pressure.  
The brief recon sortie was recorded as a mission success.

	His hand moved, but could not leave the premises altogether.  He 
stood savoring the afterglow with a firm embrace, eyes closed, cheek 
upon Heero's shoulder, feeling the steady rhythm of Heero's breathing as 
if it were his own.  By the time Heero rubbed his cheek against Duo's 
hair, Duo had nearly fallen into a light doze.

	He pushed the pleasant lassitude away and attempted to disengage 
-- 'attempt' being the operative word.  The embrace loosened, but he 
managed to put only a handful of centimeters between them, and even 
those were lost when Heero turned his head for a kiss.  Somewhere in the 
languor, he found the presence of mind to slide his hands back until 
they were resting on Heero's hips.

	One thing at a time, he thought.  Next came the tongue.  It 
protested the loss of its playmate, but he was able to pull back because 
his mouth wasn't completely out of the action yet.  Traitorous creatures 
that his lips were, they were difficult to persuade, and in the end, he 
had to merely move them rather than remove, letting them continue their 
lusty advances against the corner of Heero's mouth, his chin, his jaw, 
his neck.  With one last burst of effort, he wrenched his lips off of 
Heero's skin and let his forehead come to rest against the back of 
Heero's shoulder as he recovered with shuddering breaths.

	The repeated puffs of air against his back sent a shiver down 
Heero's spine as he leaned his weight against the sink in front of him 
to do a little of his own recovering.  In apology, or perhaps just 
another excuse to paw at him relentlessly, Duo recalled his hands once 
more and let them rub along Heero's back.  Feeling the need to focus, he 
concentrated on what had started the interlude, running through the 
library of scars in his head and trying to find them with his nimble, 
restless fingers.

	At length, curiosity spurred him into stepping back far enough 
to observe the progress of his fingers.  Their tracks were not without 
accuracy, but it was soon left by the wayside in favor of more aimless 
wandering across a body held obligingly still and pliant.

	Duo stared at a spot on Heero's back for a few seconds before he 
realized he was staring, and then it took a few more seconds for him to 
realize just what he was studying.  Given a few more seconds, he 
identified two more points of interest, and he laughed, the sound coming 
from some deep, warm pit within him.

	Making good use of the mirror, Heero had never quite unfixed his 
eyes from Duo's image.  Now, he studied what he could see of the head 
behind him.  "What?" he asked at length.

	Bright dark blue eyes popped up over his shoulder, followed by a 
mischievous grin.  Without looking, Duo ran fingers along the 
appropriate patches of skin.  "Gun shot wound.  Laceration.  Laceration.  
Burn.  Cut...  And right here, here, and here..."  Fingers poked at his 
shoulder, his shoulderblade, and the middle of his back.  "Here, in the 
middle of all these glorious, hard-earned badges of honor... you've got 
pimple scars."

	"What?" Heero said, a certain incredulity mixed with outrage and 
mirth.  He tried to look over his shoulder to see what Duo was talking 
about.

	Duo laughed and tried to point them out to him.  "These are *so* 
the marks of popped zits."

	"They are n--"  The response was automatic to Duo's teasing 
mockery, but why was he protesting again?

	He was called on it.  "Trying to deny ever having gone through 
puberty, Yuy?  Come on, I know you're special, but you ain't *that* 
special."

	"I'm not saying I am.  Just..."  In all his life, with all his 
worries, he'd never given a moment's thought to acne.

	Duo was tickled by the utter mundanity of it all.  He leaned 
down to kiss the highest of those prosaic little marks, those tiny signs 
of the plain old normalcy within even the most extraordinary of men, and 
said what came to mind.  "I love you," he sighed contentedly.

	He wasn't quite aware of what he had said until Heero twitched 
beneath his hands in some aborted reaction.  Looking up, he found the 
familiarly piercing blue gaze once again fixed upon his reflection.  The 
normally bland face was tinged with a faint wonder.  "You do, huh?"  It 
came out a little more husky than Heero had planned.

	"Umm."  Well, Father Mac had said that he would probably know he 
meant it when he could finally say it without thinking, right?  He 
certainly hadn't thought about it, though now that he was thinking about 
it, he started wondering again about that line between brothers and 
lovers.  In the end, he decided on a great big 'meh'.  Damn the Greeks 
for dividing love into three different subtypes, anyway.  Maybe the 
difference was that a guy just didn't tell his brother that he loved him 
unless someone was about to die or something, but lovers could do it for 
no reason at all.  Yeah, that was as good a difference as any right now.  
He'd ponder some more of the subtleties later, and probably spaz out 
about them, too.  But for now, he loved Heero.  He grinned as if a 
weight had just been lifted from him.  "I suppose I do."

	"Hm.  That's good."  Heero let that sink in for a moment before 
he returned the smile, turning his head to direct the expression at the 
man himself rather than his reflection.  "I mean, I love you, too, Duo."

	Duo made a sound that wasn't completely amused or besotted.  He 
tried to cover the undertones with a playful twist of his lips, but it 
still came out somewhat cynical.  "You just saying that because I did, 
or were you just sitting on it all this time?"

	Heero went ahead with the fully wry snort.  "You really think I 
would be courteous enough to return the sentiment if I didn't really 
feel that way?  If I wanted nothing more to do with this, I'd tell you 
in some horribly blunt way that would probably scar you for life."

	He thought that perhaps Heero was underestimating his social 
skills, but said nothing of the sort in favor of further uncertainty.  
"...Well, what if you weren't sure yet, but didn't want to hurt my 
feelings?  I mean, I hope you'd care enough about me to at least think 
about not being cruel."  Heero was soft and squishy on the inside, after 
all, though not given to crafting comforting lies.

	"Then I'd tell you to get back to me," Heero answered, his brow 
rising.  He cared about Duo significantly more than that.

	"Then what were you..."  No, Duo knew exactly what he had been 
waiting for.  Heero'd been waiting for him to be ready to hear it.  The 
dear boy was considerate like that.  He set the rest of the questions 
aside in favor of turning Heero around right and proper to score a kiss 
face to face.

	There was no protest from Heero, certainly.  He was happy to 
finally be able to move his arms and be a more active participant in the 
unfolding events.  One hand pulled Duo to him while the other slid into 
the base of Duo's braid.  Given the opportunity, however, his mouth 
seemed to have a problem deciding whether to smile or kiss, so he did 
both to the best of his ability, and it seemed Duo did the same.

	When at last they gave up the compromise, Heero asked for 
clarification.  "So.  You love me for a few dermal blemishes?"

	Duo made a show of considering it.  "Well... yep.  Among other 
things, maybe," he conceded.  "And you love me for... hm.  What inspired 
you?"

	"Inspired...?"

	Duo spied sparkles of sappiness twinkling in his eye, and shot 
him a warning look.  Engaged in declarations of love they may have been, 
but that didn't mean he had to listen to the plainly sweet things that 
made him turn pink with both embarrassment and outrage.

	If he didn't want to hear sappy answers, he shouldn't ask sappy 
questions, Heero thought.  He acknowledged the signal with a slight tilt 
of his head and said what he had intended to say.  He didn't deny that 
more flowery things had flitted across his mind, but he wouldn't have 
said them.  "Because of a few old pimples."

	Duo frowned.  "That doesn't work if you knew it all this time, 
because that only just now came up, so you couldn't have based it on 
that."

	Not pimples specifically, perhaps, but what they implied.  It 
was esoteric, though, so he stuck with a more concrete answer.  "It was 
the only acceptable explanation.  That's all.  Theoretically, love is a 
powerful, all-consuming, positive emotion.  If what I feel isn't love, 
then that would mean that there's something else out there that's even 
more powerful and all-consuming, and I don't think that's true.  I can't 
imagine it being true.  If it were, if there really were something more 
out there... or in here... that could get scary."

	"As if it's not scary enough as it is," Duo muttered absently as 
he processed Heero's explanation.  After a few seconds, he blinked 
twice, then laughed.  "Oh my frickin' god, Heero.  You... you just 
proved you love me by contradiction.  You just used a goddamn proof by 
contradiction!  I can't believe you!  You... You are... Good god, I must 
love you if I don't find that absolutely absurd.  A proof by 
contradiction!"  He shook his head, still chuckling.

	Heero wore a dry look.  "It's perfectly natural.  You just used 
one right there.  If you didn't love me, that must mean that you had 
some other reason for not finding it absurd, which in all likelihood 
implies that you're as 'nuts' as I am, which is something you've been 
denying for years."

	"Get it right, babe.  I don't deny that I'm *as* nuts as you 
are.  Just that I'm as nuts in the same way."

	"Very well," he agreed.  "But you'd have to be nuts in the same 
way to not find it absurd since I don't find it absurd at all, and since 
you reject that notion, you must be in love."

	Duo tried to refute it, but couldn't deny the logic of his 
claim.  "Yeah, well, at least I didn't present it rigorously.  So 
there."  He stuck out his tongue.

	Heero rolled his eyes.  "It isn't rigorous if I only assume that 
I can't feel any more strongly than I do.  It isn't rigorous if I accept 
it as valid because I want it to be true."

	"You..."  Well, he couldn't pin all the blame on Heero.  Duo had 
really been the one to bring up the subject.  "You... you're like, 
like... like a tea nut!  My teanut."  A clueless look was his response, 
so he clarified.  "You know.  Like a cross between a teacup and a nut.  
A teanut."

	Blink.  Blink.  Open the mouth.  Close the mouth. Open it again.  
Pause thoughtfully.  Try once more.  Give up.  "I'm just going to let 
that one slide."

	Duo grinned, snuggling him.  "My little teacup of nuttiness."

	Having let one go already, he could hardly let the other go as 
well.  "Little?"

	"Well, yeah.  Tea cups are little.  I mean, who really drinks 
out of a tea stein?"  Though now that Duo thought about it, that might 
be handy.

	"If all teacups are little, then they're not little.  They're 
standard-sized."

	"Whatever you say, my standard-sized teacup of nuttiness."

	Heero chuckled in resignation.  "Sometimes, I do find you 
absurd, Duo.  But I consider it to be a part of your charm."

	"*I'm* absurd?  You're one to talk.  You're the teanut, after 
all."

	"Hardly self-proclaimed."

	Duo shrugged breezily and dropped the matter with a small smirk.  
He had other things on his mind, and the teanut tangent had been 
exhausted.  Cuddling up more closely to Heero, he noticed they were 
still in the bathroom, but was far too comfortable to do anything about 
it.  "So... now what?"

	"Now...?  How should I know?" Heero answered with a snort.

	He shrugged.  "I dunno.  Aren't you usually the one with a 
plan?"

	Heero wouldn't quite say that they had been working with a 
'plan' so much as a 'philosophy'.  "What do we need a plan for?  Why is 
there even a 'now what?'"

	"Nothing changes?" Duo asked, looking at him earnestly.

	"Like what?"

	Damn him for always asking the simple, difficult questions.  He 
thought about it for a while.  "Isn't this, like, a point of no return 
or something?"  Maybe he ought to stop thinking that, he thought.  He 
was starting to make himself nervous.  He took a deep breath of freshly 
cleaned Heero and waited for an answer that would calm the flutters.

	There were a few seconds of silence before Heero ventured an 
answer.  "No?"

	Argh.  "Not helping, Yuy."

	Heero hadn't thought there was something to 'help' with.  He was 
just responding to a yes/no question, and tacked the interrogative sound 
on as a request for Duo's input more than anything else.  "A -- points 
of no return only matter if you're planning on returning.  And B -- 
well.  No."

	Duo waited for three seconds before assuming that that was all 
there was to the second point.  "Perhaps you'd like to rephrase 'B'," he 
suggested, only mildly snide.

	The opportunity was taken to organize his thoughts before Heero 
continued.  "We did, whether we realized it or not, right?  It didn't 
-just- happen.  So basically, today is no different from yesterday.  It 
follows that tomorrow should be no different from today.  In any 
measurable way, anyway."  It had to be different in some sort of way, 
however, or else every day would be the same and they would never make 
any progress at all.

	Proof by induction, a small part of Duo's mind groaned.  "But 
what if..."  He wanted to revisit point A, but discovered he found its 
negation an even more unpleasant idea to contemplate, so he let the rest 
of the sentence die in a soft sigh.  They were Gundam pilots, after all, 
and hardly known for doing things in half-measures.  With his next 
breath, he offered a different proposal.  "Words are something, aren't 
they?"

	"Words are limitations," Heero answered, proving it with a 
tender kiss.

	Duo lingered in the follow-through.  "I'm not gonna be seeing 
everything tomorrow through rose-tinted lenses, am I?" he murmured 
practically against his partner's lips.

	"I hope not."

	"Good."  With a slight tilt of his head, he brushed their mouths 
together again.  "I mean, if I wanted to, I'd buy pink sunglasses or 
something."

	"It is going to be bright and sunny tomorrow, though," Heero 
said, nipping him back.

	"Yeah, well, it's been bright and sunny all week, so that 
doesn't mean anything."

	"Good.  I'd hate for the weather to start meaning something."

	Duo pressed a smile against his cheek, leading them out of the 
bathroom without loosening their embrace.  "If the birds start chirping, 
I'm gonna... well, I wouldn't hurt innocent birds, but I'd definitely 
close the windows."

	"Sorry," Heero apologized as he stepped on Duo's toes.  They 
seemed to be heading slowly but surely towards Duo's room.  "Birds chirp 
all the time.  I'd only get worried if they jumped onto your shoulders 
and started singing."

	They rubbed up against each other in their progress, reminding 
Duo that they had left Heero's shirt in the bathroom.  Gee, what a pity.  
"And squirrels, too?  Yeah, that could be worrisome.  Hey, that reminds 
me.  We have to wash the car tomorrow.  Some stupid bird nailed the 
passenger side fender.  I blasted it off with the hose already, though."

	"Alright," he answered, a corner of his lips curving upward.  
"We were going to look at floor samples, too."

	"After you sent off another progress report to Une."  They had 
to justify their income somehow.  Duo deliberately avoided thinking what 
the report was about.  He was still somewhat sore about it.

	They paused against Duo's doorframe for another kiss or three.  
Duo's grip on Heero finally loosened, but Heero did not relinquish his 
grasp in return.  "Tomorrow, it might be nice to..."

	"Ooh, more plans?"

	"Maybe we could..."  He spoke with a slowness that expressed an 
uncharacteristic hesitance, or perhaps careful thought.

	"Hmm?"  Duo stroked his hipbone reassuringly.

	"Tomorrow, we might also... wake up next to each other?"

	Huhn.  Tomorrow was supposed to be the same as today... but it 
had been in the plan all along, right?  So maybe it didn't count as 
change.  Duo evaluated the idea as their next step carefully before he 
grinned and pulled Heero into the room with him.



----
one day, i'm going to go over all the scars i've written onto their skin 
at some point, and find that it's all very inconsistent. =p

and yes, the boys have moved ahead of my schedule, but please in no way 
take those last few lines as an implied lemon.  it's only time for them 
to start sleeping in the same bed, is all. *checks another step off the 
list*

oh, and *ahem* pardon the math terminology, as usual.



_________________________________________
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The basis for this fic, i.e. Gundam Wing, 
Kyuuketsuki Miyu, et al., is the property 
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tacted at jchew at myrealbox.com.  This 
has been an entirely automated message.
http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~jchew/misc/gw.html

last modified : 2/13/2005 02:02:16 PST