by Gina Lin
"Will you quit wiggling for just one damn minute!"
Quatre once again attempted to reach the butterfly knife that Duo affirmed was in the right front pocket of his Preventor's uniform trousers. Which is a rather difficult thing to do when you're trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey ready to be roasted. Quatre found himself truly thankful that Duo had not eaten the garlic toast with lunch, because being tied face to face with him would have made halitosis pretty unbearable.
"I'm just trying to get in position so you won't dislocate something to get the knife. Quat." Duo sounded both innocent and hurt, but Quatre knew from long experience that his friend was neither. He resisted a sudden unreasonable urge to bite Duo on the nose.
"The best way you can help is just to be still and let me do the work."
"You know that's one request I've never had before from someone when I've been tied up." Duo smirked and teasingly leaned over and gave Quatre a friendly, dog-like lick on his cheek. Quatre wrinkled his nose and gave Duo a threatening glare. The usually gentle aqua irises blazed hot with irritation and frustration.
"You know, Duo, if I weren't tied to you in an empty warehouse with a bomb about to go off in 48 minutes, I'd find that much funnier."
"I don't know Quat, that sort of makes the whole thing that much more exciting, don't cha think?" Unthinkingly, Duo punctuated this remark with a grind of his pelvis into Quatre's thigh, which he happened to be straddling.
Quatre gave Duo a disbelieving stare, which bounced as harmlessly off of Duo's wide-set baby blues as desert sky off a cool oasis spring.
"Duo, are you trying to tell me that being tied up with a bomb about to blow your ass to one of the lower regions of hell is turning you on?" Quatre blew a frustrated sigh out between his lips, and Duo caught a not unpleasant whiff of mint.
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
"It's... weird. Now stay still so I can get the damn knife."
"Oh, the man with the hair fetish tells me I'm weird!" Duo tried to focus on remaining perfectly still while Quatre twisted and wriggled his shoulders and torso around to create enough slack in the tight nylon ropes to inch a hand around to Duo's front pants pocket.
"I do NOT have a hair fetish." Quatre panted and huffed as he slowly worked his right hand into position.
"Do so, and I can prove it." Duo bit his lip; the inadvertent friction of 3 layers of fabric rubbing against his groin was making him hard. He began to think about hockey scores, old ladies with warts, and his yearly physical.
"Duo, is that your...??" Quatre asked leaving the obvious unsaid. The aqua glare intensified a few more degrees.
"Um, yeah." Duo had the grace to look somewhat ashamed and shifted his eyes to the floor behind Quatre's feet.
"I do NOT believe this!" Quatre fumed. "I'm trying to get us free before we become human confetti and you're fucking yourself on my leg like some horny dog."
"You must be really stressed, Quat. You just said `fuck' twice in ten minutes."
"Gee, Duo, what makes you say that? We're going to die in 45 minutes, but please, don't let me get in the way of your farewell hump!" Quatre ground out the words out levelly an inch from the end of Duo's nose.
"Well, goddamit, I can't help it! You've got your leg between mine and you've been grinding yourself against my cock for the last ten minutes. Excuse me for being a mere human!" Duo hissed between his teeth.
"Oh for shit's sake, Duo, are you so deprived that you can't even tolerate a little incidental friction? What's wrong, Heero not giving you any lately?" Quatre sneered in his best friend's face.
"Oh, low blow, Winner! You better pray I don't get loose, because when I do, I'm gonna kick your pale skinny ass clear across this colony!" Duo writhed violently against the ropes, anger making him heedless of the burns he was incurring against his arms and neck.
"My ass is not skinny. And I don't have a hair fetish. And you better run like hell when I cut these ropes, because I'm going to strangle you with that rat tail you've got hanging from the back of your empty head!" With a heaving twist borne of pure rage, Quatre managed to slip one hand in front of his body, in between himself and Duo.
"I always thought you liked my hair." Duo said quietly between pants a few minutes later, the bulk of his temper having been spent on sheer physical effort.
"I'm sorry Duo, I just got...well, you know. I think I can reach that knife now. Hold still." Quatre sounded guilty, which made Duo smirk against the blond man's shoulder.
Duo felt a tugging at his right front pants pocket and after some breathily muttered exclamations in his right ear of "El khara dah?!"* the pocket knife was finally and painfully extracted.
"Good work, Einstein, now you've got to get it opened."
"Duo, Hottaha Fi Teezak!" *
"I thought you said we didn't have time for that?" Duo retorted, laughing out loud in spite of everything, or maybe because of it.
Quatre shot him a surprised look from under drawn blond brows.
"Hey, you're not the only one who hung out with the Maguanacs." Duo said nonchalantly.
"One would hope you'd pick up some more useful phrases than that."
"I can't think of anything more useful than that at the moment."
"Duo, we're going to have to do this together. How far away is your right hand?"
"I dunno, I think it feel asleep. I'll have to wiggle it."
Duo flexed his blood-starved fingers and Quatre made a faint hissing noise in his ear.
"What?"
"Your fingers are about 1micrometer from my dick."
"Oh, is that what that was?"
"Don't be cute!"
"I can't help it, I AM cute."
"Duo, can you pay attention for just one GODDAM minute!" Quatre shouted. "We have 36 fucking minutes to get out of here!"
"Ouch, my ears, man." Duo said mildly. "You're gonna stroke out before you're forty if you don't get a handle on that temper."
"Duo, we're not going to make it to forty. We're not going to make it forty more minutes if you don't help me open this knife!" Quatre schooled down his anger until his voice was a harsh whisper.
"Okay."
Duo slowly worked his right hand across Quatre's crotch, grinning faintly as he brushed against sensitive straining flesh.
"Well, hello little Quatre!" he smirked, as he worked his hand across to meet Quatre's.
"I hate it when people call me little." Quatre ground out between his clenched teeth.
"I can certainly see why. You being such a stickler for honesty and all."
"Duo, do you ever have any thoughts that originate above your waist?" Quatre asked him, sighing.
"Not any more than necessary. Hey, is that your hand?"
"Yes, that's my hand."
"Oh, good, because you never know what kind of icky spiders and rats and shit hang out in deserted warehouses."
"I'd think I'd know if a spider was on me. Don't tell me you're afraid of spiders?"
"You're making fun of me." Duo pouted, as his nimble fingers brushed against Quatre's hand holding the knife.
"Quat, hold that little button down and I'll pop up the blade with my fingernail."
"I'm not making fun of you, Duo. I just can't believe that the God of Death is afraid of a little bug."
"I never made fun of your phobias." Duo sulked.
"You made fun of my hair fetish. Got it!" Quatre cried out with relief as the blade of the knife sprang out of the sheath.
"Can you cut the rope, or do we need to wiggle some more?"
"I think we need to wiggle some more, but be careful, I don't want to cut you."
"Yeah, I think I'm a little old for circumcision."
"Don't give me any ideas."
"Don't threaten The Scythe, man."
"The Scythe?" Quatre snickered as he slowly and carefully worked the blade against the intricate array of ropes that bound them together.
"Don't you have a name for yours?"
"Yeah, Penis."
"You have no imagination, Quat."
"Who's the one that remembered you had a knife in your pocket?"
"Okay, score one for the Strategy Man."
"Thank you."
"Just cut the fucking ropes, Quat. We only have 14 minutes."
"Almost through. Be patient, Duo."
"You're not gonna be graded for neatness, just do it!"
"Getting anxious, Mr. Maxwell?"
"Just aroused."
"You're a sick individual."
"You know you love it."
"Get stuffed, Duo." Quatre gritted his teeth, sweat roiling down the back of his neck as he painstakingly sawed through the slick heavy coils with the small knife.
"Hey, you're the one who made the suggestion to Mr. Dumbass Bad Guy to tie us together."
"Don't you recognize an evolving plan when you hear one, Duo?" ground out Quatre against Duo's neck, lose hairs from the thick braid tickling his nose. Quatre rubbed his sweaty face against Duo's shirt.
"Oh, I thought you just wanted to die in my arms, man. You mean you don't lust after my ass?" Duo managed to sound profoundly disappointed.
"No, the only piece of equipment in your pants I was lusting after was your pocket knife. Sorry."
"You wound me, Quat."
"Only if you move. Just a few more strokes and I'll be through."
"You need to see a doctor about that."
"Well, that answers that question I had about you. I always knew you'd die laughing."
"Laughing at death is my thing."
"Not today it isn't!" Quatre sang out as he sawed through the last tough fibers of rope.
The two men scrambled to remove the last of the rope.
"Jeezus, Quat, we have 4 minutes!" Duo yelled, staggering to his numbed feet and dragging Quatre up with him.
"Can you run, Quat? Because we need to make like Jesse Owens here."
"Who?" Quatre asked wildly.
"Later! Come on!"
They cleared the warehouse and had just dived behind a large forklift when the world exploded.
"Duo, can you hear me?"
Duo slowly opened one swollen eye and wished he hadn't.
"Either I'm alive or hell smells like a hospital," Duo groaned.
"How do you know it's not heaven?" asked a familiar deep voice with a faint tinge of amusement.
"You're kidding, right? If I were in heaven, would Heero Yuy be here?"
"Good question."
"Thanks, can I have some ice water? If I get some, I'll know for sure it's not hell."
"I think we can manage ice water."
"Don't put yourself out or anything on my account."
"Duo, shut up and drink."
Duo took a long pull of water from a straw held to his lips.
"How's Quat?"
"About like you, cuts, bruises, rope burns, concussion, shock. I'm surprised the two of you aren't deaf."
"My ears are ringing like Maxwell Church's bells." Duo shook his head, and then groaned loudly when pain lanced through his temples.
"That'll go away, the doctors say."
"As long as you don't." Duo found himself blinking hard. "Sorry, must be the meds or something."
"I've been here for 6 hours Duo, I'm not going anywhere else."
"I think he's waking up, Trowa." The first thing that registered to Quatre's ears was Wufei's voice and a hand on his face.
The sound of a chair sliding across a hard surface and he sensed rather than saw Trowa's presence hovering over the other side of him.
"Have a nice nap?" asked a beloved voice.
"Trowa, Wufei." His voice sounded like he'd gargled with acid.
"Well, he knows who we are, that's something." Wufei's voice was calm but Quatre could feel the other man's tension abate somewhat with the words.
"Duo?" He had to ask, although somehow he knew Duo wasn't gone.
"Alive." Wufei said simply, tightening the grip on one hand.
"Good."
"How do you feel?" This question came quietly from Trowa.
"Do you think I have a hair fetish?" Quatre asked dazedly.
Wufei and Trowa exchanged a puzzled stare.
"Must be the concussion." Wufei said finally.
"Must be." Trowa shrugged as Quatre closed his eyes and began the deep regular breaths of sleep.
The End
*El Khara Dah-Arabic for "What is this shit?!"
*Hottaha Fi Teezak!" Arabic for "Stick it up your ass!"