Archivist's note: Sequel to Ties That Bind.

Duo's resultant laugh was a bit breathless, almost hysterical, coming down as he was from an adrenaline high. "It's your own fault, Heero," he said, his tone still bubbly as he went through the room like a tornado, slinging his baggage on top of every nearby surface and shedding his outer combat gear. "I warned you at the time that this would happen. And you told me to create a distraction."

I scowled fiercely to hide my blush as I followed more sedately after my exuberant partner. The soldier part of me cringed to see the casual way Duo tossed his pack, with the high-grade explosives in it, and I set my own down with the respect they deserved. "Yes, but I didn't expect you to distract the guards by faking an orgasm when they put the handcuffs on you!" I paused, one hand still on the strap as a horrible thought occurred. "You were faking, right?"

Duo snickered, coming back to give me a light welcome-home kiss. "Yes, but only just barely. But it wasn't the guards that did it for me -- it was the look on your face, Heero, when you saw what I was doing..."

I rolled my eyes. "Forget the guards, you nearly distracted me. I almost forgot how to hack."

Duo smirked. "I noticed." His face was still close to mine, and he raised his head quickly to lick the tip of my nose. He couldn't have missed the shiver I gave at the light, fluttering sensation, and his smirk widened into an evil grin.

Abruptly he pulled back, eyes downcast, an expression of contrition on his face. "Ne, Heero, I'm sorry I distracted you," he said, with an apologetic tone that couldn't quite suppress the bubbling mischief beneath. He couldn't keep up the facade long, though, and let slip a very lecherous grin. "I guess I'll just have to make it up to you!"

In a flash of chestnut braid, he turned and was gone, vanishing into the bedroom and nearly slamming the door behind him. I sighed wearily; I recognized the signs. Duo was still floating from the adrenaline high that came with a mission; successful missions, especially, tended to make the L2 pilot giddy. And happy. And horny. Duo was rambunctious enough under any circumstances; add in those extra factors, and you got a Duo in the mood to play.

My mind went back to a mission that had been not nearly so successful, a few months ago. Trauma-induced fear of restraints had caused Duo to panic in the middle of the mission, forcing us to abandon our objective and retreat hastily to the nearest safehouse. There, in an effort to cure my partner of the phobia, I had set out to accustom Duo to handcuffs -- with completely unexpected results.

Though I hadn't intended to, I ended up seducing my braided partner, resulting in what turned out to be, frankly, the most mind-blowing sex I ever experienced. After that night in the grubby, run-down apartment, our relationship changed -- forever. Now, whenever we had a little downtime between missions, Duo found a way to work several hours of kinky sex into our schedule. And it looked like tonight was no exception.

I deliberately waited a few minutes before following Duo, taking the time to strip off my grimy fatigue jacket and properly stow both my gear and Duo's. The waiting would give Duo time to get ready for whatever he had in mind; besides, it too was part of the game.

I would never admit -- not under Oz interrogation, not even under Duo -- just how much I enjoyed these games of Duo's. It went beyond the sex. That was mind-melting enough for any Perfect Soldier, and though I'd never had anyone before Duo, I very much suspected that there wouldn't be many who could top the braided boy in that aspect. (Not that I didn't top him in others.) But no, there was something else, something deeper that ran between my partner and I.

The soldier part of me, though it grudgingly allowed me this one luxury, insisted that there was no room in this war for emotional attachments. It maintained that my relationship with Duo was nothing but an outlet for hormonal needs, no more than purely physical comfort. But I couldn't quite bring myself to believe it. I trusted Duo, trusted him with my life when they were on missions, trusted him enough to be helpless and vulnerable in his presence. Even more incredible to me was that Duo trusted me with the same -- and that gift touched me in ways I couldn't begin to define.

I grew up as an adult in the tiny form of a child; I never had any kind of toys, or games, as a child. Never even known what I was missing until I'd seen other children, laughing and playing and smiling in a park, and by then it was too late. I was too old for innocence any more; I had no room in my heart for fun and games.

But Duo brought a whole new meaning to my life -- a kind of fun that was definitely not for children. There was nothing innocent about the games he played -- just the opposite, in fact. Duo... Duo, with his laughter and his smiles and his teasing, with his sex toys and bedroom games and endless supply of affection. Duo whom I trusted and cared for and lusted after and worried for when he was away at mission and watched late in the night when we were both exhausted from our play, and whom I strongly suspected I very much loved.

I schooled my expression as I started for the closed bedroom door, but couldn't completely wipe the small smile from my face. A little apprehensive, I turned the knob and pushed the door open a crack, taking a minute to survey the territory before going in. One wouldn't have thought that Duo would have had the time, or the resources, to set up anything particularly elaborate... but I had learned not to underestimate my partner's ingenuity. Still, nothing seemed immediately out of place... cautiously, I pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped into the room.

At once, a heavy weight pounced onto my back, and something came around from behind to cover my eyes. I heard the creak and slam of the door being pushed shut, most likely kicked by an impatient foot. "Guess who, lover!" a voice crowed in my ear. "Three guesses."

"Duo?" I asked. I tried to turn around, but a warm body pressed up against my own and the arms encircling prevented me from turning.

The voice in my ear, warm and sultry, tsked in a disapproving fashion. "You peeked!" he said, in mock severity. "Naughty, naughty, Heero... now I'll just have to make sure you can't peek any more."

I sighed theatrically; it was going to be one of those nights when I didn't get a word in edgewise. Still, I didn't complain when I felt something soft tug across my eyes, and Duo's hands tying a knot in back of my head. Bereft of sight, I had to rely on my other senses to keep me informed about my environment. I concentrated on the feel of the body pressed against my back; was Duo wearing clothes, or not? It was hard to tell. And then it was hard to concentrate on anything, because Duo's hands were sliding down my neck and sliding under the tanktop I'd been wearing underneath my jacket. Talented, familiar fingers brushed over the muscles on my chest, and I shuddered in appreciation as Duo found one already-erect nipple and played with it a bit. Lifting one hand, I reached back over my shoulder and brushed against soft hair; dropping lower, my fingers found one delicate earlobe and caught it. Right against my ear, Duo moaned in response, and his arms tightened around me.

I felt myself being turned slightly, and pushed forward, and let Duo lead me a few steps further into the bedroom. We stopped, and paused for a minute, and I guessed that Duo had me facing the mirror. I turned my head slightly back over my shoulder, moving my fingers down to the sensitive spot beneath Duo's ears, and felt his breathing increase. His hands pulled out from my neckline, and reappeared at the waistband of my pants, unfastening the belt buckle and pulling it to hang loose. "Do you know," he murmured, "just how hot looking at you in those clothes makes me?"

I had a fair idea, really, but it wouldn't do to admit it. "They're intended to be functional," I said instead. "Practicality is a more important function than aesthetics."

"Mm, true. And it's not the clothes that are really so sexy, Heero, it's you; you look good in anything. But you look best in nothing at all, so I think I'd rather see you in that." Duo grasped the hem of the tank top and yanked it up over my head, careful not to catch on the blindfold and pull it off. He pulled the garment down over my shoulders, tangling my arms behind my back.

With some difficulty, I managed to free my arms from the fabric, but no sooner were my hands clear that Duo grabbed hold of my wrists. "Duo...?" I asked tentatively.

"Hold still," Duo's voice admonished, hands giving my wrists a warning squeeze. He shifted them to a one-handed grip, and held on that way while he leaned over, reaching for something on the nightstand. The faint clink of metal reached my ears a moment before the cold steel touched my skin. I gave a resigned, but silent, sigh; all joking aside, Duo got incredibly turned on by handcuffs, and he seemed to take equal delight in using them on me or in having me use them on him. I allowed it, with long-suffering patience. After all, I knew I could get out of them anytime.

The cuffs clicked shut, and Duo's hands fell away for a moment as he backed a step away to get a good look. I waited patiently, tugging gently at the metal chain on the cuffs, but not hard enough to bend the steel. My body hungered to turn around and sweep Duo into my arms, press the whole length of my body against him, and even more so knowing that the touch would be welcomed... but it would disrupt the game, so I held myself in check.

As if reading my mind, Duo was back a second later, plastered along my back and frantically rubbing his entire body along mine -- and yes, somewhere along the line he had definitely lost his clothes, his shirt at least. Any further coherent thought was temporarily put on hold as Duo began licking and sucking at the juncture of my shoulder and neck, devilish hands trailing down my chest and belly to worm beneath the waistband of my belt. I shuddered in ecstasy as those incredible fingers managed to wrap around my length, the constriction of the jeans providing almost as much pressure as Duo's hands. Those jeans were becoming uncomfortably tight as my dick throbbed impatiently in its confines, and with a muttered profanity Duo wriggled his hand free -- a movement that made me gasp and jerk in his arms -- and attacked the fastenings of my and pants. "God, you look gorgeous like this," Duo breathed, his voice sending electric shivers up my spine. "Heero... what I'm going to do to you..."

While Duo was momentarily distracted, struggling with the button and zipper, I took the opportunity to reach my bound hands backwards to where my excellent spatial memory told me my lover's crotch should be. It was right on target, and I couldn't help the smile that curved my mouth as I felt the burning heat press against my palms. To my disappointment, I discovered that Duo was not naked, but the fabric my wandering hands encountered was far too... fine to be the heavy, rough cloth of his fatigue pants. Underwear, then? Daringly, I stretched fingers down and reached skin at last; running my fingertips over the seam of the fabric just above where it ended, I managed to place the garment in his memory. Duo only had a limited selection of clothes, after all, and I was... intimately acquainted with all of them. Duo was wearing boxers. Red boxers. Tight red boxers...

The image of Duo thus attired was so vivid, despite the blindfold, that I found myself momentarily paralyzed by a surge of lust. My moment of distraction cost me dearly, as Duo finally triumphed over the fastenings and my waistband abruptly loosened. He yanked my pants down over my hips with frustrated violence, the cloth providing only a few seconds of delightful friction before sliding quickly down my legs to pool around my ankles. I stepped out of them without Duo's prompting, not wanting to give him any further opportunities to limit my mobility. I felt a sharp, pinching pain on the back of my Achilles' heel and jumped as the sensation shot up my leg into my groin; somehow, Duo always managed to surprise me.

I realized I was panting, and almost swaying on my feet as I struggled against the waves of hunger crashing through me. I felt the heat against my back as Duo stood again, and before I quite registered the hand on my shoulder spinning me around, my lips and tongue were being attacked as though they would be sucked off entirely. I smiled against my lover's mouth; in some ways, though, Duo was very predictable, and he always found a way to work kissing into the equation somehow. Not that I minded in the least, of course -- Duo's kisses were as unbearably sweet as they were hungry. I smiled, remembering the game of kisses, seeing how many times we could pass an egg yolk, or an ice cube...

Not tonight, though, and I leaned forward as Duo's hands cupped and caressed my face, pulling me deeper against him. Our bodies pressed together from mouth to thigh, and though I might have been disappointed that Duo still hadn't shed his boxers, the feel of the slippery cloth against my erection was quickly driving me crazy. Duo's hands moved to grip my shoulders, and one knee bumped against my groin, trying to press between my thighs. Obligingly, I parted my legs slightly, and before I knew it I was dizzily stumbling backwards as Duo pushed me impatiently across the floor.

A slight tightening of his hands on my shoulders was all the warning I had, before the edge of the bed smacked the back of my knees and I went down. I wasn't prepared for the fall, and the impact against the mattress knocked the breath out of my lungs. I shifted, trying to squirm into a more comfortable position, and felt the bed dip and creak as Duo leapt up onto the blanket on top of me. "Foul play," I grumbled, once I got my breath back somewhat.

A low, sultry laugh was my response. "Would you prefer the floor?" Duo teased. "Because I'm sure that could be arranged." I could feel his heat over me now, an electric energy sparking between us that was making my skin crawl with need. The heavy, aching fullness in my groin was driving the breath from my lungs.

"Less talk, more fuck," I growled breathlessly, and didn't need to see my lover's face to imagine the obscene grin that spread over his face at that. I could hear in his voice that grin that I had seen many times before, and would no doubt see many times again.

"Sounds like a plan," he murmured throatily, and lowered his body that final inch. I arched up into the touch, uncaring of the moans that dripped past my lips; every hormone in my body was screaming "Yes! We have achieved contact!" and who was I to deny them?

We squirmed around on the bed for some time, but I didn't have nearly enough leverage for a good wrestling match. I also couldn't stop Duo when he broke away from our clinch, leaving me straining futilely into thin air, as he burrowed down towards my feet. With a groan, I slumped back down onto the covers, panting at an embarrassingly fast pace. Goddamn, but I was about to come and we had hardly started yet! A positively wicked chuckle sounded from down near my feet, and my breath suddenly seized in my lungs with anticipation.

Strong, supple hands parted my knees, and suddenly there was a feverish mouth attacking the tender flesh of my inner thigh. I jumped. "Du~ooo!" I groaned, tossing my head back and forth on the blankets. Something I had learned fairly early on in our relationship: Duo Maxwell was a biter. He seemed to view all forms of sex as a substitute for food, to be licked, sucked, and most especially chewed upon. I would have said he had an oral fetish, except that would imply that I disapproved in some way. He never quite drew blood, but the pleasure-pain inspired by his strong, sharp teeth never failed to set my blood on fire. Still, there were times when I feared that Duo and his teeth might separate me from parts of my body that I would just as soon remain intact, thank you. "Duo!" I panted again, trying in vain to pull my abused flesh away from his mouth. "St... stop... unnnngh... stop gnawing on me!"

"Stop?"

Duo sounded more than a little affronted, and a hint of trepidation stirred in me at the tone. But I ignored it. "Dammit, Duo, I'm not a chew toy!" I growled, still squirming slightly. I could feel the tingling line of welts marching up my leg, from the tendon at the back of my knee up my thigh and ending right below...

Oh. Fuck. I had said stop, hadn't I? "Duo, I..... uhhn." Anything else I might have said was lost in an unintelligible mumble as Duo ran light, teasing fingers up my shaft. I could feel myself quivering, straining towards that oh-so-brief touch, and I unconsciously held my breath against the feelings rising within me. Close... so close...

The bed creaked and shifted again as Duo moved, climbing fully between my legs and bracing his hands on my thighs, holding them spread as he leaned over my erection. I had to force myself to breathe, quick breaths out and then in, head arched backwards and eyes tightly closed behind the blindfold. Warm, wet breath, and then... and then...

There was no 'and then.'

I could feel his mouth, all around my cock, could feel its heat... but that was all. I moaned, trying to thrust upwards into that warm, wet cavern... but his hands were firmly planted on my thighs, weight holding me down. I could feel just the slightest brushes of soft, yielding flesh against my rock-hard erection... just the tiniest touch of his lips, the fleeting brush of the inside of one cheek. It took all of my self-control not to break the cuffs, then, to grab handfuls of that sweet hair and force him to complete what he'd started. A sweat broke out all over my body, just at the thought of how that would feel, and I moaned with the torture. "Duooo..." I groaned.

He pulled back a little, to speak, and I didn't know whether to sigh with relief or scream with frustration. "You said 'stop,' he said innocently. "No more bites, right? After all, you're not my play toy."

A droplet of some liquid formed at the tip of my cock, and rolled slowly, maddeningly down its length. "I take it back!" I gasped. "Do me! Do whatever you want to me, Duo, just touch me --"

"You got it, lover," he purred, and then that wonderful mouth was back and kissing me senseless. Lover. I liked that name, a much better name than Heero Yuy. But then, in Duo's mouth, the two had always rhymed.

His hands slithered underneath my body in the most interesting way, and a moment later I was flipped onto my stomach, Duo kneeling between my legs. There were, my body noted, definite advantages to this change in position, and almost against my own will my hips ground against the blankets. Duo put a stop to that, though, with a light but stinging smack on my exposed butt. "What are you trying to do, Heero?" he mock-scolded. "Finish without me?"

"Well, if you'd -- uh -- get started, I wouldn't... nnn... need to," I answered, somewhat less than coherent from the heat that threatened to melt my brain. My face was buried halfway into the covers, and -- God! -- I could smell Duo's scent in them, almost as clearly as I could on his own skin... sweet and savory and something undefinable, danger and innocence and the libido of a wolf in heat. It went straight to the primal circuits of my brain, short-circuiting any higher functions that dared to stand in its way, and I don't think I could have made my eyes focus even without the blindfold. As it was, the lack of sight only heightened the scents and sounds and touches that drowned me.

Duo's firm, hot hand kneaded my butt, washing away any lingering sting in a rush of pleasure. "You asked for it," was all the warning he gave, but somehow it still took me by surprise when his lips brushed over one cheek, then bit down. Hard. I let out an involuntary yelp, bucking my hips, and he shifted position until his knees were pressing down on the backs of my legs, pinning them and keeping them spread for him. That bite was only the first of many, a welter of sharp nips and hard sucks that raised welts all over my backside, down to the back of my thighs and the unbearably tender flesh just between them. I had no doubt that it would look very colorful come morning. I was ready to jump out of my skin when he finally stopped, a soft brush of his tongue apologizing for the rough treatment. My skin was flushed with heat, and even the slightest of air currents was like a caress to my hypersensitized flesh.

So you can imagine, then, what it felt like when strong hands grabbed hold of my hips, dragged them off the bed, and starting licking my behind like a lollipop. It was a technique with which I was intimately familiar. He'd denied me of it earlier, but he seemed to be trying to make up for the disappointment now. Duo's fingers gripped my ass cheeks, thumbs digging into the cleft and spreading it open. A shiver ran up my spine, tingling through every nerve I posessed.Then Duo's tongue was running down my cleft; every muscle in my back and legs twitched violently as it flicked lightly over my entrance and kept going. An incoherent moan spilled past my lips, something that with a lot of interpretation could have been Duo's name, or a Japanese curse word, or possibly an excerpt from the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was hard to tell, and at the moment, I didn't particularly care.

Duo was devoting his attention now to the sensitive skin just behind my balls, keeping his touches light and unsatisfying. While I appreciated the care he was taking, with such a delicate part of my anatomy, I really wished the blindfold was off so I could give him the death glare I could feel building behind my eyelids. That option closed to me, I just added it to my tally of 'things to get back at Duo for,' starting with dripping water all over the bathroom floor and ending with that trick with the aerosol... I tried to banish that particular memory again; the extra stimulation it provided was the last thing I needed. My hands clenched at the handcuff chain, shoulders straining against it, and I had to force myself not to put enough pressure on the steel to break it. Things always went better when I played Duo's games to the end.

While my mind was wandering, though, Duo had apparently gotten bored of playing with my balls and had returned his attention to my exposed entrance. I spared a moment's fleeting thought to wonder if he had just been waiting for my guard to drop, and then Duo's hot, moist tongue was penetrating me and that pretty much took up all of my attention. I writhed, reveling in the unmatchable sensation that only a Duo rim job could produce. A muted sound of disappointment, half whimper and half curse, escaped my lips as he withdrew, but it quickly transmuted into a moan as his tongue was replaced by two slender, slippery fingers. "God... Duo..." I groaned, wishing he would just hurry up. He was always a stickler about stretching -- I was the same way, usually -- but his interminable teasing had its predictable effect on me. I was open and ready. "Get on with it..."

I arched half off the bed, shouting, as his fingertips brushed over that cluster of nerves inside my body. "Duo!" I shouted, clenching my body around his fingers and feeling them twitch in response. "Touch me again, Duo...!"

I heard a sultry chuckle, and then he did. And again. My mind was swimming with the delirious pleasure, thrown into that fascinating world of endorphins where the slightest sensation translates into mindblowing pleasure. Duo's fingers -- magical, wonderful fingers -- suddenly pulled away, and I nearly whimpered with the loss, until I felt something much bigger and hotter nudging at my entrance. "It's about time," I managed breathlessly, the effort it took to speak reminding me that it was, in fact, necessary to breathe occasionally. "Fuck me, Duo... fuck me..."

Duo laughed, though it sounded a bit shaky; he too was starting to get overwhelmed by the sensation. "That was in the plans, lover," he assured me, his words ending with a gasp as he eased slowly forward. I would have thrust back against him, impaling myself on him in one move, but for a serious lack of leverage. I was up on my knees, with Duo's legs still firmly pinning mine to the bed; my face was half-buried in the blankets, and Duo's grip on my hips was the only thing supporting most of my weight. Unless I were to free my hands, I had to let him hold me, let him dictate the pace.

At last he was thrusting slowly in and out, giving us both what we wanted and desperately needed. I spared one delirious moment to wonder when he had shed his boxers, much less lubed himself up, and a fleeting curse at the blindfold for having robbed me of that delicious sight. Then everything was washed away in the face of the slowly building heat, the unendurable pressure that was growing in my groin and in the place where we were connected. Dimly, I heard my own voice, groaning and half-sobbing Duo's name. The heat, the smells, the sound and most especially the feeling of him stroking my inside walls drowned every corner of my mind, my world narrowing down to the feel of my lover's sweat-slicked limbs moving over mine.

And then the end came, a sudden white-hot fire burning along nerves I hadn't even known I had as Duo's slippery hand released my hip and reached around the front of my body. For a moment he actually missed, or maybe it was deliberate, groping for my balls before sliding up to more firmly grip my burning length. That was it for me, and I clenched my teeth as my orgasm took me, wracking my body in a moment of total uncontrol. I was only dimly aware of hot liquid flooding my passage, a new wave of it with each of Duo's piston-like thrusts. My body squeezed around him, and I heard the strangled moan escape him as he followed me into nirvana.

He stayed in me as we slipped down to the damp mattress together, limbs trembling with exertion and sensation. He lay atop of me, inside me, covering and filling me at all once, and I spent a long time just listening to him breathe. Eventually, though, certain things cooled down enough for me to notice that I was lying in a fairly sizable and remarkably sticky wet spot, and I pushed back against him with an irritated grunt.

"So we're back to grunts again, Heero? And here I thought I'd actually taught you some vocabulary." With a chuckle, he obliged, wrapping an arm around my chest and rolling us both over, the movement causing some very interesting sensations to pass between us.

"You did," I retorted, shifting to find a new comfortable position on the blankets. "Most of it too crude for polite company, so I have to do without."

He laughed again, softly, and his hands left off stroking my flanks. Regretfully, he eased out of me, shivering with the last aftershocks of lust as the liquid rolled down his softened dick and my thighs. After a minute, I felt hands working at my wrists, and then the clink of metal signaled their release. I brought my hands back in front of me with some relief, inwardly pleased by the self-control that had gotten me through this session with the cuffs intact. I heard a rattle as they were dumped onto the nightstand, and then nimble fingers were touching my face, ghosting over my features as they trailed up from jaw to forehead. Duo slid off the blindfold, and as soon as my vision was blinked clear again, he smiled for me the smile he knows I love.

"Thanks, Heero," Duo breathed, cuddling close to me in the afterglow.

I smiled at him, faintly. "You did most of the work, Duo," I murmured in return. "I should say thank you."

His smile lit up in return, but he continued, "No, I meant, for letting me put the cuffs on you. And not trying to get out of them. I know it's hard for you to overcome your training enough to... well... thanks for trusting me that much, Heero." His voice dropped to a near-whisper.

"It's easy to trust you." My eyes drifted closed, breathing deep his scents and his warmth. It's easy to trust you, because I love you. "Besides," I added after a moment, "I knew I could get out of them anytime."

A bright, delighted laugh greeted this statement, definitely not the response I had expected. Duo shifted position, suddenly, against me, and I heard the clinking sound of the cuffs being dragged from their place on the nightstand. I opened my eyes to see Duo grinning at me, dangling the handcuffs by one loop in front of my face -- my eyes widened, as I took in the blue-silver sheen of Gundanium.